John Gormley
Question:364 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the estimated numbers of people in jail who consume illegal drugs at least once a week. [7275/98]
Written Answers. - Prison Drug Use.
The information requested by the Deputy is not available but to illustrate the extent of drug use among the prison population, the report entitled Mountjoy Prisoners; A Sociological and Criminological Profile which was published by my Department last June, states that, in the ten years since 1986, the proportion of the prison population that had used drugs other than cannabis more than doubled from 37 per cent to 77 per cent and the proportion that could be described as having a serious dependency on a hard drug also more than doubled from 31 per cent to 63 per cent.
John Gormley
Question:365 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the estimated volume of drugs entering the prison system every week. [7276/98]
For obvious reasons it is not possible to quantify the total volume of illegal drugs being brought into the prison system. I can say, however, that improved security and related measures have been successful in curbing the smuggling in and use of illegal substances. This is reflected in the fact that there were in excess of 700 seizures of drugs in our prisons during both 1996 and 1997.