Prison is often a “very expensive way” of making the lives of vulnerable women worse, the inspector of prisons has said.

Prison bosses said plans for a new block at Dóchas Women’s Prison, which have been criticised as posing “a risk to the health, safety, and welfare” of inmates, were no longer going ahead.

JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter has described as “unacceptable” the treatment of female inmates in two cases highlighted in a recent inspection report on Dochas Women’s Prison.

NEARLY 200 prisoners have registered to vote in Election 2011, significantly down on the 2007 election.

PRISON overcrowding has reached such dangerous levels that it is now the central factor in violence among inmates as well as a surging drug culture and the ongoing failure to rehabilitate those convicted of crimes.

THE public row over the Prison Service and conditions at Mountjoy Prison escalated yesterday when the chairman of the Mountjoy Visiting Committee disputed claims from an outspoken former committee member.

THE Roscommon mother jailed for seven years is being “heavily monitored” by staff at Dóchas Women’s Prison in the health care unit.

PERSISTENT overcrowding of Irish prisons is leading to higher suicide rates, aggression between inmates and the spread of infectious diseases, prison officers claimed last night.

THE mother of the so-called “Scissor Sisters” Linda and Charlotte Mulhall appeared in court yesterday charged in connection with the murder of her Kenyan boyfriend.

THE row over the move of the Central Mental Hospital to a new prison site has taken a major twist with the emergence of the highly critical views of the hospital’s medical boss.