§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many assaults have been made on prison officers in each Northern Ireland prison in each of the last 24 months; how many prison officers required hospital treatment in each month; and how many assaults in each month were made by(a) loyalist prisoners, (b) republican prisoners and (c) other prisoners.
§ Sir John Wheeler[pursuant to the reply, 16 December 1993, columns 871–72]: The affiliations of the prisoners who carried out assaults on 278 prison officers between December 1991 and November 1993 are as follows:
Number Attributable to loyalists 79 Attributable to republicans 34 Attributable to other prisoners 29 Unattributable 1136 1A large number of assaults on staff occurred during attempts to break up factional fighting and therefore it is not possible to say for certain which individual prisoner caused the assaults. Information on the number of injured officers requiring hospital treatment could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.