The Minister for Justice, Mrs Helen McEntee TD, will today officially open the state-of-the-art Limerick Female Prison, marking a significant development in Ireland’s justice system.
The Limerick Female Prison has accommodation for a minimum of 50 female prisoners. It will increase capacity across the prison estate, as well as providing an environment that promotes rehabilitation, helps reduce reoffending and helps to build stronger, safer communities.
Designed with a focus on rehabilitation, the Limerick Female Prison aims to offer a range of educational, vocational, and therapeutic programs to equip inmates with the necessary tools for a law-abiding life after their release.
These initiatives include educational courses, vocational training, mental health support, addiction counselling, and access to healthcare services.
The accommodation comprises of a mixture bedroom units, some apartment style units and a mother and baby unit, all with individual en-suites.
Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD said; “The opening of Limerick Female Prison marks an important step forward in increasing capacity across the prison estate and helping us build stronger, safer communities. These additional spaces are necessary to ensure that we have the sufficient space and facilities to support those committed to serve a custodial sentence in an environment that is safe and has the space and capacity to focus on rehabilitation. They also reflect our commitment to rehabilitating prisoners, reduce re-offending and put them on a path to leading law abiding lives. This modern facility reflects our determination to provide an environment that enables prisoners to address the underlying causes of their offending behaviours and helps them reintegrate successfully into society”.
In addition the opening of Limerick Female Prison today, over 200 spaces were provided across the prison estate in the last year, with an additional 96 spaces provided with the reopening of the Training Unit in Mountjoy, an additional 90 cell spaces with the opening of new male accommodation in Limerick.
Minister McEntee also intends to prioritise 4 additional short-term capital projects at Castlerea, Cloverhill, the Midlands and Mountjoy that could provide accommodation for a minimum of 620 additional people over the next 5 years.
The Minister is engaging with the Minister for Public Expenditure with a view to progressing an agreed schedule of capital builds. Budget 2024 provided an increase of €27 million in the Irish Prisons Service budget, including an extra €12.6m in pay to fund public sector pay increases and additional staff to cope with increasing prisoner numbers and services to prisoners. The new staff provided for in this increased allocation will include extra staff to assist with a Rapid Prison Building Unit to drive the Government’s intention to provide of over 620 new prisoner spaces over the next 5 years.
In addition, the Department of Justice and the IPS continue to work together to identify short, medium and longer term proposals to help manage capacity.
Director General of the Irish Prison Service, Ms Caron McCaffrey said, “I am delighted to announce the official opening of the new Limerick Female Prison. I want to take this opportunity to commend all the staff who worked on this development but also ongoing the modernisation of the Irish Prison Service estate. I feel a huge sense of pride and this new prison will equip women who come into custody with the necessary tools to lead law-abiding lives after their release”.
The opening of Limerick Female Prison signifies Ireland’s dedication to transforming its prison system into one that prioritises rehabilitation, reducing the likelihood of reoffending and contributing positively to communities. The facility aligns with international best practices. It is also essential that the prison estate is modern and fit for purpose and has the capacity to accommodate those committed to prison by the courts both now and into the future. The new Limerick Female Prison builds on the works that have been completed across the prison estate over the last number of years.
The Good News: More than two million households will see €150 taken off their electricity bill on December 1st, 2023. January 1st 2024 and March 1st, 2024.
The Bad News: The current coalition government will continue to use taxpayers money, which should be spent on health and other public services, in order to support extortionate prices being charged by unscrupulous power suppliers. Time to check your attic for the hydrocarbon fuelled heater and that John Tilly lamp, before returning them to full use, while the government pays your low charge ESB bill.
A promised strike by some 5,000 community healthcare staff and social care workers from 19 organisations has been averted, following an 8% pay offer made, after long drawn out talks, late last night.
Strike Action By Health & Community Care Workers Averted.
