Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 29 Feb 1984

Vol. 103 No. 3

Report on Penal System: Motion.

Mr. M. Higgins

I move:

That Seanad Éireann notes the MacBride Commission Report on the Penal System and calls on the Government to establish a commission to report on all aspects of crime, its sources and prevention, the treatment of offenders within the legal system, the operation of the prison system, alternatives to custodial treatment and the establishment of comprehensive schemes for rehabilitation.

I want to say how appropriate it is that this motion would be proposed by a member of the Labour Party. In so doing I have in mind the request of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions in the 1940s to the Parliament of the day that they would visit the prison in Portlaoise and the resultant publication of a report under the secretaryship of James Larkin, Junior, entitled Prisons and Prisoners. That is an appropriate commencement to what I have to say, because that visit in 1946 resulted in the establishment of the prison rules of 1947 and it has not been succeeded by visits of Members of the Oireachtas to Irish prisons.

The motion before the Seanad makes reference to the MacBride Commission. I will, before I finish, make reference to the explicit recommendation of that commission. The motion reads:

That Seanad Éireann notes that MacBride Commission Report on the Penal System and calls on the Government to establish a commission to report on all aspects of crime, its sources and prevention, the treatment of offenders within the legal system, the operation of the prison system, alternatives to custodial treatment and the establishment of comprehensive schemes for rehabilitation.

It was placed on the Order Paper by Senator Robinson, me and other colleagues in the Labour Party before the formation of the Whitaker Committee which was established to report on conditions in relation to prison administration. Let me make a preliminary remark in this regard. I hope that people who are interested in this debate will be interested in extending the question of prison administration beyond industrial relations. The press coverage of Dr. Whitaker's appointment as chairperson of the Committee to report on conditions in prisons — Mountjoy in particular — seemed to stress the industrial relations concept. I want to emphasise that the purpose of Senator Robinson, myself and others in signing this motion is to seek an investigation of all aspects of the criminal justice system. We are not interested simply in a resolution, within the criminal justice system, of a management problem that might be reduced to industrial relations.

It is very rarely that I ask the concession of the Seanad, but I for nearly 20 years have been practising as a sociologist in the area of crime and I am disappointed that the professional people who have obstructed investigation in relation to criminological matters and matters of justice are not present this evening to advise the Minister of State who is present on the serious matters I will be speaking about.

This motion in the names of all the Labour Senators appears when there is a great deal of public reaction to the problem of crime without a great deal of commitment to understanding the nature and causes of crime. That is a matter of the greatest importance, because when this debate is over we will be invited to a debate on a Criminal Justice Bill which strikes at the core of many principles that are held dear in relation to freedom, for example.

We have a reaction in which people not willing to understand the changing nature of crime in society, the nature of the crime management problem, the nature of supervision of crime and so forth, point their fingers without any objection to the criminal justice system itself. We here in both Houses of the Oireachtas are the people who at the end of the day have to answer the question as to the quality of justice that prevails. We are not governed by the Evening Herald, we are not governed by the Irish Independent and we are not governed by any external source.

I want to raise the question, do we know what the crime rate is? Do we know who is involved in crime? Do we know how the crime rate has changed between rural and urban areas? Do we know how it has changed year by year? Does the quality of our statistics tell us how it has changed between crimes against property and crimes involving life? What is the connection between unemployment and crime? What is the connection between local authority decision making in relation to the segregation of classes in local authority areas, and crime? What are the variations on sentencing policy? What in relation to the different layers of the criminal jurisdictional process are the variations involved?

We are discussing this motion after people have decided in advance — in anticipation of the value that is to be got from it in these unfortunate reactionary times — that we will reform the criminal justice system as a reaction to the problem of crime. This is one of the few places where one can speak about such matters. I believe that our attitudes on crime are based on ignorance and on reaction. I will now discuss systematically the principles of our motion.

The MacBride Commission, which was formed at the invitation of the Prisoners' Rights Organisation, has been derided by a predecessor of the Minister for Justice as being self-appointed. Why were we self-appointed? I was a member of that commission. We were appointed because the Department of Justice in Ireland, who have had responsibility for prisoners and crime since 1928, have been one of the most closed systems of investigation in all of this century. I, as an academic, would have been willing to serve on any State-induced investigation, but this was not sponsored. I ask you, Sir, to provoke in the Seanad the question as to whether anybody in this country can question the Department of Justice. I want to make economic use of my time, but there are many things that must be questioned.

This country at present is being inundated with pleas for more prisons, prison incarceration. I ask you to bear in mind what use has been made of prisons. We live in this country under an unrevised Children Act under which children can still be ordered to be whipped under force from the courts. I ask the House to address itself to the history of prisons. Prison has a strange historical location. Michael Ignatieff in his book A Just Measure of Pain. The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850 tells about

William Towens, 12 years of age; 4'5½", brown eyes, brown hair, born in Richmond, unmarried, no visible distinguishing marks, Place of Residence, 9 Botron's Place, New Richmond. Convicted at Richmond Summary Sessions, 20 December 1872, of simple larceny of two live tame rabbits. Sentence 1 month hard labour, Wandsworth Prison, Wandsworth Prisoners Register, 1872.

