The function of prison visiting committees will be reviewed in new prison legislation, according to the Minister for Justice.
Mr McDowell was speaking yesterday at the opening of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons, set up in 2002. Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen was appointed as the first inspector in April of that year, and earlier this year he published his first report, which was highly critical of the prison system.
There have also been a number of calls for the reform of the prison visiting committee system, which costs €665,000 annually in members' expenses.
Earlier this year, Fine Gael TD Mr Jim O'Keeffe accused the system of being mainly a vehicle for party political reward, pointing out that the visiting committees for both St Patrick's Institution and and Wheatfield Prison, both in Dublin, failed to have a single member from Dublin on them. With the appointment of the inspector, the reason for their existence had been largely removed.
Mr McDowell said yesterday that in the Dáil debates on the setting up of the committees it was said that public representatives should be involved. Thecommittees were established before the Office of the Inspector, and they fulfilled a different role, but it was important to ensure synergy between them and the Office of the Inspector.
On Mr Justice Kinlen's report, where he recommended the demolition of Mountjoy, he said no decision had been made on whether to knock it down, refurbish it or rebuild on a new site.
"The Mountjoy complex is a vastly valuable city-centre site. If you were building a new prison from scratch today, you would not do it in a city-centre location."He said the state, sanitation and upkeep of many of our older prisons needed to be addressed.
He also referred to his Police Bill, and the proposal to make leaking certain information an indictable crime. He said this was based on a suggestion from the then Garda management to former attorney general Mr David Byrne in 1999, seeking the extension of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act to this activity.