(Mayo): I thank the Chair for choosing this matter for the Adjournment. The death by hanging last Thursday of a 31 year old man in his cell at Wheatfield prison is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for the individual who, at 31 years, should have a long, natural life and for the young man's grieving family in their loss of a loved one.
The tragedy is put into proper perspective when one considers that while his offences, road traffic offences, must be taken seriously, they could not be classified in the serious criminal category. Yet the individual in question was so under pressure and emotionally disturbed that he felt compelled to make a calculated decision that there was nothing left to live for, that he could no longer cope with life, particularly prison life, and decided to end it.
There are questions to be asked and answered. Was the prisoner medically and psychiatrically examined when he was committed to prison? Was he categorised in the at risk category? Was he in receipt of medical psychiatric treatment? How often was the prisoner checked in his cell? At what time was he last checked on Thursday when he died? How long after the last check-up in his cell was it before the deceased was discovered?
There is a fundamental and core question and it is an essential one as regards the prison system. Should this individual have been serving a custodial sentence in the first place? Were his offences so serious in their nature that he could not have repaid whatever debt he owed society in a more productive and positive way. For example, could he have been, or should he not have been the subject of a community service order? Why do we not have a range of imaginative alternatives, particularly for non-serious custodial offences? We have the most expensive prison system in the world; it costs an average of £54,000 to keep a prisoner in jail for one year and we have more staff than prisoners. Yet we do not have a mission statement for what the prison system is supposed to achieve or deliver. The result is that the prison system is in chaos and it neither rehabilitates nor deters. Some prisoners get their first exposure to drugs in prison. Many prisons are infested with drugs and turn petty offenders into qualified criminals. It is a huge cesspool of hopelessness which drives individuals such as this unfortunate to ultimate despair and there seems to be no coherent strategy of rehabilitation to come to terms with the situation. The long promised Prisons Service Bill to establish a properly planned Prisons Service on a statutory basis has been put on the long finger again. Last year was a record year for prison suicide, as six inmates, including a woman prisoner, took their own lives, while already this year there have been three prison suicides. On 21 April an inmate was stabbed to death in Mountjoy Prison, while earlier in the year a prison officer was seriously injured when he was set upon and stabbed by inmates in Limerick Prison.
It is clear that there are major questions to answer about the management of Irish prisons. That has been evident for a long period, but those concerns have not been addressed adequately. The result is that people who should not die will continue to die.
