Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 January 2026
460. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration the position regarding the current prison population in Ireland, in comparison to the average daily population in 2023, 2024 and 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5161/26]
View answerThe Irish Prison Service (IPS) has confirmed that information regarding prison capacity and the numbers of prisoners in custody is collated daily by the IPS Statistics Unit and published on its website (www.irishprisons.ie). This information can be found in the Information Centre, under Statistics & Information, Daily Prisoner Population.
The IPS must accept into custody all people committed to prison by the Courts. As such, the IPS has no control over the numbers committed to custody at any given time. Where the number of people in custody exceeds the maximum capacity in any prison, officials in the IPS make every effort to deal with this through the use of Temporary Release. Decisions in relation to temporary release are considered on a case by case basis and the safety of the public is paramount when those decisions are made.
The IPS further advise that the average daily prison population for 2025 was 5,417, an increase of 9.6% on the 2024 figure of 4,941. The figure for 2024 was also an increase of 7.8% on the 2023 average daily figure of 4,582. The increase from 2023 to 2025 is 18.2%. Comparing the current daily population to the 2023 average daily population the increase is 25.8%.
The Government has made significant capital funding available to the Irish Prison Service to enhance the existing prison infrastructure and provide additional capacity. Over 440 new prison spaces have been constructed since 2022, with the majority of these already in use and the rest due to be in use shortly.
The IPS is committed to delivering one of the fastest-ever expansions of prison capacity in Ireland and continues to engage with the Department of Justice to progress plans to bring on stream accommodation to support the target of over 1,500 additional prison places as set out under the Programme for Government. The programme includes a large extension to the existing Cork Prison, on the site of the old decommissioned Cork Prison, a new block in Wheatfield, an additional block extension at Midlands prison, as well as additional spaces at Castlerea, Mountjoy, Cloverhill, Portlaoise, Limerick and Dóchas.
I am committed to progressing and implementing policies aimed at increasing the use of community sanctions, that seek to reduce offending, divert people away from imprisonment, and provide effective rehabilitation.
Budget 2026 provides for a 13% increase in funding for the Probation Service. This additional funding will be used to increase use of supervised community sanctions in the criminal courts, expand restorative justice services, and expand supervised temporary release schemes nationally.
The Criminal Law and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was published on 9 January 2026. The Bill includes a number of amendments to the Community Service Act 1983 to encourage greater use of community service orders (CSOs). Under these proposed amendments the maximum number of hours that can be imposed under a community service order will be doubled from 240 to 480 hours. The amendment will also require a court to consider a CSO if a sentence of up to two years is being considered (the current such threshold being one year), and to give reasons if the court considers that a CSO should not be made in any such case.
Work is also under way to develop a pilot bail support policy for women, as an alternative to being detained in custody while awaiting trial or sentencing.
The Programme for Government also commits to implement electronic monitoring (EM) for appropriate categories of offender and Budget 2026 allocated funding of €2.1 million for the project to allow for staffing, procurement, and other set-up costs. A Request for Tender (RFT) was published last month, with a closing date of the 30 January 2026 at 5pm. A pilot is expected to be operational in 2026.
