Irish Examiner View: The day the kindness died

Report makes recommendations following death of a terminally ill and immobile prisoner who was not allowed to take compassionate leave so he might die in a hospice.

The prisoner, who died in October 2018, was the second prisoner to die in those difficult circumstances in a cell at Portlaoise’s Midlands Prison. File image

American songwriter Don McLean almost built a career on one song: ‘American Pie’. 

Though not as ubiquitous at every pub singalong — remember them? — as it once was, some of its lines seem etched in our consciousness. “The day the music died” is one. Were he writing that song today McLean might rather write “the day that kindness died”. 

All the usual suspects, the ebbing away of self-control, the online licence to abuse and excoriate and bizarre levels of aggression in sports and film offered as entertainment conspire to give hostility, unkindness and the opposite of empathy a new currency.

Unfortunately, a report from the Inspector of Prisons, Patricia Gilheaney shows how deeply ingrained that attitude has become. That agency has expressed concern at the rejection by the Irish Prison Service of some of its recommendations following an investigation into the death of a terminally ill and immobile prisoner who was not allowed to take compassionate leave so he might die in a hospice.

The prisoner, who died in October 2018, was the second prisoner to die in those difficult circumstances in a cell at Portlaoise’s Midlands Prison.

This seems an unnecessarily harsh position, one that hardly reflects the kind of humanity or kindness that might lift others in the prison system. It is hard too to imagine that it reflects the culture of our prison service. 

Time to, once again, change the rules so we might do the right thing.