Call to improve jail facilities for families

A group providing support services to visitors to Cork Prison have demanded a change to the current visiting regime and said some children are not seeing their fathers due to the rules in place.

Anne-Marie O’Shea, a volunteer co-ordinator with St Nicholas Trust, said there is no data on the number of fathers in the prison who have children.

No physical contact is allowed during the screened visits at Cork Prison, but the St Nicholas Trust, which has provided support services for families of prisoners since 2010, said any argument that the policy kept drugs out of the prison was outweighed by the societal costs of the harm done to families.