4,000 people are in prison in Ireland today.
160 are women.
Jail saved many lives. This prison saved many lives.
You see people coming in here and they're from that to that with needles.
Some people coming off the streets and they're ready for their death bed.
It builds you up and takes care of you, then sends you back out.
It seems to be half a mad home and half a prison.
You get a lot of people that's going through sickness,
off drugs, people who's coming off drink.
All the bullying that's going on in here and all the cells getting lit up and all.
I'm going to scandalise them when I get out. I'm going straight to the papers.
You don't know how to run your prison, you don't.
What are you filming, crew? This better not be on this, you!
The women usually have a lot more needs.
They might have an addiction problem and a homelessness problem
and their children could be in care and their partner could be in prison.
You know, there's usually a lot more than one issue going on.
Today the urgent thing is that your children need to know you're okay, isn't it?
You need to be the mother and show them that you're not upset.
Even though you're missing them and everything else, you're the adult.
I bet you you can't wait.
I do think it's a bit harder on a girl being in prison, a mother especially.
A male prisoner, his wife will come up to see him.
She will bring all the children.
She will make sure he has what he needs.
Whereas the females don't get that luxury,
that however it is, it isn't returned.
Which, I suppose it's obvious, we do run around after men all the time.
I forget what the outside is like.
It's just like watching the telly if I'm thinking about it in my head.
There's just something there that let's you know you're not on the outside.
You're in here thinking about it.
(Playing music)
NARRATOR: On Dublin's North Circular Road is the largest prison campus in Ireland.
It comprises of four separate jails.
Mountjoy Prison,
Saint Patrick's Institution,
the Training Unit
and the Dochas Centre.
The Dochas Centre is the only exclusively female prison in the country.
I asked the officer there to fucking call over to me but he didn't call over.
For what? My methadone.
(Banging on door)
(Banging heavily on door)
Get away from the door.
I want my fucking methadone. I asked her out the window. I've been calling for the last hour.
It's closed. What do you mean it's closed? They're calling me for the last hour.
For the last hour! I need my methadone. I'm sick.
Though there is a small female wing in Limerick Prison,
most women imprisoned in Ireland will end up here.
We're a medium security prison, we're not an open prison.
There's no open prison for women.
So I think that's the idea behind the ethos of this place
is that even though we're a medium security prison, you're still trying
to have as much freedom within the walls.
The women can move freely from their houses to school. They don't have to get passed through.
They're called women, not prisoners.
The houses are houses, not landings,
so it is pretty different to most of the other prisons.
I love you, you know, and I can't wait to see you tomorrow.
The prison caters for all types of prisoners,
from those sentenced to a few days to months,
women serving several years to life.
Their crimes range from petty charges to murder.
Many of the women here are repeat offenders.
Days like this when it's lashing rain and all, I'd rather be in prison.
I've often asked the judge to lock me up.
Like it's... if you've nothing out there, you can have things in here.
You've a shower, your telly.
You have your mates in here.
Serving time for robbery, Christina, a mother of three, has been homeless since she was a teenager.
When I was about 13 or 14, I just couldn't take it no more,
the way I was being treated in the HSE's care.
I just couldn't take it any more so I just left.
Being on the streets of Dublin, I had no family.
The only way to survive was to rob.
That was the only way I could survive.
> Chris, I'm done now.
Yeah, nice one.
What age were you when you started dabbling in drugs?
I started smoking hash and all when I first came to Dublin City.
I started smoking hash and taking ecstasy with all my friends.
I wanted to just be in the gang.
What age were you?
I was about 13 or 14.
How soon were you then to move on to heroin, or harder stuff?
The very last minute.
I was 17 or something.
I kick myself now for being on it.
It's fucked up everything for me.
Everything I had is gone.
But you still take drugs?
Yeah, to block things out
because I can't deal with my emotions and...
being in foster homes and all.
I was in 23 different foster homes. I'm only 25 now. I left care when I was 13.
So in 13 years of my life, I was in 23 different homes.
What age were you the first time you came into prison?
Juvenile prison, Oberstown? When I was about 13 or 14.
Acting Chief Officer Kelliher has been working here since the Dochas Centre opened 15 years ago.
Hello.
