Sir, - I wish to congratulate the Department of Justice and the Prisons Service on their development and opening of the splendid women's prison and pre-release centre in Mountjoy; I hope that adequate funding and staffing will be provided to optimise the potential for rehabilitation of offenders.
While the heavy expenditure on Mountjoy and the soon-to-be-opened Cloverhill Remand and Midlands prisons is essential to overcome years of neglect, surely we should be matching such expenditure by investing in residential and extra educational facilities for our homeless and underprivileged. If we did make such an investment in our homeless and underprivileged, it might render some of our prisons redundant in the long term. - Yours, etc.,
Liam O'Riordan, Arundel, Monkstown Valley, Co Dublin.