TORTURE is a strong word.

A support group for survivors of the Magdalene Laundries has demanded a state apology after an international torture watchdog recommended a statutory inquiry.

THE Ombudsman for Children has rebuked the top civil servant in the Department of Justice.

One of the country’s most senior civil servants has been criticised by the Ombudsman for Children over claims that he ignored young prisoners’ fears about jail.

GOVERNMENT officials were concerned about children sleeping rough in Dublin city centre — primarily because of the negative publicity it might generate in the year of Pope John Paul II’s visit.

A TAOISEACH has to be many things but being a marriage counsellor or delivery boy for Johnny Logan probably wasn’t on Charles Haughey’s mind when he took office.

THE United States has “ended its war on drugs” and is now moving its focus to prevention and treatment, the US drugs chief has told top Irish drug officials.

JUST last month the secretary general of the Department of Justice, Seán Aylward, a former director of the Irish Prison Service, told the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts that drug-free prisons would be impossible in a humane system.

THE Dáil’s spending watchdog has upped the ante in its probe of Fás, demanding further explanations on what knowledge its board had about wasteful spending.

HALF of the prison population takes drugs and there have been almost 700 seizures this year, according to the Irish Prison Service (IPS).

THE country’s only specialist drug court is set to be axed before the end of 2009 because of its poor success rate – just 26 offenders have completed the full programme over the past nine years.

The Government backed down three times on repeated attempts to cut €2,250-a-day fees of tribunal barristers after threats they would walk away from the inquiries, it emerged today.

The Morris Tribunal is set to cost the Irish taxpayer €70m.

FINANCIAL watchdogs expressed alarm yesterday that nearly €100m of taxpayers’ money was spent on prison facilities without being subjected to a proper tendering process.

A BITTER shouting match over funding cuts to the Equality Authority yesterday forced a 10-minute suspension of Dáil business.

JUSTICE Minister Brian Lenihan yesterday opened an €8 million health and education block at Limerick Prison.

THOUSANDS of sympathisers filed in silent tribute through two county Limerick towns into late last night to embrace the grieving families of Garda Brian Kelleher and firefighter Mike Liston.

TÁNAISTE Michael McDowell and Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy are to meet US police chiefs, including the architect of New York’s zero tolerance policy, in a week-long visit to the country.

THE Public Accounts Committee will be asked to investigate the knock-down sale of a prison kitchen to a private company following the prison’s closure.

MORE than €15 million of taxpayers’ money was “squandered” on giving the owner of the Thornton Hall prison site a stigma bonus, the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard yesterday.

SEVERAL questions were raised about why the Government paid over twice the market value for the site of a new prison in north Dublin last year.

A special detective unit in the Republic to investigate unsolved murders during the Troubles was today ruled out by the Justice Department’s top official.

The State's spending watchdog has criticised the price the Government paid for the site of a planned new prison complex on the outskirts of Dublin.

GARDAÍ are unable to trace more than 7,000 failed asylum seekers issued with deportation orders, latest figures from the Justice Department have shown.

The Irish Refugee Council has rejected comments about asylum-seekers made by a senior official at the Department of Justice yesterday.

A senior official in the Department of Justice has reportedly accused most asylum seekers of lying about their situations.

A total of 878 asylum seekers were discovered cheating the state’s welfare system in the past two years, it emerged tonight.

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided more than two years ago that no prosecution would be brought against Frank Connolly over allegations he travelled to Colombia on a false passport, the Centre for Public Inquiry (CPI) claimed last night.

PRISON service bosses “took their eyes off the ball” as more than half a million euro was wasted on a computer system that could not do its job, TDs heard yesterday.

ASYLUM SEEKER accommodation costs surged by €14 million last year as would-be refugees rushed to “beat the deadline” for an Irish born child, the Justice Department admitted last night.

The Oireachtas public accounts committee has heard details of problems with another computer system introduced by the Government in recent years.

John Breslin

Senior Government officials failed to act on early warnings from a private investigator over corruption among gardaí in Donegal, it was claimed today.

BUGS in the penalty points computer system resulted in thousands of motoring offences cases being dropped as the time limit for prosecutions to be taken had expired.

The Comptroller and Auditor General has expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of Ireland's speeding laws.

DRIVERS caught by speed cameras still have a more than two-out-of-five chance of getting away with their offence, according to latest figures from the Department of Justice.

THE head of the Irish Prison Service has been named as the new secretary general of the Justice Department, one of the most powerful positions in the civil service.

THE head of the Irish Prison Service has been named as the new secretary general of the Justice Department, one of the most powerful positions in the civil service.

Doctors serving the country's jails threatened mass resignation tonight unless the Prison Service meets demands to improve health care for inmates.

ARMY doctors were drafted in to treat 1,500 prisoners yesterday after a female prisoner attempted suicide and no prompt emergency cover was available.

Inmates in Irish jails are increasingly being put at risk by a strike by prison doctors, it was claimed today.

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

Around 20% of the people sent to Irish prisons last year were non-nationals, it was revealed today.