Parliamentary Question: Prisoner Costs

22nd February 2007

 17. Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on the high cost per prisoner of keeping a person in prison here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6803/07]

Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell): The average cost of keeping an offender in custody in this jurisdiction is calculated by averaging out the current running costs of the prisons and places of detention against the average number of offenders in those institutions. These costs include certain items which are fixed no matter what the number of offenders in custody, e.g. utilities, staff salaries, etc. It also reallocates the cost of central services e.g. Headquarters, Prison Service Training Centre, I.T., etc. to each prison institution.

I would caution that there is no information readily available to me on the precise methodology and procedures used by our international counterparts in the preparation of their figures for costs per prisoner and this should be borne in mind in any comparison of these figures to the current Irish figures.

Significant factors in determining prison costs include the size and age of institutions and the regime applied to prisoners. For example average annual costs per prisoner for prison institutions in the USA are generally lower than in this jurisdiction but the regimes applied would not necessarily be of a type that would apply in this jurisdiction.

The comprehensive change Agreement reached with the Prisons Officers Association in 2005, which has been successfully rolled out throughout the Service, has brought to an end the chronic problem of escalating overtime costs and introduced a range of other efficiencies. The savings arising from these efficiencies are contributing significantly to the control of costs, including the overall cost of keeping an offender in custody.

In addition the development of new prison facilities, particularly at Thornton, and for the Munster region will provide an opportunity to further reduce operating costs while providing an improved regime for prisoners and staff.