Prison group defends report stance

A MEMBER of the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee said last night that its still unpublished report was submitted to the Department of Justice last Monday week, and from then, in its view, the matter was in the public domain.

Ms Mavis Arnold said the committee had decided in advance that should it be approached by the media about the report at any time subsequent to handing it over to the Department, members would discuss it. It was also agreed that its chairwoman, Ms Nuala Fennell, would be the spokeswoman.

Ms Fennell discussed the report on RTE Radio's Pat Kenny Show last Wednesday, week, "less than 48 hours after it was received by the Department of Justice as the Minister, Mrs Owen pointed out yesterday.

The Minister said she felt she should have been allowed "the courtesy of time to read the report" before committee members began calling for its publication.

Ms Arnold said Ms Fennell's actions may have been "misconstrued" by the Minister, and that what had been done by the committee "was appropriate". It had not expected "immediate publication" of the report by the Minister, but was anxious it should not dissappear "into oblivion like the others".

Members would like to see it cleared by the Attorney General "faster", and "very much hoped" it would be published in full as "there is not an awful lot (in it) which has not been said again and again".

The committee also hoped "this Minister will be different".

Ms Arnold has also found the current publicity surrounding the report "extremely positive" and believes it is a good thing that "people are suitably shocked". She said this committee intended to be very active and felt very strongly about its role as "a public watchdog and representative of the prisoners".

The committee's 12 members are Ms Nuala Fennell (chair), Ms Mavis Arnold, Ms Valerie Bresnihan, Ms Teri Bouchier Hayes, Mr Patrick Irwin, Mr Patrick Farrell, Mr Brian Lynch, Ms Maureen Gillen, Mr Tom Leyden, Mr Peter Counihan, Mr James Woulfe and Cllr Michael Burke.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has called on the Government "not only to publish the report of the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee, but to act on it forthwith, as well."

The group's chairman, Mr Michael Farrell, said this was the second report within six months "to excoriate the Irish prison system". The other report, from the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture, was published last December after having its publication delayed for a year by the Government.

Mr Farrell said both reports show a prison system "in crisis", where the basic human rights of prisoners to "privacy

"adequate health and psychiatric care" are not respected. The report, he said, was "shot through with despair" at the failure of successive governments to act on previous reports.

The Progressive Democrat spokeswoman on Justice, Ms Liz O'Donnell, has said the Government "must publish" the report. "Public interest must come before concern for those presiding over maladministration in Mountjoy Prison," she said.