I would like to think that I did not have to invite people in a parliamentary assembly in Ireland to the vicissitudes of the prison system, but apparently in 1984 there are people who go around the place saying that we need more prisons and the mechanisms for sending people faster to prison. There is a literature on this subject. The most honourable of groups, The Quakers, believed in the Philadelphia system, the importance of solitary confinement where a man could make his peace with God. They believed in secluding the proved evil-possessed prisoners. They have had the courage and the tremendous integrity to say that they have revised previous views Quakers had held on the prison system. Here we are not willing to ask why we have people in prison, why we have prisons of the kind we have, what prison accomplishes. What are important to us are more prisons, speedier laws, speedier criminal processes through which people can be speeded to prison.

I must recover myself, Sir, lest people suggest that my arguments are emotional. I repeat that my experience is that I have been lecturing in this country longer than anybody on deviance, law and society and I have found our Department of Justice to be the most unreceptive group of people that I can possibly think of in relation to thinking about crime, punishment, punitive treatments and their alternatives. I will now be explicit. I note that there is nobody present in this House to answer these detailed questions. Is anybody present to answer the question about the true rate of crime? There is the true rate of crime and there is the Evening Herald rate of crime. Which do we believe should be a foundation for policy?

I want to suggest that the gathering of statistics in relation to Irish crime is primitive in every aspect. For example, the sources of statistics that are available to us through the Garda Síochána make it impossible to differentiate between the number of crimes attributable to any individual and particularly the number of crimes attributable to different socio-economic groups. There is an absence of research that cannot be sustained. Different people have asked that we have access, for example, to the prison process, to the whole experience of prison.

There is not in existence a study, other than novelistic accounts of the experience of prison. I thought seriously about this and I considered whether I should, for example, after nearly 20 years, invite the Seanad to consider statistics in detail. I ended up with a decision of my own that I would speak about incarceration. We have had a disgraceful drawing of a curtain over a period of institutionalisation. When I was a member of the MacBride Commission evidence was admitted to me of a boy of the age of seven sentenced to Clonmel. He said:

When I was seven I was sent to Clonmel school by Justice Kennedy. I was in it for nine years. The brothers and priests were very nice to me on my first day. A few months went by and things began to get rough. At that time I had a habit of wetting the bed. Myself and a few lads were told if we wet the bed we would be put into girls dresses. It happened that myself and my brother and a few of the lads wet the bed and were put into dresses and told to go to school in them. We had no choice or else we would get slapped with a leather strap. This kept going on for a while and we couldn't stop wetting the bed so they started putting us to bed at 6 o'clock in the evening as well as being slapped. We got no pocket money at the end of the week.

I mention this evidence because I believe it is a function of people like myself to speak on behalf of all of those people who have been incarcerated. I raised a whole series of questions as to what we are about in the Department of Justice. I feel very angry that the Minister for Justice is not here to reply to questions that I asked many years ago to which I did not receive very satisfactory replies. One asked what procedures are afoot to amend the gathering of statistics to know what the true crime rate is so that the people who are interested in the operation of the criminal justice system will be even able to observe the criminal statistics.

I would remind this House that we are not speaking of expenditure. We will in this year spend £300 million on the operation of the Department of Justice. I ask this House, particularly Members opposite, to consider that unexamined the crime rate, unexamined the social and economic background to it, unexamined the connection between the youth unemployment rate and the crime rate, the other House have waved on the Criminal Justice Bill.

Do you realise, Sir, what this means? Unwilling to ask the nature of the causes of crime, unwilling to pose the question about the operation of the criminal justice system, this House is likely in a few months to be asked to vote for a new Bill which will acknowledge all the faults of the system that we have refused to acknowledge. This is a monstrous abdication of responsibility.

There are different elements in our motion. I want to dispose of a few of them in the time that is left to me. I was a member of the MacBride Commission. We succinctly summarised our report. We said that it was regrettable that a Department of Justice who are not represented here this evening——

Professor Dooge

I want to rise on a point of order. Firstly, I remind the Senator that it is out of order to refer either to the absence or the presence of anyone in this House. If necessary, I can explain that the Minister for Justice is engaged in another place dealing also with the question of a Private Members' Motion. The Minister is prepared to take part in this debate at a later stage. He is not ignoring the motion and he is not ignoring what is being said.

Mr. M. Higgins

I am very grateful to the Leader of the House. I presume, Acting Chairman, that you will not deduct that time from the time remaining to me.

Professor Dooge

And the Senator will not have to repeat what he has said already.

Acting Chairman (Séamus de Brún)

Continue and keep to the subject of the motion.

Mr. M. Higgins

I am very much on the subject. I have repeated it more than once to different Ministers, I can assure you. We need information on the true crime rate. There is very clear evidence that the real crime rate is not what the media portray it to be. This means that the media are operating on a principle of fear. The principle of fear seeds in turn a political reaction which is perceived by people who want to justify reactions that would not otherwise be sustainable as reforms of the criminal justice system. I repeat my demand for evidence of what the true crime rate is as between urban and rural areas, socio-economic classes and so forth.

