Prison Service boss Michael Donnellan has rejected criticisms from prison officers that violent inmates were being rewarded by special gardens and luxuries like fish tanks.

Officers at the country’s only maximum security jail have shared a €1m windfall in ‘danger money’ backpay for dealing with some of the most dangerous criminals.

The suspect in the fatal stabbing of a “model inmate” at Cork Prison was cleared for kitchen duty despite a history of violent knife crime.

A prisoner who is so disruptive prison officers have to wear riot gear to deal with him has been given a PlayStation and a fish tank in a bid to pacify him, a prison officers’ conference has heard.

Derek Brockwell left a prison officer with his “intestines hanging out” such was the ferocity of his knife attack, gardaí have said.

THIRTY prison officers who work at Cloverhill prison in west Dublin have tested positive for latent TB.

THERE was outrage yesterday after it emerged 470 inmates were released early from Cork Prison last year because of overcrowding.

Calls have been made to speed up plans for a new prison for Spike Island following a series of chronic overcrowding problems and a number of violent incidents in Cork and Dublin prisons in recent days.

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell yesterday said he was expanding capacity in a number of prisons to deal with overcrowding problems.

BULLYING and harassment are now major issues for prison officers, the conference heard.

A €70 MILLION prison is to be built on Spike Island in Cork Harbour, Justice Minister Michael McDowell revealed yesterday.

THE return of the revolving prison door is “inevitable”, such is the overcrowding crisis in jails, prison officers claimed yesterday.

Cormac O’Keeffe

In publishing the bill to privatise the prison escort service yesterday, Justice Minister Michael McDowell seems to be defying his own logic.

Jimmy Woulfe

PEOPLE from outside Ireland now account for one in five of all those sent to prison, new figures show.

PRISON officers didn’t pull any punches yesterday in a bitter attack on Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s “master plans” for the Prison Service.

PUBLIC order offenders and juvenile delinquents face electronic tagging under plans announced yesterday by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

It is easy to sympathise with the frustration and exasperation expressed by prison officers at the latest solutions proffered by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to cure some of the ills affecting the service.

PRISON officers are drawing up plans for a series of wildcat strikes if Justice Minister Michael McDowell cuts their €60m overtime bill.

THE closure of an open prison for juvenile criminals does nothing for the well-being of young people and their future in society, a conference was told yesterday.