Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Jim O\u2019Callaghan said that he wants to addressing prison overcrowding.<\/p>\n
MINISTER FOR JUSTICE Jim O\u2019Callaghan intends to enact legislation to increase the use of community sanctions for non-violent offenders so that they are not \u2018clogging up\u2019 Ireland\u2019s prisons.<\/p>\n
In an interview on Virgin Media Television\u2019s The Tonight Show, O\u2019Callaghan said that he wants to addressing prison overcrowding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is extremely important that we have extra prison spaces. At present, we have about 5,000 people in prison, which is about 111% capacity. We need more spaces,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was out in Cloverhill Prison a number of weeks ago. There\u2019s overcrowding there; there\u2019s overcrowding in many of our prisons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can\u2019t do is simply say we\u2019re not going to put people in prison because of the overcrowding. If people are convicted of very serious crimes, whether they be knife crimes or murder or sex crimes or rape, there has to be a term of imprisonment for them, and we need to have the spaces there to be providing them with that term.<\/p>\n