International Agreements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-07
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

I thank the Senator for raising this very important matter. The Minister sends his apologies for not being able to attend. I did read Mark Kelly's article. The Senator is right; it does make for interesting reading. Ireland ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2002 and signed the optional protocol to the convention, OPCAT, in 2007. OPCAT obliges signatory states to establish a system of inspections of all places where persons can be detained to be carried out by inspection bodies to be known as national preventive mechanisms, NPMs. This will mean making changes to how prisons are inspected but it will also affect other places where persons are detained for any reason, such as detention in the Central Mental Hospital and the detention of children in Oberstown.
The Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration is currently working with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to draft the legislation needed to enable ratification, namely, the inspection of places of detention Bill. This is a commitment in the 2025 programme for Government and the intention is to publish the Bill in the coming months.
The legislation will provide for the designation of a single NPM to visit and inspect all places of detention in the justice sector and for Government Ministers in other sectors to appoint appropriate NPMs for places of detention within their remit, for example, certain healthcare settings. The existing post of Inspector of Prisons will be replaced by a new post of chief inspector of places of detention to take on the role of NPM for the justice sector, to include prisons, Garda stations, the courts and vehicles used by the Irish Prison Service and An Garda Síochána. This means that the new chief inspector will have a mandate to monitor a person’s entire journey through detention, from the point of being placed in a Garda vehicle, through to their time in a cell in a Garda station, in court, on remand and, if sentenced, into a term of imprisonment. The OPCAT will be ratified after the legislation is passed by the Oireachtas. It is expected that the necessary arrangements will be in place within the following 12 months to ensure that inspections can be carried out in places of detention across the State.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-07