asked the Minister for Justice if he will make a statement on the case of a person (details supplied) who is at present serving a sentence in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin 7; the contents of the file which was sent to his Department four months ago; if there is any basis for the matters set out in the file; and if he will return the file to Deputy Michael Keating in view of the fact that there has been repeated attempts to obtain information on this case.
Written Answers. - Prison Sentence.
72.
I take it that the Deputy is referring to two letters from an offender at Mountjoy Prison which the Deputy sent to me on 14 July 1988 and 13 September 1988. I am arranging for these letters to be returned to the Deputy.
As the Deputy will be aware, the letters from the offender dealt with a court case taken by another offender and the manner in which this was dealt with by the prison authorities. The Deputy will appreciate that the offender whose correspondence he sent to me has no standing in relation to the legal affairs of other offenders or right to be informed of reasons the authorities at Mountjoy behaved in a particular way in relation to another offender's case. Moreover, there are clearly dangers in offenders with no legal expertise or training seeking to involve themselves in the legal affairs of others. In the circumstances in my reply of 19 August 1988 to the Deputy's first letter I felt it best simply to indicate that it had been brought to the attention of the Governor of Mountjoy. However, given the Deputy's continued interest in this matter, I can assure him that there are no grounds for suggesting that the other offender referred to in the correspondence suffered any injustice whatsoever.
One of the offender's letters forwarded to me by the Deputy also refers to his transfers between institutions. The Deputy will appreciate that transfers regularly arise for operational reasons and it is not the practice to disclose the reasons for such transfers in particular cases.