Prison staff failed to notice 4 times that inmate had died at Mountjoy

The prison watchdog has criticised the authorities in Mountjoy for repeated failures by staff to notice that a prisoner had died in his cell.

The inspector of prisons, Patricia Gilheaney, has called for “zero tolerance” to be shown by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) over failures to carry out mandatory checks at regular intervals on inmates as well as appropriate disciplinary action to be taken on prison officers who failed to perform such duties.