Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 11 Oct 2007

Vol. 639 No. 3

Adjournment Debate.

Hospital Services.

Deputy Finian McGrath

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise the important issue of providing a top quality health service at Beaumont Hospital. All Members have a duty of care to the vulnerable, the sick, the disabled, the elderly and the very young. If we do not do that, we will lose sight of our progressive vision for the country. That is why in my agreement with the Taoiseach I pushed strongly for support services for the sick and disabled. I could have moved in another direction but top quality, professional and caring health services must be provided for the disabled, cystic fibrosis patients and cancer patients.

I warmly welcome the additional cancer services for Beaumont hospital. I am delighted my local hospital has been designated a centre for future cancer care. It will service more than 5,000 people, many of whom reside on the north side of Dublin city. I raised this issue in my deal with the Taoiseach and it is covered in section 5 of our agreement. This represents a major investment in the north side and I urge everyone involved to get on with the job and to work hard in the interest of patients.

I also welcome the €850,000 allocation for a new day care centre at the Central Remedial Clinic in Clontarf and the provision of an additional 255 residential places, 85 respite places and 535 day places for those with intellectual disabilities nationally. The total cost of these services will be approximately €45 million. I am delighted to inform the residents of Dublin North Central of these developments. I also addressed these priorities in my deal with the Taoiseach and they provide value for money for the taxpayer.

I look forward to further investment in services at Beaumont Hospital. The people of the north side deserve them as a right and I will not take lectures from politicians who talk down the progressive policies I am trying to have implemented. Major improvements have taken place in the accident and emergency department in the hospital in the past three months. Such departments on average deal with 3,300 people daily of whom 825 usually require admission. Patients who require admission sometimes have to stay in the accident and emergency department while they are stabilised, receive emergency treatment or undergo initial tests. On average 131 people attend the accident and emergency department at Beaumont Hospital daily, of whom 32 are admitted with two patients on trolleys for more than two hours and five for more than six hours.

I call on the Minister for Health and Children and the HSE to be more proactive in providing additional services for patients with cystic fibrosis. This is an issue I raised in my talks with the Taoiseach. It is raised in section 5(4) of my document of agreement which states we must increase and improve services to cystic fibrosis patients by designating a national centre. This is the way forward and action must be taken now. There have been enough talks and meetings. Cystic fibrosis patients cannot afford to wait any longer. This is one of my urgent priorities and I urge the Minister to fast-track these services. We must reach international best practice and standards for all cystic fibrosis patients and their families.

As well as a national centre, there must be increased local support in communities. Under no circumstances should patients be affected by problems in the HSE. I have made my views known to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance in recent days.

I thank and commend the staff of Beaumont Hospital. We all have a duty to support them and the great work they do. This support must be practical and take the form of adequate funding.

Deputy Seán Haughey

Hear, hear.

Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children (Deputy Brendan Smith)

I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this important issue. I take this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. We welcome the opportunity to set out the position on cancer services at Beaumont Hospital, one of the eight cancer centres designated by the HSE last month.

The implementation of the national cancer control strategy is a major priority for the Government. The overarching objective of the strategy is to deliver high quality, fully integrated, multi-modality cancer care nationally. The delivery of cancer services on a programmatic basis will serve to ensure equity of access to services and equality of patient outcome, irrespective of geography. The decision of the HSE to provide four managed cancer control networks and eight cancer centres will be implemented on a managed and phased basis. The HSE plans to have completed 80-90% of the transition of services to the cancer centres by the end of 2009 and has informed the Department that meetings and discussions are under way with the eight centres.

Beaumont Hospital has also been selected as a site for the development of radiation oncology facilities. Initially, four linear accelerators will be provided at the hospital. This will be increased to an equivalent capacity of eight linear accelerators on an incremental basis thereafter. The contract for the design consultants for the new facilities at the hospital has commenced. The evaluation process for procurement of the supply contract is also under way and a technical subgroup is preparing the equipping specification for the phase one developments.

