Mental health report and prison conditions
Senator Swanick praised the children's mental health report, then moved to miscarriages of justice and current prison conditions, including slopping out and overcrowding. Senator Norris briefly endorsed the comments.
I congratulate all involved in the report on children's mental health, particularly the parents who bravely recounted their stories to the committee.
Tomorrow, 19 October, marks the 18th anniversary of the release of the Guildford Four by the Court of Appeal in London. Their release in 1989 after 15 years imprisonment brought an end to what was considered one of the biggest miscarriages of justice.
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The Birmingham Six soon followed and the campaign for their freedom was vindicated. Due in part to their innocence, compelling evidence about prison conditions began to be discussed. The depiction by Daniel Day Lewis of Gerry Conlon in the film "In the Name of the Father" illustrated this for us all.
According to the Irish Penal Reform Trust there are 60 people currently in prison who are slopping out, without in-cell sanitation. There are approximately 3,750 people in prison custody, often in dangerously crowded cells. The work of the Irish Prison Service is very challenging and prison officers are routinely subjected to acts of barbarism against them. I witnessed this when I worked as a locum doctor in Mountjoy Prison, one of 14 institutions in the Irish Prison Service.
It is time for a frank debate about the Irish prison system, including the Dóchas Centre, Limerick, Portlaoise and Castlerea prisons, Loughan House and all the other institutions and the fact that the majority of Irish prisoners have never sat a State examination, over half of them left school before the age of 15 and the scandal of slopping out.