We are now in the big yard. The big yard would house most of our sentenced women.
Some of our more settled women, long-termer women, would live here.
The women that are conforming more in relation to keeping the rules,
in relation to going to school, attending workshops.
So the regime in this yard would be different to the regime in the small yard.
Most of the women in the small yard would be on remand.
They possibly came in with drug misuse problems
and are just stabilising on medication,
possibly not in a state yet where they can attend school full-time or work full-time.
If they come in off the streets and they're unwell, it's a time to get themselves well.
So this yard will be slightly different
in terms of the population being a bit more settled.
Every woman coming into the Dochas spends her first night here in the Committal Unit.
Girls, away from that door.
Each new inmate must be assessed by the Governor before joining the other prisoners in the yards.
Six have come in. There are three others who are here at the moment.
One has, we presume... we know she has drugs on her person.
You're back with us. Yeah.
Four months? Yeah.
Where were you? What were you doing?
Shoplifting?
We'll see how we go.
You're not fighting with anybody else, though, sure you're not?
We're really stuck for space. We've no space, big or small yard.
The Dochas Centre has capacity for 105 prisoners
but often the numbers exceed this.
Today, 136 women are doing time here.
To make room, some prisoners may be released early.
Do you need a map? Right, come over here and we'll get you one then.
There's Beatrix's office.
No prisoner can be released early without a permanent address
but it is estimated that up to half of the women sentenced here are homeless.
You're going here for 1:30,
then two o clock you're going to Beatrix.
The Integrated Sentence Management team liaise between the prisoners and all the outside services
including the HSE, Social Welfare, Probation and others,
aiming to achieve a smooth transition from prison to the community.
Will you head over then, pack up your stuff and head to reception. Reception knows you're on the way.
One of their roles is to ensure that homeless women have a roof over their heads
before being let out early on temporary release.
At the moment in here, we have about 11 women that could have gone on temporary release
in the last week or so but there's no place for them to go.
So the higher our numbers go, the more pressure that's put on.
Obviously, there's more people coming in
so they have to try and get people out on temporary release.
There's Eileen. Hi.
Stressed? Yeah, a small bit.
No, not really.
We've one that's due for release this Friday
so we can't keep her beyond Friday.
So we can't give her temporary release without no address
but Friday she has to go no matter what.
So at the moment we're looking at the possibility of her booking herself into a B&B.
Any of these ring a bell?
Yeah, they're all on, eh... Yeah, so you don't want to go there? ...Gardiner Street.
And to be honest, most of them won't even let me in.
Eileen has been in prison for three months, serving time for robbery.
Due for release in a few days, she's hoping that she can secure the housing she wants.
I don't mind going a little... What's that there? Kilmainham.
No availability.
I don't know where we go from here.
Sometimes we're sending people out and the only thing we have is night-by-night accommodation.
So somebody can do really well in here, but then they go out,
they're going to their accommodation.
The next morning they're gone from the accommodation,
they've all day to spend on the street until that night till they can go back to the accommodation.
So if somebody has not got a job or a course, what do they do all day?
They're either going to meet with their old friends and use drugs or drink
and, in turn, get into trouble. That's how.
It's not the prison's fault.
I didn't mind waiting here until my actual release date was over
because I know where I went wrong in the past and I have to try and not do that again.
Because it's harder to get this much help outside than it is here.
So the best thing I thought I could do for myself is to wait for the best accommodation possible.
That's why you have the revolving door,
is because of what prison offers them.
It's a terrible thing to say that people are sometimes safer in prison than in the community. Yeah.
Jail can be a comical place sometimes.
Then it can be a very sad and lonely place all in the one day.
Stick them in my room, they'll do me.
Sounds mad. A prison full of people and you'd still feel sad and lonely.
Serving almost two years for multiple charges,
Jenny is homeless and has no family since her parents died.
Jenny has been in and out of prison since she was a teenager.
I don't stand much of a chance out there.
My crimes are not serious crimes.
Just shoplifting, petty crime, drunk and disorderly, breach of the peace,
stupid things.
But them stupid things got me in a bad position.
I have 347 previous convictions with them stupid things.
Have a few drinks. We'll do this, we'll do that,
and before you know it you're behind bars. You're locked up.
