asked the Minister for Justice if, in view of the disturbances over the weekend in Mountjoy jail, the steps he plans to take to improve conditions in the segregation unit; if he will consider appointing a senior judicial figure to carry out an investigation into the causes of these disturbances, and other recent events in the prison, including the suicides of a number of prisoners; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Private Notice Questions. - Mountjoy Prison (Dublin) Disturbance.
asked the Minister for Justice if he will make a statement regarding recent disturbances in Mountjoy Prison; and in light of public concern if he will outline the plans he has to ensure that conditions in our prisons will not lead to further disturbances in the immediate future.
asked the Minister for Justice the circumstances leading to the prisoners' protest on the roof of Mountjoy Prison; the manner in which he proposes to deal with the overcrowding and other problems highlighted by the protest; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take the three Private Notice Questions together.
Last Sunday at about 3 p.m. ten prisoners made their way on to the roof of the separation unit at Mountjoy Prison. The circumstances in which the prisoners were able to gain access to the roof are being investigated particularly with a view to identifying any measures which might be taken which would assist in the prevention of a recurrence of this type of incident. Any information I give to the House now is of necessity general in nature pending completion of the detailed investigation now taking place.
The separation unit has five landings and on the day in question there were 36 prisoners accommodated there. The E1 landing is generally used to accommodate six offenders whom it is considered could not be accommodated securely in the main block of the prison. The remaining landings accommodated 27 prisoners who have been identified as HIV positive and three trustee prisoners. The six prisoners on the E1 landing are kept segregated from the other prisoners. The indoor recreation area for the E1 prisoners is on the E2 landing where five of them were last Sunday afternoon. These prisoners succeeded in making their way on to the E4 landing.
The door at the end of the E4 landing was open as it normally is during recreation periods to enable prisoners to go into the recreation yard. There is a gym just opposite the door and a struggle took place there between two officers and a number of offenders. Regrettably one of the officers sustained a broken rib and damage to two other ribs.
The prisoners obtained iron bars from weightlifting equipment in the gym and went through the door of the landing to the fire escape. They used the iron bars to prise apart corrugated cladding on the fire escape which was there to prevent access to the roof and ten prisoners got on to the roof.
During the course of this incident an alarm was sounded and extra staff rushed to the separation unit where they concentrated immediately on restoring order among the remaining prisoners and preventing any other prisoners from getting on to the roof. Steps were also taken to ensure that the rest of the prison remained under control.
As the prisoners on the roof of the separation unit were not causing any significant damage and as the situation in the rest of the prison was calm, it was decided that, in the short-term, the balance of advantage lay with attempting to persuade the prisoners to come down. This strategy was effective. Shortly before 11 p.m. on Sunday one of the prisoners came down, another at 8.40 a.m. yesterday morning and a third at 9.20 a.m. At 2 p.m. three more prisoners came down and another about 20 minutes later. During the course of yesterday afternoon two more prisoners came down and the last of the ten came down shortly after 7 p.m. last evening.
I am sure the House will join with me in paying tribute to the professional manner in which the governor and his staff brought the incident to an end. I would also like to commend especially the chaplains at the prison who played a valuable role in the successful outcome which was achieved.
While I certainly have no wish, as Minister for Justice, to add fuel to the fire by becoming involved in unnecessary controversy about incidents of the kind which have now thankfully ended without serious injury, I feel that this House would understand — and indeed expect — that I should at least refer to certain comments which have been made about the matter and indeed have become part of the stock-in-trade whenever situations of this kind arise.
First, it is said that no effort is being made to implement the recommendations of the Whitaker report — the same thing has been said to all my predecessors. At the recent annual conference of the Prison Officers' Association I dealt at some length with this subject and I explained not for the first time — nor was I the first Minister to do so — that it is simply false to say that the Whitaker report has been ignored. It had a substantial influence on developments which were already taking place at the time of its publication and some major recommendations, such as the need to introduce a new duty roster system, have subsequently been implemented. The implementation of these recommendations is by no means a simple operation — the lengthy and, ultimately, successful negotiations which preceded the introduction of the new rosters provide ample testimony to this.
