Prison closures do not mean fewer spaces

FURTHER to Patrick Jordan’s letter (Irish Examiner, March 14), the number of prison places has actually risen from 2,392 in 1997 to more than 3,328 in 2005.

In our programme for Government, we recognised the need both to expand the number of prison places and indeed modernise our facilities.

While we have created more places, we have to go further. It is not acceptable in this day and age to subject prisoners to the slopping-out process which takes place in some of our older prisons each morning.