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Parliamentary Question: Prison Committals

13th February 2007

285. Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the estimated average cost of keeping a prisoner in each of the prisons here; and the number of prisoners in each prison. [5392/07]

286. Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the estimated breakdown of the annual cost of keeping a person in prison here in respect of each prison. [5393/07]

Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell): I propose to take Questions Nos. 285 and 286 together.

The information sought by the Deputy is set out in the table. The figures relate to 2005 as the cost of keeping an offender for 2006 will not be available until later in the year.

The cost per prisoner is based on the average daily number of offenders in custody during 2005. The operational cost of each institution is based on actual running costs (ie pay, overtime, food, light and heat, maintenance, staffing numbers, utilities, etc). These costs include certain fixed costs that arise irrespective of the number of offenders in custody e.g. staffing numbers, utilities, etc. All headquarters and central service costs are allocated over the prison establishments for the purpose of calculating the cost per prisoner at each institution. Capital expenditure is excluded from the calculation in the interest of facilitating comparison in individual institutional costs.

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