Letters to the Editor: It would be better to work towards keeping people out of prison

Among today's letter-writers, the director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust welcomes developments at Limerick Women's Prison but says diversion ought to be the priority

Justice Minster Helen McEntee, Irish Prison Service director general Karen McCaffrey, and prison governor Mark Kennedy at the opening of the new facilities at Limerick Prison. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

I welcome the enhanced conditions at the new Limerick Women’s Prison opened by the Minister for Justice last week — ‘It’s a great move forward for society’: Limerick Prison opens new luxury women’s wing' (Irish Examiner, October 18). The standards at Limerick prison will afford women the rights and the dignity that they deserve, and we should aspire to those standards across the prison estate. 

However, it’s a far cry from the inhumane conditions in prisons such as Mountjoy, as outlined in the Office of Inspector of Prisons Annual Report 2022 earlier this month.