Lack of funding is keeping inmates in jail, TD warns

UP to 1,000 offenders who should be doing community service are in prison because the Probation and Welfare service is under resourced, a TD claimed yesterday.

Speaking at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday Fine Gael’s Paul Connaughton expressed dissatisfaction at the number of inmates who are behind bars because the probation service could not handle their supervision.

“Somehow or other it always seems the poor people, the small people, who do their time in jail,” he said, suggesting that as many as 1,000 people could be unjustly imprisoned.