Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340
- 359)
TUESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2003
MR PAT
MAGUIRE
Q340 Chairman: One of your senior
staff told some of us yesterday that the Republicans in particular
think they have achieved in six months what it took their brethren
four years to achieve in the Maze and that they have rolled you
all over. What is your comment on that?
Mr Maguire: They have, I suppose,
got to a point where they feel that they have achieved separation
and segregation to an extent. It is not probably what they ultimately
want because I am sure that there may be people who would like
to have a return to the Maze-style conditions. That is something
which the Prison Service and I, as Governor, and in fact all the
staff in Maghaberry, do not want to return to. We want to try
and manage a way through this process as best as possible. We
want to be in a position, as we have been, to give support, through
the infrastructure and training and so on for staff, and to have
a very good chance of maintaining this particular regime. Certainly
there is the resolve within the prison to do so and within the
Prison Service.
Q341 Chairman: Do you agree that
Republicans have indeed rolled you over and achieved in six months
what it took their brethren four years?
Mr Maguire: I do not necessarily
agree that that is exactly what they have achieved.
Q342 Chairman: They have achieved
separation?
Mr Maguire: They have not achieved
a Maze-style situation.
Q343 Chairman: So far. What are you
going to do when the next brick is out of the wall? They have
made a relatively feeble attempt to take over one of your houses;
that was rebuffed. What are you going to do when they have got
to another point at which they are going to make demands and then
they threaten to have a hunger strike, which is what caused this
give-way, did it not? It was the threat of the hunger strike which
caused the decision to be made, against your professional advice,
to go for separation. We understand your position; you have got
to do what your Headquarters, the Government, tells you to do.
All your professional advice was not to do it, was it not? The
professional advice was to hold the line where you were?
Mr Maguire: Yes.
Q344 Chairman: What are you going
to do next time?
Mr Maguire: I think once again
I will be advising Headquarters in an operational sense the way
I see things being handled. I do want to believe clearly that
we have got a very, very good chance of maintaining this particular
line and it is down to trying to have the resolve to achieve that.
However, the resolve works its way not just through Maghaberry
and Headquarters but beyond. The resolve has to be there from
Government as well.
Q345 Mr Clarke: Gentlemen, none of
us envies the complexity of the task you are undertaking. I think
we all appreciate how difficult a task it is and how difficult
it is going to be. At the moment, if we understand it correctly,
there are three different regimes: there is the ordinary, standard
regime that you would expect, and an integrated prison is part
of that; there is this interim, separated regime; and then there
is going to be the new regime in Bush/Roe once the work is complete
and those prisoners are in those blocks. Could you give us your
view, first of all, as to whether there is any way in which the
Bush/Roe regime, the new regime, the new compact, could be seen
as easier on the separated prisoner than on the integrated prisoner,
and also whether or not the Bush/Roe compact will be easier or
more relaxed than the current separated regime?
Mr Maguire: I will refer in a
minute to Residential Governor in regard to that. The intention
with the present regime, the interim arrangements, is that that
is without prejudice to what may occur in the permanent arrangements.
The current arrangements in Bann 1 and 2 and Lagan 1 and 2 is
basically again down to controlled movement: three prisoners out
at a time and to keep it very tight in terms of staffing. They
are getting all the facilities that they should get through prison
rules: exercise, visits and so forth. When they move into the
permanent arrangements, what they will receive is again controlled
movement, limited prisoners out at any particular time, and staff
not just feeling in control but being in control. That is the
crux of that particular issue of actually maintaining the control
within the prison. As you saw yesterday in Bush House, the infrastructure
is going to be as tight as I can possibly make it. I have to say
that I have the full support of state management and the Director
General in implementing that very tight infrastructure. No, it
would be wrong to suggest that they are going to have an easier
time either than the integrated prisoners or what we presently
have in both Bann and Lagan. If you want any detail in regard
to that, Residential Governor will give it.
Residential Governor: To build
on the point that the Governor is making about it not being so
attractive, it is clear that, for example, there will be far less
time out of cell; there will be far less association with other
prisoners; there will be far fewer opportunities to make constructive
use of their time in prison. They will not be engaged with house
staff in the way prisoners would be facilitated in a progressive
regime with enhanced status. They will not have an opportunity
to move through such a system and become enhanced prisoners, and
they will get significantly less parole.
