THE Department of Justice is withholding, yet again, the publication of the annual report of the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee. Its purported reason this year for failing in its statutory duty to publish the report once it becomes available is that the report may be libelous.
It is libellous all right. It certainly tends to lower a reputation in the estimation of "right thinking people" (honest, that is the standard for libel). But it is the reputation of the Department of Justice itself that is at stake. Herewith a few introductory snippets from the report the Department refuses to publish
"We cannot describe Mountjoy Prison as any thing but an appalling institution ...
"When we take stock of Mountjoy Visiting Committee Annual reports of recent years, we see a depressing repetition of many of the same problem areas, the same difficulties highlighted and the same proposals for change as we now make.
"We must therefore question why the dedicated reporting work of visiting committees in such a critical prison as Mountjoy seems to disappear into a vacuum once presented to successive Ministers for Justice, without debate, deliberation, response, or indeed in most cases, publication. And, with little exception, nothing changes...
"Almost two years ago when The Management of Offenders, Five Year Plan was launched by the Department of Justice, the hope was that it would not join the Whitaker report in virtual oblivion. Regrettably, on present evidence, this Visiting Committee feels that this is precisely what happened."
By the way, the Whitaker report was the Report of the Committee of inquiry into the Penal System chaired by Dr T.K. Whitaker and involving several notables, including then Supreme Court judge Seamus Henchy, Dr John Cooney, Father Liam Ryan, Father Peter McVerry and several others.
The committee of inquiry was established by the then Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan, in January 1984 and reported in July 1985. Almost all its main recommendations have been ignored by the people who have been Minister for Justice since then Michael Noonan, Alan Dukes, Gerry Collins, Ray Burke, Padraig Flynn, Maire Geoghegan Quinn and Nora Owen. The Management of Offenders A Five Year Plan was published by Maire Geoghegan Quinn in June 1994.
One of the most disturbing aspects of Mountjoy for several years has been the medical service available in the main section of the prison, which houses 500 prisoners at any one time. This clearly is the section of the report that the Department of Justice purports to be worried about from a libel perspective.
The opening sentence of section reads "A description of the medical services has been adequately outlined in our 1993 Annual Report." In other words, all material facts in relation to this issue have been published before. How then could there be worries about libel now?
The report goes on "We ... highlight the regrettable ongoing concerns of the Committee in the context of its legislative functions regarding the quantity and quality of the medical services relative to safeguarding the basic human rights of prisoners ... All our previous policy suggestions have been consistently ignored by the Department of Justice."
It notes that in 1993 it reported that as many as 50 prisoners could be seen by any one doctor in any hour (two part time doctors are attached to the main section of the prison and it is these that are being referred to.)
The 1995 report goes on to present examples of attendances by these doctors at the prison in 1994 On January 13th, one doctor saw 40 patients in 50 minutes. On February 17th, the same doctor saw six patients in 10 minutes. On December 5th, this doctor saw 43 patients in 40 minutes. This doctor's total of visits to the prison in 1994 was 107. Of these, 53 were of one hour or less and 23 were of 20 minutes or less. For this service, the doctor earned Pounds 15,000 in 1994.
The other doctor saw 42 patients in 42 minutes on June 8th. He saw 31 in 35 minutes on December 8th. He made a total of 142 visits to the prison in 1994. Of these, 94 were of one hour or less and 21 were of 15 minutes or less. For this service this doctor also earned Pounds 15,000 in 1994.
BOTH of these doctors decline to take blood samples from prisoners or to undertake suturing. Because of this, the most mundane medical problems are "farmed out" to nearby hospitals. The cost of this is considerable as three officers escort each prisoner on such visits at a cost of Pounds 50.40 for each officer for each visit.
The report notes "The consistency of these doctors seeing so many patients in such a short time is of considerable concern to this Visiting Committee... We wish to point out to the Minister that this is the third successive year that the 'quality' problem in relation to the main prison medical services has been reported in some respect in our reports."
The visiting committee says it has been in correspondence with the Medical Council and the Irish College of General Practitioners about this problem since the publication of the 1994 annual report. "Our correspondence has been unsatisfactory, particularly from the latter institution (the Irish College of General Practitioners).
As the committee implies, prisoners in Mountjoy have basic human rights and these have to include at a minimum the right to rudimentary medical services while detained in the custody of the State. There are several suicides in Mountjoy each year and many more attempted suicides. The drugs problem in the jail has reached "epidemic" proportions, as the visiting committee has repeatedly reported. Thus the management of the medical service at the prison is of crucial importance.
And yet, year in year out, the visiting committee reports on the state of this medical service in the main prison and nothing gets done about it.
Last year when I wrote about this, I was assured by the Department that negotiations had been under way for some time with the Irish Medical Organisation to sort out the problem. The visiting committee refers to this in the comment "Is there any point in reporting (on the medical facilities) at all when there has been little or no movement in the negotiations between the IMO and the Department of Justice since 1992?" This merely spreads the culpability more widely, not just to the Department of Justice but to the Irish Medical Organisation.
Next week I will deal with the Department of Justice and the publication of the report.