PRISON PLANS

It is a truism that a good test of a society's character is the way it runs
its prisons and closed institutions. By that criterion Ireland's
track-record is hardly the most reassuring. There is ample evidence over
recent times of what went on behind the high walls of Irish orphanages and
other institutions supposedly dedicated to the welfare of the young and the
vulnerable.

The Irish prison system has rarely been the subject of accusations of
deliberate abuse or wanton cruelty.

By and large, the prisons have been run and staffed by personnel whose
instincts are humane and tolerant.

The accusations of deliberate ill-treatment of some prisoners at Mountjoy
some years ago were unusual, perhaps to the point of being exceptional. The
shortcomings of the Irish prison system have rather tended to be
institutional. Services have been inadequate, building stock has been poor,
there has been a gathering crisis of accommodation and numbers.

And the prisons as a whole have operated for many years within a criminal
justice system which lacked an overall vision or set of policies.

There are positive signs of change.

The hiving off of control from the Department of Justice and the appointment
of a director of the prisons service are in line with practice in advanced
penal systems.

The building programme and the re-generation of existing stock are gradually
giving inmates decent accommodation with basic sanitary facilities.
Additional space and accommodation will provide opportunities to improve
education and training as well as alleviating overcrowding. But serious
shortcomings remain.

Health care, especially psychiatric care and counselling, often falls well
short of what is necessary.

Training for employment - indispensible if there is to be rehabilitation -
varies enormously from one institution to the next. Above all, there is the
festering, human-warehouse of Mountjoy; outdated, overcrowded, riddled with
drugs.

Thus, when the Minister for Justice gives a compte rendu of the prisons, as
he did on Tuesday, he can justifiably claim to be making some progress.

But he cannot show a system which will make the outside world sit up in
admiration of what the Celtic Tiger is doing for those who fall to the
bottom of the heap. Mr O'Donoghue is striking what he hopes will be the
right electoral note in promising that the "revolving door" syndrome will
end and that the long-awaited bail laws will come into effect in the autumn.

There will also be a broad welcome for his declaration that there will be no
early release for offenders who have committed acts of violence against the
vulnerable members of society.

But if the Minister's timing is politically advantageous, these
announcements sit uneasily with the process of consultation and research
which he himself initiated and which has been in train over the past two
years.

Because there has been no coherent, long-term policy on criminal justice for
so many years in this State, the prisons have for long had to operate on an
ad hoc basis.

On taking up office Mr O'Donoghue initiated a process of consultation
throughout the community on what its criminal justice priorities should be.
This, it was announced, would lead to a plan or paper which set out
long-term policies.

Mr O'Donoghue appears to be pre-empting that process in considerable degree.

It may be good politics with local and European elections little more than a
week away. But it is not what he said he would do.