I welcome Deputy Cosgrave's comments and a comment from Deputy Mitchell on the personnel involved in running our prisons. I also welcome the fact that they paid tribute to them for doing an exceptionally difficult job. It shows that these Deputies are now trying to distance themselves from the official stance taken by the Minister a couple of months ago when he publicly described prison officers as drunkards, liars, untrustworthy and excitable. These are the same people about whom Deputy Liam Cosgrave and Deputy Gay Mitchell were talking earlier. I welcome the change of heart and I hope they will be able to convince the Minister that he should see these people in the same light.
I am satisfied — I say this more in sorrow than in anger — that there is absolutely no doubt that the Minister for Justice is sitting on a time bomb, mostly of his own making, as far as the prison system is concerned. It is with regret that I say it appears that the prison system is bursting at the seams, barely managing to operate. It looks as if there will be major upheavals within the system in a very short time. The Minister for Justice and his predecessor, Deputy Mitchell, failed to convince their colleagues that the prison expansion programme, which was most carefully planned during my time as Minister for Justice, should be financed and followed through.
The prison development plan was soundly based on the expert advice available to me from senior officials of the Department of Justice. There was positive proof available then of the urgency of providing additional prison accommodation and there was 100 per cent unanimity in the advice given to me by those most knowledgeable in this area.
In 1981, a total of 441 prisoners were released before their time because of a shortage of space. That clearly indicated that a serious problem was developing and that additional prison accommodation would have to be made available. That proved to be true because, in 1983, 1,298 prisoners were released before their time and I understand that, although the figures for 1984 are not yet available, something like 1,500 prisoners were released before their time in 1984.
The Government in which I served made moneys available for the development of the prison programme in an effort to head off the crisis which has now developed in the prison system and is threatening its continuity. Lands were purchased for this development within the system at different centres in Cork, Limerick and Clondalkin. Lands were partly available at Portlaoise at the time for the building of a maximum security prison which would cater for the more dangerous subversive prisoner. I said "partly available" and I will come back to that later.
The Cork development went ahead and new accommodation came on stream around June 1984. We now have well over 200 prisoners in Cork in dormitory style accommodation. The Minister has, on numerous occasions, gone out of his way, as have his handlers when briefing the newspapers behind the scene, to suggest that this development got under way since he came to office. Indeed, the tone of the Minister's amendment clearly indicates that they now believe their own propaganda. This suggestion is not true. It was under way in June 1982 before he was a Minister.
The Minister suggested that the additional accommodation in Mountjoy was his brainchild. Long before he was elected to this Parliament, I approved of the conversion of the old officers' quarters and mess into a small, maximum security unit within the complex to provide specifically for ordinary dangerous criminals who, up to then, had been held in military custody in the Curragh Army Camp, County Kildare.
When this special unit was completed, we were all happy to see the Curragh unit closed. It served its purpose in the early seventies when Mountjoy was wrecked and when we had nowhere else to send prisoners. I remember when members of the Minister's party vehemently opposed using the Curragh unit at the time for prisoners even though we had no prison accommodation available as a result of the emergency in Mountjoy. This was sheer hypocrisy and I am sorry that some of those who contributed to this debate did not have the courtesy to stay to listen to the facts. They might have learned something because the truth cannot be denied.
It became apparent in 1978 that Portlaoise prison could not accommodate those sent there for subversive crimes. The Garda were most successful at that time in their efforts against subversives and accommodation was at a premium. We knew, even then, that we could ill afford to specifically designate another one of our prisons for subversives because of the need for accommodation to house ordinary prisoners.
Eventually, Limerick prison had to be taken out of the ordinary prison system and used for subversive prisoners many of whom had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment because of the type of crime for which they had been convicted. Even then we had a crisis on our hands which could only be dealt with by proper long term planning. It was my responsibility to convince the Government of the day that appropriate finances would have to be made available to pay for the prison expansion programme I got under way. There has to be, and people must understand this, a lapse of a reasonably long period of time from the planning of a prison to having it available for use by prisoners. We have made a valiant start on a programme that would now be on-stream if the Coalition Governments, the present one and the Coalition of 1982 which included Deputy Mitchell and Deputy Noonan as Ministers for Justice, had not backed away from financing it.
I can recall Deputy Mitchell, before he was appointed Minister, as a Fine Gael member for party and personal reasons giving an assurance in public to his constituents in the Clondalkin-Wheatfield area, that he would kill the prison plan for that area if and when there was a change of Government. I can recall the aggro that was stirred up in that area by members of the Minister's party for the purpose of gaining petty political advantage at that time. The Minister of State, Deputy Fennell, may also have been guilty of a certain amount of stirring with her pen in the newspaper for which she worked in an effort to cause embarrassment to our Government, to promote herself and her political chances which did not look too good at that time. Had I more time available I would produce in the House her statements at that time and I am sure she would not be proud of them, but then she is a differently motivated person tonight.
