Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 May 1997

Vol. 479 No. 3

Written Answers. - Prison Sentences.

John O'Donoghue

Question:

110 Mr. O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Justice the number of people committed to prison for each of the years from 1990 to date in 1997; the average term of imprisonment imposed in each case; the average time spent in prison in each case; her views on the increase in the number of persons being sentenced to prison; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13072/97]

Minister for Justice (Mrs. Owen)

Definitive statistics have not yet been compiled for the years 1994 to 1997, only estimated figures are available. These estimates together with figures for the years 1990 to 1993 are set out in the following table:

Year	Number of committals	Average sentence imposed
1990	6,406	13 months
1991	6,759	12 months
1992	9,699	11 months
1993	10,457	11 months
*1994	10,252	11 months
*1995	9,844	Not available
*1996	10,598	Not available
*1997	3,126	Not available
(to 4th April)

* Provisional figures.

The information sought by the Deputy in relation to the average time spent in prison by an offender is not readily available. To provide it would require the manual examination of a large number of prisoner files and the collation of the information. Such a use of staff resources would not be justified at present, because of the existing pressure on the staff concerned.

The Deputy will see from these figures that the big increase in committals to prison actually took place in 1992. Committal figures have in fact remained on a plateau since then. However, over the period 1970 to 1995 an enormous growth occurred in the number of sentences in the two years to life range — from 30 in 1970 to 550 in 1995. It is the committals in this category which have contributed most to the demand on prison spaces. The prison building programme now under way will increase our prison capacity by some 800 spaces and is designed to address this problem.