Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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1430.To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality her views on the need to institute greater supports for neurodiverse persons in the prison system. [31031/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Irish Prison Service recognises the importance of supporting neurodiverse people in custody, and are engaged in a number of important initiatives to this effect.

Everyone committed to the care of the Irish Prison Service has both a nursing and medical assessment completed within 2 and 24 hours respectively. These assessments highlight and initiate further services that may be required and ensure relevant supports are put in place.

The Irish Prison Service do not currently have figures in relation to how many people in custody have a neurodiverse diagnosis. However, due to the increase in the volume of assessments in recent years the need for prevalent data is now clearly evident. As a result, neurodiversity is included within the plan for a Mental Health Needs Analysis, as recommended under 'Sharing the Vision'. The tender process for this large-scale prevalence study is underway, supported by the Irish Prison Service, HSE and Probation Service.

In addition to the Mental Health Needs Analysis, the Irish Prison Service recently provided input to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth’s 'National Disability Strategy', and the 'National Autism Innovation Strategy'. The Irish Prison Service will continue to consult and collaborate on these strategies and other relevant strategies as appropriate.

Further, the Irish Prison Service is engaging with the National Disability Authority, AsIAm, University of Limerick and Trinity College Dublin on the development of prison autism accreditation standards, similar to other jurisdictions. This includes standards for people in custody who have autism as well as visitors to prisons and in this regard, a working group has recently been established to guide this work.

Neurodiversity workshops have been developed and are delivered to Recruit Prison Officers as part of their training programme and at a local level, AsIAm are consulting with Wheatfield Prison to develop neurodiversity friendly visiting spaces.

Finally, the Irish Prison Service is collaborating with Senator Lynn Ruane on a project related to the support of neurodiverse young people in custody. A scoping exercise for the project is currently being finalised. The scoping report was commissioned by the Office of Senator Lynn Ruane, and funded by Community Foundation Ireland, with support from the Irish Penal Reform Trust.