Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) is delighted to be holding the next event, Know Your Rights: Information, Advocacy and Remedies.
Date: Thursday, 22 August 2024
Time: The event will run from 10am to 3pm. Registration from 9.30am.
Location: The Richmond Education and Event Centre, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7
Register: To register to attend this event please click here or contact info@iprt.ie.
The event will bring together a wide variety of service providers, information and advice givers, and people with lived experience of the prison system and relevant organisations from across the academic, civil society and statutory sectors. The event aims to examine the current challenges that people in prison face in understanding what their rights are, what remedies are available to them, and how to empower them to assert their rights through self or peer advocacy.
There will be a focus on how support workers can expand their capacity to better advocate for the vindication of these rights, particularly for minority groups and how state institutions can take a more active role in providing rights-based information in an accessible and meaningful way.
While this conference is aimed at service providers supporting people in prison, this event may also be of interest to people with lived experience of imprisonment including family members who wish to advocate on behalf of their loved ones in prison.
Speakers
James Leonard will moderate the event. James has appeared on the Tommy Tiernan show speaking about his first-hand experience with addiction and the criminal justice system and has since spoken on the Late Late Show, Prime Time and many other TV and radio shows. Over the years James has worked in statutory and third sector organisations in education, youth work, homeless, addiction and community health. Today James is an award-winning podcaster and full-time PhD student at the Dept. of Sociology & Criminology in University College Cork.
The event will comprise three panels. The first panel will focus on Identifying and Accessing Rights and Information. Our second panel will then discuss Remedies and Making Complaints. Our final panel will then address Advocacy in Prison.
Panel 1: Identifying and Accessing Rights and Information
Gemma Culleton, Prisons Information Officer, Citizens Information
Christopher Bowes, Legal Officer, Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC)
Dr Amina Adanan, Lecturer/ Assistant Professor in Law, Maynooth University
Paula Kearney, BRIO Coordinator, SAOL Project
Darina Ryan-Pilkington, Risk and Compliance Manager, Irish Prison Service
Panel 2: Available remedies and accountability
Susan McKay, Press Ombudsman
Damien Hernon, Director, Oberstown Detention Campus
Ciara O’Connell, Senior Inspector, Office of the Inspector of Prisons
Áine Bhreathnach, Senior Solicitor, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC)
Jacqui Durkin, Interim Prisoner Ombudsman NI
More speakers to be announced shortly.
If you have any additional queries about the event, please email info@iprt.ie.