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MORE THAN 8,000 people were jailed last year for non-payment of fines.
The majority of these people spent less than a day in prison.
It costs about €65,542* to keep a person in prison for a year, working out at €179.57 per day.
Some 8,140 people were imprisoned for non-payment of fines last year, up from 7,365 in 2013.
The number of people sent to jail for this reason has increased dramatically in recent years, standing at 1,234 in 2007.
Close to 6,000 men were jailed for not paying fines in 2014, compared to just over 2,100 women.
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Oireachtas.ie
Oireachtas.ie
The figures were released recently by the Department of Justice in response to a parliamentary question asked by Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd.
A spokesperson for the Irish Prison Service told TheJournal.ie the introduction of the Fines Act 2014 “will hopefully see a significant reduction in those committed for non-payment of fines and the associated cost in terms of staff resources used to process these people”.
“It should be noted however, that most persons spend less than one day in prison. So, in those terms, the Act will not drastically impact on the prison population,” he added.
*Relates to 2013, the last year for which figures are available.
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No matter how you dress it up the truth is that all governments of the day have sought to deny citizens their rights and entitlements based on the fact that citizens have no knowledge of their entitlements, how to qualify like signing for credits to be entitled to a pension when they reach pensionable age if they are out of the workforce for caring roles or what exactly their medical card covers before charges are levied or indeed if they have a long term illness that they may be entitled to medication. In the case above. it is galling to hear Watt say “I don’t think anyone disputes that it was unfair … that’s different to legal entitlement.” There are none so blind as those who will not see and it is those most in need to are treated with such distain.
Still , you have to have some sympathy for the tax payers and governments of the current era .They are expected to compensate everyone back to the foundation of the state ..I mean all the descendents of the executed 1916 leaders should be compensated should they not but by whom ,Britain I suppose .As for monies paid by nursing home residents many of whom have passed away is that to go to their ‘loved’ ones for extensions to houses, sun holidays and all the rest . Special needs people in care homes are frequently not capable of making a will and their money will go to random relatives who may have never visited them once when they were alive .We are a grand little country shure
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