Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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1220. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the current operational capacity of each prison in Ireland, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12849/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish Prison Service has advised that information regarding prison capacity is published on its website (www.irishprisons.ie). This information can be found in the Information Centre under Statistics & Information, Daily Prisoner Population. The operational capacity of each prison is outlined in the table below.

The Irish Prison Service must accept into custody all people committed to prison by the Courts. As such, the Irish Prison Service has no control over the numbers committed to custody at any given time. Where the number of people in custody exceeds the maximum capacity in any prison, officials in the Irish Prison Service make every effort to deal with this through a combination of inter-prison transfers and structured Temporary Release. Decisions in relation to temporary release are considered on a case by case basis and the safety of the public is paramount when those decisions are made.

The Government has made significant capital funding available to the Irish Prison Service in order to enhance the existing prison infrastructure and to provide additional capacity. In recent years, capacity across the prison estate has been increased by in excess of 300 additional spaces.

The Irish Prison Service capital budget is €53m in 2025, an increase of €22.5m on the original 2024 allocation, focused on bringing additional prison spaces into the system. The Irish Prison Service continues to engage with the Department of Justice to progress plans to bring on stream accommodation to support the target of 1,500 additional prison places as set out under Programme for Government.