I want to raise the question of the operation of the legal system. In any democracy one must ask what chances one has before the law. I must, as a practising sociologist, ask the Leader of the Seanad if, as a member of the university community, he would state where the studies of the experience of the poorer sections of the community within the legal system have been carried out. The answer is that they hardly exist and the reason is that the Irish Department of Justice is one of the most obstructive in Europe. I said this in the other House and I repeat it in this House. After 20 years asking for answers, can we not have some more forthcoming gestures from them? I will go on from that. I must be specific about these matters. What information have we on sentencing policy? The answer is scarcely none, because people imagine that sentencing is almost above scrutiny.

I have very little time available to me but I want to answer a question that will be raised, in advance. No doubt there will be those who will say that in approaching the problem of crime you have a choice between the soft liberals who believe that environment is everything and those who believe: will the little 90 year old woman with the handbag from whom three shillings and fourpence was robbed be the defining characteristic? I want to give the lie to this. There are those of us in the institutions who have wanted research for 20 years, who were within days of establishing an institute for criminological research, who were obstructed by the Department of Justice. There is left hanging over this debate questions like this: what is the true crime rate? What are the differences between the crime rate in urban and rural areas? What are the different experiences between alternatives within the prison system? What are the experiences of people in court? May I end by saying the best and most practical example is to put yourself in the position of a new person involved in the crime statistics? We have had adult crime statistics and we have had juvenile crime statistics. But everybody knows that the youth unemployment figures will and do affect the crime rate. What procedures, what institutions, what mechanisms exist even what statistical mechanisms exist to handle the young adult crime statistic?

Acting Chairman

The Senator has two minutes left.

Mr. M. Higgins

I put it like this — in one minute — we have chosen not to know about crime and we have indulged in prejudices. We have no mechanisms for handling the contribution of the new expanding youth unemployment statistics to the crime rate. I have one minute left to speak about the degradation of imprisonment. May I say, Sir, I have spent two decades studying prisons? I have been interested to know what people have hung on to in the prison system. It was a visit by the Labour Party in 1946 that produced a change in the prison regulations for the prison regulations of 1947. But there is something in the concept of prison that everybody concerned in this debate appears to be missing, that is the justification of prison. In this country in the last century we did not have prisons for the first half: we mutilated people; we exported people to the different new colonial countries and Tasmania. And when we had prisons we never asked the question: why do we want prisons? I believe that prisons are a degradation of humanity. There is available to commentators in Ireland that they have ignored the position about prisons, that you remove somebody away from their normal conditions of privacy.

Acting Chairman

Senator, I must tell you that your time is up.

Mr. M. Higgins

I will finish this——

Acting Chairman

I must tell you that your time is up. You have gone half a minute over your time.

Professor Dooge

I would ask the Chair to allow for my interventions.

Acting Chairman

All right.

Mr. M. Higgins

I believe we have not come to terms with the concept of imprisonment. I want to invite the thoughts of Members of the Seanad to the process of the potting out in the morning. Most prison systems have insisted on this, that one remove the pot into which one's urine had been excreted, that one parade with it. This is not something we should brush aside. It has been regarded as central in the prison system. Do we want to hang on to this?

I end by making this suggestion — the evolution of the prison system is coincidental with the industrial system. When the consort of the monarch and the different industrialists came and celebrated the opening of Pentonville and said a hallelujah because of the way you could order so many bodies in space and time, my argument is this: here we are in 1984; how shabby we are, no options beyond prison; they are not in practice; members of the Department of Justice not very interested even in being in attendance. My view is this: failure in detection, failure in the management of crime, failure in any philosophy of contention. What then do we turn to? — towards addressing the very basis of the criminal justice system itself.

Acting Chairman

I have been more than generous with the Senator, would he now please conclude?

Mr. M. Higgins

You have, Sir. I will say in my concluding sentence — it is more than time, in the spirit of this motion, that we looked at the causes of crime, the context of crime, the response to crime before we destroy the basis of the criminal justice system itself.

Mrs. Robinson

I have great pleasure in seconding this motion because it enables me to join with my colleague, Senator M. Higgins, in drawing the attention of the House to the importance of the subject we are debating. It is one of the most important social areas, it is one of the most compelling areas, because, in this particular area, we as a community deprive others of their freedom and also because it concerns the protection of sections of the community. Therefore, it is an extremely important area.

The main thrust of the Labour Party motion which was tabled was to invite the Seanad to look at the subject broadly. That has been the theme that has run through the speech of the proposer of the motion. We invite Members to look in a broad context at the whole area, not just of penal law or prison reform, but of the criminal justice system and of the context of crime itself. I share with Senator M. Higgins a conviction that we are sadly lacking in proper priorities in this area, in empirical research, in sheer knowledge of the whole area we are examining. As a result, there has not been a proper monitoring of or attention paid to this area. Therefore we must welcome an opportunity in this House to look at it within the time limits of a motion in the Seanad and within the very limited contribution that any individual can make.

The motion refers to the report of the MacBride Commission which was compiled in 1980, published in paperback in 1982 and which hopefully Members of the Seanad have an opportunity of examining. It was a voluntary effort because, at the time, there was no desire at the official level to look into this area. There was no political will to divert public resources into carrying out this examination. So it was voluntary and, if the term is to be used let it be used, self-appointed. What is wrong with voluntary, self-appointed interest in a most vital area of the social framework of our society?

