The prisoner population in Northern Ireland is currently significantly higher than was envisaged for the size of the prison officer workforce, the Justice Minister has said.
Naomi Long said the Northern Ireland Prison Service was “very highly reliant” on the use of overtime to ensure a full complement of staff in the region’s prisons.
However, she said the situation was not at the levels reached in England, where an early release programme was recently rolled out to address acute overcrowding problems.
Ms Long said she had given approval for the Prison Service to launch a recruitment campaign to take on an additional 75 officers.
She was asked several questions about prison capacity during Assembly question time on Monday. She said the total number of prisoners in Northern Ireland was currently about 1,800.
DUP MLA Maurice Bradley asked whether she envisaged having to release prisoners early in Northern Ireland.
“I’ve learned at this job never to say never but, at the moment, we’re not in that situation,” she replied.
“We currently have adequate capacity in our prisons for prisoners to be able to serve the entirety of their sentence. We also have adequate staff, so we’re not in an overcrowded situation.
“However, I’m conscious, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re going out to recruitment, that those numbers are significantly higher than was anticipated with the current complement of prison officers.
“And, in order to keep people safe and ensure that the regime is able to operate effectively, it is important that we have the prisons property staffed, and I think that the new custody prison officer recruitment will go a long way to help that.”
In respect of the use of overtime to ensure safe staffing levels, Ms Long added: “That is a short-term fix, it is not a long-term solution to the problems that we face.”