Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 2 February 2022
117. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Justice the status of the implementation of recommendation 12 of the Covid-19 thematic inspection of Limerick Prison which recommended affording greater privacy to women when contacting their children and family members on the phone. [5232/22]
View answerI wish to advise the Deputy that privacy is afforded to all prisoners in all prisons for various activities, where appropriate, including the placing of phone calls to family and friends and contact with their children. In addition, there are family rooms available for physical visits in all prison and video phones are available in private areas that are readily available to facilitate these calls.
Limerick Prison has a Tusla approved and award winning visitors area and the Irish Prison Service works closely with care workers, the courts and Tusla to provide access visits where appropriate.
In order to protect the prison population from the risk of Covid-19, a number of infection control measures were introduced throughout 2020 and 2021 and into 2022. Regrettably, this included the suspension of physical visits to prisoners for extended periods of time. However, the Service introduced a new video visit system to ensure that prisoners could continue to have visual contact with their families throughout this time.
In addition, in order to enhance contact with families the Service introduced phones into cells in newer prisons where technically feasible. Owing to the success of this initiative the Service has commenced a project to install telephones into all cells across the prison estate. In-cell phones have been introduced in Castlerea, Cork, Cloverhill and Limerick Prison not including the female wing. The practice currently available in the female wing in Limerick Prison is a telephone is provided in each cell and a line is made available to prisoners on request to facilitate phone calls in the privacy of their cells.
The construction of a new prison facility to provide accommodation for 50 female prisoners in Limerick Prison is advanced and is scheduled to become operational in the third quarter of 2022. The new accommodation will contain a telephone in each cell and the design of the facility is based on the principle of rehabilitation and normalisation recognising the unique requirements of female offenders.
In-cell phones are currently being installed in Midlands Prison and the next phase of this project will see in-cell telephones installed in Wheatfield and Portlaoise Prisons and a procurement process is currently in place to facilitate this process.
The provision of in-cell telephones facilitates outbound calls by prisoners from their cells.
