Saoirse Brady

And, you know, those are great where they exist and where they can actually cope with the numbers that are coming to them.

But for example, Merchantsky Ireland were in the Oireachtas Committee on Justice earlier this year, and they talked about their addiction counsellors having a caseload of 30.

You know, 30 people with a lot of trauma, with addiction issues, with, you know, a lot of things to unpick.

That's a lot of people to have to deal with.

So we need more support for addiction counsellors.

We need addiction nurses to actually deal with some of those issues that we are seeing in terms of the physicality of people coming into prison.

And again, I'll reiterate, we need fewer people in prison.

It's not just about drug therapy.

And prevention is key.

And like when we think about that, that caller's made a really interesting point, because when we think of the cost of prison, it now costs €103,000 to keep one person in prison for a year.

Imagine the addiction places that you could get in a residential facility.

you know, that would really actually tackle somebody's underlying issues.

And we've done public polling on this.

We did that before the last election.

And almost two thirds of people agreed that if somebody had committed an offence before, you know, it was minor, it was non-violent and they were going to get a sentence of less than 12 months, that they were much better served going to a health facility and getting the help that they need rather than going to prison.

That serves everyone because they're less likely to re-offend in the future.

We are creating safer societies by investing in people and preventative mechanisms.

And we've done research on this that we published earlier this year as well called From Punishment to Prevention.

And in that, we talked about a reinvestment model, a justice reinvestment model.

So instead of pouring money into prisons and facilities like that, we reinvest in supports that work, in community supports that work.