Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Chapter 2: What is the current state of overcrowding in Irish prisons?
Now coming back home, overcrowding in jails is a national scandal, according to the Prison Officers Association, whose annual conference takes place today. Carl Dalton is on the line, General Secretary of the Irish Prison Officers Association. Carl, good morning and thank you for joining us this morning. The facts are clear for everybody to see.
The prison population has doubled over the last 26 years. The capacity certainly hasn't. Isn't that the bottom line? Good morning Clare, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk on what is the ongoing overcrowding crisis and it's at its worst point ever in the history of the state. We've 6,000 prisoners, we're coming up on 6,000 prisoners in a system built for 3,500.
Chapter 3: How does overcrowding affect prison services and rehabilitation?
And that system isn't just being affected by the bunk beds and the people sleeping on the floors. It's the services, it's the rehabilitation, it's the structured activity. It impacts on every single part of prison life. It allows the bullies and the gangs to thrive. And prisons are now, as a result, flooded with drugs. And it's an awful environment for our members to have to walk in.
So more dangerous and more uncomfortable for your members? Well, drug seizures are up, phone seizures are up, drones are up and assaults on staff are up by a large amount over the last year. Violence in the prisons is up. Every single statistic that's negative has increased and that makes it more dangerous, more difficult and more stressful for our members.
Chapter 4: What short-term solutions are being proposed for prison overcrowding?
Now, there is some expansion of accommodation in the prison service happening. Lock and House in Cavan, Shelton Abbey in Wicklow, Castlery Prison in Roscommon, they are building additional single occupancy rooms. Do you welcome that? We welcome that in the long term prison service, but in the short term it does nothing to alleviate the overcrowding.
For instance, if you look at the statistics today, there's probably 20 vacancies in the open centre. So they spent £15 million building 30 pieces of accommodation and yet there's still 20 vacancies there. Because the prisoners who are starting in the system are coming through because they're being released early because of the overcrowding and they're on temporary release.
The prisoners just aren't in the system. The rehabilitation hasn't happened. So it's really needed, acutely needed.
Chapter 5: What are the statistics regarding violence and safety in overcrowded prisons?
So you take Mount Joy, it has over 340 bunk beds gone in in the last few years and still has 65 on the floor. But the 30 spaces being built in the open centre is not going to impact on that in the short term.
That's fanciful thinking by the Department of Justice in terms of, ideally, when we have a proper, stable prison service, you absolutely need this accommodation to rehabilitate people at the end of their sentence towards getting them ready for going out. And that's morally justifiable. But in the current climate, it's absolutely the wrong thing to build and the wrong place to build.
So what is the solution? Well, there's a number of solutions that we've put forward. The old Cork prison site is one. The Cora prison sits there in the army camp and that would give us 140 places if that was refurbished and that wouldn't take much. The E Block in Portlaoise is sitting empty.
Chapter 6: What long-term plans exist to address prison overcrowding in Ireland?
There's an empty site in, there's four landings, there's maybe five prisoners in there. The rest of that building could be refurbished. We asked for that, we called for that to be done last year and we're calling again this year. We need a number of places like that. There's the empty site in the D block. Explain that to me again. It's the E block, is it, in Portlaoise?
The E block in Portlaoise has four landings. There's five prisoners on E1. Why?
Chapter 7: Why should society be concerned about prison overcrowding and recidivism?
That would be political decisions. They're political prisoners. The rest of the business slows down. I see from your own figures in Portlaoise, well, in the Midlands Prison, there are 160 prisoners sleeping on floors. Absolutely. In the Midlands prisons, you have 226 excess prisoners in the system on what it's meant to hold.
In Portlaoise itself, which is next door, there's 83 extra prisoners in the system. And meanwhile, the E Block. And next to the E Block is the old D Block site, and that is a vacant site. It's empty. And instead of building an open centre, there are the places we need to build urgently. We need short-term solutions.
And in the long term, we need something like a Torrenton Hall site or somewhere else, a big prison to be built to alleviate the pressure. The Futures Capacity Group sat last year and if they build 1,200 to 1,500 spaces by 2030, today's figures will still be overcrowded. And that's the crisis. Building an open centre is not the solution and it's a waste of taxpayers' money at this juncture.
And the reason why you say people in the wider society need to be concerned about this is because of the risk of recidivism, that if you're not getting the rehab in prison, you're likely to come back in through the revolving door. Absolutely. Prison officers are fantastic at doing their job when they can.
But in an environment where we can't get them into structured activities, where the psychology and psychiatry services aren't available to them because they're simply swamped, with all of this, you're turning people back out in the streets without receiving the help they need in a prison, and which our members are fantastic at giving them, which are a toy in their hands.
And we're asking the Minister today and tomorrow and every day to do something to review the capital building projects and do something that will make a huge difference, both to the prison population, to society and to ourselves. Carl, thanks for taking the time to speak to us today.
Carl Dalton, General Secretary of the Irish Prison Officers Association.
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