Ms Caron McCaffrey:

The amount of money paid as legal fees with respect to prisoner cases came to €914,000 in 2017. Any payment on the slopping out cases that have been mentioned by the Secretary General is included in that figure. The State Claims Agency is managing slopping out claims on our behalf. To date, it has received 1,658 claims and High Court proceedings have been served in 983 of those claims. The payment that was made in those cases in 2017 may be inflating the figure.