Sir, The 1995 Mountjoy Visiting Committee report is deja vu, only worse. The prison ship is slightly lower in the water. Those charged with its responsibility, their humanity acknowledged, are swimming from behind and don't seem able to catch up with its problems, or indeed anticipate the new ones.
Plug the odd hole, reluctantly and belatedly Give in to a sex offender programme when the clamour becomes deafening Concede on the issue of a drug free zone, hold out a bit longer against a structured drug treatment programme. Who cares if the first opiate addicts arrived in prison in 1979?
When will wisdom take a grip of the prison system and apply direction and vision? I suggest this direction (a) a prisons board with identifiable head and identifiable heads of functions (b) shift the balance between use of custody and use of community penalties towards community penalties where appropriate (c) rehabilitate....... mere containment of people is a wasted opportunity. Is mise le meas, PRO, Probation and Welfare Officer's Branch, IMPACT, Smithfield Chambers, Smithfield, Dublin 7.