The Minister of State had her opportunity and I would appreciate if she would allow me to proceed. The art of politics is to identify where money ought to be spent, where money can be saved, and which items should be given priority so that we get value for money. That is good government. If the Minister of State, or any member of her party, thinks that the taxpayer and the victims of crime are getting good value for the money spent on our prisons, their arithmetic is faulty. We spend £120 million per year or £2 million per week on the prison service. One would imagine, therefore, that we have the most efficient prison service in Europe, if not the world, but by any standard we have the least efficient. This is of grave concern to the taxpayer who is putting up the money. There is an obligation on all of us to ensure taxpayers get a fair return and they, and the community in general, get good value for the money they invest. If there is one public institution more than any other from which good value is not forthcoming it is the prison service. We get good value for the most part for the money we spend on education and we get a fair return for the money spent on health although it could be better, but we get the worst possible return for the money spent on prisons, and that is really the nucleus of this Bill by the Progressive Democrats.
I compliment Deputy O'Donnell for drafting it and for all the time, energy and conscientious work she has put into putting it before the House. Right thinking people of all parties ought to support this Bill because it is the only way forward. We cannot go into the next century keeping in place the institutions which have failed us so lamentably, and no institutions have failed us more than the prisons.
The comparative estimated annual cost of keeping one prisoner is £13,000 in New Zealand, £13,500 in France, £19,000 in Luxembourg, £26,000 in Finland, £28,000 in Italy, £22,000 in Britain, £36,000 in Norway and £45,000 in Ireland so who can defend the argument that there is a cost effective prison system in Ireland? For that amount of money one would truly think we had a deluxe prison system in which every prisoner served his or her full sentence and from which every prisoner emerged fully rehabilitated and returned to the community as a law abiding citizen. Is that the case? Certainly not, so it is about time we subjected the whole system to the kind of evaluation to which the Progressive Democrats have subjected it in the context of this Bill and a number of contributions to this House on the prison service in recent years because we cannot even begin to attempt to address the crime problem unless we begin to address the prison system and the courts and establish proper crime prevention measures in the community.
There has been an explosion of crime. In the past five years serious crime has increased by 52 per cent. There were 11,023 indictable offences in Cork city in 1995, the last year for which figures are available. That tells another story. We are well into the middle of the second month of 1997 and the figures for 1996 are not yet available. That is most inefficient.
Twelve murders were committed in Munster in 1996. Another grim fact is that crime and the fear of crime has paralysed members of the community, particularly the very young and the elderly. Elderly people living alone live in fear of crime and that is almost as bad as crime itself in certain cases.
The real question is that the criminal justice system has not kept pace with that rapid increase in criminal activity. The system is creaking and is almost at the point of breaking down. We, in the Progressive Democrats, say it is high time for a radical root and branch reform of the criminal justice system because the current position is unsustainable. It has reached the point where in the majority of cases the criminal goes unpunished and the victim goes uncompensated. Indeed, if one feature of Irish life stands out today more than any other, it is that crime pays and pays handsomely. I speak not just about the crime which gets headlines but also of white collar crime. As long as crime continues to pay, it will flourish.
A sad feature of crime is the number of people who get caught up in it at a very early age and who run the risk of spending their lives in a jungle of crime. The number of very young inmates in the prison system saddens me more than anything else. I am deeply disappointed that the so-called Children Bill, which I would call the juvenile justice Bill, is only now being brought before the House in the dying days of this Government. Clearly, it will be left to the next Government to resource that Bill and implement its provisions. That is a sad indictment of the priorities of this Government, particularly when one considers that the work was done by the all-party committee of the Progressive Democrats-Fianna Fáil Government of 1992 which was quite prepared to proceed with that Bill. Unfortunately, the Government fell and it was left to the succeeding Government to take it over. It is only now, when this Government is on its deathbed, that it is beginning to see the need for that Bill.
The Progressive Democrats intend to tackle the criminal justice system and reform all its elements but a start must be made with prison reform. The current position in the operation of the prison service has undermined the integrity of the criminal justice system. The revolving door system has had a catastrophic impact on the authority of the courts, the morale of the Garda and the confidence of the general public in the criminal justice system. Gardaí go to great trouble, often almost to the point of putting their lives at risk, to bring suspects before the courts to secure a conviction. In addition, judges hand down sentences in accordance with the laws we make in this House. What happens after that? The sentences are seldom, if ever, served fully. In most cases, only a minimal effort is made to have those sentences served. This revolving door, which is a prominent feature of the prison system, makes a mockery of the judgments of the courts and the efforts of the Garda.