Fine Gael at every opportunity knocked the prison system we tried to get under way. I have videos of interviews given and programmes made, which I got from our national broadcasting station, at a time when senior members of Deputy Fennell's party were knocking what we were trying to do. The propaganda efforts of the Minister, Deputy Noonan, to cover up for his own lack of progress on the essential development of the new Portlaoise prison must surely be seen for what they are. If one reads a report in today's Irish Independent by Lorna Reid one will see that the Minister wants the public to learn from him that what happened by way of development in the Portlaoise prison complex has been a mistake. It has not been a mistake and should not be regarded by anybody as such. It should not be presented to the public by anybody on behalf of the Minister as a mistake.
The position in Portlaoise — this is the truth — is that the development of the maximum security prison on that complex could only take place by the removal of the old ramshackle prison officers' accommodation. Those houses had to be taken out of the way to make room for the new maximum security prison. That was part of the overall plan which went ahead but the Ministers, Deputy Mitchell and Deputy Noonan, knocked the development of the maximum prison unit which would have been coming on-stream now not alone to relieve the pressure on Limerick prison so that it could be used to accommodate ordinary prisoners but also to permit Portlaoise to accommodate ordinary prisoners. Up to 500 ordinary prisoners could be accommodated there.
It is wrong for the Minister, or anybody else, to say that the money spent on the development of the site at Portlaoise was not well spent. It was part of an overall plan. Last night the Minister said that development could not have been stopped when he took office because it had already started. What was he doing a few months before that? Was it Government policy then to totally abandon a project on which public money had been spent by way of planning and designing an essential requirement in the interest of the security of our State, a maximum security prison? That is what was at stake but short term bad planning and shortsightedness on the part of the Minister, Deputy Mitchell and Deputy Noonan, allowed it to go by default. I would welcome an opportunity at another time to hear the views of other members of the Coalition parties on this issue.
The Minister's approach to this has been totally dishonest. Having read his speech made in the House last night I am amazed at the degree of intolerance he shows. I am amazed at the arrogance he displayed, that anybody should dare question his decisions or his record. He may get away with that approach within the confines of the Fine Gael Party rooms, but he will not get away with it here.
The country is now paying a heavy price for the Government's grave neglect of the prison system since they came into office. Failure to provide adequate prison accommodation to help cope with a growing crime problem, vandalism and lawlessness has brought the whole system of law and order to the verge of breakdown. The decision to reduce the amount produced for the prison building programme by the Coalition, at a time when a serious problem had already been identified, was an act of gross irresponsibility. Not alone did the Minister for Justice fail to recruit the extra gardaí which Fianna Fáil had approved, but the allocation for prison building was drastically reduced in successive years. Fianna Fáil's allocation for prison building in 1983 was £17.6 million. This was cut to £10.7 million. Then in 1984 instead of the £11.8 million which the Fine Gael and Labour parties allocated only £5.8 million was spent. They suggested that we should give them credit for providing additional accommodation but that is a damned untruth that should be put around their necks until such time as they face the facts and tell the truth.
Is it any wonder, when spending on prison accommodation has been cut by 70 per cent over two years, that there is now a crisis of overcrowding, of discipline and of security in our prisons, a crisis that spills out into the streets as a result of escapes, early remissions, increased bail, and ineffective non-custodial sentencing in cases where custody is clearly required for the protection of the public?
The Minister a year ago in his speech to the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors on 3 April 1984 stated that what can reasonably be objected to is the early release of prisoners without preparation simply to make room for new committals. But the fact is that Fianna Fáil had set in motion a programme of building to deal with the problem. In the light of the prison cutbacks which were taking place at the time the Minister's statement was seriously misleading and a cover-up of a grave neglect of his responsibilities.
The early release from Arbour Hill and Shelton Abbey prison after only four years of a group of people convicted of the crime of rape in the Minister's own constituency, while the victim continues to suffer from mental illness, is an indictment of the Minister's administration of the prison system. There was, we thought, a general consensus two or three years ago that rape was one of the most serious offences and should carry a very heavy sentence. If the Minister himself were not sensitive to the matter, then surely the Minister for Women's Affairs, could have drawn his attention to the seriousness of what he was doing. Her lame duck excuse is totally unacceptable as far as I am concerned. The Minister of State is great at showing public concern but it backfired on her at Granard, County Longford. She got her photograph taken holding a little baby in her arms at St. Ita's Hospital. The Minister missed a great opportunity to stand up for those she defended when it suited her that is, before she came into this House — rape victims.
The Government and the Minister make a grave mistake in viewing the crime problem, like every other problem, as primarily a matter of public relations. If the survey shows that the heightened fears of the public have abated somewhat, then the Government think the problem is solved. This is the most deplorable way to run a vital Department of State.
Warnings about the state of the prisons should be heeded and the Minister should restore the funds taken from the prison building and modernisation programme before we find ourselves unable to cope effectively with the deteriorating law and order problem. The Minister should remember that, as good as his handlers are, he and those who support him should not be taken in by their own propaganda, because that is all it is, a propaganda exercise which has backfired. If the Minister of State, Deputy Fennell, does not recognise that crime is a major issue in the present elections, she is out of touch with reality.