Madam, - The killing of Gary Douch in Mountjoy Prison is so shocking that it demands a more far-reaching response than the limited inquiry established by the Minister for Justice.
In your Editorial of August 7th, having rightly observed that the State had spectacularly failed in its duty of care to Gary Douch, you go on to say: "but it continues to fail, on a daily basis, in its responsibility to many hundreds of other prisoners who are denied proper psychiatric, education and remedial services". Unfortunately, if there is one thing that has characterised the Department of Justice over the past 30 years it is its utter failure to implement any kind of meaningful rehabilitation in the prison system.
The Government must now demonstrate its commitment to prison reform. As a first step it can do this by transferring responsibility for the delivery of proper health and educational services to all prisoners from the Irish Prison Service to the Department of An Taoiseach. - Yours, etc,
GARRETT SHEEHAN, Francis Street, Dublin 8.