I know I'm what... I'm 37.
And half of my life has flashed by me through these places.
I seen an awful lot of my friends,
20s, 21, 22, and they're all dead.
From what? Suicides, drugs.
I'm amazed I'm still alive, I'll tell you the truth.
My life is fucked, and I know my life is fucked.
Then you get young ones coming in and they think it's all deadly.
You know? This is deadly.
You gave me four things for her.
You didn't because I asked you for...
Winnie, on their life, she told me to tell nobody.
Fucking lying little tramp, I'll stab her all over her head.
Separated from the main prison is a self-contained unit called Phoenix House.
This house is for the exclusive use of pregnant prisoners or those with young babies.
We've three babies now at the minute,
two little girls and a little boy.
Then I'll have my baby so that will make four.
So it's a fine lot for us.
And it's good for me to be around children.
I like children anyway, but it makes the time pass that bit easier.
It makes you feel a bit more normal.
Unless her child has to be taken into care,
a mother may keep her newborn child in prison until the baby reaches one year.
Come on, good girl.
One, two, look at my steady shoes.
Serving a two-year sentence for drugs offences,
it's this single mother of five's first time in prison.
It's better in this house.
We don't have to be out as much.
We have our own little garden bit there that we can sit out in if we want.
But when you go out into the yard outside or you go to school with your child,
you're socialising with everybody,
with drug addicts, paedophiles and numerous other crimes that people are in for.
And in some ways we're very lucky we can bring our babies into the prison with us.
I won't have to give my baby out to anybody. I can keep my baby with me,
but I've left five kids, at the end of the day, and that's as simple as that.
I know eventually I'll be going home
but at the minute that seems very far off for them.
NARRATOR: There has been a dramatic increase in the number of women being sent to jail in Ireland.
It has more than doubled since 2006.
However, today Eileen's sentence is up.
All staff location there for Eileen O'Toole.
Eileen, who has been homeless since she was a teenager,
is still waiting to find out if the community welfare officer has found her accommodation.
Beatrix contacted us there to say she has a B&B accommodation for her,
which is great news.
Good news. What?
You're going to Clanbrassil Street. Do you know it? Yeah.
What's wrong?
Why?
The best thing to do would be to go there and then try and go somewhere else from there.
How long ago did you stay there, Eileen?
Do you want to give me a few minutes and see if she gets back to me?
Get her on the phone.
I'm not going to a homeless B&B. I could have been gone weeks ago to a homeless B&B.
I mean, this is the whole idea of what I asked her to do.
I said I don't want to go backwards, I want to move forwards.
This is how people come back into prison.
I feel like killing someone stone dead. I'm sick of this.
I'm not going back out into it.
I was speaking to Beatrix there and she said that that is all that's available.
She said you can go today and go to Capel Street straightaway.
Eileen, come here. I want to talk to her myself.
Eileen, I know it's not what you want.
Listen, I know it's not what you want
but if you go there tonight, at least you have a roof over your head.
You can go to Capel Street this afternoon.
Okay, you can go there tonight and Monday but you qualify for Rent Allowance.
Does it get to you? Yeah, it does.
We put so much work in here with them
and then once they leave here, we're not responsible.
We can set them up with everything on the outside
but it's up to them to go to the services. We can't make them do it.
Then she's left frustrated because she feels like nobody is trying to do anything for her
when really, weeks and weeks have been gone into trying to get somewhere for her.
But unfortunately this isn't a one-off story.
This is what happens.
We're ready to roll.
I'm leaving you, Aggie. Where are you going?
I'm going up to the new building, up to The Willows.
Overlooking the main yard is another secure unit, The Willows.
Here, women on a highly incentivised regime enjoy many privileges and space
not enjoyed by the majority of the women in the prison.
That was a job. (She pants)
Now, who wouldn't want to live up here, tell me.
So isn't that just worth all the hard work to get up here
and just live peacefully.
Women must be drug-free, must attend school and work in the prison
to be considered to do time in The Willows.
Many of the women here are on longer sentences.
Una is serving ten years for manslaughter.
If you mess up up here, you're straight back down to the small yard.
You're back to square one.
Sharing and priviliges gone, everything.
You know, you wouldn't want to mess up up here.
