§ MR. DEASY(for Mr. HOOPER) (Cork, S.E.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the recommendation 588 of Viscount Cross's Commission on Irish Prisons, that first committals should be exercised as a separate class, was adopted in Cork Female Prison; and, if so, when; whether it was in operation there when the young girl Griffin, committed from the Ballinspittle District for taking forcible possession, was received at the prison this year; whether the abandoned women with whom she was exercised, before an exception was made in her favour, were first committals; and, whether the classification of prisoners in Cork Female Prison for exercise purposes is now in all respects the same as before the girl Griffin's committal; and, if not, in what does the difference consist?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said (Dublin University)With respect to paragraph sone and two, the recommendation referred to of the Royal Commission did not include the case of local prisons, but related solely to convict prisons, where, as a matter of fact, it is in operation. The Prisons Board are unable to reply to paragraph three. As a rule they have no moans of knowing whether persons committed to prison for crime are or are not of the class described in that paragraph. As has been, however, already explained, in reply to a previous Question on the subject of the case of the prisoner Griffin, there is no association whatever between prisoners at exercise, as they are required to walk five paces apart, and to keep silence. Since attention was called to the case of this prisoner, the officer in charge of Cork Female Prison has been strictly enjoined to be more careful as to exercising first committals separately from other prisoners, and this Rule is now strictly adhered to in that prison.