Judge: State has duty of care to prisoners

A DISTRICT Court judge has described as tragic, frightening and embarrassing the state’s failure to provide drug treatment facilities for defendants outside the prison system.

At Athy District Court, Judge Desmond Zaidan used the terms in reference to what he said were the Government’s double standards in mounting security operations on coasts and at airports to keep out drugs, while failing to keep drugs out of prisons.

The state has a duty of care to prisoners, he said, as he imposed consecutive nine-month sentences on Athy native Larry Kinsella, aged 39, of no fixed abode, for two thefts, after he asked to go to prison to get help for a long-standing heroin addiction. Unless the state wants repeat offenders, the judge said, in-house treatment is needed for drug and alcohol addicts whose crime he estimates accounts for half the prison population. “Leave the Midlands prison for serious crime,” he said.