The Irish Prison Service is finalising a new policy in relation to where transgender prisoners serve prison sentences and will "conclude" its work in "the next few weeks".
Minister for Justice Simon Harris confirmed the plan at a media event on Wednesday, 24 hours after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he believes violent prisoners who were born biologically male but identify as female should not be placed in female prisons.
At an event on Tuesday, Mr Varadkar was asked for his views on Barbie Kardashian, who last week was imprisoned for five and-a-half years due to threats to torture, rape and murder her mother.
Ms Kardashian was granted a gender recognition certificate in 2020, identifying her as a woman.
Responding to whether he believes violent biological males should be put into women's prisons, Mr Varadkar said: "No, I don’t, quite frankly."
While stressing he was only made aware of the case in question recently, he added: "If the situation that arose in Scotland has now arisen in Ireland, well, then we’re going to have to deal with it in a similar way."
Asked about the comments at an event in Dublin today, Minister for Justice Simon Harris said in general terms the Irish Prison Service always seeks to ensure the safety of any prisoner and that a "risk assessment" is made on each individual prisoner.
While he said he cannot comment on individual cases, he added: "The most important thing for the Irish Prison Service to do in any scenario is ensure the safety and well-being of all prisoners and all prison staff.
"And I want to absolutely assure people today that the individual risk assessments carried out on all prisoners, regardless of gender, is of paramount importance in relation to this.
"In any circumstance, where there is a risk to the safety of the prison population or prison staff, there are mechanisms and operational procedures in place to ensure that such a prisoner is incarcerated in a prison in an appropriate way."
"The Irish Prison Service is currently finalising a policy in relation to transgender prisoners. And this is a policy that will be informed by best international practice. Indeed, they are looking at a number of other jurisdictions in terms of how this issue has been approached. And I expect that to be concluded in the next few weeks," Minister Harris said.
In a statement, an Irish Prison Service spokesperson said: "The Irish Prison Service is currently drafting a policy for the management of transgender prisoners to take account of evolving trends internationally and fact finding in relation best practice in other jurisdictions in order to inform the final policy, which remains under careful consideration before finalisation."
