Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Nov 1980

Vol. 324 No. 3

Supplementary Estimates, 1980. - Vote No. 22: Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £256,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1980 for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice, and of certain other services administered by that Office, and of the Public Record Office, and of the Keeper of State Papers and for the purchase of historical documents, etc. and for payment of a grant-in-aid.

—(Minister for Justice.)

Minister for Justice (Mr. G. Collins)

Mention was made by Deputy Keating during the course of his contribution this morning on the need for a women's prison. He felt that there is no need whatsoever for one, that we should not have one, we should not have to bother with one, it was likely that the only women offenders likely to be in that institution are those who are in for prostitution or shoplifting.

Nothing could be further from the truth and I have explained this on a number of occasions to Deputy Keating, to Members of the House and to a number of people who are extremely interested in the siting of the women's prison in the Palmerstown-Clondalkin area. Of the 138 women committed to prison in 1979 nobody was committed for begging or vagrancy. 26 were committed for drunkeness and only six for soliciting. The other 106 comprised 15 for assaults, 16 for offences against property with violence, 69 for larcenies of amounts up to £300 and related offences and six under the heading of miscellaneous. I understand that during 1980 there have been committals for false pretences and forgery involving tens of thousands of pounds. To say that a women's prison would be used only for committals for prostitution, begging and vagrancy is wrong. I hope the Deputy will accept this as a fact. This information is already in the annual report of the prisons.

I would also like to assure the Deputy that there is nothing whatever to be ashamed of in our prison system. I did ask the Minister of State at the Department of Justice to apologise to the Deputy in the course of the question he has put down because there is some mix-up about his original application which went in in April. I know that the Deputy was in touch with us in June about it and there was a delay. I will gladly extend an invitation to the Deputy and half a dozen of his colleagues, to the Labour Party and half a dozen of their members and to my own party for perhaps two weeks from today and we would all be happy to——

Mr. Keating

That would be with the agreement of the Whips.

Mr. G. Collins

We do not need any agreement with the Whips.

Mr. Keating

We will have to get that worked out.

Mr. G. Collins

One of Deputy Keating's colleagues, Deputy Moira Barry, said here this morning that she was in Loughan House and Deputy Liam Burke was at another prison. I do not know any reason in the world why anybody should not go in.

Mr. Keating

If the Minister feels like that——

Mr. G. Collins

An apology was given. As far as I am concerned the matter came to my notice in the course of the summer. It might interest the Deputy to know that in the past four or five days an extensive visit to all the prisons was undertaken by the legal journalist of The Irish Times, Conor Brady, and quite a number of people want to go there, but we cannot have a free-for-all. The same applies to Deputies. A number of Deputies of my party have asked to go in. It means the designation of staff to go along with them. I did extend an invitation to the Deputy's party in the past, as the Minister of State mentioned in reply to the question.

Mr. Keating

Yes.

Mr. G. Collins

We have already apologised to the Deputy. There is no record of the first word that came through in April to the best of my knowledge. However, if the Deputy will let me assume that he was accepting the invitation for, say, up to half a dozen of his party's members and we can accommodate the Labour Party in this, we will try to balance up in this party with whatever numbers the parties opposite have so that the Whips will not be involved. I hope that we can organise this. I see no reason in the world from the point of view of the prisons and mine as Minister for Justice why we should not do this. I believe it is a good thing and that Deputy Keating will be amazed and surprised by this. Despite whatever knowledge he thinks he has of the prisons. I believe he has a lot to learn.

Mr. Keating

I acknowledge that.

Mr. G. Collins

I am not being catty when I say that. I will try to explain why.

Mr. Keating

If I can get to the classroom I might have some chance of learning.

Mr. G. Collins

I accept that. He is no newcomer to the classroom anyway. I suggest, then, that, say, 27 November would be suitable. We will fix a date now because I would have to make arrangements with staff.

Mr. Keating

I will have to consult with my colleagues and my diary and I will let the Minister know this afternoon.

Mr. G. Collins

I will make arrangements for 27 November and if the Deputy wants to come along that is his business. If he cannot we will try to do something else. It is a question of making staff available and things like that. I would like Members to see all the prisons and not just one or two. I would like them to see some of the old ones, some of which have been refurbished or renewed. I would like them to see some of the new prisons, particularly the new one in Glengarriff Parade. I would like to let them see the open prisons. I would like them to see Portlaoise and the damnably expensive and big effort that is required there. I am sure that Deputy Fitzpatrick (Cavan-Monaghan), having been in Government during an exceptionally difficult period, will appreciate fully what I say in that regard. Also I would want them to see Shelton Abbey which is the open prison, and I would like them to see Shanganagh Castle. A lot would be learned.

It is very easy to decry our prison system — I am not accusing Deputy Keating of this — and we are all mature enough to know that there is a small section in our community who would want to do this successfully. There are people in our society who believe that the Achilles' heel of this democracy is the prison system and that if they can create unrest and disruption there they will bring us to heel, as it were. That is not going to happen. Of course, if the prison system breaks up, the courts do not function, the police cannot function and we are in an extremely difficult and dangerous position.

