Madam, - Three men have died in Mountjoy prison in the last month. The inspector of prisons, Judge Kinlen, has published a report containing strong criticism of the state of our prisons generally. Yet there has been almost no public debate on prison system. It may be a truism that there are no votes in prison reform, but following those three appalling deaths, the Minister should be made to answer serious questions about what is going on in our penal institutions. He should be asked why conditions remain so shockingly bad in so many prisons, and why so little funding is put into rehabilitation anywhere.
In particular, he should be asked why the well established Connect rehabilitation programme has been effectively discontinued despite many promises of funding. The state of our prisons is truly shameful, and it should not have taken the deaths of three men to make us recognise that shame. - Yours, etc,
IVANA BACIK, Law School, Trinity College, Dublin 2.