John O'Donoghue
Question:109 Mr. O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Justice the number of persons in prison in Ireland for non-payment of debts in each of the past three years; and the average number of days served. [11645/97]
Written Answers. - Imprisonment of Debtors.
The information sought by the Deputy is not readily available.To obtain it would require the manual examination of up to 30,000 files and the collation of the information. Such use of staff time could not be justified at present.
In 1993, the latest year for which information is available, out of the 10,252 committals to prison, 277 people were committed by the courts for non-payment of debts, default of sureties and contempt of court. This represented less than 3 per cent of total committals for that year.
Once such a person has been sent to prison by the courts for such offences, I do not have any practical jurisdiction over the length of time they serve. The principal way they can be released is by paying their debt or purging their contempt. At any one time, persons in these categories represent less than 0.5 per cent of persons in custody i.e. about 12 persons out of an average of 2,200 in custody. This is because many of those committed under such warrants make payment either on, or shortly after, committal and are then released. The average number of days served is not available but sentences can vary from five days to a number of months.