The Dóchas Centre is one of the two prison facilities in Ireland that accommodates adult female offenders with an operational capacity of 146.
The information was provided by the Chair of the Dóchas Centre Visiting Committee, Carol Conway, who also noted that in her view prison continues to be used as a service for women with severe mental health issues.
In correspondence sent to TD’s and Senators, the Co-chair of the All-Party Group, Labour Party leader Deputy Ivana Bacik, pointed to research which estimated that 85% of the Irish female prison population has addiction issues.
Research has also estimated that 60% of sentenced women (compared to 27% of sentenced men) have a mental illness.
Published figures show persistent overcrowding in both of Ireland’s female prisons between 2017 and 2020 and as of Friday 10 June 2022, Limerick Prison (female) was at 132% capacity.
In response to a parliamentary question from Aontú leader Peadar Toibin, the Minister for Justice had previously noted that the Irish Prison Service continues to seek to construct a range of programmes, support services and through-care options for prisoners demonstrating a commitment to addressing their substance misuse.
Minister McEntee said that all prisoners are medically assessed on committal and a treatment plan is agreed for those who wish to address addiction issues:
“Most often, this will focus on a symptomatic detox and a nine-week Drug Treatment Programme (DTP) is available in the Mountjoy Medical Unit for those wishing to detoxify from drugs. “
1,293 prisoners (in both male and female prisons) received drug treatment (methadone) in 2020 and with 522 prisoners in receipt of methadone across the system as of March 2022.
It was also noted in response to Deputy Toibin that “while prescribing levels for methadone have fluctuated over the past 3 years, the profile of the numbers of prisoners availing of the different treatment options – i.e. detoxification, maintenance or stabilisation – has remained consistent, with 35% availing of detoxification, 64% availing of maintenance and 1% availing of the stabilisation programme.”
A number of other core issues were identified by Deputy Bacik and the All-Party Oireachtas Group including what they say is the significant overrepresentation of Traveller women within the prison system, “(with past research indicating that Traveller women are 18-22 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Traveller women).”
The Labour Party leader said that an overarching theme arising from the meeting of the All-Party Group was the importance of making the principle of “imprisonment as a last resort” a reality, by using all available alternatives.
The meeting also heard concerns around the decision not to publish recent Inspector of Prison reports into the Dóchas Centre. Deputy Bacik said this ties into greater issues around transparency and accountability in the Irish prison system.