Mr. Noel Waters:

I might ask the director general, Mr. Michael Donnellan, to provide some of the detail on this. I will just give the Deputy a flavour of where our prison numbers have gone in recent years which will illustrate the difficulties we face in the context of the Thornton case. In 2005, the number of prisoners in custody was 3,100 but by 2010 that had gone up to 4,400. By 2015, the number had dropped back down to 3,600. The figures fluctuate considerably and figuring out precisely why this is the case would require a great deal of research. Everyone has a view as to why this might be the case, perhaps related to the wider economy. The Department would argue that the range of options for the courts in terms of dealing with offenders is increasing, in terms of community service orders-----