Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 February 2004
218 Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will explain the apparent contradiction between his Department’s reply to the Irish Penal Reform Trust’s freedom of information request of 17 October 2003 (details supplied) in view of his answer to Parliamentary Question No. 289 of 11 February 2004; and if he will release the records of all communications between his Department and the companies. [5616/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThere is no contradiction between the freedom of information reply by my Department referred to by the Deputy and my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 289 of 11 February 2004.
The freedom of information request sought access to records regarding communications between my Department and the Irish Prison Service with representatives of companies, including Group 4 and Securicor, regarding the contracting out of aspects of the criminal justice and/or prison system, since 1 January 2000. The parliamentary question sought details of all conferences and meetings that representatives of my Department and the Irish Prison Service attended at which privatisation of prisons and criminal justice agencies have been discussed since 1 January 2000.
No records were identified which fell within the scope of the freedom of information request and I confirmed in my reply to the parliamentary question that no Department or Irish Prison Service officials had attended any conferences about privatisation of the prisons or criminal justice agencies over the period in question. However, I did confirm that a group of officials had visited the two companies, along with the United Kingdom Prison Service in early 2000 for the purpose of gathering information regarding how prisoner transport is organised in the UK. The officials included a higher executive officer, a Garda superintendent and a registrar in the Circuit Court. The visits by the officials were not used to explore the contracting out of services in the Irish criminal justice or prison system. The purpose of the visit was to examine how the Irish Prison Service could learn from other jurisdictions in dealing with the logistical task of transporting prisoners from prisons to courts and hospitals. I understand that the types of issues examined by the officials on these visits included the co-ordination of high volumes of prisoner movements, the types of vehicles used, fleet management, ensuring prisoner care and how court deadlines for the production of prisoners are met. No discussion took place about contracting out terms.
I should add, for the sake of completeness, that it has now been brought to my attention by the Director General of the Irish Prison Service that he has, in recent days, become aware that, in March, 2002, both Group 4 and Securicor made a presentation to officials at Irish Prison Service headquarters about the range of services they provide to the criminal justice system in the UK. This was purely an information gathering exercise. There was no follow up to this presentation and it has not featured in any of the documentation generated about outsourcing prisoner escorts in recent times. A letter clarifying the FOI request response in this matter will be sent to the requester.
