No quick-fix answers to prison overcrowding, claims Ahern

THERE WERE no easy, quick-fix answers to prison overcrowding, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern told the Dáil.

He said that the Irish Prison Service must accept all committals sent by the courts.

“There is no opt out,’’ he added. “Indeed the problem of overcrowding is not unique to this country. It is an international problem.’’

The Minister was responding to Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan who raised the resignation of the governor of Dóchas female prison, Kathleen McMahon, and the revelations about conditions in Mountjoy.

Ms McMahon claimed that the service had forced her resignation.

Mr Ahern said Ms McMahon had notified the director general of the service in March of her intention to retire in May. Having served for 33 years, she was entitled to retire on a full pension, he added. Mr Ahern said that she had been rightly credited for the enormous contribution she made to the development of the centre since it opened in 1999.

“Whilst it is true to say that governor McMahon, in the context of her retirement, raised a number of issues with the director general, he, in turn, expressed his disappointment that she had not discussed these matters with him before she notified him of her intention to retire,’’ he added.

Mr Ahern said that there had been, and continued to be, a consistent increase in the total prisoner population over recent years.

“This is due primarily to the additional resources provided by this Government to the Garda resulting in increasing numbers of successful prosecutions and extra court sittings leading to more committals,’’ he added.

Mr Flanagan said that staff and prisoners were being subjected to “disgraceful conditions’’. He called for a range of measures, including a commitment to implement the recommendations of the prison inspector within a defined time period.

Community service should be used as the sanction for minor offences rather than incarceration, he added. Mr Flanagan said the drug problem in prisons should be tackled by introducing remission for prisoners participating in treatment programmes.

The probation service should be adequately resourced, he said, adding that an integrated sentence management system should be rolled out in every prison.