Chaplain blames drugs for prison violence

THERE will be more deaths in Mountjoy unless the drugs problem is tackled, the chaplain at the country’s largest committal facility warned last night.

Speaking in the wake of the savage murder of an inmate, 23-year-old Gary Douch, prison chaplain Charlie Hoey said there has been a marked increase in the level of violence within Mountjoy.

“I think that drugs play a huge part in that. Unfortunately there is a drug problem in the prison as there is in many prisons. We have also got people coming in who are psychiatric who should never be in the criminal system at all,” he said.