Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 39: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the annual average cost of keeping a person in prison; his views on whether the cost of committing approximately 4,500 persons to prison in the year 2009 for non-payment of fines was an unfair burden on the taxpayer apart from being unfair to many of those imprisoned who did not have the means to pay such fines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19395/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The average cost of an available, staffed prison space during the calendar year 2009 will be published in the Irish Prison Service Annual Report for 2009 which is due to be published shortly. However, provisional figures indicate that the average cost of an available, staffed prison space during the calendar year 2009 was €77,222 compared to €92,717 in 2008, a decrease on the 2008 cost of €15,495 or 16.7%.

The decrease in average cost is attributed to the following two factors:

a decrease in total costs of €17.7 million (of which €15.5 million relates to pay costs); and

an increase in bed capacity of 495 from 3,611 as at 31st December 2008 to 4,106 as at 31st December 2009.

The number of committals to prison for failing to pay fines is 1431 up to and including 31st March 2010.

Provisional figures collated indicate that the number of committals for failure to pay fines and civil debts in 2009 were 4,806 and 162 respectively.

I can advise the Deputy that the number of such persons held in custody at any one time is a minute fraction of the overall prisoner population. To illustrate this point 9 prisoners out of a total of 4214 or 0.2 % of the prison population on 10 May 2010 fell into this category. I expect the number of committals for non-payment of fines to fall substantially once the Fines Bill 2009 has been enacted and brought into force.

As the Deputy will appreciate the Irish Prison Service must accept all prisoners committed by the Courts into its custody and do not have the option of refusing committals.