Vol. 471 No. 8
14 Mr. E. Byrne asked the Minister for Justice when the annual reports on prisons and places of detention will be published in respect of each of the years from 1993 to 1995; the proposals, if any, she has to speed up compilation of the relevant statistics in order to facilitate quicker publication of such reports in future; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21709/96]
The annual report on prisons and places of detention for the year 1993 was published on 4 September 1996, and placed in the Oireachtas library. The compilation of the statistics in respect of 1994 and 1995 is in progress. However, as I have already indicated on a number of occasions to the House, I recently decided that the written elements of the reports for those years, which include the main developments in the prison service, the reports of the visiting committees and the various prison services, will be published separately. I plan to have the interim report for 1994 ready for publication shortly. The statistical tables would then be published as soon as possible afterwards.
The lack of resources to provide comprehensive information technology in the prisons has inhibited the preparation of the statistical elements of the prison reports. Planning for the replacement of the out of date and partial prisoner records system is at an advanced stage. One of the benefits which the replacement system will provide will be the capacity to provide the required statistics much more quickly than at present.
