Conflicting figures on super-prison costs

FERGUS FINLAY’S excellent column (Irish Examiner, July 4) exposing the bloated and unaccountable costs of Michael McDowell’s super-prison plan has provoked some interesting responses from officialdom.

On July 10, the minister issued a press release claiming the annual cost per prisoner in the new super-prison would be €30,000 a year less than the current Prison Service average cited by Mr Finlay.

What does the Prison Service have to say about that? On the day after the minister’s press release, the Prison Service press officer stated in a letter to the Irish Examiner that the savings would be more like €20,000 per prisoner.

Such a massive discrepancy hardly instils confidence that either estimate is anything more sophisticated than a hurried ‘back of the envelope’ exercise in damage control after the publication of Mr Finlay’s devastating column.

Indeed, to read both the ministerial and Prison Service responses, one would be left with the impression that their alleged cost of €70,000 per year to lock up someone is some sort of bargain rather than nearly double that of England, Wales or Scotland (according to figures provided by the minister himself in the Dáil in 2003).

When more than 80% of Irish prisoners are sent to jail for one year or less — the vast majority of them for non-violent offences — there could be no stronger argument in support of Mr Finlay’s conclusion that “any sense of perspective on this issue ought surely to require us to think long and hard about whether and why we need super-jails”.

Rick Lines

Executive Director

Irish Penal Reform Trust

53 Parnell Square West

Dublin 1