PRISONERS JAILED by the courts for non payment of fines are having their fines waived on arrival at prison gates and are being released immediately as part of new procedures.
At least 200 inmates have been released immediately under the new system, and the true figure could be much higher.
Sources within the prison service say the “freed on arrival” fine defaulters are no longer being recorded in inmate temporary release figures, which have been growing.
Fine Gael’s justice spokesman Alan Shatter TD said a new system of “fiddling the figures” had been quietly introduced.
“This outrageous and indefensible misrepresentation of what’s happening in our prison system underlines how incapable the Government is of telling the truth on even simple matters.”
The temporary release mechanism is a long-standing arrangement aimed at freeing inmates for short periods to prepare them for reintegration into society when their sentences expire.
However, in recent years it has been used to ease overcrowding and make way for new prisoners jailed by the courts. While this form of release is called “temporary release”, it is not in fact temporary. Those awarded it do not have to return to jail.
In mid-June there were 4,274 inmates being held in the Republic’s jails, with a further 938 on temporary release because there was nowhere to keep them.
Since then some 250 new prison spaces have been provided. The prison population has grown by 167 since June to 4,441 inmates as of yesterday.
All of the extra prisoners would have been accommodated by the new prison spaces, leaving another 83 new spaces to accommodate some of the 938 on temporary release.
This means the numbers now on temporary release should have fallen to 855 inmates.
However, the numbers on temporary release yesterday were 651. This means some 204 temporary release inmates have disappeared from the system.
This figure presupposes that the prison population – that is, those in jail combined with those on temporary release – has remained static since June.
However, inmate numbers have been rising at record levels, having increased by 400 in the year to mid-October alone.
It means the 204 inmates missing from the official figures is a minimum figure and is likely to be much higher.
Mr Shatter last month raised the matter with Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern in the written Dáil question.
Mr Shatter asked Mr Ahern to confirm whether the new system was in place and, if so, how many inmates had been concealed by being released before being processed fully into the prison system.
A short response was issued saying the question could not be answered “in the time allocated”.
However, a number of sources have told The Irish Times the new procedures have been in place since late summer.
Mr Shatter said in failing to answer his Dáil question when it was tabled, Mr Ahern had failed in his duty to be accountable to the Dáil.
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said it could not comment because the Department of Justice was currently in the process of answering Mr Shatter’s Dáil question. Queries from The Irish Times to Mr Aherns office went unanswered yesterday.