Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs Written Evidence


APPENDIX 16

Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Northern Ireland Prison Service

  Thank you for your letter seeking additional information to the oral evidence given by me on 29 October and on other matters which have arisen through the Committee's visit to Maghaberry and discussions with other parties.

  I will address the issues in the order you raised them.

STAFF MATTERS

  1.  The trigger points at which line management may consider an informal (first written) warning are four absences or 10 working days in a rolling 12-month period or six absences or 15 days in a rolling 24-month period. A formal warning will be considered should attendance not improve after the issue of an informal warning.

  2.  A monthly breakdown of the number of assaults on staff within Maghaberry prison during the last 24 months is set out in Annex A.

  3.  (a) (i) and (b) (i)

  Statistics for the number of assaults on both Maghaberry staff and staff from other NI establishments, or their families, within their homes are attached at Annex B.

  3.  (a) (ii) and (b) (ii)

  There have been no assaults on prison officers on their way to work.

  4.  During this 24-month period, a total of 245 Maghaberry staff have moved with the benefit of the Assisted Home Removal Scheme.

PREPARATIONS FOR SEPARATION

  5.  A contingency plan, in the sense of emergency procedures to be activated if certain events occurred, did not exist prior to the conduct of the Steele Review. A study had, however, been carried out into the tactics used by Maze prisoners and their supporters to achieve segregation. Following the closure of Maze this study was used to benchmark the activities of paramilitary prisoners, whom it was believed, would press for similar conditions in Maghaberry.

  A steering group was established, comprising the Director of Operations, the Governor of Maghaberry and others, to monitor the activities of prisoners with paramilitary affiliations. The Maze study was used as the primary tool for understanding and interpreting these activities in relation to the prisoners' goal of achieving segregation. Importantly the steering group directed management's attention and energy towards emerging areas of weakness and to rectify them. The success was that it enabled Maghaberry to prevent demands for segregation being realised for around three years. It also meant that when prisoners did start protesting Maghaberry was ready for them—in the end it was external rather than internal pressures that led to the Steele Review.

  6.  From the 1970s onwards a system known as "forced integration" or "self-segregation" began to operate in Belfast prison.

  Self-segregation developed as the opposing paramilitary factions could not or would not live peacefully together. As a consequence of the dirty protest and hunger strikes they always aspired to political status and wished to have what the Maze eventually had which was factionalised wings where they could control their own affairs.

  Self-segregation was a regime agreed between Republicans and Loyalists and the policy operated along the lines of alternate cells being either Republican or Loyalist.

  The wings that housed these paramilitaries were staff intensive and a rigid controlled movement policy operated. Normally if several prisoners from one faction were out on the landing, the opposing faction was locked.

  Both sides shared all the facilities—dining/association room and exercise yard but used them at different times. For example, if the Republicans were in the exercise yard in the morning, the Loyalists remained locked. The situation was reversed in the afternoon, and then again for the evening association.

  In 1991, a bomb was detonated in the dining room, killing 2 Loyalists and injuring a further seven. The subsequent report by Lord Colville endorsed the Government's policy of resisting segregation. The self-segregation arrangement ended in July 1994 when Loyalist prisoners rendered "A" and "B" wings incapable of housing high security prisoners by severely damaging the cell infrastructure. Within 24 hours the prisoners were moved to Maze prison.

  The experience at Belfast was not a critical factor when initially looking at separation in Maghaberry. However, local management at Maghaberry have kept the Belfast regime in mind during development of regime and staffing arrangements and commencement of physical works, as the controlled regime in Belfast was effective, and it was only the physical structure of the prison that proved unsuitable.

DETERMINATIONS ON SEPARATION

  7.  As a temporary measure a number of Republican and Loyalist prisoners have moved to a wing-based regime. The protesting Republican prisoners were moved because they said they felt unsafe within the integrated regime. The Loyalist prisoners were transferred following the consideration of their offence, affiliation and paramilitary profile. They were subsequently interviewed and those deemed to have a high paramilitary profile and to be at risk were selected to move to the wing-based regime.

  8.  The existing process for requesting evidence from the PSNI about individual paramilitary affiliations is that the Security Department at Maghaberry Prison liaises with the collator at Musgrave Street PSNI, normally once a week, and with Special Branch, Lisburn PSNI. On average this process takes two to three weeks.

  9.  To date there have been six requests from four Real IRA, one UFF and one UDA to transfer to the separated regime at Maghaberry. All six prisoners have been transferred.

  10.  There will not be any appeal mechanism against a Prison Service determination.

  11.  The Prison Service will not recognise any authority of "officers commanding" under the new regime.

2 December 2003



 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004
Prepared 11 February 2004