It's lovely anyway. A proper bed after two years, I couldn't believe it.
That was the main reason why I wanted to come up here,
the proper bed.
I was supposed to go out today. Mammy's dead a month and they refused me.
I can't allow myself to get upset.
If it slips in there, I just have to stop it.
If I could have taught myself to stop it at the start, I wouldn't fecking be in here at all.
Ten fucking years!
I said, alright, how am I going to fill this up?
There's lots to do up here in this prison than in Limerick.
They'd used to ask me on the phone when I'd phone home, what are you doing?
Smoking fags, drinking coffee and getting fat, you know?
Up here I have things to tell them that I'm doing. I do this and I'm doing that
and then you can make stuff and send it home and they know.
Being up in this prison makes me feel that I will get out.
When you're down in Limerick, you just give up and think you're not going anywhere ever.
Up here you see people getting out and coming in every day
and there's hope for me.
Glastonbury is on tonight. What's on?
Glastonbury.
I don't even think there's a telly in this place I'm going to.
Where are you going to? Clanbrassil Street.
What's it called? Clanbrassil Street.
Is it a B&B? Yeah, a homeless B&B.
See you. Bye now.
As today is the last day of Eileen's prison sentence, she must leave Dochas.
From tonight, the prison has no responsibility for her care.
Mind yourself. I will.
Tell Julianne to ring me. Yeah.
Officer!
See you, Eileen. Bye.
Well, where are you going to?
Clanbrassil Street. It's a dive, it is.
Back to square one. You'll be grand.
I won't be. What? That's the thing.
Just be good yourself. Good?
It's hard to be good when the minute you walk through the door, everyone will be saying...
I have to get searched now.
Though Eileen is free, she is still subject to a two-year suspended sentence.
Three phones. There should be a Blackberry work phone.
I'm not finished yet. And an MP3 player.
Now, by court order, she must engage with the probation services
or face the sentence being reactivated and end up back in jail.
Ready, steady, go!
Today is the annual sports day in Dochas.
Christina has spent the past two nights in the Mater Hospital.
How many stitches is that, Christina? 40. 40 stitches?
Christina, it's very hard for me to understand just how bad things are for you,
for someone to do that to yourself.
Can you explain it to me?
It just relieves pain from in here.
But it's pain on a different side of my body.
When did you start self-harming? What age were you? When I was nine.
Nine? Yeah.
Are you the only woman in here who self-harms? No, there's other girls,
but they do like little scrapes.
Like, one of the officers said to me in the hospital, she never seen anything like that.
How long were you going to be in here? Just till November,
but I've two trials as well so I could be back in for them.
What are you in for? Just, em, producing an article.
Pulling a knife out.
Who did you pull the knife out on? In the shop. They gave me two years,
and the rest of it suspended, do 11 months.
Because this was ages ago, but they reactivated it because I got in more trouble.
Jenny Armstrong on the way over to you. Thank you.
Before a prisoner is released, the ISM officers try to connect the women with services on the outside
such as CAP, Care After Prison,
which provides courses and training for former prisoners.
Hi, Jenny. Hello, everybody.
How are you? Not too bad. How are all of you?
I just wanted to check in with you about how you got on with CAP last week.
You were talking to Pete. Yeah.
Are you happy enough to meet up with them when you get out? Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Approved for early release and engaging with outside services,
Jenny, who is homeless, still can't leave prison
until the community welfare officer finds her a place to live.
We're waiting on Beatrix to get back to us.
So we're hoping she'll be able to help you out with the accommodation end of things.
As soon as she comes back with information on accommodation,
we'll talk to the Governor and ask her to put an application up for temporary release.
We'll let her know then that you're going to work with CAP as well on the outside. Okay.
So if we get any information tomorrow, then we'll let you know
and we'll sort out things from there, alright? Thanks very much.
Your hair's absolutely gorgeous. Thanks, Jenny.
Did you only get it blow dried? Yes, I did myself.
It's beautiful. Thank you. It really suits you.
Women of many nationalities are imprisoned in Dochas.
Some are illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.
Others were caught working in cannibas grow houses.
But many are mules caught trying to smuggle drugs into the country.
Do you want this? This, yes.