Q346 Mr Clarke: Just for the record,
are we saying that separated prisoners will not quality for enhanced
status?
Residential Governor: We cannot
run that system with them because we will not be engaging with
them to the extent integrated prisoners are engaged.
Q347 Mr Clarke: So, there will be
no access to things such as video tape recorders because that
would be an enhanced privilege?
Residential Governor: That is
correct.
Q348 Mr Clarke: Workshops? There
would be no access to workshops for separated prisoners?
Residential Governor: No. The
intention will be that as much as possible the regime will be
wing-based.
Q349 Chairman: To be clear, you are
taking away the privilege of having a video tape recorder?
Residential Governor: The balance
we try to strike is that people in separated conditions will have
access to the same rules and privileges as prisoners on a standard
level in the existing privilege system have, but there is no opportunity
to go to the enhanced level.
Q350 Chairman: I just want to make
this absolutely clear. They will get a reduced level of facilities?
Residential Governor: Yes.
Q351 Chairman: If they have had a
television and a VCR, they will now only have a television?
Residential Governor: Yes, it
will be taken off them.
Q352 Mr Clarke: This is probably
not a question for yourself but for the service. Are we sure that
there are no human rights issues in respect of denial of enhanced
privileges that would be available to other prisoners?
Residential Governor: We expect
everything we are going to try and do to be challenged but our
advice and our hope at the minute is that what we are proposing
is defensible.
Q353 Mr Clarke: This is a similar
question. It has been suggested to us that separated prisoners
will receive earnings, even if they do no work, or that the work
that they do could simply be detailed as cleaning their cells.
Will that cause a problem? That is an easier regime, is it not,
if you are not having to work but you are still getting paid?
Residential Governor: The intention
at the minute is that the separated prisoners will receive about
£6, which is the basic pay that any prisoner can get. There
may be a possibility, and this has not been talked through yet,
for one orderly on the landing to have the opportunity to earn
the rate an orderly in the integrated conditions would attract
but that is it, and that would allow them some money to spend
at the tuckshop, on tobacco and so on.
Q354 Chairman: Just to be clear on
this, everybody in prison gets £6 a week?
Governor of Inmate Services and Activities:
The pay is directly related to the progressive regime, so a prisoner
who will be on the basic regime, sentenced on the basic regime
and not working, would get no payment. A prisoner on the basic
regime who is working, and that would include doing some orderlies
jobs, would only get £4 per week, and then progressing to
standard up to £10, with some bonuses.
Q355 Chairman: But the separated
prisoners, to be absolutely clear, will be on the basic regime
and will not be working, and so they will get nothing?
Mr Maguire: Not on standard; we
are bringing in the separated prisoners at the standard regime
but all prisoners coming into the prison automatically start off
on standard.
Q356 Chairman: I did not understand
the word "basic". Who is on basic?
Governor of Inmate Services and Activities:
As Governor Maguire has already stated, we do not want to unduly
to punish people when they first come into prison. We do not assume
that they are going to be of bad behaviour and so we give them
a standard regime; we deliver standard access to a range of services,
and then they are expected to work.
Q357 Chairman: To get this absolutely
straight and to get the facts right, if somebody starts a sentence
in the integrated regime, you start them off at a standard rate.
If he refuses to work, you put him down to the basic rate and
he gets nothing?
Governor of Inmate Services and Activities:
Unless there were some mitigating circumstances.
Q358 Chairman: But if he will not
work, he does not get his £4 per week?
Governor of Inmate Services and Activities:
That is usually the way we operate.
Mr Maguire: In the separated regime,
if he is not working, he only gets £4 a week; is that right?
Residential Governor: They will
get that.
Q359 Chairman: This is one of the
problems you have inherited by being made to carry out this policy.
This is not critical of you but we just want to get the facts
on the record. A prisoner refusing to work in the integrated regime
will get nothing and a prisoner who does not work in a standard
regime will get £4 a week; is that right?
Residential Governor: Yes, but
he will not have the opportunity to go any further.
Chairman: That is another question as
to whether it is enhanced. They are going to get £4 a week
of the taxpayers' money for doing nothing? I want to make sure
we have got this right.
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