Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I wish to ask about the promised legislation on committals to prison. I ask about this because it was announced in the recent "Prime Time" programme that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform had legislation ready to reduce the number of people - one in four - who are being committed to appalling conditions in prison simply for the non-payment of fines, in other words, for non-criminal offences.

Two separate pieces of legislation have been promised over time, one of which related to a properly accountable transparent system for the prisons administration. On the second, more important one, the director of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons has described the conditions in Mountjoy Prison as inhuman and degrading and it has been promised on more than one occasion that amending legislation would be introduced to provide judges with options other than committal to prison in sentencing for such matters as the non-payment of fines. Where stands that legislation?

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