€68K-A-YEAR TO KEEP PRISONERS
Cost rises to almost €100k for maximum security jail
INSTAGRAM POST
THE taxpayer is spending more than €50,000 a year keeping criminals such as killer Graham Dwyer locked up, it was revealed yesterday.
And the average annual cost of spaces in 2017 was €68,635.
For an inmate such as 36-year-old gang boss John
Dundon, housed in Portlaoise maximum security jail, that figure rises by 42% to €97,492 – an average of €1,874 a week.
Details released by the Irish Prison Service in response to a Freedom of Informa- jail tion request showed this rose last year from €97,124. At the Midlands medium security prison, also in Portlaoise, Co Laois, the figure increased to €54,466 in 2017.
The facility houses Dwyer, prisoner 88335, who received a life sentence in April 2015 for the murder of 36-year-old
Roz shows toned muscles Elaine O’hara. It also holds almost threequarters of the approximately 400 sex offenders currently behind bars.
A spokesman for the IPS said the number of subversive inmates at Portlaoise Prison is now 39, a drop of 34% from six years ago. The jail, with an Midlands Prison operational capacity of 291, held 229 people in June. The other high-cost facilities last year were Limerick Prison at a cost of €88,840 and Dochas women’s centre at €85,545. The IPS spokesman said: “Many variables lead to the fluctuation in the cost of keeping an offender.
“Factors like prisoner numbers, staff numbers, cost of food, electricity, oil and gas also have to be taken into consideration.”