Providing courses for prisoners cost €1.2m

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has confirmed prisoners are taking part in creative writing, photography, and film-production classes as part of a prison education service that cost the taxpayer €1.2m last year.

In a written Dáil response to Sinn Féin’s Pádraig MacLochlainn, he said providing the education service to inmates has cost the State €9.9m since the start of 2006 to the end of last year.

The cost peaked in 2007 to €1.8m and gradually reduced to €1.23m last year. The take-up represents almost two out of every five in the prison population — currently 4,062 people.