Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 December 2004
168 Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of transfers under the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and relevant Irish Acts which have been effected of Irish prisoners convicted and sentenced in the United Kingdom for each year since 2000; the length of time each effected application took to process; and the position regarding the number of pending applications. [33899/04]
View answerStatistics on the number of international prison transfers involving Ireland are published in my annual report to the Houses of the Oireachtas on the Operation of the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Acts 1995 and 1997. The 2002 and 2003 annual reports are available on my Department's website, http://www.justice.ie.
The number of transfers effected from the United Kingdom to Ireland under the above Acts since 2000 is set out in the following table.
|
Year |
Number of Transfers |
|
2000 |
10 |
|
2001 |
4 |
|
2002 |
8 |
|
2003 |
8 |
|
2004 (to date) |
4 |
The Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons imposes obligations on each state in a transfer to exchange extensive documentation prior to a decision being made on the application. Collation and consideration of this documentation can take some time. Under Irish legislation, it is a further requirement that a High Court warrant be obtained to authorise transfer and continued detention in this jurisdiction. In addition, Irish prison officers are required to provide the escort for prisoners transferring into this country under the legislation. Due to necessary cutbacks in overtime levels in the Irish Prison Service, as well as for operational reasons, it has been necessary for the Irish Prison Service to restrict such prison transfers into Ireland to one per month.
The length of time taken to process an application for transfer to Ireland varies from case to case. The average process time for transfers effected from the United Kingdom to Ireland between 2000 and 2004, to date, is 21 months. This is from the time the application is received from the United Kingdom authorities until a transfer is effected. A number of applications, at different stages of the process, are on hand in my Department.
