Michelle McIlveen points to 'significant financial burden' as she reveals that 18% of remand prisoners are foreign nationals - and criticises a lack of deportation data
DUP MLA Michelle McIlveen has revealed that almost 18% of people being held on remand in Northern Ireland are foreign nationals.
The figure was uncovered as part of a suite of questions she had posed to the Department of Justice, and she has pointed to the figure as representing a “significant financial burden” given the cost of housing prisoners.
She was also highly-critical of the fact that the department was unable to say how many foreign offenders have been deported from Northern Ireland.
The remand figure – 17.9% to be exact – does not neccessarily mean foreign nationals are committing crime at a higher rate.
Instead, it appears more likely that they are being refused bail at a higher rate, possibly due to concerns about leaving the jurisdiction, since only about 5.5% of sentenced prisoners are foreign.
According to the 2021 census, 6.53% of the NI population were born outside the UK or Ireland.
DUP deputy leader Miss McIlveen, who has been a minister four times over (in education, regional development, farming and a junior in the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister) had posed the written questions about foreign offenders to the department this year, before the recent anti-immigration disorder.
The News Letter has come across them now while combing through Assembly records.
One was: “To ask the Minister of Justice to detail the nationality of prisoners currently (i) on remand; and (ii) serving a prison sentence.”
The response was that, as of June 1, some 82.1% of remand prisoners in NI were British / Irish, and the rest were from elsewhere (the highest foreign group was Lithuanians who made up 4.2% of remand prisoners, while 2% were Polish).
On sentenced prisoners, she was told that 94.5% were British / Irish (again, the highest foreign groups were Polish and Lithuanians at 1.2% and 0.9% respectively).
Another set of questions she had asked concerned referrals for deportation.
She had asked how many times a referral by the NI Prison Service to the Home Office had resulted in deportation of an offender.
The department told her that the Prison Service informs the Home Office “of all sentenced foreign national offenders within 10 working days of sentencing, irrespective of sentence length”.
However, it added that it does not hold data on how many referrals there have been, or their outcomes, and directed Miss McIlveen towards the Home Office for some of the information.
Commenting on the issue this week, Miss McIlveen told the News Letter: “The responses to my Assembly questions expose an unacceptable situation.
"Neither the NI Prison Service nor the Department of Justice can tell us how many foreign national offenders have been referred to the Home Office for deportation action, nor how many have ultimately been removed from the UK.
"At a time when public confidence in immigration enforcement is under significant strain, that is simply unacceptable.
"If foreign national offenders are entering our prison system, there should be a clear trail showing what action is being taken and what outcomes are being achieved.
"The figures also reveal that foreign nationals account for almost 18% of the remand population and 5.5% of the sentenced prison population.
"Those are significant numbers.
"The public have every right to expect that offenders with no entitlement to remain in the UK are being identified, processed and removed where appropriate.
"Given that each prisoner costs the taxpayer around £1,000 per week, there is also a significant financial burden involved.
"Ministers and officials need to explain why this information is not readily available, what steps are being taken to address that failure."
Asked why the rate of foreign remand prisoners is so high, the Department of Justice said: “Decisions on bail and remand in Northern Ireland are a matter for the independent judiciary.”
And the Lady Chief Justice’s Office, representing the judiciary, said: “The information to which you refer is not held by this office and we are therefore not in a position to comment on the figures cited or the factors which may underpin them.
“More generally, decisions on bail are a matter for the independent judiciary and are determined on a case‑by‑case basis, having regard to the specific facts and circumstances of each case and the applicable legal principles.”