Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on whether automatic remission of prison sentences should be removed and replaced with remission that is earned by prisoners; and his proposals in this regard. [34010/07]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Certain categories of prisoner are excluded from standard remission of sentence under the Prison Rules and these are as follows: Life sentence prisoners; Persons convicted of debtor offences; Persons convicted of contempt of court; Persons being held on remand warrants; Persons serving a sentence of less than one month. Other prisoners are eligible to earn remission of 25% of their sentence by good conduct. The position is that provided the conduct of the prisoner is not found in disciplinary proceedings to warrant loss of remission, the prisoner will be deemed to have earned 25% remission.

The programme for Government envisages a close link between rehabilitation and remission. Provision has recently been made whereby prisoners may be granted additional remission, bringing total remission to up to one third of their sentence, where the prisoners in question have shown further good conduct by engaging in structured activity that is likely to reduce the risk of re-offending and make them better able to reintegrate into the community.

My officials have kept track of developments in remission and parole in other jurisdictions and I know that the Council of Europe has also studied the matter. Each system has advantages and disadvantages but there is no one approach accepted as best practice. I will continue to keep the position under review.