Prison plans 'won't work' unless Government commits more resources

Assistant general secretary Gabriel Keaveny said the Prison Officers’ Association could take on extra responsibilities if it has the resources to do so. Stock picture

New plans by Justice Minister Helen McEntee to make the reduction of re-offending a legal duty of a new separate prison agency “simply won’t work” unless the Government provide the actual resources to implement it, prison officers have said.

The Prison Officers’ Association has warned that the overcrowding problem in jails was going to “get worse rather than better” with crime levels and court convictions returning to pre-Covid levels.

Speaking at the POA annual conference in Sligo, assistant general secretary Gabriel Keaveny also said:

• Greater use needs to be made of Ireland’s only high security prison, at Portlaoise, to house the large numbers of senior members of the Kinahan cartel convicted in the courts;
• The 400 or so prison officer positions axed under austerity need to be replaced immediately, just to bring numbers up to what they were pre-banking crash;
• The jailing of inmates with chronic psychiatric conditions was “an indictment on society” and they need to be transferred into secure health facilities.

Mr Keaveny said the association would adopt a “wait and see” approach to plans announced by Ms McEntee at the conference to establish the Irish Prison Service on a legal basis as a separate agency.

She said the Prison Service was a division of the Department of Justice and that if she gets Government approval, legislation will be drafted. She said the new prison service will have a statutory duty to reduce re-offending.

Mr Keaveny said: “We can do that work, but only on the basis of resources.” 

He said the Department of Justice had opened four new courts —  in Croke Park, Drogheda, Castlebar and Mullingar — which had to be staffed by prison officers.

“One court takes 10 staff, that’s a huge drain on resources and justice did not talk to us about that,” he said.

If you take 10 officers to a court that’s ten officers not in workshops with prisoners, or dealing with incentivised regimes or rehabilitation work — so you can have all the statutory agencies and re-offending duties you like, but it simply won’t work without the resources. 

He said the extra courts had resulted in more prisoners being sent to jail, which he said was resulting in overcrowding in certain prisons, with people sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

He said, based on international estimates, Ireland should have around 5,000 prison spaces, but only had 4,300.

He said the 220 extra spaces cited by the minister as coming on stream this year — 96 in the reopened Mountjoy Training Unit and 130 or so in the refurbished Limerick Male and Female prisons – was not enough.

“If they open all the courts and crime rates return the situation is only going to get worse, rather than better,” he said.

He said prison officer numbers stood at around 3,600 pre-austerity and were now around 3,200 and that 400 were needed to operate the current system, before any expansion.

Ms McEntee said she would seek Government approval for extra prison officers in Budget 2023.

Mr Keaveny said the scale of Kinahan cartel associates in prison — with 79 convicted in recent years — presented a huge potential threat to law and order and urged greater use of Portlaoise Prison to house them.