Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a large number involved.

I have a question on restorative justice. Ms McPhillips knew I was going to ask her this. Ms McCaffrey has outlined the position. My memory of it is that back in the late 1980s there were approximately 2,500 prisoners. We had a smaller population. There were a lot of people in prison connected with the conflict in the North and conflict-related issues. Now the prison population is 4,800 and provision is being made for an extra 680 places. We have a big prison population and it is a huge job to deal with it. Ms McCaffrey has a sizeable task in trying to accommodate all of the prisoners and in overseeing the running of the prisons. We know that restorative justice works. Apart from a few token attempts at it, we are not really doing much of it in the State.