Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 460: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of prisoners who have benefitted from early release from Cork Prison in each of the past five years; and the categories of offences for which they served their sentences. [35805/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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It is not possible to provide the Deputy with the specific information requested as this would require the manual examination of records. Such an examination would require a disproportionate and inordinate amount of staff time and effort and could not be justified in current circumstances where there are other significant demands on resources.

However, I can inform the Deputy that, on 21 November 2011, there were 141 prisoners on temporary release from Cork Prison. Taking 21 November as a comparable or near equivalent date, the table below outlines the number of prisoners on temporary release from Cork Prison for the past 5 years: