A mother of two, who has spent the last four months in prison for failing to comply with court orders to vacate a €1m property in south Dublin, walked free from the High Court yesterday after purging her contempt.

Inmates have been given €498,708 in interest-free loans by the Irish Prison Service in the past three years.

Convicted murderer Catherine Nevin has been granted temporary full-time release from prison.

Nearly 900 pints of homemade alcohol was confiscated from prisoners in Irish jails last year, new figures have revealed.

A mentally ill woman has been given a suspended sentence for holding a knife to her mother’s throat in a fit of jealousy after she found out her successful sister was coming home from Canada.

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) is shelling out almost €550,000 on over 29,000 white Y-fronts, dressing gowns, polo shirts and other items of clothing for inmates.

A woman with “an astronomical” amount of previous convictions will not face extra jail time for trying to stab a garda with a syringe despite a prosecution appeal.

Prison authorities are struggling to combat the problem of smuggling in Irish jails, with new figures revealing that more than 3,200 drug seizures have taken place in prisons over the past three years.

More than 2,000 litres of homemade alcohol has been seized from prisoners over the past two years.

Prosecutors have been given an additional two weeks in preparing their case against a Dublin woman accused of the murder of her two-year-old son.

A woman has appeared in court charged with the murder of her daughter in Co. Offaly.

The Irish Prison Service has confirmed that three babies were born in Irish prisons last year to mothers who had been jailed.

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".

Four people have appeared in court in Dublin today charged in connection with two separate drug seizures this week.

The woman who labelled herself “the worst mother in the world” is due to be released from prison within weeks.

The Inspector of Prisons has called the overcrowding crisis at the Dóchas Centre in Dublin unacceptable.

A Trinidadian woman caught smuggling cocaine into Dublin to raise money to treat her seriously ill son has been sentenced to six years in prison with five suspended.

Prisoner numbers have dropped below 4,000 for the first time in four years, new figures show. There were 3,983 people in custody yesterday and 645 on temporary release (TR).

A record number of females are being sent to jail, accounting for one in six of all committals last year.

A chronic heroin addict who was previously sentenced for repeatedly striking her nine-month-old niece as she was coming down from the drug has had part of her sentence reactivated.

The convicted woman at the centre of the Lying Eyes case, Sharon Collins, is living at an undisclosed location and is writing a book about the case where she will protest her innocence.

Sharon Collins, who was jailed for six years for soliciting a man to kill her partner and his sons, has walked free from jail after three years and nine months.

Plans for a new prison to deal with chronic overcrowding in Cork are being considered by Government.

A judge has recommended that a Limerick woman accused of murdering a father-of-two, who was shot dead in west Dublin last month, is to be held at a prison closer to her family.

Thirty-one Garda stations are to close, while a further 10 will operate on reduced opening hours, under cost-saving plans announced by Justice Minister Alan Shatter.

The High Court is to give 65-year-old ESB protester Teresa Treacy an opportunity to get out of jail this afternoon.

A HIGH Court order may be required to remove demonstrators who have gathered on land belonging to jailed Co Offaly woman Teresa Treacy.

There is no mental health treatment centre here capable of caring for a teenage girl whose violent temper has resulted in 30 convictions for assault, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has heard.

HSE child safety experts have been drafted in by prison bosses to address “serious child protection issues” at Dóchas women’s prison.

A judge has asked immigration authorities to do all in their power to ensure a 20-year-old mother receives daily visits in Mountjoy Prison over Christmas from her two-year-old child.

A woman prisoner died in hospital today after she was found unconscious in her cell.

A SMALL number of foreign women held in immigration-related detention have complained about the conditions in the Dóchas Centre, including in some cases, racist abuse from other inmates.

ONE of the country’s longest serving and most outspoken prison governors, John Lonergan, last night marked his retirement, warning that he first raised overcrowding issues at the jail 25 years ago.

One of the country’s longest serving prison governors, John Lonergan, is to retire from Mountjoy next month, it was confirmed today.

PRISON boss Brian Purcell has hit back at claims from a prison governor her job had been made “completely impossible” by the Prison Service.

The Government was pressed today to carry out an urgent review of the country’s only women’s prison after its governor resigned citing overcrowding.

A RECORD number of legal warnings were issued to the parents of children who failed to attend school last year.

A CHIEF prison officer claimed yesterday that the voice on a mobile phone confiscated from Catherine Nevin was that of sitting Fine Gael councillor Dr Bill Tormey.

Catherine Nevin was today acquitted of possessing a mobile phone at the Dochas centre, in Mountjoy prison, nearly two years ago.

BRINGING up a baby girl in a prison is far from ideal. Especially when mother and child will eventually be separated, perhaps for years.

THE Catholic Church has described as disturbing parts of the Government’s plan to build a super-prison at Thornton Hall.

FAMILIES using the planned bus service to the new “super prison” in north Dublin for visits will be pressurised to carry drugs and targeted by other families to “settle scores” inside prison, it was claimed yesterday.

COUNCILLORS in Louth have called for the abolition of the HSE and its executive over the forthcoming transfer of cancer services from Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda to Dublin’s Beaumont hospital.