Skip to main content
Normal View

Prison Committals

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 May 2013

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Questions (207)

Pádraig MacLochlainn

Question:

207. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons that were sentenced to jail for non payment of fines in 2011 and 2012; the amount of fines involved and the length of sentence they served. [24720/13]

View answer

Written answers

I can inform the Deputy that the number of committals to prison for non-payment of a court order fine in 2012 was 8,304. The 2011 figure was 7,514 . It is not possible to provide the amount of the fines involved or the length of sentence for each case, as this would necessitate a manual search of each record and would require a disproportionate and inordinate amount of staff time and effort and could not be justified where there are other significant demands on resources. However, I can advise the Deputy that the proportion of persons in custody for non-payment of fines at any time is a minute fraction of the overall prisoner population. To illustrate this point on 21 May 2013 there were 13 persons in custody for non-payment of a fine out of a total prison population of 4,269.

Top
Share