Vol. 536 No. 6
206 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the total allocation to the Prison Service for 2001; the number of prison places available; the weekly cost of the provision and supports of keeping a prisoner in prison; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15177/01]
The allocation to the prisons Vote for 2001 is £230.6 million. Of this sum, £25.4 million is for the probation and welfare service giving a net total of £205.2 million for the Prisons Service proper. As of 18 May, 2001 the Prisons Service had a bed capacity of 3,671. The weekly cost of keeping an offender for 2000, the most recent year for which figures are available, came to £1,135 per offender. The cost of keeping an offender is calculated by measuring the current running costs of prisons and places of detention against the average number of offenders over a certain period of time, in this case 2000. These running costs include certain items which are fixed regardless of the number of prisoners in custody, such as officers' wages and items such as lighting and heating.
When looking at the cost of keeping an offender it should be borne in mind that the figure for keeping a person in custody with all of the entailed costs, such as medical, educational and recreational costs, is applicable for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. It is therefore not readily comparable with other types of institutions. It is much less costly to apply a non-custodial sanction, involving supervision of the offender in a community setting, but it has to be borne in mind that non-custodial sanctions are simply not a suitable or adequate way of dealing with many offenders who come before the courts.
207 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of prison places approved for the prison system; the number of places not commissioned or not in use; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15178/01]
There are currently 3,671 prison places in the prison system at present. In excess of 50 places are not in use across the prison system due to ongoing refurbishment and other technical works, including re-wiring and the installation of mechanical and electrical facilities including smoke extraction machinery. In Portlaoise Prison, a number of prison spaces are not fully utilised because of the necessity to segregate subversive and other high profile prisoners from the rest of the prison population.
