I am delighted to take this opportunity to highlight the achievement of the Government in developing a prison service of which we can all be proud, in terms of the prison building refurbishment programme, a major achievement in its own right, and the significant advances that continue to be made in developing rehabilitation programmes generally.
Since 1997 I have presided over an unprecedented investment in our prison infrastructure. Already additional custodial accommodation has been provided at the Midlands Prison, 515 spaces, Cloverhill Remand Prison, 400 spaces, Dóchas Centre, 80 spaces, Castlerea Prison, 152 spaces, and Limerick Prison D Wing, 60 spaces. In all more than 1,200 additional prison spaces have been provided with a further 700 closed spaces on the way.
The new female prison at Mountjoy, the Dóchas Centre, which I opened in October last year, is an example of the necessary accommodation that has been provided. It is one of the most advanced institutions of its kind in the world. The prison has accommodation for 80 women and offenders are accommodated in seven separate houses with mainly single rooms. There are a limited number of interconnecting rooms for family members and larger rooms for mothers with babies. Each room has a toilet, washbasin and shower installed in an en-suite unit. Each house has a kitchen cum dining area and sitting room. A comprehensive range of support and facilities is provided for the women, including education, life skills, computer skills, physical education, medical services, counselling, a library, a chaplaincy, indoor and outdoor recreation and a training workshop. The general layout of the facility is spacious and open.
A visitors' waiting area has been provided at Mountjoy Prison which caters for the whole complex. It includes a children's play area and means of providing light refreshments for prison visitors. I am also pleased to confirm that I am planning another similar facility on a smaller scale for prisoners' families in Limerick.
New accommodation such as we have provided recently will also enable the Prisons Service to commence much needed work on the upgrading and modernisation of some of our older institutions. I am particularly pleased to have approved the commencement of detailed planning for the complete refurbishment of Mountjoy Prison, where a major overhaul is long overdue. It is intended to commence work on the site next year. Is it the provision of accommodation such as this that the counter-proposers find objectionable or short-sighted or would they prefer us to have the Victorian conditions in which our offenders were formerly housed?
Our investment will ensure that the scandal of the revolving door, with which we lived for so long, will have been brought to a halt for good. Already the number of prisoners on temporary release has fallen from 463 in 1997 compared to just more than 200 at present. Quite recently the governor of Cork Prison informed me that on a comparable day two years ago 125 people were on temporary release or early release from Cork prison, most of them on release on the sole criterion that there was an insufficiency of space. On the same Friday in November 2000, there were just 13 on early release from Cork Prison and all of them were on structured, planned releases. That gives Members an indication of what has happened in our prison service and the transformation that has come about under this Administration.
Almost all prisoners on early release at present are on structured programmes, in many cases under the direct supervision of the probation and welfare service. Those not on structured programmes have been temporarily released for valid compassionate reasons, ill health or family related circumstances. For the first time in 25 years, we are reaching the stage where we can accommodate all those sentenced by the courts for the full duration of their sentences. The impact of the elimination of unplanned temporary releases on the level of indictable crime is not only clear but irrefutable.
Aside from ending unplanned releases of offenders, other considerable benefits and oppor tunities arise from our prison building programme, benefits which are all too frequently overlooked. We are not only bringing to an end the chronic overcrowding which bedevilled our prisons for so many years, we are also in a position to create the conditions in which prisoner rehabilitation, through a coherent process of sentence planning, can take place. Our investment programme, therefore, goes well beyond physical infrastructure to include investment in programmes and activities for persons sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
Such programmes are almost impossible to deliver in overcrowded conditions. Thanks to the investment by the Government, however, the Prisons Service is now in a position to fulfil one of its prime objectives in developing and maintaining an enhanced range of rehabilitative measures that will be made available to all prisoners. In the revolving door period, which peaked under my predecessor in office, prison staff found it almost impossible to motivate prisoners whose only focus was to get temporary release. Equally, participation rates in prisoner education were much lower than they needed to have been. That has all changed in the short period of three years.
