Prison costs - System not giving value for money

It costs many times the average industrial wage to keep one prisoner in jail for a year - just how much depends on where they are incarcerated.

It cost €232,000 to keep one prisoner in Portlaoise jail for the year 2003. This was more than €635 a day, which was more than twice as expensive as the second most costly prison, Mountjoy jail, where it costs €97,900 per year per prisoner, or a little over €268 per day.

Prison overtime has been a controversial aspect of the expenditure in recent years. Overtime cost €214 million last year. This was more than two-thirds of the prison service’s €300m annual budget.