The overall amount of contraband seized in Irish prisons last year dropped slightly — and there has been a significant decline in the amount of weapons found in jails.

“Cork Prison is the worst jail in the system. It’s inhumane.”

Laws in relation to people convicted of drug trafficking and gun possession should be eased, according to a major review of penal policy.

An elderly artist and anti- war activist, released early from prison yesterday after serving part of a second jail term over her opposition to the US military’s use of Shannon Airport, has described conditions inside Limerick Prison as "inhumane".

Limerick Prison failed to follow its own procedures to watch over a man who took his own life while on suicide watch.

Sales of fake tan and Corona cigars in tuck shops around the country’s prison system contributed to revenues of more than €7.5m.

Slopping out will soon be confined to the past at Limerick Prison.

Many jailed sex offenders are released into an “unsupervised and unsupported abyss” that inevitably results in them reoffending and returning to prison, an official inspection body has said.

New figures show over 4,000 drug seizures were recorded at the country's jails over a three-year period.

INMATES at Limerick Prison are still sharing slopping out buckets, staying in cells which smell of sewage, and facing 150%-plus capacity levels despite assurances the issues would be addressed over a year ago.

A retired Limerick Prison officer has been sentenced to 15 years for the repeated abuse and rape of his daughter over 10 years in what she described as their “house of doom”.

ALMOST three years since the crackdown on mobile phones in prisons began, record numbers are being seized.

MORE than half of the country’s prisoners are sharing a cell with other inmates and at least 200 are sleeping in cells of more than four people, according to figures from the Department of Justice.

AN 80-acre site at Lynch Camp in Kilworth, Co Cork, is the preferred site for a super-prison, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said yesterday.

VISITING committees have released their annual reports for 2005 on Ireland’s prisons. Here are the main concerns expressed.

GARDAÍ and the army were last night examining two nail bombs thrown over perimeter walls into Limerick prison.

PARENTS are smuggling drugs into their children on jail visits, a prison governor said yesterday.