Ireland as a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons is committed to achieving the humanitarian purposes of the Convention. Ratification will require legislation. Unless a reservation were entered, however, at the time of ratification serious difficulties for our prisons could be created in a situation in which there are an estimated 1,000 Irish citizens serving sentences abroad and only about 40 foreign prisoners serving their sentences in this country. I am advised that it would be in order to ratify the Convention subject to a reservation relating to the number of transfers that would be granted at any one time and I propose to proceed on that basis. The legislation required to ratify the Convention will be prepared as soon as other priorities in the Government's legislative programme permit.