Vol. 404 No. 6
55 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice if any estimate is available on (a) the number of Irish prisoners abroad who might qualify for transfer to jails in this State and (b) the number of prisoners in jails in the State who might qualify for transfers to jails in other jurisdictions as a result of Ireland ratifying the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners.
It is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 Irish citizens in foreign jails. It is difficult, however to estimate how many of the 1,000 would qualify for transfer to Irish prisons were the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons to be ratified by this country, given that the length of sentence of these individuals is not known and that to be eligible for transfer a prisoner has, inter alia, to have, normally, at least six months of his sentence left to serve or be serving an indeterminate sentence.
