asked the Minister for Justice if it is his intention to request Judge Finlay to conduct a third confidential inquiry into the security of Portlaoise Prison; and if he will state in general terms how effective the recommendations were of the first two inquiries.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Portlaoise Prison Inquiry.
51.
As I indicated in the reply I gave on 3rd December, 1974, to a question by the Deputy, the contents of reports made following inquiries of this kind must remain confidential, as must measures taken to improve security. The recommendations made have been acted on and I believe that the action taken has been effective.
I disagree with the Minister because, if the recommendations were effective, what happened on the 29th of last month would not have happened.
The Deputy is commenting.
The Minister has asked a respected judge of the High Court, now President of the High Court——
The Deputy is not asking a question, he is making a statement.
I am. The judge has reported twice to the Minister and to his Government. Was the judge permitted in the course of his deliberations to visit Portlaoise prison?
I am not prepared to discuss the way in which the judge conducted his inquiry. It was a matter for himself. Any facilities or help he wanted were made available without question.
There is no State secret involved in this. Surely the Minister can tell us whether the man appointed to conduct the inquiry visited the prison? The answer is "yes" or "no".
I am not prepared——
Question No. 52.
It was an independent inquiry and I think it is improper of this House to seek information that would possibly raise criticisms concerning the person who conducted the inquiry.
The Minister knows that is a very unfair reply. There is no suggestion of criticism. I am asking the Minister whether the person appointed to conduct this inquiry visited the prison, the subject of his inquiry.
I have told the Deputy I am not prepared to answer that question. This was an independent inquiry and the judge who conducted it had all the facilities he asked for.
Question No. 52.
The Minister is being unfair in this respect. The Minister in his written reply to my three questions said:
The departmental inquiry into this disturbance has ended. It was undertaken simply to ascertain all the relevant facts. It will not be published.
Why will the Minister not publish it? Everybody in the prison knows what happened. The prison officers know what happened. The prisoners themselves know what happened. But here in the Dáil we are not to know what happened. There is no question of security here.
The Dáil does know what happened because my reply to the Deputy, which was a reply of some four pages, set out what happened and was based on the information given to me by my officers who investigated what happened. It is a true and accurate account of what took place in Portlaoise jail following this riot by prisoners.
The Minister will have to come back to his own words. He said:
The departmental inquiry into this disturbance has ended. It was undertaken simply to ascertain all the relevant facts. It will not be published.
Why will it not be published? Is the reply the Minister gave me in writing the result of the departmental inquiry?
The departmental inquiry was an internal inquiry taken by officers of my Department to ascertain for my information the facts. It was a personal report to me by the officers of my Department. It is an internal document and does not normally lie to be published. What I have done, however, is to publish what, in effect, are the facts that were given to me in that report. It was an inquiry to establish the facts and I have published the facts by way of reply to the Deputy's question at some length and in some detail.
Question No. 52.
It was a very long reply but on close scrutiny it leaves quite a number of questions unanswered.
We cannot have a debate on this question. Deputy Andrews will have to desist from asking further supplementaries. I have allowed a number of them.
Yes, you are very good about it. Can the Minister tell us how long the inquiry took and whether the people who were investigating on his behalf looked to the recommendations of Judge Finlay?
I cannot tell how long the inquiry took because when officers of my Department are engaged on any task they will carry it out with the utmost expendition and efficiency demanded by the particular task in hand. They are aware of the recommendations of the Finlay Report, and I have no doubt they had those in mind when they were looking at what happened. But what happened was essentially an internal matter. A number of officers were seized as hostages by the prisoners. This is a risk which prison officers all over the world undergo daily and the best sanction against any repetition of it is the knowledge on the part of the prisoners that there will be a firm and immediate reaction by the State.
Question No. 52.
Is it the Minister's intention to ask Judge Finlay——
The Chair is not permitting any further supplementaries on this question.
The Minister did not act very well on Judge Finlay's recommendations, whatever they were.
I have not asked any supplementary so far.
The Deputy will appreciate the number that have been asked already.
The Chair will appreciate that I have asked none.
We are at Question No. 52 on an Order Paper which contains 239 questions.
We gave certain facilities on the basis that we would be allowed to raise supplementary questions on the written answers.
The Chair has to conduct the business of the House to the advantage of all the Deputies who have questions down. Deputies must not disrupt the business of the House.
I can assure the Chair that it is not my intention to disrupt the business of the House.
The Chair must try to facilitate all the Deputies who have questions down and in that respect the Chair must try to limit the number of supplementary questions. I have allowed quite a number already.
How can you be such a clairvoyant that you can know the question I am about to ask is one that will disrupt the business of the House?
What the Chair is saying is that the Chair must have regard to the number of questions there are and the number of supplementaries which will be allowed, so as to get through the Order Paper as best he can. I will allow Deputy Power to ask a final supplementary.
In view of the fact that the Minister has stated that the principal reason advanced for the success of the prisoners' attack in Portlaoise was that it was a surprise attack, has the third investigation made any arrangements to guard against any further attacks of this nature? The Minister will appreciate that those prisoners being desperate prisoners, as the Minister dubbed them, will not give advance notice of their attacks?
Any attack made will be a surprise attack. In view of the fact that the two investigations that have been held to date have not proved effective in the measures taken, perhaps we could contribute something from this side of the House that might be a help to the Minister if the full details were made known to us.
At the start of his supplementary question the Deputy referred to the "success" of the attack. I would not use that term in regard to it. If the attack was intended to intimidate or browbeat the prison authorities or the prison officers, it was a total failure. As I explained to Deputy Andrews, prison officers have to move among the prisoners in the course of their duties and, within the resources of the State in terms of money and manpower, it would be impossible to have such a number of prison officers moving among the prisoners at all times of the day so as to ensure a numerical superiority that could guard conclusively against such a surprise attack. As I also indicated to Deputy Andrews, this is a risk every prison officer in the world undergoes every day. It cannot be categorically guarded against. The best guard against it is to let the prisoners who might be tempted to do such a thing know that such action will only bring retribution on their heads.
Have they been made aware of that?
Yes, very much so.