Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I thought it was years, but the Senator may be correct. She took my point that the more we in the Oireachtas reacted to events - prompted by the media in some cases when the first thing we do is rush into both Houses to state we need longer sentences - the more we put pressure on the prison estate. In 1977 the average length of time served by prisoner handed down a life sentence was seven and a half years, whereas today it is somewhere in the region of 17 years. We are passing legislation to provide for longer sentences, which means prisoners are staying longer in prison and there is not a continuous throughput in the way we would like. Given, as I stated, that we cannot put up "No vacancy" signs and the Irish Prison Service must accept everyone and the clear facts which are not acknowledged by anyone in either the media or the Opposition that the Government has invested heavily to put gardaí on the streets by increasing garda numbers from approximately 10,500 in 1997 to 14,600 today and has spent €250 million on new, extended and renovated courthouses and another €250 million in the past ten years on new, improved and renovated Garda stations, it is the case that in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers being sent to prison, virtually all of them for serious offences.