The motion notes the recommendations of that report and calls for a very broad examination, calls on the Government to establish a commission to report on all aspects of crime, its sources and prevention, treatment of offenders within the legal system, the operation of the prison system, alternative custodial treatment and the establishment of comprehensive schemes for rehabilitation. Since that motion was tabled, many months ago now, there has been a step taken. In its way it is a welcome step because it is the first step of this kind that has taken place — the establishment of the Government inquiry to be chaired by Dr. Whitaker, a very distinguished former Member of this House.

I am concerned — and Senator M. Higgins has already expressed his concern — about what we read to be the terms of reference and the scope of this inquiry. Obviously one important benefit of having this debate is to invite the Minister, in making his contribution and responding to the debate, to give the House further details of what he envisages to be the scope of the inquiry. The terms of reference were published in the newspapers on 1 February this year, the decision to establish the inquiry having been announced on 31 January, 1984. The terms of reference are as follows:

To examine the law in regard to imprisonment and related areas with a view to establishing whether (1) a reduction in the number of persons being committed and (2) a shortening of the periods of committal generally and /or the period served can be achieved.

To evaluate the adequacy in capacity and range of the existing accommodation for prisoners, particularly for female prisoners and juvenile detainees and the planned additions and improvements to it.

To examine all aspects of the regimes observed in the institutions and the facilities available to prisoners and detainees on their release from custody.

To consider (a) the number and deployment of prison officer staff; (b) the management structure relating to the operation of the institutions; (c) the recruitment and training of Prison Service staff; (d) Staff Management relations in the prison system; (e) to make recommendations.

The Committee should have regard in particular to the increase in the number of persons being committed to the prisons and places of detention and to the escalating costs of providing and maintaining those institutions.

As I read those terms of reference, they seem to me to be a kind of cost-effective study, on industrial relations exercise. How do we, simply by looking at it in a very myopic limited way, ascertain if we can cut down the cost? Indeed the thrust of what the Minister appears to have said in the press statement when the terms of reference of this inquiry were published is very much related to the cost. He points out — and it is very significant — that the average cost of keeping any person in custody is £443 per day. That would be per day of a 365-day year; that would be how that average would be worked out. That is an enormous cost to the taxpayer and to the community. That is certainly worth paying attention to.

Apart from the burden, in money terms, of spending £443 per day to keep a person in custody, I am convinced, Senator M. Higgins is convinced and the proposers of this motion are convinced that we keep too many people in custody, that we unnecessarily deprive people of their liberty at £443 per day. That is not to say that we are not prepared to look at the nature of crime, the extent of crime, the control of crime and the protection of vulnerable sections of our society. That is a related but different part of the problem. What we are concerned about is to ensure that the way in which the problem is approached by society is a properly balanced and appropriate way of coping with a problem.

One of the reasons the present system is so unsatisfactory is that, as a society, we have not looked at the problem, we have not carried out the proper evaluation from which to draw the conclusions which would lead to a proper approach to the system. But we do know — and it is worth putting it on record — that the problem manifests itself very seriously. Again I will use the Minister's own figures in his description of the scope of the problem. In the press coverage of what the Minister said in announcing the inquiry, he recalled that in 1970, there were 264 prison officers looking after an average of 749 prisoners, whereas in 1983, there were 1,560 prison officers looking after an average 1,418 prisoners, that is 1,418 prisoners at a cost, per person in custody, of £443 per day. Therefore the overall cost of the prison system went up from £4.37 million in 1973 to £46 million in 1984. It jumped by that quantum leap from £4.37 million to £46 million in just over a decade. That is something we must look at. We are not getting value for our money. We may be paying a great deal of money but, it is not the right kind of expenditure and is not for proper social reasons. But it is a very significant expenditure.

When the annual prison population figures were published by the Department for 1982 there was an accompanying statement pointing out that the prison population had risen by 17 per cent in 1983 over the 1982 figures. Therefore, we have a problem of a rise in our prison population, of those in custodial care. We have also got increasing evidence of overcrowding which is leading to the necessity for releases from jails. The person I am quoting on this is the Minister for Justice, Mr. Noonan, from a report in The Irish Times, 5 May 1983 when he referred to the fact that jails in the Republic are now so full that 1,200 prisoners had to be released in the previous year without completing their sentences, solely to make room for offenders convicted of more serious crimes, that sometimes they had to be released within days of being sentenced to prison. So the system is working very badly. It is not an efficient system, it is a very costly system, and, we will attempt to explain, it is a system which has evolved without any proper evaluation.

I would like to refer to the approach suggested in a paper delivered to a social study conference in Galway in 1980 at which there were a number of papers on the subject of the offender and the community, another example of voluntary study and examination of this area in the absence of any official-based or official-backed examination and study of it. The papers presented at that Galway conference have since been published under the title "The Offender and the Community." Certainly I would suggest to any Senators who have a particular interest in this area that those papers are very well worth studying.