After 16 months in prison, Maria is to be deported.
This prison is not bad.
Thank you so much for the Governor, for Miss Keenan.
I had a chance to study English.
Before I couldn't speak English. Now a little bit.
I think my English is a little good.
Will I sit on it?
Maria was caught in Dublin Airport smuggling 50,000 euro worth of cocaine.
Tonight, the Garda National Immigration Unit will take her into custody
and she will be escorted back home to Bolivia.
Maria, don't get too drunk tonight!
Also caught smuggling drugs into the country,
Margaret Alexander from Trinidad and Tobago has been in prison now for eight months.
"Couldn't be worse than our Margaret's!"
Why would you take the chance?
But Margaret, by getting caught and by taking that chance,
your son hasn't had his mother for the best part of a year.
That's it.
It's 4am.
Time for Maria to be handed over to the Gardai and deported from Ireland.
Say goodbye to the place.
Ah, would you not stay with us a bit longer, you're great craic.
I'm so happy, happy, happy.
Oh my God!
You take care. Safe trip, alright? Okay, thank you very much.
Imprisoned here at a cost to the state of 65,000 euro annually,
Maria is barred from ever entering this country again.
She will return to her 10- and 7-year-old children
who haven't seen their mother in over 16 months.
In a few days, the prison will be making room for its youngest inmate,
a baby boy.
Three days old and starting his first sentence, huh? Gold help us!
It's awful.
He didn't do anything, you know?
It's terrible. He's innocent and he has to go back in here with me. (She sobs)
He doesn't get to go home like my other kids did when they were born.
There are good things he won't remember, he'll be too small,
but I'll remember.
Alright.
Come on, sweetheart.
Be a good man.
I love you too.
I get the blame on that.
If I hear anyone saying they're getting bullied, I'll smash their teeth in, so I will.
The prison's location on the North Circular Road
means that often drugs are thrown in over the prison wall,
a dropsey, as it's called.
In! Let's go! Now!
Today the nets have done their job.
But to be sure no drugs fall into the wrong hands,
the prisoners are locked into their houses.
That's new girls that don't know the story about getting their dropseys.
If that had been any of the old-timers, we would have got that.
We'd have been stoned and all.
An emptied egg has been used to carry the drugs over the wall
in the hope that as the shell breaks the drugs will fall through the net.
Tell me where they are and I'll get them for you.
These nets were placed over the prison yards three years ago.
Since then, drug use has reduced dramatically.
Drugs are still smuggled in by friends and family during visits.
How much drugs are in a dropsey around that size? About 10 tablets.
But something that size, there'd be about 20 tablets in it, I'd say.
I'd say myself two bags of heroin.
Whoever was doing this didn't really know what they were doing.
It was their first time to throw them.
Let's see what's in this.
Somebody's having a practical joke.
Nothing.
Coins.
Strange, doesn't make sense to me now.
Doesn't make sense to me at all.
Come on and we'll go out.
That's new girls for you, coming in here and not knowing what they're doing.
I don't care. It was nothing got to do with me.
If it had of been, I'd be stoned now.
Eggshells.
It's only eggshells.
How are we?
How are you doing? Fine.
How's the baby? He's good.
What did you call him?
Oh he's adorable.
The two-day-old baby must now go with his mother into Mountjoy
and stay there with her until her release.
We know how to strap him in now. I'm not too sure. Are you not?
We'll give it a go.
Hi Mammy, I'm in the car with the officer now. We're heading back.
Yeah. I know, yeah.
I know, it'll be fine.
He's the only man that has about 140 women waiting for him probably!
Tell the lads I love them and I'll talk to them later, okay?
I won't be upset, Mammy. I'll be okay.
Alright? We'll be fine.
Okay. I love you, Mammy. Bye.
The mother is going straight through to him.
Welcome. Thanks. Are you alright? Yeah.
All done. All done.
Just if we're going across the yard, they can look,
but just don't let them paw him because he's so new.
Oh my God! Ah, look at him. What weight was he? Seven/nine.
Ah, he's beautiful.
He's a bit jaundiced at the minute.
What have you got? A baby boy.
I have the stand for the Moses basket over in that room. I forgot that. That's fine.
You can leave him on the bed there and I'll sort him out. Thanks.
