Ms Caron McCaffrey:

Those figures relate to prisoners prior to their committal. We have a huge range and take a two-pronged approach to dealing with drugs in prison. One is dealing with the demand and that is around our drug treatment programmes, which are in place to assist people. Prison and the interventions we have there are a great opportunity for people who have not dealt with their addiction issues in the community to engage with the services to deal with their addiction problems. We also have a huge focus on reducing the supply of drugs. We have invested very significantly in front-of-house security in terms of the level of screening people go through. We have drug detection dogs. We have netting on our yards. A lot of our prisons are in a city centre location, which means they are highly susceptible to drugs and contraband being thrown over the walls. In some instances we have netting or double netting on our yards to ensure, insofar as we can, that contraband is not getting into the prison. It is a significant challenge. A lot of contraband brought into the prison is concealed internally by prisoners. It is a significant challenge to the Prison Service but one on which we are determined to continue our efforts. We have a drugs policy which is being reviewed this year and we are going to look at what additional measures we might take in respect of this area.