The amendment in the name of the four members of The Workers' Party seeks to exclude the enforcement of a judgement from a European court in our jurisdiction that will amount to an arrest for committal for non-payment of debt. Some of the facts in regard to committal for debt in relation to our prison service are worth outlining very briefly here. In answer to a question from me on 18 June 1987 the Minister gave some details. He indicated that in 1986 some 222 people were committed to prison for non-payment of debt in our own jurisdiction. The average period of time any one of those persons spent in prison was 37 days and the average amount of money due to be paid by any one of those persons was £1,450. Let us place that against the cost to the Exchequer.
In answer to a question on 5 November 1987 the Minister put the weekly figure at £575 as the cost of detaining a person for one week in our prison service. I would say that figure is probably a little conservative but it is a workable figure from the point of view of my argument. What this means is that under our current system on average the State spends more money keeping a person locked up for non-payment of debt than it was ever hoped to recover from the person locked up. The State spends more money keeping a person in prison for non-payment of a debt than we could ever hope to recover from that person in the first place. These people are incarcerated for an average of 37 days — in excess of five weeks — at a cost of £575 a week. We are talking about a sum in excess of £2,500 to recover a maximum of £1,450 from any one of these committed debtors.
The person who ultimately suffers imprisonment for the non-payment of debt is invariably the person who does not have the money — working people and the unemployed who have run into substantial debt through hire purchase, loan shark arrangements and so on. Anyone who goes to prison for non-payment of debt invariably goes because of poverty and the inability to pay. That reality will no doubt apply to persons who might be the subject matter of a committal order for debt coming from outside our jurisdiction as well.
The question we have to ask ourselves is this: will the Irish taxpayers be asked to commit themselves to the extent they currently are to chasing our domestic debtors without having to deal with the problem of those who might come under our concern by reason of the provisions of this Bill? Allied to the whole problem not just of poverty and the pursuit of those afflicted with poverty is the question of prison overcrowding and whether we have room to accommodate any extra prisoners wherever they might come from or for whatever reasons they are imprisoned.
On 5 November in reply to a question the Minister told us that 203 prison cells which are designed for single person occupancy were then accommodating two offenders. That is a small indication of the degree of overcrowding that exists in our prisons. In earlier replies he told us that landing space, governors' offices and other non-cell accommodation, in Mountjoy for example, is used on a daily basis to accommodate people who sleep on mattresses because there is no room in cells on a double-up basis or otherwise.
We propose amendment No. 6 for the following reasons: it is wrong in principle, that because of poverty a person should be sent to prison because he cannot pay his debt, irrespective of where he comes from; at the moment our prison system is not capable of accommodating even the numbers which are sought to be committed from our own jurisdiction without taking on the responsibility of persons from abroad; and the fact that we spend far more money in pursuit of this sanction than we would ever hope to raise by way of the debt. I commend these Amendments to the House.