The HSE has confirmed that it will have in place radiation oncology capacity to meet population need by 2010, after which it will continue to increase capacity to ensure these needs continue to be met. The Minister is fully confident that this will be achieved through a combination of direct Exchequer provision, public private partnerships and, where appropriate in the interim, the use of capacity in the private sector.

The HSE reports that Beaumont Hospital treats significant numbers of cancer patients, with nearly 7,000 day cases and more than 800 inpatients treated in 2006. From January to June this year, more than 3,500 day cases and 450 inpatients were treated at the hospital. The HSE has informed the Department that revenue funding of more than €10 million has been provided for this purpose in 2007, including non-pay costs of more than €6 million.

The Minister recently approved national quality assurance standards for symptomatic breast disease services under the Health Act 2007. The specialist centre for symptomatic breast disease services at Beaumont Hospital was officially opened last year. The HSE has informed the Department that additional revenue funding of almost €1.7 million has been provided for this service. Seven new consultant appointments have been made to facilitate the development across the various modalities of care, including surgery, radiology and medical oncology, with further appointments due to be made in breast surgery, plastic surgery and pathology. There have also been appointments in nursing, physiotherapy and counselling. The unit operates a fully multidisciplinary symptomatic breast disease service with multidisciplinary meetings and triple assessment clinics. Last year, 235 new breast cancers were recorded at Beaumont Hospital and more than 1,600 women attended for mammography services.

As I have outlined to the House, there have been significant developments in cancer services at Beaumont Hospital. The Government will continue to build on developments to date in cancer services nationally, including at Beaumont Hospital.

Child Care Services.

Deputy Alan Shatter

Two reports have been published in the past 24 hours that can only be described as damning indictments of the failure of the Government to provide essential services for children in need of care and for children at risk. The failure of services for children, as managed by the HSE, to provide for proper care management and long-term planning for children in care aged 12 years and under is highlighted in a report published by the Health Information and Quality Authority. It details just under 100 children aged 12 years in residential care for whom fosterage was more likely a better alternative and in respect of whom no managed care plans of an adequate nature were provided. The report states:

Inspectors found considerable variation and significant shortfalls in the standard of statutory care planning across the country. In relation to care plan reviews, inspectors found the care plans reflected the situation as it was at the time of admission or whether the initial identified needs were met. They did not take account of significant life events or the views of the children. Inspectors found that care planning was more often determined by crisis management rather than long-term planning for what best met the needs of the child.

It further states there were "significant discrepancies" between initial care plans and current circumstances and "wide variations in care planning practice". Some children's views were not actively sought and some of those, where sought, were given very limited weight, despite our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The second report published today, launched by the Minister, was written by two experts in Waterford and deals with the predicament of child victims of domestic violence. It can be summed up by saying there was a total failure to provide children who were victims of domestic violence with access to meaningful services which could have provided them with help or support other than refuge services. In the context of refuge services, it was clear that such services generally excluded teenagers who were just as much at risk as younger children. The report highlights the need for child centred services, community-based child service supports and refuges to be open to teenage boys. It also emphasises the need for a community care social work response and, in particular, the necessity of access to child psychiatry and counselling services without long waiting periods. None of these services is being provided.

An issue the report does not seem to address but with which I am personally familiar is the need for court based services when wives or husbands who are the victims of domestic violence attend court for the purpose of obtaining protection orders or domestic violence orders. There is no social work back-up system attached to the courts to provide either counselling for spouses or children or to ensure liaison with local communities.

I cannot take seriously the speech delivered earlier today by the Minister of State, Deputy Smith, regarding the robust safeguards for the rights of the child intended to be put in place in the context of the Constitution when we have a ten year action plan for children, the national children's strategy, which was published in 2000. Seven years into this plan, there are significant gaps in services. It is essential that there is an immediate response by the HSE and the Government to both reports.

In the context of the forthcoming report by the proposed Oireachtas committee on the wording for a children's rights referendum to the Constitution, we must ensure we do not become distracted from the obligations of the Government to provide well managed, properly resourced and comprehensive services to meet the needs of children. Many of those needs can be met without any change to or amendment of the Constitution.

