Costing doubts over plan for drug-free jails

Government plans to introduce a drug-free policy into Irish prisons have come under attack after it emerged that the programme had not yet been costed despite assurances from the Minister for Justice that the new regime would be in place early this year.

New figures from the Department of Justice show that 500 inmates out of a prison population of just over 3,000 receive the heroin-replacement drug methadone on a daily basis.

However, despite the fact it is in the process of introducing the drug-free policy, the Department has been unable to say how many inmates are undergoing counselling or on waiting lists for drug-treatment programmes.

Responding to a parliamentary question from Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD (SF), Mr McDowell said plans for mandatory drug testing had yet to be finalised and would be contained in new prison rules being finalised.

"Precise costings, staff responsibilities and procedures in relation to mandatory drug testing will be determined on finalisation of the new prison rules," Mr McDowell said.

In September the Minister indicated that the rules would be published before the end of 2004 and operational early this year.

Mr Ó Snodaigh said it was clear the drug-free system would not be in place until next year at the earliest. "I know people who work in the prisons, and they have had no direction on this.

"Even if people were put into the prisons tomorrow to begin this it would take them a few months at least to judge what was needed and what was cost-effective," Mr O'Snodaigh said.

The Minister would then need to deliberate on anything those people said to him, and once he did that he'd need to negotiate with the prison governors and staff, so there is no chance of it happening in the short term".

The fact that the Department could not say how many inmates were in counselling or on waiting lists for drug treatment meant information needed to plan the drug-free environment was missing.

The Department said it was "not the practice to maintain a central record of the number of prisoners engaged in such counselling or to maintain a waiting list of prisoners for drug treatment".

Mr Rick Lines, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said the fact that no such records existed "makes you wonder what the new policy is based on".