We, as legislators, cannot go to the courts with any justification and say we want a modern sentencing policy unless and until we are prepared to establish a prison system which delivers the sentences handed down by the courts. That is why we, in the Progressive Democrats, put prison reform on top of our agenda to reform the justice system. We must work from there. When we put in place this reformed prison system, provide additional prison places as we indicated in the context of this Bill and ensure prisoners serve their sentences as handed down by the courts, we can legitimately go to the courts and say we think it is about time we had a different, modern and more responsive sentencing policy. We are poorly placed to ask the courts to do that unless and until we have a reformed prison system in place and provide additional places.
For most prisoners prison, with its revolving door, has become a place of respite between crime sprees. Offenders go on a crime spree and are brought before the courts. They know from their pals and from what they see around them that they will only serve a fraction of their sentence, but they are prepared to serve it in the knowledge that they will be released in a short time and will be able to go on another crime spree. That is a salient feature of our courts system.
Some people think our prison system does not need to be radically overhauled or that there should be a root and branch reform. We cannot consider reform while there is a lack of prison spaces. Nobody could be asked to put in place better procedures in our prisons where chronic overcrowding is a feature.
A teacher would say that she could not possibly teach a class of 78 pupils, but she might be able to make some headway with a class of 30 pupils. The same principle applies to prison wardens. They are the subject of a good deal of criticism at times, not without some justification. No prison warden could enjoy working in the cramped and crowded conditions that are a feature of all our prisons.
Cork Prison, in my constituency, is sizeable and was built to house 172 prisoners. I spoke to its governor this morning and asked him how many prisoners were in the prison today. He said it was not so bad today, that often it had been much worse. There are 272 prisoners in the prison. Before we begin to put a proper package of prison reform in place, the number of prison places must be doubled. The Progressive Democrats argued for that in this Bill. Moreover, it pointed out that the business of building prisons must be given to the private sector because it is capable of providing a proper, purpose built prison in a fraction of the time it would take the State to build one. We cannot afford to wait any longer. The current process is too slow and costly.
Every week when I travel from Cork to this House I pass Bewley's Hotel at Newland's Cross. Two years ago the site on which it is built was a green field. That hotel was built in six months. It is possible to build a fine hotel in that time, but it takes three years to build a prison. There is something wrong with that system. Surely after five years in Government certain people, if they have a conscience about this, must be saying they wasted time and they should have done something significant about the prison system.
Why do we have temporary releases? It is because we do not have enough prison places. We must first provide the requisite number of places and then introduce some type of programme that will cater for prisoners' health and welfare and will aim to return prisoners to the community, having served their sentences, as useful and constructive members of society.
The majority of prisoners are under 25 years of age. They have their lives to live. Surely we should consider their prospects. If we have any shred of humanity, we should try to use their prison term to break them away and wean them off a life of crime and point them in the direction of being useful and constructive members of society. Would that cost much more than is being spent at present? I argue it would cost less. We have more than one prison officer for every prisoner. What are they doing? If there was one teacher for every student, we would have a generation of geniuses. If a staff member of a hotel was available to deal with only one guest, one can imagine the rating of that hotel and the number of stars it would be given. There is more than one prison warden for every prisoner but do we have reformed prisoners? Are their health, education and psychological needs met for the duration of their stay in prison? The contrary is the case.
In this Bill we are saying it is possible to put in place a modern, effective prison system that has a sufficient number of places which will enable prisoners to serve their full sentence and benefit, in every sense, from their time there. We also point out that can be done for at least the same amount of money that is being spent on our prison system which is in chaos and is a disgrace and an indictment of all of us.
As well as providing additional places, we must change the management system. We should not continue to put new wine in old bottles. We must put in place an independent management system that will ensure our prisons are run professionally as they need and deserve to be run.
If I had one wish, it would be that in three years' time we would be able to take Mountjoy Prison out of the prison system and put the building to an alternative use. A culture of bad practice, malpractice and drug abuse has grown up around that institution over the years. There comes a time when a society is intelligent and compassionate enough to recognise that a given institution has served its purpose, has no place in a modern democratic society and must be taken out of the system.
Today, I am a TD for ten years. If there is one matter more than any other of which I am proud it is that I was part of a Government that laid the foundations for the juvenile justice Bill. I would like to be able to boast of one other thing when I leave politics — that Mountjoy Prison, with all its associations and sad history, would no longer be used as a prison building but, would be put to another use and that prisoners would be housed in a purpose built modern prison that would serve the needs of this country in a manner in which Mountjoy Prison has not done and will never do. In saying that I am not criticising the staff of Mountjoy Prison or politicians as the problem has developed incrementally.
I appeal to Members to support this Bill and my party's aspiration that Mountjoy Prison should be removed from the control of the Prison Service. That should be done as our gesture towards the new millennium.
