THREE human rights organisations have supported the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee in its criticism of conditions in the prison, and called on the Government to improve the penal system in this State.
The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT), the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP) said the committee's report reflects "the outright neglect on the part of successive governments to take control of the prison system."
The three groups expressed concern about overcrowding and lack of medical and other facilities. They advocated building a separate prison for women and for prisoners awaiting trial.
Mr Michael Farrell of the ICCL said that if a society's level of sophistication could be judged by the way it treated its prisoners, "then, by that standard, this society does not rate very highly."
He said the Government reaction to the report had been "disgraceful". The Government delayed publishing a report on prison and custody conditions by the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture for two years.
He said: "It is pointless and hypocritical to talk about a crime epidemic when no serious effort is being made to provide conditions that might help rehabilitate those convicted of crimes, to try and ensure that they do not reoffend.
"It is absurd for the Government to talk of restrictions on granting bail in a situation where convicted prisoners are being released to make room for remand prisoners."
Mr Jerome Connolly of the Penal Reform Trust described the Government's penal policy as "incoherent". He pointed out that the governor of Mountjoy Prison, under law, had no option but to accept any prisoner sent by the courts.
The trust was seeking the establishment of a legal "ceiling" figure for the number of prisoners in Mountjoy. There was "chronic overcrowding and a chronic lack of resources" leading to the "minimum chance of rehabilitation in prison and serious breaches of human rights standards".
The trust called for a remand prison at Wheat field in west Dublin; the appointment of an inspector of prisons to oversee structural accountability within the prison system; a legal "ceiling" limiting the number of prisoners in institutions; a separate women's prison; improved medical and psychiatric care and drug monitoring.
The ICCL also issued a list of demands, including the appointment of a director of the prison service; the provision of separate women's and remand prisons; an end to overcrowding; and a comprehensive detoxification and drug treatment service.