Debate contribution: Prisons: Compassionate Temporary Release
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 28 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Prisons: Compassionate Temporary Release
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5762032
Read the official Assembly record
Text
With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will answer questions 1 and 6 together. Where a decision by the Northern Ireland Prison Service to refuse compassionate temporary release is successfully challenged in the courts, the Prison Service is required to comply with the court's ruling. In such cases, the safeguards that apply during the period of release are those set by the court. If the court directs that a temporary release should be granted and specifies the conditions under which it is to take place, those conditions form the framework for managing the release. The Prison Service cannot unilaterally impose additional restrictions that would go beyond or conflict with the court's order. In the case of Gary Anderson, the court directed that compassionate temporary release should be granted and set the conditions that were to apply. The Prison Service therefore implemented the court's decision in accordance with those directions. As the court's order provided the legal basis and conditions for the release, no changes were made to Prison Service standard operating procedures as a result of that case.
178 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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