PROGRESSIVE Democrat TD Mr Michael McDowell has described the Irish prison system "an unbelievable shambles and a financial scandal".
He was addressing the final of the The Irish Times debate in University College Dublin last night. The motion for the debate, which he was chairing, was "That the punishment should fit the crime".
Mr McDowell said Ireland needed more prison places and the restoration of a punitive approach to the "misguided" prison regime.
"Prisons are primarily places of punishment and secondarily places where, in some cases and to a limited extent, efforts at rehabilitation can be undertaken," he said. "Public opinion is rightly outraged if those who are sentenced to be punished are afforded entertainment and a generally idle regime."
In what the convenor, Mr Kerida Naidoo BL, described as a "tight and intense" debate, the Inns team of Ms Helen Boyle and Mr Paul McDermott took the Demosthenes trophy ahead of runners up Mr Jarlath Ryan and Mr Ronan MacSweeney of University College Galway's Literary and Debating Society.
The prize for best individual speaker went to Mr Douglas Clarke of Trinity College Dublin's Historical Society with Mr James McDermott of the UCD Historical and Literary Society taking the runner up prize.
The winners of the team and individual titles will travel to the United States next month to take part in a debating tour of US colleges, sponsored by Aer Lingus and The Irish Times. The debaters will visit colleges in Houston, Texas, Portland, Oregon, and Anchorage, Alaska.
Speaking in favour of the motion last night were Mr Jarlath Ryan and Mr Ronan McSweeney of the University College Galway Literary and Debating Society; Mr Alex Massie of the Trinity College. Dublin Historical Society; Mr Brian Hughes of the UCG Literary and Debating Society, and Ms Boyle and Mr McDermott of King's Inns.
The motion was opposed by Ms Michelle De Brup and Ms Clodagh Beresford of the UCG Literary and Debating Society; Mr John McElligott of the University of Limerick Debating Union; Mr James McDermott of the UCD Literary and Historical Society, and Mr Clarke and Ms Catherine Donnelly of the TCD Historical Society.
The adjudicators were Ms Christina Murphy (presiding), assistant editor, The Irish Times; Professor Gary Holbrook, Metropolitan State University, Denver, Colorado; Mr Aidan Kane, lecturer in the Department of Economics, UCG, a former winner of The Irish Times Debate; Mr Paul O'Connor, Dean of the Faculty of Law, UCD, and Ms Sile Sheehy, head of education services, The Irish Times.
February 14th, 1846: John Mitchel gives vent to his savage indignation with a leading article in the Nation entitled "Famine".
He writes: "Nearer, nearer wears the day that will see fell Hunger, with stalking Plague in its train, over this devoted land. From almost every county in Ireland come reports of more and more urgent alarm and terror, as the earthed up potatoes are uncovered, and found masses of loathsome rottenness.
From Clare, from Galway, from Meath, we hear of calculations of how much of the people's food remains eat able, and how long it will last. In one district they reckon that there is enough sound food to sustain the population for a week in others, perhaps a fortnight.
"And the men of Clare may comfort themselves with the knowledge that some time in the course of the ensuing spring or summer perhaps, one small fishing pier will be commenced upon their coast. Galway, we learn, is getting an additional military force their port lies wide open for the food to go out; and if no provisions are coming in, there is at least a war steamer in their harbour. Then as for Westmeath, a man was to be hanged there yesterday; if there is to be no adequate means of supplying them with food, they shall, at worst, have plenty of justice."
"They are debating the question of free trade in parliament just now; and the state of the potato crop in Ireland furnishes orators on this side and on that with many plausible topics of discourse by which they may embarrass the Premier, or sustain his views, as the case may be. Meanwhile, the Duke of Norfolk prescribes curry powder, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland assures the commercial world that there are absolutely none of last year's potatoes now remaining in store in that part of the `united kingdom' committed to his government.
"Oh, Heaven! do these men, know what potatoes are what famishing men are? Have they any conception even yet that there may soon be certain millions of human beings in Ireland having nothing to eat; and that the problem will be what to do with them? A problem which must be solved, and that right soon, or it will solve itself in some terrible manner.
Echoing a different Ulster voice, the Downpatrick Recorder praises government efforts to create employment: The Bill authorising the Commissioners of Public Works to make additional grants up to £50,000 and other "measures ought to stop the mouths of agitators; and the peasantry of Ireland are not so devoid of discrimination as not to perceive the difference between an English government which takes means to feed and clothe them, and those who despoil them of their hard earned pence and shillings" a reference to the "O'Connell Tribute".