Plans for mobile phone signal blocking systems in jails

Plans are being put in place to deploy mobile phone blocking systems in prisons to prevent inmates running criminal operations from their cells.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald revealed the Irish Prison Service is currently considering a number of technologies with a view to blocking mobile signals getting in or out of jails.

It’s an offence for inmates to possess a mobile, but it has not prevented nearly 6,000 phones being smuggled into jails in the last five years.