asked the Minister for Justice the number of committal warrants for non-payment of debt which were executed by imprisonment in the years 1981 to 1984, inclusive.
108.
Written Answers. - Committal Warrants Statistics.
107.
asked the Minister for Justice the number of committal warrants for non-payment of a debt that have been obtained in the years 1981 to 1984 inclusive by banks and other financial institutions.
Limerick East): I propose to take Questions Nos. 107 and 108 together. As I indicated in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 369 on 23 October last nobody may be committed to prison merely for non-payment of civil debt. A person may, however, be committed to prison for failure to comply with a court order to make certain payments in discharge of a debt, an order which may be made only after examination of the person's means designed to establish the person's capacity to pay.
The statistics sought for the years 1981 to 1984 are not readily available and could not be compiled without the expenditure of a disproportionate amount of staff time in court offices and in the prisons. However, the number actually committed to prison for failure to obey a court order for the payment of debt would represent a very small percentage of the total number of committals to prison in any year — on the available information it is thought that this figure would be about 3 per cent. At present there are 18 persons in custody on foot of such committal warrants.