I certainly have no intention of acquiescing to suggestions to the effect that I have ignored the Whitaker report during my ten month term of office. One of the very important recommendations of the Whitaker report was that a Sentence Review Body should be set up; I have also implemented this and I am glad to say that it is working satisfactorily.
Time and time again there have been demands for the appointment of a medical director. Again, I took this project in hands, obtained Government approval for a substantially improved "package" and I am glad to inform the House today that it produced a very worthwhile response on this occasion. Interviews took place only last week and I hope to be in a position to make an announcement shortly.
I have also taken a number of other initiatives. The release, last Christmas, of categories of offenders whose release was not contemplated prior to this was a major success. The very tragic problem of deaths in custody was another matter on which I took an initiative. This has long been recognised as a worldwide phenomenon, the causes of which are quite complex and varied. Various protections are in place, but I was not prepared to leave it at that. That is why I established an expert group to advise me on the subject and I hope to have their recommendations soon.
The record, a Cheann Comhairle, is not one of complacency or indifference to prisons or prison affairs. The handling of prisons is quite a complex matter involving constant tension between various interests. There is simply no way of meeting the demands of a particular interest without causing dissatisfaction — sometimes serious dissatisfaction — elsewhere within the system. The Minister's job — and I know that this is a view that will be shared by those who have had the experience of serving as Minister for Justice — is to strike a balance which, on the basis of the best advice available, he believes to be the right one in an effort to secure the right combination of stability and progress.
Some of the comments made concerning the recent incident in Mountjoy fully illustrate the point. There is, for example, the allegation that those suffering from infectious diseases are not receiving the proper treatment either for their disease or for drug abuse. As regards medical treatment for those known to be HIV positive I can say — and nobody who knows anything about the situation would deny this — that whatever is required and is advised medically will be provided. Nobody I am sure would dispute the fact that I must rely on the expert advice I receive on these matters, not on non-expert opinion.
With regard to drug abuse, the problem is that, on the one side, there is the demand for effective preventive measures but, on the other, the demand for humane treatment. What the prison authorities consider to be reasonable preventive measures — such as random searches — will inevitably be perceived by prisoners and represented by them as "hassle", "inhuman treatment", etc. There is no point in making broad generalisations about the quality of treatment and having some vague notion that it all has to do simply with tangibles such as accommodation. There are accommodation problems, and I shall return to the point later, but there is no escaping the fact that when it comes to adopting measures designed to protect and control persons in custody, the perceptions of those whose job it is to protect in a reasonable manner usually differ quite radically from the perceptions of those for whom the protection is designed. One man's care and concern is another man's "hassle".
The policy of segregating HIV offenders — also highlighted recently — is another matter on which there are differences of view. It is difficult to go into detail about this very sensitive area and I certainly want to say nothing which might add to the tensions and the very genuine worries of offenders on the subject. The policy was put in place when the first cases were identified in 1986. It created enormous anxiety within our prisons at the time. HIV, of course, is a source of concern and anxiety outside prisons as well as inside, but inside the impact seemed to be potentially very serious indeed. The best advice at the time was that, from an operational point of view, those known to be HIV positive should be segregated. The primary motivation was the protection of those suffering from the illness and the protection of good order and security within the system.
Deputies will know that this is another area to which I have devoted some considerable attention since I became Minister for Justice. There are no simple answers to the problems of coping with infectious diseases such as HIV within the prison system and it is a delusion to pretend that there are.
One of the decisions which I have already announced was the provision of a new unit within Mountjoy Prison for those known to be suffering from infectious diseases. I decided on this on the basis of the best advice available to me — including medical advice — following detailed discussions on the subject within my Department. Over £1 million is now available and the plans are at an advanced stage.
