The failure to restart family visits and religious services in the State’s prisons, while the rest of society reopens, has been condemned in the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil TD Eamon Ó Cuív, noted that visits to nursing homes had successfully restarted “a considerable time ago” even though residents are “generally much more vulnerable than members of the prison population,” he said.

Minister of State Frankie Feighan announced that the Prison Service is developing a “new framework for the unwinding of prison restrictions”, which will be published later this month.

But Mr Ó Cuív angrily replied: “Don’t tell me, after all these months, that we are drawing up another plan. I don’t want to hear about another big master plan being drawn up. It is most frustrating,” he said.

He said prisoners want dates for when they’re going to be able to see their loved ones.

“Similarly, there’s no excuse for not facilitating religious services,” he said. “We all know how safe they have been in the general populace and how controlled that environment is.

“There’s no reason not to facilitate them. It is totally unfair to put an additional burden of caution on prisons when in society, we balance the other human needs of people in a much fairer way.”