An Leas-Chathaoirleach: I welcome the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and the staff from his Department.

Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration (Deputy Jim O'Callaghan): I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Seanad for the opportunity to discuss this very important issue this afternoon. Obviously, a very important part of my functions as Minister for justice is responsibility for prisons in Ireland. I am pleased to say that since I have become Minister, I have had the opportunity to visit seven of our prisons to date and, in the very near future, I will be visiting two more. I expect, certainly by the middle of this year, that I will have visited every prison in the country. The first thing I want to say is that I get an opportunity through the visits to see first-hand the professionalism and dedication of the staff of the Irish Prison Service. I start by extending my thanks to them. I never go to a prison without meeting and talking freely to the prisoners, which I can do. That is also a very important and educational process for me to see the human face of the individuals who are within our prison system.

I am obviously aware of the challenges that exist and the difficulties that current capacity constraints pose to those who work and live in our prisons. I also note the recent reports on prison conditions from the Inspector of Prisons. I would like to acknowledge the very important work undertaken by Mr. Mark Kelly, the Inspector of Prisons. I had an opportunity to meet him face-to-face not that long ago. I am very conscious of the important role he plays in ensuring that I am held to account for the prison system. His reports highlight the challenges faced within prisons and underline the urgency of investment to reduce the impact of overcrowding and ensure there is adequate prison capacity to underpin an effective criminal justice system....

...Senator Mary Fitzpatrick: I thank the Minister for coming to the Seanad and for engaging with us on this important matter. I commend him on the work that he and his Department are doing, the seriousness with which they are treating the issue of inadequate capacity in our prisons and the emphasis they are putting on the increased use of non-custodial sentences. It is all to be commended and I support it.

Prison will always have a place in our justice system. I firmly believe that. The Minister securing €500 million in funding to increase capacity is welcome. However, I also firmly believe that for non-violent, addiction-driven crime, the drugs court, which has been in operation on a pilot basis in Dublin for almost 25 years, offers a real alternative. Prison is not working. Seven in ten people in our prisons identify as having an addiction. Roughly six out of ten reoffend within three years of having been released from prison. Prison is definitely not working. What it is attempting to do is to punish the crime and the behaviour, but it is not addressing the real causes. There are alternatives, and I acknowledge community service and the Minister's commitment to electronic tagging. However, I believe that the drugs court offers a unique response. It is not a replacement for prison, but it is a credible alternative. The drugs court reduces reoffending, where prison often does not. It combines treatment, supervision and real accountability. It creates a situation where there is real responsibility and not avoidance of responsibility.

The drugs court allows prison to be used where it is most effective, which is for those who have committed serious crimes, including violent crimes, but also uses public money more effectively. As Senator Gallagher said, it costs close to €100,000 to keep somebody in prison. It costs less than €10,000 per year to have somebody go through the drugs court. Most importantly, the drugs court saves lives - not just the lives of individuals who have offended but of their families and communities.

The risk of relapse and overdose is highest when people are just released from prison. One element of the drugs court is engagement in treatment - that supervision and support. It is not just a court with lawyers; in fact, there are no lawyers because participants are there on a voluntary basis. The judge deals with the offender and there is the support of the Probation Service, education service and welfare services. It supports the individual to recognise and own their behaviour and to engage on a path of recovery. It is incredibly constructive and I advise anybody who has not been down the drugs court to go down some Wednesday and observe it. It keeps people in supervision, reduces harm, supports recovery and in many cases can prevent death. It is not a soft option; it is demanding. I have seen it in action. Those who fail to engage still face consequences which could involve going to prison.

I firmly believe the drugs court works. The Government needs to take it from a pilot to having it mainstreamed so that not just people who offend in a non-violent way, suffering from an addiction, have access to it in Dublin. It should be made available nationally. If we are to do that, we need to ensure there will be supports throughout the country. That means multi-annual funding for treatment, probation and the courts. I appreciate that the drugs strategy going through from the Department of Health is driven in a health-led way but there is an opportunity now with the new drugs strategy to ensure addiction treatment exists in every region, that regional drugs courts are established across the State and the model is put on a statutory footing. It is a practical evidence-based model we should support. I urge the Minister in considering alternatives to incarceration to put it on a statutory footing and ensure it is properly funded and made available to everyone who needs it.

Senator Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister and thank him for his contribution. I agree with nearly everything he said and with Senator Fitzpatrick's contribution. Sending someone to prison should be a last resort. That is a view I have always held at all points - when I was a barrister prosecuting, when I was a Minister and when I was Attorney General. I still hold that view. Mark Kelly, Inspector of Prisons, has reported to the justice committee of these Houses. In February he stated that the circumstances in Cloverhill Prison were degrading conditions due to overcrowding and in Mountjoy they were so bad that they amounted, in his view, to inhuman and degrading treatment banned by the European Convention on Human Rights. I am not saying this to be critical of the Minister because he is fresh to the job but Mr. Kelly has said that unfortunately the situation is continuing to degenerate. Let us be clear about that.

Overcrowding has a long history. It goes back to the circumstances investigated in the Gary Douche commission of inquiry, where a man was killed in a basement room in Mountjoy with, I think, 14 other people in it by a prisoner suffering from a psychotic condition who had been sent there from, I think, Cloverhill, on an exchange programme because he was too unruly in Cloverhill. That report was deeply critical of the decision-making process and of the then Governor of Mountjoy for allowing that situation to arise.

Thornton Hall must be built. There is no way around it. I will explain why. Mountjoy Prison, which the Minister has visited, and I presume Senator Fitzpatrick has done so too, is incapable of providing a prison system which is both deterrent and rehabilitative and functions on a proper basis. It should be demolished. Towards that end, when I was Minister for justice, I acquired an extra acre where Egan's Cash and Carry was on the North Circular Road. There are 14 acres there which are prime development land to rehabilitate the North inner city. The women's prison is massively overcrowded. The situation - let us be honest - is that if somebody goes in, somebody goes out because there is literally no extra space in that institution.

There have been a lot of misconceptions about Thornton Hall. When I was Minister for justice, the Government promised me €30 million to acquire a site for a prison. That was to be financed by the sale of 29 acres at Shanganagh Castle in south Dublin. We got €30 million from private developers and Dún Laoghaire county council. We applied that in a process where we advertised and sought land in north County Dublin which would be available for the process. We nearly secured an 80-acre site but unfortunately that fell through. Eventually, the advertisements led to somebody tendering 150 acres at Thornton Hall which was then zoned as agricultural land. That land at Thornton Hall was the subject of major works and a significant investment. A lot of money was put into developing the access road and carrying out works preparatory to it being used for a new prison. This is very important: it would have accommodated proper psychiatric facilities for prisoners. The Central Mental Hospital simply does not to do that at all. It is not in the business of looking at psychiatrically ill prisoners and dealing with them on a day-to-day basis. It sees itself as having a different function.

In relation to where the future lies, mention was made of drugs in prison. The then Governor of Mountjoy said if there are drugs outside there will be drugs inside. That is not good enough. It was a shameful statement to make because a system like ours should have drug-free areas and mandatory testing for people who want to have a lighter regime to be in a drug-free environment. Instead of that, young people in particular, whether they do or do not have a drug habit or addiction, are shoved into a place where it is almost obligatory to take drugs. It is a shame....

[Click here to read the full debate on the Oireachtas website]