I should like to refer to and indeed adopt the approach suggested by Professor C. Kevin Boyle of the Law Faculty of University College, Galway of how we should approach crime and devise a criminal justice system and a custodial system, where necessary, and other ways of combating the social problem of crime. To begin with, we must look at the problem properly. He makes a very good point in opening which I would like to refer to. He says on page 13 under the heading "The Legal Framework of Penal Practice and Policy" of this publication and I quote:

Discussions about crime, like discussions about most subjects, tend, first of all, to reflect the standpoint of the speakers taking part. Crime touches to a greater or lesser degree the whole community, and it is not surprising that there should be many different responses to it. But the separate perspectives that are to be found on how to explain crime and how to deal with it often fail to allow any overall approach to emerge.

We need to develop a more integrated perspective on the subject of crime as a whole. The atomising of practice, research and experience, particularly among the agencies responding to crime, has led to incoherence over objectives and a failure to consider at a more inclusive level how adequate and how acceptable is our approach to crime.

Acting Chairman

I must remind the Senator she has two minutes left.

Mrs. Robinson

Professor Boyle then goes on, in his paper, to show that lawyers look at crime from one sort of perspective — the prosecution of crime, what happens before a court, what happens if the offender pleads guilty or what happens if there is an actual trial. They are not concerned about what happens afterwards. Nor are judges particularly concerned about what happens afterwards whereas the prison service are only concerned about what happens when the person lands on their door and so on.

Professor C. Kevin Boyle is critical of our system. I share his criticism. He is critical to a very substantial degree. For example on page 18 of that publication he says:

The penal system and the criminal justice system in the Republic of Ireland can best be likened to a legal museum in which the Victorian room is the largest and most prominent. What would the Irish revolutionaries who suffered the ignominy of penal servitude in English prisons think of the fact that 60 years on, in an independent Irish state, we still retain that concept and impose it on our courts? Our laws are archaic and full of anomalies. They are intelligible, if at all, only to lawyers. In a democracy, law, and particularly the criminal law, should be comprehensible to the ordinary citizen. We fail on that test of democracy. We have achieved very little by way of localising our law and instead continue to work through outdated codes and concepts long discarded in the country where they originated, Britain.

Acting Chairman

The Senator's time is up.

Mrs. Robinson

I was only starting, but if you insist.

Acting Chairman

I can well understand that.

Mr. Lynch

I support this motion, certainly in principle. I should like to speak in support of many of the things Senator M. Higgins said. Indeed he made a very inspired contribution. Senator Robinson put forward many very valid points in her seconding of this motion which certainly need to be looked into. I hope we have advanced somewhat from the Charles Dickens era to which Senator M. Higgins referred when he quoted passages concerning the treatment of prisoners. I agree that a lot——

Mr. M. Higgins

On a point of order, may I say that one of the points to which the Minister can respond is, for example, whether the whipping of children is illegal in Ireland today or not.

Acting Chairman

Senator Lynch to continue, without interruption, please.

Mr. Lynch

I certainly hope that the whipping of children, in prison or anywhere else, would be illegal and morally wrong.

This is a very broad motion, calling on the Government to establish a commission to report on all aspects of crime. Crime in itself is the major problem, leading to the problems we encounter in prisons. These are difficult problems for this or any Government, any system, any police force or army to cope with. If we were to examine the alternatives to custodial treatment and the establishment of schemes for rehabilitation that would certainly take more than 15 minutes, under the terms of the motion as it stands. Nevertheless we should all welcome the opportunity to voice our opinions and perhaps put forward suggestions as to what can be done.

Unlike Senator M. Higgins I am not sufficiently familiar with the MacBride Commission Report on this penal system but I see many dark, many grey areas we should examine. We must look at the reason for crime. We all know the old adage: prevention is better than cure. We must face the fact that we have major problems in this country. They are interrelated with the crime problems obtaining today. I firmly believe that the system we have with regard to crime prevention must be examined, it must get a new injection of life and be geared towards a different area than that at which it is at present geared. Youth unemployment, social deprivation, these are the causes of the crime problems obtaining in the country today. Not alone is there youth unemployment but there is also adult unemployment. We must ask ourselves: what value are we getting for the expenditure of £300 million by the Department of Justice?

Mr. M. Higgins

One-third of the Department of Education's Estimate.

Mr. Lynch

We must examine the role we give the Garda. For instance, is it right that the Garda must check dog licences, car taxes, the local publican to ensure that he closes his premises at a specified time while, at the same time, having no authority to walk into private clubs where people can enjoy various luxuries until all hours of the morning? It must be remembered that at the same time in many urban areas, indeed in many rural isolated areas, vandals and thugs are robbing and plundering old people, indeed, in some cases, even murdering them.

I am sure everyone will agree with me that our legal system is a very fair one, that we live in a great democratic society. Yet I firmly believe it is tied up to such a degree that it is very hard to move it, and, when it does move, it does so very slowly. That is one very grey area that warrants examination. It is one area that could certainly become more cost-effective.

I am sure many Senators will have many things to say with regard to the alternatives to custodial treatment. Many people have suggested that people convicted of serious crime should be rehabilitated through remedial environmental work and so on. As we are aware the prison system has been under stress recently through overcrowding, with conditions which some people say have improved tremendously but which others contend warrant much improvement.