I feel so bad. I feel so sorry for him. (She sniffs)
I feel like the worst person in the world.
RADIO: Only on the most music station, Spin 103.
The housing crisis in Dublin City means that though she was approved for release weeks ago,
Jenny has yet to be found a home.
I was told today that there's 60-odd people on the homeless list
on the outside, actually sleeping on the streets of Dublin.
So I have to wait till they're housed,
get bed and breakfast in hostels
and then they'll look at me.
It is disappointing on me, you know?
I'm missing out on my job, I'm missing out on my work.
As you know, I was working with CAP, plus I'm doing cleaning in here.
I'm working away in here too. I'm keeping my head down.
I'm doing everything that I possibly can do.
And I am finding it difficult when they tell me,
Jenny, God, there's no beds on the outside. Like, come on!
It's what, 2013 now and there's people still homeless on the streets.
It's ridiculous.
In prison, tensions often run high.
It was a busy evening.
One of the women that lives on this corridor is a bit frustrated at the moment
and is feeling a little bit self-destructive.
So she set her room on fire last night, with herself in the room.
The woman who did this last night is a bit frustrated. She's feeling down in the dumps.
It's out of character for her.
At this time of the year as well, around Hallowe'en,
there's a lot of hooch, which is a homemade alcohol, in here,
floating around and a lot of tablets floating around.
And as the staff were dealing with this last night,
there was also an argument, or an alleged assault, in the kitchen.
A lot of the other women get frustrated
because it's difficult enough doing their time here,
and then when they're trying to mind their own business
and something like this is happening and there's an argument going on.
Some people want to stay out of it and others are defending friends or alliances they've made in here.
So it's very difficult to stay out of that unease around the place
because you always end up getting involved in some way.
There is only one other women's prison in Ireland.
Here in Limerick City, a small wing of the male prison has capacity for 28 women.
Like many Irish prisons, it too is overcrowded.
Almost all of the women here are from the Munster counties.
Are yous coming out after two, yeah? Yeah.
See yous at two o'clock.
Transferred to Limerick from the Dochas Centre a week ago,
in comparison to the relative freedom Christina enjoyed in Dublin,
here she is locked in her cell from evening to morning.
Look, I'd rather it down here than the Dochas anyway.
They sent me down here for punishment. It's not punishment.
I get on better. There's a better routine and all.
I get on better down here than I do in Dochas.
P-19s all over the place up there.
I haven't had one P-19 ever since I came down here.
Jelly. Jelly on the belly. You'd think they would have added ice.
They do that up in Mountjoy every Sunday. What?
Every Sunday in Mountjoy, ice-cream and jelly.
They used to do trifle but there'd be killings over the trifle.
Killings over the trifle. Yeah? Yeah.
Nobody, I don't think, deserves Limerick Jail.
I didn't see the daylight for 17 months.
I didn't bother going out in the yard, it was too fecking small.
Then it was just constant screaming and shouting from all the young ones.
So I just didn't bother going out.
Una spent the first year-and-a-half of her 10-year sentence in Limerick Prison
before being transferred to Dublin.
Right, girls, come on, let's go.
Down in Limerick you could be the best in the world and you're still locked back.
The door is still slammed shut if you don't go to the rec or the yard.
If you're working, alright, you get your door left open.
But that's one door left open for all the workers
so everybody is inside in that one cell.
Young girls coming in there at 19, 20, even 18,
and they're being treated like that. What's that to teach them?
They're going to go back out and they'll be full of anger when they get out of Limerick Prison.
"The guy in the middle is aleader. Brought in four of his guys to do the job."
With the locking back, it's better
because in the 'Joy you have your freedom and you can do what you want to do.
People talking about drugs all day.
But down here, it's good but it's boring.
But the telly is great. I have every station on the telly.
I think it's wrong the way we have to eat our food in here and there's a toilet there.
I don't eat. I can't eat the food down here.
There's eyes in the potatoes saying don't eat me!
The sausages, you'd bang them off the wall.
The food is bad, the food is very bad.
How many times have you been in here in Limerick now?
Um, about five or six.
About five or six, yeah.
She makes a lovely cup of tea and coffee.
Thanks, love.
I'll give you a drag of this now.
