I thank the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter on the Adjournment and I also thank the Minister for Justice for coming into the House to listen to what I have to say.
The tragic life of Derek Ward who committed suicide on St. Patrick's Day and the horrific circumstances leading to his imprisonment in St. Patrick's Institution should have alerted all concerned to his mental instability. He was accused — and it is generally established as accepted fact — of being involved in the brutal multiple stabbing to death of his mother. His father, whom he had never met outside prison, has been serving a term of life imprisonment in the United Kingdom, Derek, along with all his brothers and sisters, was raised in cruel institutions, orphanages, in the United Kingdom. The cruelty meted out to him is illustrated in a letter that I received from his father in January of this year a short time before young Derek took his life. I have included this letter with my statement and I hope that on making it available to the Minister and to the House it will be included in full in the Official Report, as I will not have time to read it in full.
His two older brothers had spent terms in prison recently on the Isle of Wight. His cousin, his children and her children perished in a fire in Clondalkin and his uncle is serving life imprisonment for this horrendous act. In addition, an aunt and another cousin died around the same time in a separate fire. All these facts were known to the authorities when Derek was arrested. If ever a prisoner required urgent and close care and attention it was Derek Ward.
As I said earlier, I had received a letter in early January from Derek's father, Mr. John Ward, who is in prison in the United Kingdom. He complained specifically about the cruel way Derek had been treated while in care in the United Kingdom. More importantly, he expressed explicit concern for the boy's welfare and his state of mind. He said:
I am also very very concerned for the safety of the boy the state of his mind at this present time which I am most sure you will understand. I pray you will tell the people that has the care of him to keep their eyes on the boy. I am also writing to the police in charge of the case to watch the boy. I will also write to the Bridewell courts a letter to the Judge in the case to be aware that I will hold the authorities responsible for the well being of my son Derek. I will have those letters that I write to those people photocopied so that they can't say they have not known the boy could be in danger from himself.
So wrote Derek Ward's father on 1 January 1992. A little over two months later Derek Ward did what his father believed likely — he took his own life.
I am asking the Minister for Justice to carry out the fullest inquiry to establish whether any of the other authorities mentioned in the letter had received the correspondence from Mr. Ward alerting them to the dangers that he believed Derek was facing and to establish whether any of these letters were brought to the attention of the prison authorities and the doctors in charge of him. One of the points expressed in successive replies from Ministers for Justice on this unfortunate phenomenon of death in prison is that the Minister is doing everything to accelerate the method of identifying people at risk and being able to respond to them. Derek's father had written in clear and unambiguous language to all of the authorities who had charge of his son expressing his worries about the dangers involved to Derek. If that letter had never been written, the facts surrounding this tragic man's life and leading up to his incarceration were of themselves clear indicators.
The use of the window bars of the cell by people intending to commit suicide has been highlighted time and again, and this was the very way that Derek Ward took his life. An immediate requirement is that no prisoner who, like Derek Ward, is identified as being at risk should ever be placed in a cell which has easy access to window bars. More importantly, the admissions unit to supervise all prison admissions, as recommended by the advisory committee, must be established now without delay. No prisoner like Derek Ward should ever be locked in a normal prison cell before or after trial. Derek Ward needed treatment, not punishment. The psychiatric facilities in prisons must be expanded and developed even ahead — I say this advisedly — of the HIV or other medical units being planned. I know that a medical unit specifically geared to deal with HIV is being considered if not being built in Mountjoy at present, but there has been a great deal of debate and discussion as to whether this is the way to deal with this category of prisoner. I urge the Minister to consider adapting that particular building programme to the specific recommendation in the committee's report with regard to the admissions unit.
Finally, if the death toll in our prisons is to be ended, the full recommendations of the Whitaker report on penal reform must be implemented.