I am greatly concerned that the debate on the constitutional referendum will be a diversion from focusing on the major defects in services and the significant gaps that must be addressed. There is a possibility that the debate on a constitutional provision will become mere constitutional window-dressing. For 30 years I have personally campaigned for a change in our Constitution to recognise and protect the rights of the child. I welcome the fact that we are on the road to doing that, but we must not forget the very real needs which should currently be met and for which statutory provision has been made. These needs are not being met.

It is my wish for us to have a constructive discussion in the committee to be formed and that we do our best to produce the best form of wording to address the major gaps in our constitutional provisions as they currently apply to children. If we are to do so on a co-operative basis, the co-operation must come from the beginning.

I note the Minister of State in a speech earlier today commented on producing terms of reference shortly for Cabinet. This committee involves all parties in the House and I hope that before terms of reference for the committee are finalised, Fine Gael, as the main Opposition party, will be consulted about the draft terms of reference. In that way we would have input into its formation and the work to be done by the committee from the start. In the meantime, I hope the Minister of State will indicate the specific action proposed to be taken by the Government to rectify the problems graphically illustrated in the reports published yesterday evening and today.

Deputy Brendan Smith

I thank Deputy Shatter for raising these important issues on the Adjournment and congratulate him on his appointment as spokesperson for the Fine Gael Party on children's matters. I look forward to working with him over the coming years in a constructive manner.

I welcome the opportunity to reply to this Adjournment matter. I assume the Deputy is referring to the findings of the Health Information and Quality Authority social services inspectorate's report, The Placement of Children aged 12 and under in Residential Care in Ireland, launched yesterday, and the report, Listening to Children: Children's Stories of Domestic Violence, launched earlier today.

The Health Information and Quality Authority's social services inspectorate's report notes that inspectors found a lack of placement options for this age group, with continued placement in residential centres being maintained due to a lack of available options. I understand the Health Service Executive has accepted that children of this age group should only be placed in residential care in exceptional circumstances. For example, this would be where a sibling group is being placed together for the purposes of maintaining a family unit, where there are particular therapeutic needs or where short-term issues must be addressed prior to an alternative placement.

The Health Service Executive has advised that the numbers of children in this age group in residential care has reduced from 120 children aged 12 and under in 2004 to 93 in 2006. The latest information available to the HSE suggests a further substantial reduction by the end of 2007. These reductions reflect the ongoing priority attached to caring for children in family settings. I am heartened by the HSE's indication that the findings of this report will be used to make further improvements in this area.

The importance of effective and rigorous care planning cannot be underestimated. I welcome the finding that all the children in this study had a care plan and virtually all had a social worker assigned to them. My office has been assured by the Health Service Executive that having ensured compliance with statutory requirements, it will continue to work to improve the quality of care planning throughout the care system. In respect of the current placement of those under 12 in residential settings, the HSE has initiated a review of all these cases to ensure they are placed appropriately and will, if necessary, strengthen care planning arrangements for their placement in alternatives to residential care.

Where there is no option but to take a child into State care it is imperative that we continue to work towards providing each child with specific services to meet his or her needs and those of the families. I welcome the fact that the executive is seeking to develop specialised foster care services which will provide more intensive support for children who have significant needs in this regard while working closely at all times with the child's family.

An annual national fostering campaign is also being developed by the executive in conjunction with the Irish Foster Care Association for 2008. I anticipate that this, together with the HSE ongoing foster carer recruitment campaigns, will encourage many more people to undertake this important role in the lives of these children.

My office and the Health Service Executive are examining all the recommendations contained in the report and are working together on the development of a policy direction regarding the placement of children aged 12 and under in residential care. We must be mindful that at times residential care may be the most appropriate and beneficial option for the child at that time.

