Criminal Law, Civil Law and Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-24 ============================================================ Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland I listened carefully to what Senators O'Reilly and Ruane have said. I share their view that prison should be a punishment of last resort rather than in any circumstance a punishment that is handed down, particularly in the District Court, with a view to seeming to take a severe stance in the hope that the Circuit Court will some time later take a more moderate view of the offence. Quite often in these Houses we hear earnest demands for mandatory prison sentences for assaulting emergency workers, gardaí and so on. At the same time the catastrophic consequences of sending a young person, nearly always a young man, to prison for an assault in those circumstances, is not taken into account by those who demand such measures be brought into law. The second thing is that we are not dealing here with Tasers being used in prisons. We are just talking about incapacitant sprays. I share the view that we do not want to normalise their use. I remember when I was where the Minister is, being worried by the use of cells for the detention of prisoners who get overly het up. They were put into rubber-lined cells in total darkness as a fairly frequent event in terms of prison discipline, which I considered unacceptable. We dealt with that issue by ending the previous practice and bringing in a far more humane system of isolation cells for people who are a danger to themselves or to others. I am glad that change was made. Nonetheless, I take the view that we are in a situation where our prison system is in crisis. It is not in the Minister's interest to unduly dwell on this fact but it is in crisis because over-occupancy has risen to very serious proportions. That is in the context where we had one quarter remission for good behaviour back in the days when I was the Minister for justice. It is now one third remission. It is not as if the system has not attempted to cope with the situation that now exists. In the context of how we deal with this problem, it is true that it is not solely related to the growth in population, but it is equally naive to believe that social attitudes to the criminal justice system exist in total isolation from the question of sentencing policy. My view is that those who demand severe penalties, even in a context where there is one third rather than one quarter remission, are, in fact, demanding the need for extra prison spaces when those penalties are being imposed. With an increasing population, particularly where demographic increases are taking place, namely in the age groups where criminality is more located and more likely to occur, from a statistical point of view, the simple fact is that at the very least we need the number of prison spaces that exist at present. In addition, those prison spaces need to be allocated on a humane basis. We are putting two or three people in a cell - two on bunks and one on a rubber mattress on the floor. The Chief Inspector of Prisons has commented on this situation, as has the UN committee. How can anybody think that situation can possibly be reconciled with an overall political mandate to engage in rehabilitation of prisoners? How can somebody who has existed for months or years in such circumstances really be expected to emerge out of prison as an improved citizen determined to spend the rest of his or her life obedient to the law? The reality is that massive overcrowding gives rise to major problems in terms of interpersonal relations between prisoners and between prison officers and prisoners. That carries with it the whole question of keeping prisoners safe, which we, as a society, have an obligation to do. This brings me to the point that we were about to build Thornton Hall in 2007. The purpose of that campus was not simply to have a super-prison near Dublin. It was to have sufficient space available on a prison campus for different kinds of units, with different regimes in them, with facilities for sport and outdoor activities, and the capacity to have people properly housed in decent circumstances as opposed to overcrowded conditions. I am strongly of the view that successive governors of Mountjoy Prison, especially since my time as Minister, have made huge efforts to----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-24