Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

138. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the capacity of each prison in the State; the extent of overcrowding in each prison; the steps being taken to address this overcrowding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12808/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Government is acutely aware of capacity restraints in our prisons and has committed, in the Programme for Government, to increasing capacity by 1,500.

The information sought by the Deputy regarding prison capacity and the numbers of prisoners in custody is collated daily by the Irish Prison Service Statistics Unit and published on its website. As of Tuesday, 18 March, the prison population sits at 114% of capacity.

The Irish Prison Service budget was increased by €79 million, or 18%, in Budget 2025 and the capital budget is €53 million in 2025, an increase of €22.5 million on the original 2024 allocation. In recent years, capacity across the prison estate has been increased by in excess of 300 new spaces with over 100 of these added in the last 12 months and 50 to come onstream very soon.

The Irish Prison Service aims to recruit 300 prison officers in 2025, in addition to the 271 prison officers recruited in 2024. An additional €6.2m has been provided to fund 130,000 additional staff hours in our prisons.

Officials in the Irish Prison Service and in my Department are continuously working to identify short, medium and longer term proposals to help manage the current capacity issues in our prisons and are committed to providing safe and secure custody for all people committed to prison while ensuring a safe working environment for staff.

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. The legislative basis for temporary release is set out in the Criminal Justice Act 1960, as amended by the Criminal Justice (Temporary Release of Prisoners) Act 2003. 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.

While focused on rehabilitation and reducing offending, we also need to continue to invest in our prison estate, to ensure that it is modern and fit for purpose and that it has the capacity to accommodate those committed to prison by the courts.