The report, Listening to Children: Children's Stories of Domestic Violence, launched earlier today, identifies the impact on children of witnessing domestic violence and the nature, scope and adequacy of domestic violence services for children. My office commissioned this study which, as Deputy Shatter mentioned, was carried out by two researchers from Waterford Institute of Technology.

To improve the level of co-ordination and coherence in the Government's response to domestic violence, it was decided that an executive office should be established with key responsibility for this issue. Cosc, the national office for the prevention of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, was established in June this year to fulfil this task. I am pleased to advise the Deputy that Cosc has agreed to work with my office in instances where issues regarding domestic and sexual violence against children arise.

Research indicates that some services are difficult to access but children who are the victims of domestic violence and their families have access to the range of child protection and child welfare services provided directly by the Health Service Executive and through funded agencies across the country. They can also access child and adolescent mental health services.

Part of Cosc's work will be to raise awareness of the services available and to work with the agencies concerned towards the delivery of well co-ordinated services to support victims of domestic violence. My office and the Health Service Executive support and encourage a primary care response to domestic violence which integrates locally based and readily accessible services, including joining the services of the Garda Síochána, general practitioners and the Health Service Executive.

It is also important to point to the increased allocation to the HSE from €12 million last year to €16.5 million in 2007, which should assist in improvement to front-line services. A further €1.5 million was allocated for the implementation of the review of the sexual assault treatment services, with a commitment to increase this allocation by €1 million in 2008 to cover the full-year cost of implementing those recommendations.

I will ask the HSE to examine the findings of the research being undertaken and to consider how services in this area can be further improved.

Residential Institutions Redress Scheme.

Deputy Joe Costello

The subject matter of this Adjournment debate is very much related to the Minister of State's reply to the previous matter. It concerns residential care which had been part and parcel of this State for the first 70 years of the last century. That form of residential care was closed down in 1970.

My request to the Minister for Education and Science is that she add Bethany Home, located on Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6, to the list of institutions in the Schedule to the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. I am seeking this specifically at this time because the Department of Health and Children examined some papers in its archives earlier this year and concluded that Bethany Home was subject to a regulatory and inspection function in accordance with the requirements of Schedule 4 to the Act. Subsequently, the Minister for Education and Science was informed of the discovery.

I will read the relevant section of the letter sent to a solicitor whose client is one of the former residents of Bethany Home. It states:

Dear Sir,

I refer to your letter dated 19 July 2007.

This Department contacted the Department of Education on 14 May 2007 regarding your client. We confirmed that we had examined papers in relation to the Bethany Home, Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6. We also advised the Department of Education that they may wish to give consideration to the inclusion of this institution on the Schedule of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 as there is evidence of a regulatory or inspection function as set out in Schedule 4 of the Act.

The inclusion of institutions on the schedule of the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002 is a matter for the Department of Education.

That letter was sent by the child welfare and protection policy unit of the Department of Health and Children to the Department of Education and Science. As it states, inclusion of any new institution on the Schedule to the Residential Institutions Redress Act is the sole prerogative of the Minister for Education and Science.

When the Act was progressing through the Oireachtas five years ago, I raised the issue of Bethany Home, which was largely a home for Protestant orphans, and requested that the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, include it in the Schedule. At that time, I possessed only anecdotal evidence to support my arguments of abuse at the home. I also only had anecdotal evidence regarding departmental supervision and regulation. Now, however, the Department of Health and Children has confirmed my viewpoint and is making to the Department of Education and Science the same case I made five years ago.

Recent disclosures indicate that, to date, over 16,000 complaints have been received by the Residential Institutions Redress Board in respect of the abuse of children in residential institutions that were subject to State regulation and supervision. Over 9,000 of these have been processed to a conclusion, with average compensation in the order of €67,000 per person. Some €750 million has already been paid and the total sum is likely to be in excess of €1 billion.

It would be very harsh if the Minister for Education and Science were to close the door to the inclusion of further institutions such as Bethany Home when new information comes to light. The children from Bethany Home, who are now elderly, are entitled to recognition by the State that they were detained in an institution in which they were abused and in which they were neglected by the State, which had a legal responsibility to supervise and to ensure that their welfare was protected.