As to the best policies to be followed for the future, I concluded, having heard the views of the various interests — some of whom, again, would be competing interests with quite different perceptions as to what is appropriate — that the best course, in the light of scientific and other developments which were taking place, was to bring the appropriate experts, both from within and outside the prison service, together to discuss the matter I am in the process of doing this at the present time. This I believe is the responsible course — there is no point in coming up with half-baked solutions on the basis of unprofessional ideas as to what is or is not appropriate in this area. The risks involved were quite simply too serious.
Before I leave the subject, one of the solutions which has been canvassed was the use of Wheatfield. I can inform Deputies that this was a subject of very intensive discussion within my Department and with appropriate outside experts and the conclusion was that Wheatfield should be used for the offenders for whom it was intended and not for those suffering from HIV. I am not saying that there was total unanimity on this — the doctors and many others consulted were in agreement — but there were dissenting views and again it was my job to weigh up the issue and to reach a conclusion.
Another area in which there would be a substantial difference of views relates to the amount of public expenditure which is appropriate in the prisons area. A considerable amount of money is spent each year — in the current year it is £8 million — in maintaining and refurbishing our existing prison stock.
I am not suggesting that further expenditure is not warranted — it is, and I will do my best to ensure that what can reasonably be provided will be provided, but it is important that certain facts be acknowledged. In the first place it is a distortion of the truth to say that all our prisons, apart from Wheatfield and the training unit, are in poor condition. There are prisons in need of remedial works much of which is in progress, but much has been achieved also. The unit in which the recent disturbances took place was completely modernised only a few years ago and is not overcrowded. Conditions simply do not constitute a total explanation for disturbances and it is a gross error to believe otherwise.
It is important to realise also that those who claim that we should demolish our other institutions are actually saying that we should now commit the Exchequer to hundreds of millions of pounds of additional expenditure. Again there is no point in being vague about this — we are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds. While accepting that a certain level of expenditure is necessary to maintain and improve our prison stock, I think that a great many taxpayers as well as those unemployed and depending on State resources, would look askance at the idea that we should now commit hundreds of millions of pounds to prisons, against the background where, in recent years, there has been widespread acceptance of the need for curtailment of State expenditure even where that curtailment, in some instances, pinched.
There is no point in hiding from realities either by saying, for example, that what we need are not more prisons but more alternatives to imprisonment. There is no point in pretending that the prisons' population could be dramatically reduced by means of greater use of alternatives. Alternatives are used quite extensively in this country — there are over 3,000 persons on alternatives of one kind or another as against 2,000 in custody. I am specifically examining the scope for further expansion of alternatives at the present time and I would have to say that looking at the present prison population I would be misleading the House if I were to say that alternatives will provide the full answer.
The Whitaker Committee which rightly advocated the use of alternatives were looking at the prisons' population in the early to mid-eighties — I have to look at the composition of the prisons population in the nineties. Again, I have to balance the advantages of a policy which would see a large number of offenders dealt with in the community against the background of very understandable anxieties of a great many people who fear the activities of criminals. I say, and I want to stress this, that I will expand alternatives in whatever way I can because they are cost effective but let nobody believe that this represents a total answer.
There is one further comment which I want to make concerning recent events — and this again is something which I know would be understood by anybody who has been Minister for Justice — and that is that some of the comments which are given prominence when serious situations like this arise become the source of very great concern to those whose job it is to resolve the problems with minimal risk to staff and offenders alike. I believe the average citizen would wonder at a system which has the effect of providing a platform for criminals — in one instance emotively described as rebels — at a time when they are behaving in a life-threatening manner. The management and staff who have to deal with these offenders, eyeball to eyeball day-in and day-out, are only too well aware of the effects of providing platforms.
I believe the average citizen would take the view also that in all the bandwagoning which takes place not enough emphasis is placed on the fact that very often we are dealing with very serious offenders. The impression given in the recent incident was that we were really dealing with people who were simply "sick". They are not in prison because they are sick — some are amongst the most difficult offenders in the system and are in Mountjoy specifically for that reason and no other.
