Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 March 2004
134 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he has satisfied himself that there is a sufficient rehabilitative dimension to an offender’s stay in a place of detention in the State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9231/04]
View answerPrisoner rehabilitation involves significant multidimensional input by a diverse range of general and specialist services provided both by the Irish Prisons Service and visiting statutory and non-statutory services. Among these services are health care, psychiatric, psychological, educational, vocational, counselling, welfare and spiritual services. These services are important in addressing offending behaviour, drug and alcohol addiction, missed educational and vocational opportunities, anger management and self management in the interest of encouraging positive personal development in prisoners and preparing them for re-integration and resettlement on release from custody.
I am satisfied that more can be done in the area of prisoner rehabilitation and my particular concerns in this regard are to remove two major constraining factors. First, I am determined to restructure prison costs and prison officer working arrangements, not only in the interest of greater efficiency, but also to ensure that more resources — staff and finance — are available to support prisoner rehabilitation programmes. This is currently the focus of ongoing negotiations with the Prison Officers' Association under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission. Second, I am pursuing the replacement of outdated and inadequate accommodation at several of our older prisons such as Mountjoy, Cork, Limerick and Portlaoise so as to provide decent living conditions for prisoners and modern, well equipped facilities for both staff and prisoners engaged in prisoner care and rehabilitation programmes. The focus here is more long-term but I expect to be in a position to announce significant progress in the near future.