Even in Mountjoy all the girls would say that they rather the old prison,
people that was in the old prison, and the old prison was ran like this.
And they'd rather that, being locked up for your meals and things like that.
Because that's, what, nearly two hours just going quick.
And watch four half-hour programmes.
Criminal Minds.
Watch four hour programmes even and... gone. It's gone, isn't it? It flies in.
Like I'm down here since Saturday
and it feels like I'm only here two days, it went that quick,
and I'm here nearly a week.
Hi, Jenny. Hi. How are you? Grand.
Beatrix has sorted you a B&B. Ah, that's cool.
After months waiting, finally, at the end of November,
Jenny has been assigned accommodation in Dublin city.
That fair enough? Okay.
We'll probably see you before you go anyway. Okay, thanks very much.
Thanks very much, Miss McDermott. God bless you. No problem.
Talk to you later.
I'm going home.
What's up, Jen?
Now, today? Yeah.
I hope I don't see you before Christmas! I'll see you later on.
See you, Jenny.
I'm going home, lads. Are you going home? Yeah, they gave me the notice.
I've worked here for 14 years and Jenny's been coming in and out in the time that I've been here.
You look well. Thanks very much.
See yous later, right?
She's street homeless when she's outside.
She's happier in here, I think, than when she's outside
because she knows she's safe, she's fed, she's medically looked after.
She's treated with dignity and respect. She doesn't have that anywhere else.
You've to come back tomorrow to sign on.
Oh right, yeah. That's cool.
You better be up here or you'll be on lockin large. I know, yeah.
I'm not going large when I'm only out. And no drink and no drugs.
Alright, miss.
Best of luck. Thanks very much.
You take care, you hear me?
Our long-term aim is to get her spending longer periods out than in,
that she can link with services on the outside, that she doesn't feel she has to come back.
Hello, sir. How are you?
Are you a detective?
Pig!
A lot of the time she'll do something on purpose
so that she'll come back into custody.
I appreciate that, miss. You're a lady. I try.
Thanks very much.
On release, every eligible prisoner is entitled to one week's social welfare.
Just going to the shop now.
When we let people out on temporary release, the journey from the main gate to the city centre
often dictates whether they'll be back here or not or pick up a fresh charge.
It's as quick as that.
Watch you don't get a rap of a motor.
The more of a plan the woman has in place and the more support in place
the more likelihood she will be to stay out longer or not come back at all.
The less of a plan, the less secure accommodation and the less supports,
the more likely she is to come back in.
That was long waited for.
I'll be honest with you, I'm on temporary release now and I'm drinking.
I shouldn't be drinking.
But when you're locked up there for two-and-a-half years you're bound to do something.
I don't drink pints, I like the Jameson whiskey, hot coffee, three sugars.
I'm a posh alcoholic.
Do you see everyone in that fucking 'Joy, they're cutting themselves up, they're hanging themselves.
I'm telling you that's what I'm worried about.
I hope for the best one myself.
I don't have to start work until Monday so I'll be freshened up by then.
I'll go into work with CAP, what I want to do.
Do you drink? Yeah, I do.
I'm a very outspoken, out straight person.
If I said I was going out robbing today, I'd tell you.
But no, I don't want to.
I want to keep my head down, stay out of trouble and let the world pass by.
That's the only way you can do it.
You're going here, love, are you? Yeah.
Right, listen, nice to meet you.
Ah, what's the craic, my cracker?
Here, young fella, I'll see you down in Temple Bar.
See you later. God bless.
They'll probably tell me I have no home to go to.
You're only allowed come in on your own. Ah, I know that, love.
I'll see yous, right?
I'm trying my hardest.
I'm on 188 for Jobseeker's Allowance which is shit,
and sometimes I have to shoplift.
Christina? All night I'm listening to people banging up here
and they won't let me out.
I snapped this morning. I hit the governor and everything.
I swear to God I'm sick of this.
(Shouting)
I live in fear that they're going to break out into a fight and chairs will come flying,
and how am I going to get him out?
It's cosy and it's much nicer than the bed and breakfast.
If the Governor McMahon could see me now, she'd be thrilled.
She'd say, my Jenny, look at her.
Frances Carr RTE 2014