Our prison system had and has its faults but I assure the Deputy that this Government and the Government of which Deputy Fitzpatrick was a member worked hard, and we are working hard, to improve that prison system. As far as this House is concerned, that is a non-political thing and it should not be a political issue in this House. I give credit where it is due to my predecessor and to his predecessor, Deputy O'Malley. I am open to correction, but it is my belief that it was only from 1970 onwards that we began to realise that our prison system needed the overhaul that it got since then and that up to then Governments, irrespective of what parties were in power, did not do what they should have been doing in seeing to it that the prison service was as well developed as it could or should be. Tremendous progress has been made by my predecessor and his predecessor and I pay tribute publicly to the two of them and to those who supported them within the Governments of which they were members at the time. I have maintained the momentum which they initiated. I want Deputy Keating and others to see what we have done, to appreciate the efforts we have made and to understand how we have been operating.

It is easy to decry a system. It may be the popular thing to do. There are those who want to knock our prison system completely and it is our job to protect the system against that. Only this week we had a visit by a representative of the French Ministry dealing with prisons because they believed they could learn from us. I was talking to the Swedish Minister of the Interior. The Swedes had heard about our system and they had come here to see what they could learn from it, to see if they could adopt some of its features. Recently we had a representative of the Norwegian prisons authority and we also had one from the US.

We have had many handicaps to overcome and our efforts to overcome them have been costly. Deputies should appreciate the sort of difficulties any Minister for Justice must try to overcome, such as resistance to the siting of prisons. People say prisons are not being administered properly. It has been said that there is need for a prisons board. I want to respond by pointing out that the sort of flexibility now present in our prison system is the envy of many prison adminin-strations throughout Europe. The type of board Deputy Keating has been talking about would be inflexible. A Minister for Justice must have goodwill if he is to be successful in his job, no matter to which party he belongs. I have been doing all I can in relation to our prisons. As I have said, others have come here to have a look at our system and of course we can learn from others.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan-Monaghan): If the Minister goes on he will be encouraging crime so that people will gain admission to prisons.

Mr. G. Collins

I am glad the Deputy sees we have been doing our part. There is a strong obligation on us to defend our prison system. At the moment there are 1,250 persons in custody. Comparatively it is small, particularly when we look at countries whose wealth is beyond our imagination even if we had oil gushing from the seas along our coasts. As a percentage of population we have the smallest number of prisoners of any country in Europe, with the exception of Sweden: we have 40 per 100,000 of the population in custody. At the same time nearly 1,700 people who should be in custody are outside under the supervision of welfare officers. Only the hard core of our criminals is in prison. We have been conscious of family circumstances, family problems, of which there are many. The welfare people are in continuous touch. We are trying to get as many as possible on the road away from crime and, as I have said, our efforts are the envy of the wealthy nations who are with us in the EEC. Deputies should not forget that and I have no doubt Deputy Keating will support me in my efforts when I ask for more money to provide improved prison amenities, whether educational or otherwise. I want to ensure that the misfortunate people in prisons will be given every help and encouragement to train for a new way of life outside. We have been doing this successfully.

When I visited Loughan House recently I was told that only one former inmate had been brought back. That is encouraging. I would love to be liberal in this regard but one must be a realist. Perhaps Deputy Keating will get an opportunity sometime to sit on this seat. If he does I will ask him if he remembers the time when he could afford to be a liberal, when he could afford that luxury. I am telling the Deputy that the realities must be faced up to. He said prisons do not help anybody. He must not forget that the victim of the criminal is the person we must first be worried about. Our worry must be to protect society from criminals. That is what prisons are for. People get plenty of publicity when they say we should not have prisons. My answer is that I will protect society with all the means in my power and I do not care what I am called, and I have been called many things.

We had a suggestion in regard to community service orders. I hope to be able to make an announcement on this subject before long because I think it is worthy of consideration, but I should like to tell the House that there are reservations about this elsewhere, particularly in Norway. We have had a number of service schemes in recent times and I hope we will have more. If I find that people can be accommodated beneficially in this way I will do it. All of us would like to see those in custody being given the best possible chance in life outside. Cost is a big consideration but there has not been any sparing of money to improve the lot of prisoners. My predecessor did excellent work in this respect——

Mr. Keating

The Minister was hard on him in his day.

Mr. G. Collins

Never in regard to this matter. I was fair in my opposition and I gave him every backing in regard to this matter. The Deputy said that there was no point in having juveniles in detention centres, that there was no future in it and that it would not work. I believe he is wrong and I am not trying to score any points when I say that.

The staff in Loughan House are the most dedicated and well motivated group I have met in a long time. I want to put it on the record that I had lunch with the staff and the young people there. The staff give up their lunch period on a voluntary basis every day and share the luncheon table with these young people. They help them along the way. They develop a very friendly relationship with the young people and give them a feeling of closeness, brotherhood, and so on. Despite all the adverse publicity Loughan House got — God knows there was a rough campaign about it — it is a success. It is an extremely costly success because it is costing a great deal to keep a high percentage of officers trained in child care to work with these young boys. This is not being done in a slip-shod manner.

