Prison Committals.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 November 2009

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Ceisteanna (650)

Jim O'Keeffe

Ceist:

727 Deputy Jim O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of people committed to prison for non payment of fines in the years 2006, 2007, 2008 and to date in 2009. [38536/09]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Deputy Dermot Ahern)

I expect the number of such committals to fall substantially once the Fines Bill 2009 has been enacted.

A breakdown of the number of persons committed to prison solely for non-payment of fines for each of the years 2006, 2007, 2008 is set out in the following table.

Year	Number of Persons
2006	1,089
2007	1,335
2008	2,520
2009*	1,897

*The figure for 2009 is for the first six months of the year.

I can advise the Deputy that the number of such persons held in custody at any one time is a tiny fraction of the overall prisoner population. To illustrate this point, on 30 October, 2009 approximately 0.17 % of the numbers in prison custody that day fell into this category.