Educational Services for Prisoners

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 June 2012

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Ceisteanna (39, 40)

Bernard J. Durkan

Ceist:

37 Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which the criteria for referring prisoners incarcerated on foot of serious offences has been reviewed in order to ensure that recidivists are not automatically referred for educational training or other rehabilitative programmes ahead of first time offenders who might be expected to benefit more from such rehabilitation and at the same time ensure that such first time offenders do not become institutionalised in terms of their dependence on criminality; if any on-going evaluation has been done or is being done to determine whether training and rehabilitative programmes are made as readily available to first time offenders as they should be; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29747/12]

Bernard J. Durkan

Ceist:

132 Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which prisoners serving sentence on conviction of serious offences but who have no previous criminal record are referred for educational or rehabilitative training; the number of applications by such prisoners that have been successful in the past year; the number rejected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30025/12]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Justice and Equality (Deputy Alan Shatter)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 37 and 132 together.

The Deputy will be aware from my replies to previous Questions that the Irish Prison Service provides a wide range of rehabilitative programmes that include education, vocational training, healthcare, psychiatric, psychological, counselling, welfare and spiritual services. These programmes are available in all prisons and all prisoners are eligible to use the services. On committal, all prisoners are interviewed by the Governor and are informed of the services available in the prison. At this point prisoners may be referred to services or they can self refer at a later date. Where Governors consider, on the information available, that a prisoner needs a particular intervention they will initiate a referral. Programmes are available to all prisoners, but some programmes may not be suitable for prisoners on shorter sentences.