I want to express publicly my appreciation to the people in my Department who are working in this area. Some of them had their homes picketed and their families were singled out for abuse. That was a shame, and I know Deputy Keating would not approve of it. The people running Loughan House deserve our sincere thanks. They are doing an excellent job. I hope that if we make mistakes we learn from them.

Unfortunately, Portlaoise Prison is not available for ordinary prison purposes. For a number of years it has been used solely for a specific type of prisoner. That prison is practically full and this will cause headaches not just for me but for the community as a whole. I wish the Garda every success in combating the type of crime committed by these people. Unfortunately the prison system is overcrowded and is not as good as we would like. We have had difficulties in Limerick Prison. There is a high security female section there. The Deputy made his views known on using the Curragh as a prison for the civilian population. I accept what he says but I tried today to explain that we must have prisons.

I was taunted yesterday — I was not injured politically by it in any way — by Deputy Enright. He said the only thing money was being provided for was the prisons. I am happy with the progress we are making in providing a prison system to be proud of. It is the envy of the Swedes, whose Minister will be visiting our prisons shortly after Christmas. He told me that he believed he can learn something from our system. The Norwegians were here and the French here only last week. We are proud of our system. Admittedly mistakes are made, but we are learning all the time. I would like to have part of the luxury which the Deputy has in opposition and say that our prison system is for the wind.

Mr. Keating

I did not say anything like that. I share the Minister's views that there are many fine things in our prison system. All I am saying is that it could be improved and the Minister agrees with that.

Mr. G. Collins

Of course, it can be improved. But we have the responsibility to defend the system against those who knock it and we should reject those who say there is no longer any need for prisons. I hope I have proved that there is need for a female prison we can be proud of, not like the female prison which at present has 35 or 40 inmates. I am ashamed of it and I am sure my predecessors were too. We must decide to have a better system because that is what we need.

We started building a high security prison in Portlaoise on 27 April 1980. I am still pushing the Office of Public Works and the contractors as hard as I can to shorten the building programme so that we can do without the Curragh when the time comes. The Curragh is not any worse than some of our prisons. It is on a par with a number of them, but we do not hear about that because it is less emotional and the Curragh is a better vehicle for propaganda for those who want to disrupt our prison service.

A special word of thanks is due to the members of the Army who help in the prison system and to the prison officers. They have a very difficult task to perform. There have been serious problems, in particular with regard to rostering and working long overtime periods. This was not good for anybody. Negotiations are proceeding with a view to reaching an acceptable arrangement with the Prison Officers' Association. The president and general secretary of the association and the senior officials in my Department are working very hard to get agreement and with goodwill on both sides I hope this will happen. There is nothing controversial about work training.

Mr. Keating

What about the wood yards?

Mr. G. Collins

A number of wood yards are still in operation and are used, not as the Deputy said as slave labour——

Mr. Keating

I did not use that phrase.

Mr. G. Collins

The Deputy used the phrase "hard labour". He said we had a mail bag making and wood cutting mentality. There is a large range of work for people to do outside this area. There are bakeries, laundries, AnCO courses, Braille — a wonderful service for people who have lost their eyesight and some of these works go as far as Sierra Leone — printing——

Mr. Keating

I was making the point that the Minister agreed with me in April 1978 that if possible those wood yards should be phased out, because, apart from the mechanical nature of the work, they are dangerous places.

Mr. G. Collins

I, too, want to see the end of this sort of activity but there is a difficulty because there are a number of short-term prisoners who cannot be absorbed into anything else. It is an exercise yard for them. It is not meant to be punishment nor was it ever intended to be. As I was saying, the prison service provide the following work: baking, Braille, carpentry, joinery, gardening, maintenance of buildings, fabric work, printing, sewing and so on. A number of people are involved in wood cutting and the prison administration are trying to phase it out. There are people in prisons who, unfortunately, may not be suitable for any other sort of work and in saying that I am not reflecting on them in any way.

Mr. Keating

My concern was in connection with the danger presented by axes, for example. there have been escapes from the wood yards, areas that are very vulnerable.

Mr. G. Collins

I accept that but despite the suggestion of the vulnerability of the wood yard area, the number of incidents arising in such areas and the number of serious accidents are very limited.

Mr. Keating

But there have been a number of at least attempted escapes from them.

Mr. G. Collins

In the overall, these are very limited. I am glad that the Deputy accepts that there is no element of punishment in this regard. I have said on a number of occasions that the denial of a person's liberty is the only punishment that can be tolerated. That is the way it must be and that is the way it will be.

Again I thank all the Deputies for their comments. I have already answered on other occasions a number of points that were raised. On the question of a women's prison, I gave a full answer both here and to the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors. I answered also on another occasion the question about a police authority but I was not aware until today that this matter was now part of the platform of Fine Gael.

Mr. Keating

It is.

Mr. G. Collins

However, that is their business and when the time comes for their platform to be compared with ours, I shall be ready to take them on.

Vote put and agreed to.