Earlier this year a steering group was established at my instigation to put in place multidisciplinary prisoner programmes. This group, chaired by a senior prison governor, comprises representatives from the Department, senior Prisons Service management, the Probation and Welfare Service, the psychology service, the prisons education service and the Prison Officers Association. Its first task will be to oversee the development of a new rehabilitative programme for sex offenders. Given that we have almost 400 sex offenders serving prison sentences at present, or one in seven of the prisoner population, enhancing treatment programmes for sex offenders in prisons is a priority of the Prisons Service and its director general, Mr. Sean Aylward.
The structured, offence focused, therapeutic programme for sex offenders, introduced in Arbour Hill Prison in 1994, has been operating successfully since then. Furthermore, generic therapeutic and counselling services for sex offenders have been put in place in the Curragh Prison during the past year and a dedicated, sex offender programme is due to start there shortly. The thinking skills course has been running in Arbour Hill and Cork prisons since 1998 and has recently been introduced in the Curragh Prison. It is designed to target a range of offenders, including sex offenders, particularly with a view to motivating the latter group to engage in the most intensive programmes. The course is run by multidisciplinary teams, including prison officers, probation and welfare staff and teaching staff under the guidance of my Department's psychology service. The success of this course augurs well for the use of multidisciplinary teams to deliver rehabilitative programmes for sex offenders.
An important future development in relation to targeted services for imprisoned sex offenders is the intention to develop a new rehabilitative programme for sex offenders. This programme will be delivered by multidisciplinary teams including prison officers, teachers and other prison disciplines, including the psychology and probation services. This model has been operated satisfactorily in Great Britain over the past number of years and I am anxious to see it developed in this jurisdiction.
The key element in this project is the drawing up of manuals for the delivery of this treatment approach and the selection and training methodology for the staff involved. A contract has been placed with an experienced professional to carry out this work which will be completed in the new year. The objective is for the Prisons Service to develop and put in place a wider range of rehabilitative programmes for sex offenders than are currently available to ensure they operate on independently accredited selection, training and service methods and that they reach every sex offender in custody who is willing to participate at some level in their personal rehabilitation and relapse prevention.
Another example of a successful multidisciplinary approach has been the Connect project. This project focuses on prisoners' transition from custody, through training, to reintegration in the community after release and labour market participation. The first stage of the Connect project commenced in February 1998. It was EU funded and involved a collaboration between my Department, the Prison Service and the National Training and Development Institute, part of the Rehab group. The project was developed and brought forward in a manner that involved extensive consultation and partnership within the prisons with the probation and prison education services and with the wider community.
Connect has been designed as an individualised, person centred, employment and social inclusion initiative and is intended to move the offender from welfare to work, from a lifestyle of income dependency or worse to a positive role in society. A key feature in the project is the central role of prison officers, who play a key mentoring role for all participants and are a vital part of the multi-disciplinary team involved in the process. The multi-disciplinary approach is the only way forward in prisoner rehabilitation.
The main result from the first stage of the Connect project was the creation of a process which could easily benefit prisoners in their preparation for employment after release. There were also some interesting facts and figures: a total of 174 prisoners, both men and women, participated in the first stage and of them, 76 have been released. Of the 76 who were released, 26% went straight out to jobs, starting immediately, 7% went out to further training, 5% went out to residential drug treatment and 58% dropped out of contact with the services.
Most remarkably and significantly, of the 76 who were released only 4% have been returned to prison. This needs to be set against a national pattern of 70% recidivism in the prison system generally. All this information will be contained in a detailed project report which will be published later in the year. The Connect project made great strides and achieved real changes for individual prisoners and their families. It was admittedly on a small scale but produced striking results. Fortified by the evident success of the first stage of the Connect project, I sought agreement from my Government colleagues last year to make a £46 million provision in the national development plan for its expansion to the other prisons.
Drug treatment is another area in which we have made significant advances in recent times. A closed institution such as a prison provides a unique opportunity to address the issue of substance misuse and the Prisons Service strategy seeks to do so by targeting supply, reducing demand and minimising harm. Supply is targeted with improved screening facilities in our institutions, demand is reduced through a wide range of treatment options available in all prison institutions as part of the general medical services available to all inmates and harm is minimised through improved general health education.
Efforts to reduce the supply of drugs in the prison system are being pursued vigorously and in this regard a number of measures have been introduced in recent years to curtail the smuggling into and use of illegal drugs in the prison system. These include video surveillance, improved visiting and searching facilities, increased vigilance by staff and urine testing. This policy has been further strengthened in Cloverhill remand prison and the new Midlands Prison by the extensive use of screened visits.