The Minister should do the right thing by these children and announce that Bethany Home will be referred to the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science (Deputy Seán Haughey)

The Residential Institutions Redress Board was established under statute in 2002 and is governed by the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. The board was established to make fair and reasonable payments to persons who, as children, were abused while residents in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to State regulation or inspection and who were placed in such institutions by the State. The board offered an alternative to the then often daunting prospect of bringing a claim for damages through the court system. The threshold of proof that an applicant must satisfy at the board is far lower than in the civil courts, where the burden of proof is much higher.

The Residential Institutions Redress Board is independent in the performance of its functions. In addition, the board and the review committee are independent in the performance of their functions in accordance with the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. When the Act initially became law, the Schedule contained a total of 128 institutions. As provided for in the Residential Institutions Redress Act, these comprised industrial schools, reformatories, special schools established for the purpose of providing education services to children with physical or intellectual disabilities, orphanages, children's homes, hospitals providing medical or psychiatric services to people with physical or mental disabilities or illnesses in which children were placed and resident and in respect of which a public body had a regulatory or inspection function.

In compiling the list, the Department of Education and Science had cause to make inquiries from the Department of Health and Children — under the jurisdiction of which some of the institutions operated — as to whether certain institutions could be considered for inclusion having regard to the criteria for eligibility. Under section 4(1) of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002, the Minister for Education and Science may provide for the insertion in the Schedule of any of the institutions to which I refer.

Since the enactment of the legislation, my Department has received correspondence from both individuals and survivor groups identifying a number of other institutions that may warrant consideration for inclusion. Following examination of the matter, the Minister signed an order on 9 November 2004 which provided for the inclusion of 13 additional institutions in the Schedule. A further order was made on 1 July 2005 adding three institutions to the Schedule.

The question of including additional institutions has been fully considered by the Department of Education and Science. It is not proposed to add any further institutions to the Schedule. The intention was that all institutions which were brought to the attention of the Department would be considered and a decision made as to their eligibility for inclusion prior to the closing date for receipt of applications to the board, which was 15 December 2005.

In making its initial inquiries in respect of the Bethany Home, my Department consulted the Department of Health and Children to establish if it could be considered for inclusion on the Schedule to the Act. The response was that following a review of papers available in the Department of Health and Children, officials were unable to locate any documentation which would indicate that a public body had an inspection or regulatory function in respect of the Bethany Home. At that time, the Department of Health and Children was not in a position to recommend its inclusion in the Schedule. Given that we were not in a position to confirm whether there was a State inspection or regulatory role, Bethany Home could not be considered to be eligible for inclusion. No further inquiries were made at that time as to whether this institution would have been eligible under any other criteria.

The Department of Health and Children advised my Department in May 2007 that certain papers had come to light which indicated a State regulatory and inspection role and that my Department might now wish to consider its inclusion on the Schedule to the Residential Institutions Redress Act. Further inquiries made by my Department with the Department of Health and Children have revealed that one of the papers relating to the Bethany Home, which prompted it to recognise a regulatory or inspection function, was the report of an inspection conducted under the Registration of Maternity Homes Act 1934. The expression "maternity home" means any premises either wholly or partly used or intended to be used for the reception of pregnant women or women immediately after childbirth. There are several references on the papers held by the Department of Health and Children to "Bethany Mother and Baby Home". It does not appear that persons were placed in this facility by the State.

Section 4(1) of the Act states that the Minister for Education and Science may, by order, provide for the insertion of any industrial school, reformatory, orphanage, children's home, special school which was established for the purpose of providing education services to children with physical or intellectual disabilities or a hospital providing medical or psychiatric services to people with physical or mental disabilities or illnesses. It is clear from the information available to my Department that Bethany Home operated as a mother and baby home and is, therefore, not eligible to be considered for inclusion on the Schedule to the Residential Institutions Redress Act.

