NEW POUNDS 13M WOMEN'S PRISON INAUGURATED AT MOUNTJOY

The Minister for Justice inaugurated the new pounds 13 million women's
prison at Mountjoy, Dublin, yesterday, saying he also intended to
begin refurbishing the men's jail in the same complex.

Mr O'Donoghue said this work would begin "floor by floor, landing by
landing" once remand prisoners currently held in Mountjoy Prison are
transferred to Cloverhill Remand Prison in Clondalkin, Co Dublin,
which will receive its first prisoners next week.

The new women's prison will hold 80 prisoners, who will be moved in
within the coming months.

The 200-space Cloverhill Remand Prison and the 450-space Midlands
Prison at Portlaoise are also due to be in operation by early next
year.

Mr O'Donoghue said that once these prisons were operational he would
be able to sign into law the terms of the 1996 bail referendum which
are aimed at ending the socalled "revolving door" system of early
temporary release for prisoners.

Mr O'Donoghue said he had been unable to bring in the legislation
implementing the referendum "for the very simple reason that I had an
insufficiency of space until now".

He said a revolving door syndrome had existed in the criminal justice
system for more years than many cared to remember. "People have been
released and are being released on the sole criterion that there is an
insufficiency of space for them. You cannot enforce the judgments of
the courts if that is the situation and that obviously leads to an
undermining of confidence in the criminal justice system itself by
society at large."

The new women's prison has small self-contained residential houses for
about 10 prisoners each. The standard size of the cells is 11.7 sq m,
an increase from the 8.4 sq m cells in the present women's prison. It
also houses a bigger gym and a block dedicated to women's education
and work training.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust commended the prison's design as "a model
for new Irish prisons". However, its director, Dr Ian O'Donnell, said
there was a need for serious debate about the extent to which there
was a continued need to expand the penal system.

"It is difficult to understand why, at a time when crime rates are
declining steeply, the Government is forging ahead with the biggest
prison building programme in the history of the State. The key to
reducing overcrowding and poor prison conditions is to reduce the flow
of petty offenders into custody, not to warehouse them in
ever-increasing numbers."

The Probation and Welfare Officers' branch of the trade union IMPACT
said the appointment of one probation and welfare officer to work with
the prison's 80 inmates was wholly inadequate. Four officers would be
needed to develop programmes on alcoholism, drug addiction, offending
and aftercare, its press relations officer, Mr Patrick O'Dea, said.

The governor of Mountjoy Prison has harshly criticised the
Government's decision to spend millions on millennium celebrations
while allocating little if any resources to other more needy causes.

Mr John Lonergan said the latest information he had was that the State
was setting aside pounds 30 million for millennium entertainment. "I
question how any society could spend that kind of money on
entertainment when other areas need resources. The argument is put
forward all the time that we have no resources but we seem to have our
priorities wrong. It seems there are resources for things we don't
need," he said.

He pointed to the huge benefit such a sum would be to Mountjoy Prison,
which has just one psychologist visiting two days a week to attend to
770 men, many of whom have behavioural problems.

Mr Lonergan was speaking in Galway at a seminar on Attention Deficit
Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).