Any offender who is willing to make a real effort to stop abusing drugs and who shows the necessary commitment and motivation is supported by appropriate medical intervention and therapeutic counselling. Intensive treatment has been available in the drug treatment unit which has been in operation in Mountjoy Prison's health care unit since July 1996 The unit is modelled on similar hospital-based units in the community. Almost 300 prisoners have been admitted to this drug treatment unit since it opened.
There are a number of options available where inmates have completed the detoxification programme. For example, they can continue to serve their sentence in the general prison population, they may, if considered suitable, be granted temporary release to continue treatment with an outside agency or they may transfer to the drug free unit at the training unit adjacent to Mountjoy Prison. This unit provides a sympathetic, yet closely monitored setting in which those prisoners who are in the process of coming to terms with their addiction and who have achieved a stable drug free status can serve out their sentences in an environment free from the temptations and risks associated with illicit drugs. The regime in the drug free unit also provides inmates with valuable opportunities in the form of a wide range of work-related and training-related activities to assist in the rehabilitative process.
The drug treatment unit has proved to be a success and its successful completion rate stands at 95%. It has been proven that prisoners who are motivated and who are given an opportunity to engage in a structured detoxification and rehabilitation programme and whose environment is made drug free through strict regulation of visits will successfully stay off illicit drugs. The action plan on drug misuse and drug treatment in the prison system which I approved last year provides a detailed strategy to raise the level of treatment for drug addicted offenders and reduce the supply of drugs in the prison system. This includes the expansion of detoxification facilities, more drug free areas and the provision of methadone maintenance. The provision of addiction counselling support services is central to the plan, which builds on a medical policy that has been agreed between my Department and the Eastern Regional Health Authority in that it seeks to provide the same access to treatment for prisoners as patients have within the community.
The Prisons Service has established a national steering group for prison-based drug treatment services with a view to implementing the action plan. The steering group, chaired by the Prisons Service Director General, comprises representatives from my Department, the Eastern Regional Health Authority, senior prisons service management, the probation and welfare service, the prisons psychology service and the prisons education service. The idea is to work closely with other agencies with experience in this area. Our objective is to replicate in prison to the maximum extent possible the level of medical and other supports available in the community outside. I am confident that this approach has the support of all my colleagues in Government. They and I now want to see early action on the ground, at prison level in the deployment of all necessary medical and other supports to deal with this serious issue.
A further significant development has been the recent opening of a new drug free area within St. Patrick's Institution. The aim of this unit is to assist young offenders aged between 16 and 21 years, many of whom are serving their first custodial sentence, in combating their drug addiction. This is expected to reduce the risk of these prisoners re-offending in the future and increase their prospects of securing employment on release by remaining drug free. I was very impressed by the presence of parents of some of the boys in the unit at the dedication ceremony for this wing in St. Patrick's Institution recently. They were very relieved and gratified to see this development, long overdue though it may be.
However, I remain just as committed, in the case of those offenders whom the courts deem suitable for sanctions other than custody, to facilitating the use of community supervision and sanctions. There are at present about 4,600 individuals under the supervision of the probation and welfare service. Since 1998 I have approved funding for 12 additional projects under the guidance of the service. There are approximately 50 such projects in operation around the country, all of which are community-based, dealing with areas such as drugs aftercare, alcohol treatment for offenders before the courts, youth service projects, community reparation and offender-victim mediation. Further such projects will continue to be developed in co-operation with the probation and welfare service and under the national development plan. The budget for the service will increase to over £25 million next year, a 100% increase since I became Minister.
Custodial sanctions, however, apply in every civilised society. They are imposed for a variety of reasons, including, most importantly, the protection of the public. As such they play a vital role in the overall criminal justice system. The whole edifice of justice, therefore, including the architecture of community sanctions I have referred to, depends on the custodial places being available to guarantee offenders that the sanction of last resort is there if they do not avail of the other lawful options open to them.