I cannot but observe how the crime rate has grown in this country since I was a young boy, when times were tough and people had to work for a living, when the social services were almost nil. The most important thing in rural Ireland where I was reared, and I am sure this applied also to the urban areas, was to ensure that one had enough to eat, and could clothe oneself but to my knowledge the crime rate was very low. The prison system then was definitely worse than it is now but the crime rate was very, very low. Any major crime at that period would be talked about for weeks, months and perhaps years.

Mr. M. Higgins

This is not so. The crime rate in rural Roscommon in the 19th century was greater than the whole of Dublin for any four years the Senator may take.

Acting Chairman

The Senator to continue without interruption.

Mr. Lynch

I am speaking of my experience in the area I lived in; we had to go out and work as young boys ——

Mr. M. Higgins

They shot and maimed cattle and destroyed each other.

Mr. Lynch

We had to ensure we had enough money to provide food for the family. At that time we had a much better attitude towards life and we had a better family unit. By and large this country has been the victim of outside influence through the medium of television and what have you.

Mr. M. Higgins

Shooting each other's cattle and destroying each other. The Senator is speaking nostalgic rubbish.

Acting Chairman (Mr. J. Higgins)

I ask the Senator to allow Senator Lynch to continue without interruption.

Mr. Lynch

Senator Higgins has said shooting each other's cattle, but on television we see the shooting of human beings. We look at Border security and what it is costing this nation today to secure a border that we did not put there. It is costing £100 million per annum. This money could be well spent if we could redeploy our forces, our Garda and Army to look after the decent citizens of this country. In the ensuing debate many other points will be raised but these are my observations on this motion. I hope we will be able to come up with many well-founded suggestions before the debate is concluded.

Mr. O'Leary

I welcome this opportunity to express a viewpoint on this most important motion which is put down in the names of the members of the Labour Party. It seeks to encourage the Government to establish a commission to report on a number of things which I will deal with later, and also suggests that Seanad Éireann should take note of the MacBride Commission Report on the penal system.

First and foremost, I think the groundwork has been properly laid by the proposer of the motion, indicating the nature of the MacBride Commission and the nature of the conclusions which they drew. It is appropriate that Seanad Éireann should consider the problems associated with crime and the resources of crime and its prevention. It is a little too glib to suggest that crime is in some way automatically associated with the political troubles in Ireland or that all our problems are associated with political violence. There is what appears to be quite independently of that growing up a point of view and an ethos in society which is indicative of a view that the rules within society do not need to be kept. There does not seem to be much evidence so far that imprisoning people encourages them not to commit the crime in the first place or encourages them not to repeat that crime.

I do not think we should underestimate the fact that irrespective of how enlightened our system is or irrespective of whether or not we put people to prison, in the long run as long as people have freedom of action and have the freedom which is associated with a democratic society there will be some people who will either throughout their lives or at some time during their lives make the choice that obeying the rules of society is not attractive to them at that time. Therefore, no matter how enlightened our system is, we are not going to do away with crime or the necessity for considering the way in which those who offend against the law of the land should be dealt with. Ultimately every person is faced every day and every week of their lives with the decision that they will obey the law or they will not. While the social conditions which we create may encourage people to obey the law, they certainly cannot guarantee that, and there will always be crime. Therefore, we must recognise the need for a system of dealing with that crime.

The motion calls for an examination by a commission of the sources and prevention of crime and that is appropriate. With regard to the recently announced inquiry into the prison service, it is also appropriate at this time to consider whether it has a part to play in this or whether the terms of reference could be expanded to include and to move along towards this objective which I think most of us would share.

Mr. M. Higgins

And not to be confined to industrial relations.

Mr. O'Leary

I think that is a very important point. The terms of reference which the Government have laid out — I am indebted to my colleague, Senator Robinson, for having made it available to me — appear to be restricted. They suggest certain areas should be examined and, it is right that they should be examined. No serious objection could be made to the decision to have these areas examined, but this commission, or some other commission, should expand the consideration to include a much more fundamental examination of the method by which offenders should be treated whether inside or outside prisons.

The Government have asked the inquiry to examine the law in relation to imprisonment with a view to establishing whether a reduction in the number of people being committed and a shortening of the periods of committal generally and of the periods served can be achieved. It is that area of the terms of reference which can be expanded by the commission itself on the suggestion of the Government to include a fundamental examination of the use of prisons and punishment such as imprisonment in our penal system. That is capable of expansion without any formal change in the terms of reference but I think some indication from the Minister along those lines would be helpful. It then carries on to talk about the adequacy of capacity and means of existing accommodation. That really is almost a mechanical thing and I do not think it is worthy of a commission headed by such a distinguished man that the consideration of these matters should be restricted to the mere capacity to contain people.

Mr. M. Higgins

Except that most comments have been that more prisons are the reaction to more crime, which is an unsustainable suggestion.

Mr. O'Leary

I am aware of Senator Higgins' view in that regard, and it is a view I share. I look forward to the opportunity of working with him along those lines in due course. In so far as these terms of reference are concerned, it appears to me that in this portion the terms of reference are very narrowly defined. I do not think it is worthy of the general terms of reference which are outlined in the first part, which I have already mentioned.

