Prison officers warned unit was not secure

PRISON officers warned over a year ago that a pre-release female prison unit, from which two inmates escaped last Sunday, was “out of control”.

A major report by the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) in February 2001 was damning in its review of Phoenix House, part of the Dóchas Centre, located at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

“This unit appears to be beyond the control of prison staff,” the report stated. The authors said when they visited the unit they were asked by a prisoner what they were doing there.