Vol. 408 No. 4
117 Mr. S. Barrett asked the Minister for Justice if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a person (details supplied) who is aged 15 years is currently detained in the segregation unit of Mountjoy female prison where she is serving a sentence of 18 months; that she is being held in solitary confinement; if he has any plans to provide suitable accommodation for this person; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The person concerned was committed to Mountjoy female prison under section 102 (3) of the Children Act, 1908 having been certified by the court as being of so unruly a character that she could not be detained in a place of detention provided for under the 1908 Act.
Offenders in this category are housed separately from adult offenders in Mountjoy female prison in accordance with the Rules for the Government of Prisons, 1947 as interpreted by the courts. They are held in dormitory-type accommodation with integral sanitation and they have access to a full range of medical, psychiatric, psychological, welfare, educational, work training and chaplaincy services. The number of such offenders varies from time to time and, at present, the offender in question is the only one coming within this category who is in custody. This means that she lacks the company of a like offender for the present but it does not mean that she is being held in solitary confinement despite other accommodation options being legally available, as the question implies. Indeed, the present arrangements for her accommodation are in accordance with a recent decision of the High Court given on foot of an application brought on her behalf.