Workers at Daughters Of Charity Child and Family Service, DePaul Ireland, Ardeen Cheshire Ireland, Ability West, Co-action West Cork, Cobh Hospital, Don Bosco Care and Enable Ireland, Family Resource Centres, the Irish Wheelchair Association, Kerry Parents and Friends, St Catherine’s Association, St Joseph’s Foundation, St Luke’s Nursing Home, and the Western Care Association were all due to hold future stoppages.
Talks between the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Health and the ICTU group of unions, have now agreed to recommend that the new pay offer be accepted, same having been brokered at the Workplace Relations Commission.
The new deal will include a 3% pay rise backdated to April 1st 2023; another 2% on November 1st 2023 and a further 3% on March 1st also this year.
Further discussions on a key demand to link pay to public servant’s wages are also proposed as part of this agreement, with the government acknowledging that workers pay in section 39, section 56 and section 10 organisations had fallen behind equivalent and comparable grades in public service organisations.
The Workplace Relations Commission will now convene the parties, to the agreement, before December 1st, 2023
Construction waste is Ireland’s largest waste stream, and current recycling rates are too low.
Implementation of new national end-of-waste criteria will reduce construction waste going to landfills, and increase recycling rates.
Use of end-of-waste criteria for recycled aggregates will support green procurement in the built environment.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today published National End-of-Waste Criteria for Recycled Aggregates*. *Aggregates meaning materials formed from a mass of fragments or particles loosely compacted together.
The criteria apply to aggregates recycled from construction and demolition waste, including soil and stone, concrete, bricks and ceramics. These criteria will allow for the safe reclassification of recycled aggregates from a waste to a product, which can be subsequently placed on the market.
There is a strong demand for recycled aggregates in Ireland to support development of new infrastructure with a low carbon footprint. The criteria allow for the replacement of virgin aggregates with recycled aggregates, in uses such as general fill, road construction, railway ballast and other non-structural uses.
Keeping materials in use is one of the fundamental elements of a circular economy. These criteria support and facilitate increased recycling in the construction, demolition and waste sectors.
Commenting on the criteria, Mr Micheál Lehane, [Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Sustainability], said: “The publication of national end-of-waste criteria for recycled aggregates is a significant milestone for both the EPA and industry. The criteria will help tackle construction waste, the largest waste stream in the country and support the development of markets for recyclable materials. This is the type of progress which is needed if Ireland is to move in a meaningful way from the linear to the circular economy.”
End-of-waste criteria for recycled aggregates will also support national green procurement ambitions. A publicly-available register on the EPA website will enable buyers to confidently choose a registered supplier of quality recycled aggregates.
Mr Warren Phelan, [Programme Manager of the EPA’s Circular Economy Programme] noted: “The publication of the criteria show the EPA’s commitment to streamlining the regulation of secondary products. This represents a shift away from the assessment of case-by-case applications to a national criteria available to all authorised producers. These criteria will introduce a level playing field for industry and introduce a single set of rules that are easy to implement.”
The EPA calls on industry and the waste sector to now adopt, implement and build upon the criteria established.
Further information on the national end-of-waste criteria and other initiatives of the circular economy programme are available on the EPA website HERE.
The digitisation of the citizenship application process is a key milestone in the Department of Justice’s Immigration Service Delivery Modernisation Programme.
The Immigration Modernisation Programme will, over the coming years, digitise a number of currently paper-based immigration processes and introduce a portal system where individuals will be able to manage and view all aspects of their interaction with immigration services. This will improve efficiencies in the immigration system, improve the customer experience through the availability of comprehensive self service functions, improve data management and utilisation, and enhance border security capability and capacity.
The online Citizenship application service will allow potential new Irish citizens to complete their application form, upload necessary supporting documentation and pay fees online, making the application process easier and more efficient in a digital age.
It will also allow the Immigration Service to more efficiently and effectively manage applications for Citizenship, which have increased in recent years.
Note: The paper-based application will still remain available to those who cannot access an online service.
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