PRISON officers at Mountjoy could strike within weeks over fears for their safety due to the decision to house dangerous prisoners in a separation unit in the facility.

Prison officers in Mountjoy returned to work tonight after a dispute over an inmate being taken out of solitary confinement.

LEROY DUMBRELL — the younger brother of Warren and Jeffrey Dumbrell, who last month were granted a rehearing of their murder trial — is to ask a High Court judge to release him from solitary confinement in Castlerea Prison.

The Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) has increased by two years the prison sentence imposed on a 21-year-old man for assaulting another man after finding that the original sentence was unduly lenient.

A convicted criminal whose assault with "a high level of gratuitous violence" on a man walking his dog may leave the victim blind for life has been remanded in custody pending sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.