Technology to block mobile use in prisons

New technology is planned to block the use of mobiles in the prisons.

The news comes after it was revealed a live budgie, mobile phones, drugs and homemade alcohol have been seized from inmates’ cells in Ireland’s maximum security prison, it emerged today.

The Irish Prison Service said the haul was found by prison officers who searched the cells of some of the country’s most notorious criminals housed in Portlaoise.

Inmates were locked up while searches were the carried out yesterday.

At least eight smuggled mobile phones, three sim cards, around 150 tablets, including ecstasy, a significant quantity of powdered drugs, a large amount of homemade alcohol, known as hooch, and 30 syringes were seized.

A budgie, belonging to a long term prisoner, was also taken away. It is believed it had been smuggled into the prison by a female visitor who concealed the bird in her body.

The search was sparked after armed robber John Daly telephoned RTÉ radio’s Liveline programme from an illegal mobile phone from his cell last week. His phone was seized by staff during the programme and the inmate has since been transferred to Cork Prison.

New governor Ned Whelan drafted in all available staff for the search which began on the EI landing, home to the country’s biggest criminals including Dublin thug John Gilligan, whose gang was responsible for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in June 1996, members of the Dublin and Limerick drug-trafficking gangs, and disaffected terrorist inmates.

A retired Garda superintendent and a senior prison service official have been appointed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to head a special investigation into last week’s security breach.

However, opposition parties attacked the minister for ordering the search just weeks before a General Election, to be held on May 24.

“The budgie discovered in Portlaoise prison is the least of Michael McDowell’s worries as jailbirds have been running rings around Michael McDowell for years now, smuggling drugs and mobile phones into prison in ever more ingenious ways,” said Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O’Keeffe.

“Michael McDowell ordered this search of Portlaoise prison just two weeks before a general election, but he has been Justice Minister for five years. During that time he had plenty of opportunities to clear drugs from our prisons, but he sat idly by and allowed the situation to get worse.

“The Portlaoise search revealed the extent of the smuggling problem inside the prison system. The evidence has been there for years that smuggling is a serious and growing problem inside our prisons, yet the Minister has only now decided to take action, and only in one prison.”

He vowed that, if elected, Fine Gael would give prisoners with drug addiction problems the option of full addiction treatment and rehabilitation, including prisoners already in the system.