Deputy Joe Costello

That is not at all clear.

Deputy Seán Haughey

It should be pointed out that ineligibility to be considered for redress under the terms of the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002 does not affect a person's statutory right to pursue other legal avenues which may be open to them.

In dealing with correspondence relating to the inclusion of Bethany Home on the Schedule, the issue of the religious ethos was put forward as a possible reason for the decision not to include it. As the religious ethos of an institution was not part of the criteria prescribed under section 4 of the Act, the Department did not require full details of the religious ethos of all the institutions listed. It appears, from records held by my Department, that there are 19 institutions listed that were non-Catholic facilities. Of these, one was multidenominational, five had a Protestant ethos and 13 were run by the State.

Irish Prison Service.

Deputy Charles Flanagan

I thank the office of the Ceann Comhairle for facilitating me in raising this matter and I thank the Minister of State for coming before the House to debate it.

This week, the Council of Europe's internationally respected Committee for the Prevention of Torture again shone a light on Ireland's prisons. The picture that emerged was deeply shocking. In short, Ireland's prisons are dominated by gangs, violence within them is mounting and they are flooded with illegal drugs.

While Ireland has been transformed into a modern, wealthy First World nation in the past decade, some of our prisons have remained in a Dickensian time warp. Such prisons are vastly overcrowded, with prisoners packed tightly into dank, stuffy and darkened cells; hundreds of inmates locked away for much of the day for their own protection; and basic sanitary facilities that are lacking.

The most modern feature of Irish prisons is the prevalence of narcotics. Mountjoy Prison was recently described as the biggest methadone clinic in the country. Prisoners on temporary release are placed under enormous pressure to smuggle drugs back into prison when they come back from outside. Drug treatment programmes are still optional. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of addiction will say that it is very difficult for an addict voluntarily to reach a decision to enter rehabilitation. Making such a decision optional when someone has just been incarcerated makes little sense. These people are in despair, feel they have nothing left to lose and have little appetite for the rigorous regime of drug rehabilitation. Who can blame them? Many of them have been failed completely by the State.

An analysis of 2,000 prisoners by the Institute of Criminology at University College Dublin has shown that incarcerated alongside the gang members that dominate prison life and making up the majority of prisoners are young, unemployed petty criminals. A total of 93% of the prisoners profiled by the institute were male; 82% of whom were unmarried with an average age just under 30. They do not have jobs and the majority of them do not have homes or do not feel they have a future. Shockingly, 65% of Irish prisoners are illiterate.

We expect this group of people voluntarily to sign up for drug rehabilitation programmes, literacy courses and so forth while all they want to do is concentrate on staying alive and unharmed in an environment where the threat of inter-prisoner violence is ever present and accessing drugs is as easy as accessing rehabilitation.

It is time that we got real about Irish prisons. Rehabilitation programmes for drug addicts should not be optional, rather they should be compulsory. A real and sustained effort must be made to encourage participation in education and training programmes in our prisons. The Victorian ideal that prisoners would reform inside prison through training programmes and education and make a contribution to society was a noble one, but that ideology appears to have been lost or at least replaced by a "lock them up and forget about them" approach.

Our current model evidently does not work. In the past ten years, the prison population has grown by more than 10,000. It costs the taxpayer €91,000 to keep one person imprisoned for a year and much more if the prisoner happens to be in Portlaoise Prison. That is not money well spent for two reasons. Rehabilitation is not taking place inside prisons and habitual criminality is rampant, with more than one quarter of people sentenced to jail going back there within a period of four years following their release.

The report of the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has highlighted a prison system that is failing the prisoner, the prison officer and the tax-paying, law-abiding citizenry. We have now received the fourth report of the Council of Europe on Irish prisons. This must be the one that precipitates a meaningful policy shift by Government and transforms our prison system into a functioning, rehabilitative and corrective regime.

