Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 February 2017
Public Accounts Committee
2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 – Prisons
Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts Special Report No. 93: Annualised Hours of the Prison Service
9:00 am
Mr. Noel Waters:
It is important to point out that these are not unplanned temporary releases. They are planned. Programmes are in place. Back in the day where we had 1,000 people on temporary release, which was 21% of the prison population at the time, it was unplanned. Measures are in place to address the issues people have. They include the community return programme, community service system and the programmes of the Probation Service. It is not a case whereby the door is open, out they go and we say we do not want to see them again.