The membership and powers of the State's prison visiting committees must be reformed quickly to abolish political patronage and excessive expense claims, according to Fine Gael.
Cork South West TD, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said that the 15 existing visiting committees cost €665,000 annually, yet they had made just one complaint about conditions since 1997.
Mr O'Keeffe, who produced a report on the issue, said: "It is apparent that the current system requires substantial and immediate reform. It is not reasonable to expect the taxpayer to fund a committee system that is loaded with members of the Government parties, a system that has to a major extent become a vehicle for party political reward."
The cost of running the committees was unnecessarily high.
"At the end of 2002, not one member of the committee attached to St Patrick's Institution was from Dublin. Similarly, Wheatfield Prison failed to have a Dublin representative on its committee," said Mr O'Keeffe, who speaks on justice and equality issues for Fine Gael.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, had said he was satisfied with the operation of the committees, "even when faced with overwhelming evidence concerning the political nature of these appointments", Mr O'Keeffe said.
Much of the need for prison visiting committees had been removed by the appointment of Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen in April 2002 as the inspector of prison and places of detention.
The inspector and his staff are required to report to the Minister on the quality of each prison's regime, including the buildings, the attitude of inmates and staff and the health and safety of prisoners. "It is clearly to be seen, when compared with the stated duties of the prison visiting committees, that the responsibilities of the committees and the inspector overlap to a very considerable degree," he said.
The overlapping did not end there. The committees checked each prison's catering standards; however, this was also done by CERT annually. Qualified doctors were on call to each prison rendering "the input of each committee into medical matters obsolete", Mr O'Keeffe continued. The committees also checked prison educational services, though this work was also done by each vocational education committee and the Department of Justice's own director of education.
Set up before independence, the committees originally organised entertainment for the prisoners. Today, the Probation Welfare Service carried out this role.
However, the committees can hear the complaints of individual prisoners while the inspector of prisons has much more limited freedom in this area.
"It is accepted that it is desirable to maintain a link between prisoners and a group of people who can stand outside the prison administrative system. This important link, however, can be maintained in a far more efficient way," said Mr O'Keeffe, who produced his report on the back of Freedom of Information queries and Dáil questions.
In future, the committees should have just six members drawn from the local community in all bar exceptional cases, while expenses should be limited to €2,000 a person a year.
Mr McDowell told the Dáil recently he believed that the visiting committees performed "a very valuable service". However, he said their role would be "revised and updated" as part of a review under way which would "take into account" the functions of the inspector of prisons.
