THE Minister for Justice, Ms Owen, has defended the Government's record on crime and prisons in the face of concerted criticism from Fianna Fail and senior prison officials.
Fianna Fail's Mr Sean Doherty accused the Labour partners in Government of stopping the building of a £25 million prison at Castlerea, Co Roscommon, because "there were no Labour votes in Roscommon".
Mr Doherty said he was alarmed to hear that while the Castlerea project might be resurrected later this month by Government, the prison might be scaled down from a high security institution with 150 cells.
He called for the setting up of a forum from all Government departments to draw up a 10 year strategy for reducing crime.
The State's 14 prison governors said in a statement that a serious shortage of accommodation had "continuously bedevilled and undermined" the service for over 20 years.
They added. The Prison Service has absolutely no control or influence over the number of persons committed to its care. This a matter entirely for the judiciary. Accordingly, the Prison Service is being seriously undermined by circumstances and demands which are completely outside its control.
"The service cannot respond adequately to the many demands placed on it unless it is given the basic"resources. It is our view that" the only immediate solution is to prioritise the use of the present 2,100 prison places.
The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, accused the Government of putting the fight against crime at the bottom of its list of priorities. He accused the Government of a "flagrant, waste" of taxpayers money £12 million on "a militia of advisers, PR pundits and consultants", adding that this was over half the cost of a new prison.
He said the decision last summer by the Government to "defer" the Castlerea prison project had "totally undermined the plans of successive ministers for justice the gardai and the prison service.
Fianna Fail is to hold a meeting of its front bench today on the crime problem.
Ms Owen yesterday said it "would be wrong for people to assume" that more prison places would immediately bring down crime. She insisted that alternatives to custodial prison sentences, and not simply imprisonment, would be examined as means of fighting crime.
The State was already spending £600 million on police and prisons annually and, she said "It is wrong to give the impression that nothing is being done. Thousands of people are brought before the courts through effective policing. Thousands are sentenced and pay their price to society. Unfortunately, a number of them do re offend."
Ms Owen said she would put proposals to Government this month for both custodial and non custodial means for tackling crime
Residents of Blacklion in Co Cavan held a public meeting last night to discuss a renewed plea to the Minister for Justice for improved security at Loughan House open detention centre
A 10 member committee which was set up last month after complaints that some inmates were leaving the centre to commit crime and then returning undetected, is to pursue the campaign with the Department of Justice.