Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 566: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the highest number of transfers for an individual prisoner during sentence or in a year for each of the past four years; the number of prisoners transferred more than five times; and the number of prisoners transferred more than ten times. [34857/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is set out in the table below.

Common reasons for prisoner movements include court appearances, disruptive behaviour, conflict with other prisoners, to assist family contact, to participate in a particular training or educational course, to assist in reintegration or to alleviate overcrowding. Factors taken into account include length of sentence, nature of offence, medical needs, drug dependency, behaviour while in custody, the age of the prisoner, previous criminal record, engagement with the various services and the availability of accommodation.

Prison transfers take place on foot of administrative decisions made on my behalf. It would not be possible to operate the prison system if such transfers only took place on foot of requests from prisoners. To do so would inevitably lead to excessive overcrowding in some prisons, vacancies in others and circumstances which could lead to avoidable violent or dangerous incidents.