11th April 2024
On 11 April 2024, Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) wrote to the newly appointed Taoiseach, Simon Harris, congratulating him on his recent appointment and highlighting our key priorities for his premiership.
The full copy of the letter is available to read below.
Re: Irish Penal Reform Trust Priorities for 2024
Dear Taoiseach Harris,
I would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Taoiseach and look forward to working with you over the coming months. We particularly welcome your experience and understanding of the justice portfolio given your time as interim Minister for Justice and your establishment of the Prison Education Taskforce. We have seen and supported this Government propose and put in place some progressive penal reform measures, and we hope that this will continue under your tenure.
We are encouraged by your commitment to implementing the existing Programme for Government which contained a number of important proposals relating to prisons and penal reform. One of these was to establish a high-level cross-departmental and cross-agency taskforce to consider the mental health and addiction challenges of those imprisoned, as well as primary care support on release, and we welcome that this taskforce has already published its report and recommendations. However, we believe there are several existing commitments that could also be delivered within the remaining time of this Government’s term in office.
Taoiseach, we commend you on your personal commitment to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and would welcome a similar emphasis on ratifying the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT). We remain hopeful that it will be ratified as the Inspection of the Places of Detention Bill was scheduled for priority drafting in the spring legislative programme. If this is not likely to happen, then we would urge the Government to consider invoking Article 24 of OPCAT. This would enable you to make a declaration postponing the implementation of the State’s obligations for up to five years with an additional year to then designate the National Preventive Mechanism after ratification. The IPRT believes this would be a pragmatic approach and would not only signify the present Government’s commitment to ratification but would fulfil your Programme for Government pledge to do so. The importance of OPCAT cannot be overstated. It is an international human rights treaty which assists States in preventing torture and other forms of ill-treatment in places of detention by identifying systemic issues arising and making concrete recommendations to address these issues. This is particularly important in the context of prison overcrowding, deteriorating conditions and with the upcoming visit of the European Committee against Torture later this year.
A key commitment that has yet to be implemented includes the establishment of a Penal Consultative Council comprising key stakeholders across the criminal justice system, including people with lived experience of that system. We believe this could be an invaluable resource to help inform legislative and policy decisions relating to the criminal justice system. We believe this could be established in the coming weeks and months.
This Government also pledged to review the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016 to broaden the range of convictions that are considered spent. This commitment could quite easily be achieved by progressing and enacting the Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018 proposed by Senator Lynn Ruane which has garnered cross-party support. Your colleagues have indicated that they would support the legislation with some minor amendments. Given that this Bill fell with the last Government, we would welcome its passage during the lifetime of this Government. We believe this would make a real difference to people who have served a sentence – whether custodial or in the community – but want to move on with their lives into employment or education without this piece of their history holding them back.
While we understand the need to reassure the electorate that the Government is taking all possible measures to make communities safer, IPRT is concerned about the political rhetoric around harsher penalties and prison expansion and the doubling down of the “law and order” agenda. An additional 600+ prison spaces will be years in the making and will do nothing to alleviate the current overcrowding crisis. Furthermore, increasing capacity in prison sends entirely the wrong message – it signals an acceptance on the part of our leaders that more crime is inevitable when in fact it is not.
Already this Government has demonstrated leadership based on clear evidence-driven policy in terms of the Youth Justice Strategy, which puts in place measures aimed to “provide support at the earliest opportunity (ideally before offending behaviour occurs)” to address “the underlying causes of offending behaviours and maximise opportunities to avoid or divert from interaction with the criminal justice system”. We would urge you to adopt a similar approach to tackle the root causes of offending more widely in the adult population. Our prisons currently represent a microcosm of issues that the whole of society is facing amid a cost-of-living crisis, but at a heightened level of intensity – people experiencing homelessness, poverty and deprivation, mental health challenges, addiction and substance misuse or any combination of these. We must start by investing in people to give them the best life chances possible and tackle the challenges faced by so many in our society in a meaningful and productive way.
IPRT notes the recent focus on introducing minimum tariffs for life sentences. However, this was only one of six priorities outlined in the Review of Policy Options on Prison and Penal Reform 2022-2024. IPRT also understands that several policy reviews have been recently completed and we look forward to considering these important proposals and conducting a rights-based analysis of the same. In particular, we are interested to see the policy review of life sentences alongside the examination of the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences and hope these will be published as a matter of urgency to afford sufficient time to discuss and debate any proposals in advance of any legislative amendments being brought forward.
As IPRT celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, we will mark the occasion in the autumn, and we hope that you will be in a position to join us in reflecting on the important work that we have done over the last three decades to improve the lives of people deprived of their liberty. We will be in touch in due course with details about upcoming events. In the meantime, I want to wish you the very best in your premiership and assure you that we are available at any stage to discuss how IPRT can support you to deliver on a progressive penal reform agenda to ensure a safer society for all.
Yours sincerely,
Saoirse Brady
Executive Director
Irish Penal Reform Trust
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.