With regard to suggestions for a judicial inquiry into Mountjoy let me say that I have no intention of establishing any such expensive machinery — the issues are known and I will continue to play my part to the best of my ability in resolving them.
There is one other matter to which I wish to refer briefly before I conclude and that is the recent controversy surrounding the 1988 report of the Mountjoy Visiting Committee. That report will be published this week and I am somewhat constrained in what I can say about it in advance of its presentation to the Government. I had to investigate certain matters prior to publication and I have already made a public statement on that — that statement will incidentally be included in the report. There are some critical comments in the report — it is the job of the visiting committee to express criticism where it is justified — but there are also some very favourable comments which I think many people will find interesting in the light of what has been said in recent days about the treatment of offenders suffering from infectious diseases.
I was the one who raised the prospect of the appointment of a judicial figure to investigate the goings on and, having listened to the Minister's answer, I am convinced someone needs to go in there and tell him exactly what is happening. Has the Minister any views on the appropriateness of using a recently modernised high security unit as a place of detention for those who are suffering from illness, namely, the HIV virus? Does he consider it appropriate that the punishment area of the prison, the B basement, is the most appropriate area to house people who suffer from serious problems arising from the HIV virus? Has he any view on the problems of the lack of work, training or school available to these prisoners and will he take any steps in the interim before the new unit opens for them, so that their conditions will be ameliorated and something done to improve their lot?
Regarding the block involved from which the prisoners went on the roof, there are six prisoners in there whom it is considered could not be secured in the main block of the prison. As to the suitability of the block for HIV prisoners, I have already secured Government funding for it and announced so last November at the time of the publication of the Estimates. I do not agree that that building is suitable for HIV sufferers and for that reason the Government decided to allocate the money to me to allow for the construction of a new, properly designed, medically equipped unit and over £1 million is available for that. The planning is already under way, the site for it has been cleared within the prison, and work should commence shortly.
Does the Minister not agree that the number of prisoners confined in Mountjoy is over 600 and far exceeds the number for which it was designed, in that of these, 220 prisoners are detained in double occupancy, or more, cells designed for single prisoners, and this has led to the distress of prisoners and low morale among the management, resulting in disturbances which we witnesed over the weekend? Will he not use the vacant cells in Wheatfield to somewhat alleviate the immediate problem?
As far as the overcrowding in Mountjoy is concerned, yes, it is not ideal. Regarding overcrowding in the unit where the protest took place on Sunday, there is no overcrowding in that unit. The transfer of prisoners to Wheatfield has been speeded up and the only thing that is holding it up at this stage is the extra training of prison staff, and the remaining approximately 50 places that are available for prisoners there should be filled within a matter of months.
I would like to compliment the governor and the prison staff on the low key but firm manner in which they dealt with this protest. I wish to put three short queries to the Minister. First, in the light of the very comprehensive reply the Minister has given to the House, does he not accept there is substance in the demand I have been making for quite some time that there should be a full debate in this House on the Whitaker report that cannot adequately be dealt with by a few questions such as we are having now? Second, in relation to the 1988 prisons report and the failure to publish it at the proper time, the Minister now says this will be published this week. Does he not accept that on 13 March last, in response to a Dáil question he gave me a commitment that it would be published within a few weeks? Third, perhaps most important, does he not accept that the lack of a visiting committee to Mountjoy Prison, a vehicle through which prisoners can channel their grievances and complaints, was a major cause of the protest and a major contributory factor to the problem? Does he not accept that he is in clear breach of his statutory duty because under the 1925 Prisons (Visiting Committees) Act he is obliged to constitute a visiting committee in every prison and these committees have not been in existence since their term of office expired at the end of 1989?
A debate in the Dáil on the Whitaker report is a matter for the Whips but I have no objection whatsoever to it.
