Speech on a visit to the Dóchas Centre
8th June 2015
Tá an-áthas orm a bheith anseo libh inniú in Ionad Dóchas
Is é seo an chéad uair dom cuairt a thabhairt ar an Ionad Dóchas mar Uachtarán. Nuair a toghadh mé i mí na Samhna 2011, gheall mé go mbéinn i mo Uachtarán ar muintir na hÉireann ar fad agus luaigh mé príosúnaigh go sonrach mar ghrúpa saoránach tábhachtacha a chuirfinn san áireamh le linn mo Uachtaránacht.
[This is my first visit to the Dóchas Centre as President. When I was elected in November 2011, I made a commitment to be a President for all of the people of Ireland and I specifically named those in prison as an important group of citizens that I would include during my Presidency. ]
Throughout my political and academic career, I have had a special interest in the position of prisoners in society. Back in the ‘70’s I was a member of the McBride Commission on Prisoners. Since becoming President, I have visited Mountjoy Male Prison, Wheatfield, Cloverhill and the Midlands Prison. Sabina too has visited prisons and I am especially pleased to be here with you today.
On every occasion on which I have visited a prison, I have been impressed and encouraged by the efforts, and indeed the achievements of personal transformation that are being made by prisoners, and by the excellent work being carried out by the staff and agencies working to support and assist those who are detained there.
It was a great pleasure to be asked to present the Gaisce Bronze Awards to five of you just now in recognition of the work you have undertaken. As President, I have a very close relationship with Gaisce - the President’s Award - and I welcome the great efforts taken by Gaisce in recent years to extend the scheme to prisons and other places where young people might find it hard to access the benefits of the Gaisce programme. I want to acknowledge too the President’s Award Leaders who supported the women through the Gaisce journey, Robbie Cosgrave and Katherine Bogue.
It was also a real pleasure to present certificates to those women who took part in the Peoples’ Conversation event held here at Dóchas. The People’s Conversation is a special project of The Wheel, which feeds into the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative. Your contribution to that Initiative is of great value to me and I am glad of this opportunity to thank you for sharing your experiences, your views and your opinions which were an important part of the programme.
Your opinions and views matter and your voices should be heard, particularly when it comes to the design and administration of the services which you use every day. I was delighted also to meet today members of the United Voice prisoners’ council and to hear about this groundbreaking initiative to provide a platform for your views to be taken into account within the prison. I strongly believe that if imprisonment is to be expected to help people become better citizens then it must begin from the premise of respect. Structures such as prisoner councils are an excellent vehicle to help create an environment of trust and respect and to help foster individual and group responsibility.
Prisons are part of the wider community, but they are also communities in themselves and the Dóchas Centre is rightly regarded as an example of how a prison environment can be used to foster a secure and positive sense of community. I was a member of Government during the period when many key decisions were made, under the leadership of two women in the position of Minister for Justice Máire Geoghegan Quinn and Nora Owen, to build this Centre, which was finally opened in 1999.
The decision to construct a prison facility that was designed with the needs of women in mind was, and remains, a landmark, and perhaps even a turning point, in Irish penal policy.
Over the intervening years, I know that at times overcrowding and cuts to services have presented obstacles to achieving the vision of those who designed the prison almost twenty years ago, but I am impressed by what I have seen today and particularly by how the problem of overcrowding has been addressed.
I have just had the opportunity to meet with the different agencies working together in the Dóchas Centre: Healthcare, Chaplaincy, Education, The Probation Service, Addiction Counselling, Sentence Management, Training and Employment, and Resettlement.
I want to recognise the progress that has been made in recent years, much of it led by Governor Mary O’Connor and her staff, in improving the co-ordination and co-operation of these services both within the prison setting and also between those working in prison and in the community. I note in particular the emphasis that has been placed on closer cooperation between the Irish Prison Service and the Probation Service, and it is very encouraging to see how cooperation in relation to women offenders might be used as a model for cooperation between the services at a broader level.
The range of services and agencies who are now working at the Dóchas Centre reflects the fact that the task of rehabilitation and equipping people to lead productive and fulfilling lives in the community is multifaceted and multi-layered; and it is a long-term task. When complex social problems have their roots in the community it is not realistic to expect them to be solved in prison, or by the intervention of imprisonment along. The emphasis that is now being placed on supporting women leaving Dóchas in areas such as housing, healthcare and welfare is absolutely essential and I want to take this opportunity to commend the great progress made in improving these supports in recent years, especially the opening of the Abigail Centre in Finglas.
Is mian mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh ar fad a bhíonn ag obair leis na mná sna seirbhísí éagsúla anseo i nDóchas agus sa phobal as ucht bhur gcuid oibre. Tá a fhios agam gur obair í a bhfuil luachmhar d'ár bpobal agus tuigim go bhfuil scil agus díograis mór ag teastáil len í a bhaint amach.
[To all of you who are working with women in these various services here at Dóchas and in the community, I want to thank you for the work that you do. I know that it is work of great value to our community and I do not underestimate the levels of skills and dedication that are required. ]
To you the women I have met today, I want to say finally that I never underestimate how difficult the time you spend here can sometimes be, or the pain that separation from loved ones can bring. This Centre was aptly named Dóchas, meaning hope, and the most important thing about the difficult road many of you are trying to take in your lives, is that there can be hope that you will succeed. There is a great sense of hope here today, hope that women can overcome the problems and difficult experiences in their lives and have happier, healthier and safer futures together with their families, their friends and their communities.
Tá áthas orm féin go raibh mé in ann an misneach sin a roinnt libh inniu, agus tá áthas orainn anois go mbeidh muid in ann béile a roinnt libh. Ní chuirfidh mé tuileadh moille oraibh.
[I am pleased to be able to share that hope today and now also to share a meal with you all, which I am looking forward to and from which I don’t want to keep you any longer than I already have.]
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.