The past three years have seen rapid development and change across the Prisons Service generally. Under the guidance of the Prisons Authority Interim Board, which I appointed last year, and the Director General of the Prisons Service, Mr. Seán Aylward, the management and functions of the Prisons Service are moving to a new independent agency. I intend to bring forward the necessary legislation to give formal effect to this change next year. The changeover to independent agency status is required in order to best achieve progress on a range of important issues. I am confident that time will prove the period since 1997 to have been the most significant in the history of the State's prisons. Over that period I have presided over three key developments: the replacement and expansion of the stock of prisoner accommodation, halting the "revolving door" syndrome; the extension of prisoner programmes for sex offenders, drug dependent prisoners and to train and place offenders into gainful employment; and the putting in place of identifiable, accountable leadership for the Prisons Service.
Regarding some of the issues raised, we have been looking at the probation and welfare service. I established an expert review group, which has reported to me, so that we might look at that service in general terms to see how it might be improved. Obviously, additional staff were required and I obtained permission from Government to appoint 40 new officers. The difficulty has been that there has been a very poor response to the advertisements for this position, which is most unfortunate. We have an ongoing competition, however, and we have had 300 applications, with ongoing interviews.
I am building pre-release hostels in Cork and Limerick. I intend to build a pre-release halfway house in the Mountjoy refurbishment for as many as 70 offenders. As for medical treatment, it is difficult to recruit doctors. We have a full-time doctor in the midlands prison. Experience has shown that recruitment of doctors into the public sector is particularly difficult. I dearly wish we had more but the position is that there is a difficulty in getting people to apply.
The whole question of electronic monitoring or tagging of sex offenders was raised. I am watching with great interest developments in electronic tagging, including voice tagging. However, our courts have suggested a type of tagging that has only recently become available in the United States. When I have firm results from the United States, I will certainly consider the issue. Incidentally, tagging was introduced in Scotland in 1998 and after six months only five court orders had been made. The set-up cost of electronic tagging is in the region of £2.5 million.
With regard to the possibility of there being a prisons inspector, the whole concept of developing an inspectorate attracts me greatly and it will be examined favourably in the context of the new Prisons Bill. That is not to say it is my intention to dispense with the visiting committees, which are very successful. The people who serve on them do so voluntarily and they are very dedicated.
The concept of restorative justice was also raised as if it did not exist in my thinking. It does, and for the first time in the history of the State the new Children Bill, which is before the Dáil, embraces the concept of restorative justice. The entire philosophy underlying the Children Bill, where I intend to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years, is that the young person should face the consequences of his or her actions, if possible by facing the victim, if the victim would agree, in a family conference type setting. Restorative justice is the main plank of that legislation or, to put it another way, it is the philosophy which underlies the legislation. The Children Bill is the most revolutionary criminal legislation in many decades and it has been published anew following intensive research internationally. Restorative justice is very much on the cards. The very last option we want to consider in the context of the Children Bill is the option of incarceration. I want to try to get young people to face up to the consequences of their actions and thereby ensure that repeat offending is minimised or eradicated in many cases.
With regard to the question of the psychology service in the prisons, in December of 1998 I approved the establishment of an expert group to review and report on the future role, needs, structure and organisation of the psychology service, and the report was published in August of 1999. Over the past 14 months, the number of psychologists employed by the Prisons Service has increased from five to ten, in other words, it has doubled. That is an indication of the value which I place on that service. In addition, the recruitment of further psychologists for the prison service is under way.
I share the views expressed in relation to Sr. Ó Caoimhín. I have a prison working party assisting her building programme at Ballinascorney because I see great merit in the work she is doing.
I note from the amendment to the motion that I am accused of imagining things. I have been accused of a lot since becoming Minister but this is the first time I have been accused of imagining things. I am not imagining anything because the reality is that the rehabilitation measures which people speak about here in the House – the need to educate, train and integrate people back into society – is simply not achievable in Victorian institutions and, like it or not, that is what we had. People who call for rehabilitation on the one hand and condemn the prison building programme on the other are contradicting themselves. Any fair-minded, objective analysis of the prison building programme will show that measures of rehabilitation, training and education are now in place in modern settings in new buildings. Far from seeking to incarcerate people for the sake of incarcerating them, I have resolutely sought to ensure that the rehabilitation measures were put in place, and they are in place in the new institutions. The people who condemn the prison building programme fail to say that Mountjoy Prison was ignored by successive Administrations—