Deputy Seán Haughey

At the request of the Irish Government, the Council of Europe yesterday published the report of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, CPT, on its visit to Ireland in October 2006, as well as the response of the Government of Ireland to the points raised by the CPT in that report. Its previous visit to this jurisdiction was May 2002. It visited a number of Garda stations, prisons and the Central Mental Hospital and presented its findings earlier this year. Its report and the formal response of the Government together amount to approximately 100 pages. I am not in a position in this statement to go into the same level of detail but would encourage Deputies to read both documents in full as they set out comprehensively the issues raised and the action being taken to address those issues.

The role of the CPT in its national visits is to draw attention to those areas affecting persons in custody where improvements can be made. Nevertheless, the CPT report goes out of its way to praise the co-operation it received during its visit to Ireland. It points out that the Irish authorities have made commendable efforts to stamp out ill treatment by members of the Garda Síochána and praises the new legislation introduced and the use of technological devices such as closed circuit television and mandatory audio-video recording in interrogation rooms. The CPT also states that the majority of prison officers were attempting to deal in a humane manner with prisoners.

As regards the Irish prison system, the principal shortcomings it identified were the lack of progress in updating legislation governing the operation of the prison system, notably the 1947 prison rules; the need for better investigation of prisoner complaints about ill-treatment; the poor physical conditions in Mountjoy Prison, Limerick Prison and Cork Prison, with overcrowding and slopping out; the existence of inter-prisoner violence and intimidation; the number of prisoners on so-called protection; the drugs situation in Limerick Prison, Mountjoy Prison and St. Patrick's Institution; and the need to enhance the regime activities for prisoners in certain prisons.

Action is or has been taken to address all these issues. The Minister knows that the lack of modern prison rules was a matter of particular and ongoing concern to the CPT and I am glad to report that comprehensive new prison rules were signed by the former Minister on 29 May 2007 and entered into force on 1 October 2007.

The CPT also expressed concern about the investigation of complaints of ill-treatment by prisoners. It acknowledged that senior management in the Prison Service are determined to take appropriate action when allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners by staff emerge. Its main concern related to Garda investigations and access to an independent complaints system. The Garda Commissioner has now put new procedures in place to ensure an appropriate level of Garda investigation into allegations by prisoners of assault. As regards an independent complaints system, the visiting committees have the authority to investigate complaints from prisoners and the office of Inspector of Prisons has been established on a statutory basis.

There is no denying that Mountjoy Prison and Cork Prison need to be replaced and that certain blocks in Limerick Prison need to be refurbished. The Government is pressing ahead with the new prison complex at Thornton to replace Mountjoy and a site at Kilworth has been designated as the location for a new prison to replace Cork Prison. There are also plans to refurbish the relevant blocks in Limerick Prison.

The point must be made that the poor physical conditions in the Mountjoy complex, including the lack of facilities to keep prisoners productively occupied, has not facilitated the prison authorities in their efforts to prevent violence between prisoners. Those of us who heard the CPT representative being interviewed on "Morning Ireland" on RTE Radio will be aware that their concerns about safety in particular related to the older prisons of Mountjoy and Limerick and were contrasted with the much more favourable situation in modern prisons such as Cloverhill and Wheatfield.

Owing to its location and limited footprint, it is simply not possible to make the Mountjoy complex secure from drugs and weapons thrown into the prison nor is it possible to provide a wide range of workshops and recreational facilities. Similarly, the cramped nature of Mountjoy makes it difficult to separate particularly dangerous prisoners from the general population. This emphasises the need to proceed with the new prison developments at Thornton and Kilworth as a matter of urgency, and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform hopes the Opposition parties will support our efforts in this regard.

Acting Chairman

The Minister of State should conclude.

Deputy Seán Haughey

I will do so. In the meantime, we must take action within the constraints imposed by our older prisons. The CPT quite rightly has identified that the level of violence among prisoners in our prisons has increased. There have been specific incidents in Mountjoy Prison, Limerick Prison and St. Patrick's Institution, which are a cause of serious concern. There is additional information in my script which will be of use to the Deputy. I thank him for raising this matter.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 October 2007.