It also seeks to examine all aspects of the régime observed in the institutions and the facilities available to prisoners and detainees on their release from custody. I think that particular paragraph is well capable of being expanded to include the most fundamental reassesment of the prison régime and the way in which prisoners are rehabilitated or, alternatively, are not rehabilitated by their stay in prison. That, again, is a very positive and helpful aspect of the terms of reference, and I think we should encourage the Minister to encourage those who are involved in this inquiry to spend a long time on that section.

The next portion is to examine the number and redeployment of prison officers. That has more in common with the second portion, which really deals only with the mechanical organisation of the prison and, as such, is not worthy of a commission headed by such a distinguished man. No doubt it could be examined, but the other matters are more fundamental and more important. Therefore, what is requested in this motion, the seeds of the examination which is requested in this motion, are contained in the terms of reference which the Minister has recently given to this inquiry. I hope that the Minister in responding would consider for our information how these terms of reference face into the very desirable objective set out in the motion which is before us.

I would like to mention a few things which struck me on the MacBride Commission Report, which I read in full, but unfortunately we do not have the opportunity of reading it in full here and reading it into the record tonight. One aspect was central to the whole discussion and the whole case, and that is contained in chapter 4 which deals with alternatives to Prisons and the Rehabilitation of Prisoners. In that chapter is summarised what is necessary for the rehabilitation of prisoners in the view of the people involved there, and I think, while not obviously restricting itself to those particular headings, any examination of the penal system must consider the various points mentioned within Chapter 4 of that report and, in particular, the four categories contained in the heading under Main Conditions of Rehabilitation on page 73 of that report.

That is the kernel of the matter. It talks about continuous social and personal contact with family and friends in so far as it is possible to reduce the social isolation of the prisoner while in prison. Here we have to examine why a person is in prison. It does not make much sense to put a person into prison as a punishment and in addition to putting him into a prison as a punishment to inflict a further punishment on him while he is in prison. Cutting a person off from social contact is giving him two forms of punishment; one is the punishment of being there in the first place, and the second is the punishment of losing contact with his niche in society.

Mrs. Robinson

Would the Senator allow a point of order or a point raised in relation to what he is saying, because we passed in July last a Bill that took another alternative approach to that, the Criminal Justice Community Service Act, and this is not being brought in?

Mr. M. Higgins

It needs a ministerial order.

Mrs. Robinson

Perhaps the Minister could deal with the reason it has taken so long for that Act which was passed last July to get off the ground.

Mr. O'Leary

Given the full opportunity of developing this I would go on from an examination of the condition of those who are detained within the prison system.

Acting Chairman

The Senator has three minutes left.

Mr. O'Leary

Is that before or after the interruptions? I would hate to be lying on the floor after having been knocked out in the boxing ring and you counting ten seconds. Yes, I am on injury time, I understand.

If I had the opportunity of developing it I would go along from the examination purely of the penal system itself to the examination of the point raised by Senator Robinson, that there are alternative systems which certainly cannot be exclusively used but can be implemented. That is very important, and certainly an explanation by the Minister in that regard would be most helpful. The social and personal contact is very important and it is brought out in this report.

Mr. M. Higgins

And the justification for prison?

Mr. O'Leary

That is even more fundamental, but I am assuming for the moment at this point of my discussion that there is some justification in some cases and at some time for prison. There is also the examination of living conditions which is reasonable. Unless people are living in reasonable conditions there will be a reaction that will be both negative in terms of the organisation of the system itself and in terms of the rehabilitation of the offender.

In the first category comes the very important point of the consideration which should be given to the sexual needs of married/unmarried people in prison. That is an area of great sensitivity and an area in which a further important examination should be made in the Irish context. I think people who are separated from their family and spouses for a long period of time are entitled to expect that the ordinary social contact should have added to it the contact which is exclusive and peculiar to the status of matrimony.

Mr. M. Higgins

On a point of information, there is a letter in the appendix to the report which is quoting the Minister for Justice of the day which denies the representativeness of the people who were the authors of the report, and in the reply the Minister should advert to that fact.

Mr. O'Leary

I appreciate that I have only three minutes and five seconds left and the difficulty of the Chair in that regard, but I think these are some of the points which need to be considered, not only by the Seanad this evening and in the Adjournment debate, whenever that might be, but also to be considered by the Minister in his contribution to the debate. They should also be considered in the wider context by whatever commission or inquiry the Government should give the task of examining both the matters contained in the inquiry they have set up and also the expanded and improved terms which could be read into or added to those by the incorporation of at least some of these items contained in the excellent motion which is before us this evening.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I am in total agreement with the motion. However, I feel that we will have more time to go into those aspects in greater depth when the Criminal Justice Bill comes before this House.

Mr. M. Higgins

Except that that Bill is a reaction, as I have suggested, and I refuse to be disciplined in this regard.

Acting Chairman

The Senator is well aware that interruptions are not allowed.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I am not disciplining anybody or reflecting on anybody. I simply want to say that I believe that on this motion we are restricted as regards time and I do not think there is any possibility of going into any of these problems in any great depth. We will have that opportunity when the Criminal Justice Bill comes before this House.

Senator Higgins stated in his eloquent contribution that what we needed was an investigation into all aspects of the criminal justice system, and this possibility will be given to us when we get an opportunity of discussing the Criminal Justice Bill.