Good.
As far as publication of the report is concerned, the report and the comments of the visiting committee refer to an incident in 1986 when my party were not even in Government and the Deputy's party were. What was attempted was to get clarification of an incident reported in a 1988 report that some say took place in 1986 and some say never took place. The visiting committee will be appointed on Friday, on the same day as the report is published.
I want to make one point in relation to the incident on 31 December 1986. This has been fully investigated by my Department in the light of the accusation made about an incident that took place in 1986. As I say, it is in a 1988 report. There had been no other indication of it. The Department were satisfied in relation to the reports from the prison governor and prison staff. However, since the weekend a comment has been made by a number of women prisoners who up to then had made no statement. In view of the accusations made publicly by these women prisoners, I have asked the Garda to investigate the matter.
Maybe we will have a short final question.
On an aspect of a question I addressed earlier given that it will take a considerable time to build and commission a new unit, were there any steps in the interim period, particularly to relieve those prisoners held in the punishment area, the B basement? I think the Minister will agree it is a wholly inappropriate area for people to be detained permanently. Am I right in thinking there is a unit in the grounds of Dundrum Central Mental Hospital that is currently vacant?
Dundrum is not my responsibility. Let me mention a point in relation to the HIV prisoners which is interesting when one considers what happened at the weekend. The prisoners have access to welfare services, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a chaplain. In addition representatives of outside agencies involved in dealing with drug abuse visit the prison to counsel offenders.
It is of interest to the House that I should say, rather than accepting the picture that has been painted by the Deputy, that on a number of occasions offenders who had the HIV virus and were given periods of relief returned to prison early asking to be taken back because they were ill or were having difficulty coping with the outside community. Those prisoners were facilitated and I suggest that their behaviour is evidence of the high level of service provided for such offenders.
I gather from the Minister's long reply that he has accepted that many of our prisons are outdated, over-crowded and in need of replacement. Will the Minister say what additional money will be made available to update prison accommodation? At the end of the day the important question is what money the Minister will make available to improve the accommodation.
As I have stated, Wheatfield has come on stream and there will be more than 300 places available there. A number of prisoners have been transferred from St. Patrick's to Wheatfield. That prison will be in full use within a matter of months. In regard to funding I should like to tell the Deputy that more than £8 million will be spent this year on renovation and restoration alone. We are dealing with old buildings. We will need to have a continuous programme. I will strive, within the financial constraints imposed on us, to secure the best funding possible for prison rebuilding.
Mr. S. Barrett rose.
Deputy Barrett will appreciate that I am confining questions to spokespersons.
In relation to the Minister's default in not publishing the annual report on the prisons I should like to know if he accepts that in the course of a reply to me on 13 March he did not make any reference to the problems regarding the report of the visiting committee. Will he agree that he indicated that the six months unavoidable delay at that stage was due to staff commitments? Will the Minister accept that in relation to any report of the visiting committee under the 1925 Act, to which I referred, every such report must be open to inspection without charge and that whatever about the veracity of its contents, it should not be used as an excuse for delay in publishing the report? Now that the Minister seems to be espousing the Whitaker report I should like to know if he acknowledges the existence of an important recommendation in that report concerning the appointment of an inspector of prisons. Will the Minister indicate whether he favours that recommendation?
I will permit the Minister to make a final reply.
As far as the last point is concerned I should like to say that I have no doubt we will have an opportunity of teasing out this matter if a debate takes place on the Whitaker report. The Deputy raised a question about the publication and availability of the report and I should like to tell him that the report is available. As a matter of fact media representatives are this afternoon in the Department examing the report. It is available to them under the law, as referred to by Deputy O'Keeffe. I should like to tell the Deputy that I was very keen to ensure that any report of an incident purported to have taken place, even if it did not take place during my period in office or during a Fianna Fáil administration, or this administration — this took place during the period of the Deputy's administration — was accurate and that no false accusations were made.