I will quote from page nine of "Crime and Punishment" which was edited by Seán MacBride where he states:

Neither the moral decadence of the age nor the climate of violence in which we live could excuse our failure to scrutinise the effectiveness or otherwise of our existing penal system. Leaving aside questions of Christian morality relating to justice and charity, there are many practical reasons which necessitate an objective review of our penal system. Our prison population, standing at 1,200 prisoners with another 1,600 persons on probation, represents a 200 per cent increase in our prison population since 1960. In 1970-1971 we spent £603,028 on our prison system. In 1979 we spent £13,125,906 on our prison system excluding the Curragh prison and Loughan House. This represents an increase of some 600 per cent. We are planning to spend between £10 and £20 million on building additional prisons.

Is this vast expenditure serving any useful purpose or is it merely perpetuating a system which breeds recidivism? In 1978 out of a total expenditure of £9,489,948 on our prison system only £35,819 was spent on prison educational services. Does this represent an acceptable level of educational endeavour necessary for the integration into society of the most educationally deprived segment of our population?

I believe education is most important and as I said in the House before, adult education is very important. The vocational education system is providing a very good service in the area of adult education. In County Meath, where I am familiar with the system and the progress that is being made, much is being done in this area. Members of the travelling community can attend adult education classes free of charge; unemployed people can attend the adult education classes at a nominal fee and this is done in a way that is not degrading as far as those people are concerned. To make the adult education system work better more finance must be made available.

It is impossible to make greater progress without more finance, because while within the system it is possible to provide these services it can only be done at the expense of something else. While I want to pay tribute to adult education — particularly the adult educational officer in County Meath, Jim Marsden, for the work he has done in his marvellous report on providing employment for the unemployed — I think that without more finance not much more can be done. I strongly recommend that, if possible, more finance should be given in this area.

As I said before, two of the greatest problems with which we have to deal are unemployment and housing and, as I also stated before, and I will not go into it again, I believe that by marrying the two problems together in a large measure we would solve both. More time should be spent examining this possibility on the lines that I suggested. I am devoting more time to examination of this problem and to making more suggestions myself.

With regard to unemployment, statistics mean very little. When we talk or speak of 200,000 unemployed I do not think it registers in the way it would if we walk into a house and see two or three young men unemployed.

Mrs. Robinson

Or women.

Mr. Fitzsimons

I was going to refer to women. I have gone into houses and seen young men walking around unshaved and unwashed with nothing to work for and nothing to look forward to. I have seen young girls who are unemployed also, and it is a sorry situation. This picture strikes at our heart more than reading about the large number unemployed. It is a tragedy, and something will have to be done about it very soon.

With regard to housing, we also have a major problem. In my capacity as a councillor people come to me asking me to do something about getting housing for them from the county council or the urban district council. While on many occasions I say that there is nothing I can do, often, I do not have the heart to say that. This is especially so in cases where a mother comes pleading for her son who is married and has one or two children. Unemployment and housing will have to be dealt with very quickly.

Of course, as Senator Higgins said, the prison systems are a degradation. Again, in statistical form they do not strike us as much as when we are dealing with some of these people on a personal basis. I had occasion to preside as a peace commissioner at a court where I had to sign a form committing a young man to prison. I told him that I had no alternative but to do my duty, and he understood. But we came out on the landing and he met his wife and children and his little girl threw her arms around his neck and said "Daddy, don't leave me" and my heart bled for that man, that child and that family, and it still bleeds. I certainly do not believe that prisons are the answer, particularly for young people. There are so many young people released from prison after a short period of time not because of the system but because there is no accommodation for them in the prisons. While I have the greatest sympathy for all of these people, I also want to look at the other end where, for example, in County Meath we have had robberies in a number of towns. In Athboy the local people had to form a group to patrol the town at night and if they saw anything suspicious they reported the matter to the Garda. They are not vigilantes but they found it necessary to do this to protect their property.

In Kells we have many robberies. We had a robbery in one shop and the people were apprehended and neighbours were telling them to get away but they stayed and they filled their van with clothing. They got away, but luckily they were apprehended before they got to Dublin. We have the same problem in Athy where people who were spotted persisted in completing the robbery and getting away with the spoils.

I have the greatest compassion and understanding and patience for those people, and this is necessary as well as material help. I remember on one occasion hearing an elderly man speaking about young miscreants and saying that they should be whipped to within an inch of their lives, but somebody else in the company said that is very well until they happen to be your own children. This is the way we all should look at the problem. It is hard to understand why in this Christian country where the driving force in Christian doctrine is the mystical body of Christ, we do not do more for those people. We are taught, but we do not put into practice, that we should see the person of Our Saviour in each individual we meet, whoever that person may be. I recall from my schooldays verses from the poem "She is somebody's mother, boys, you know, although she is feeble, old and slow". I think the same applies to young people, they are somebody's sons or somebody's daughters. They all have somebody who cares for them or cares for them at some time. Every human being is entitled to a minimum standard of human comfort and dignity, not simply as a charity but as a basic right.

I will conclude by saying that in human terms no one is hopeless. I strongly support the motion and look forward to dealing with all the different aspects in detail when the Criminal Justice Bill will come before us.

Debate adjourned.