'Ticking time bomb': Tensions running high in packed prisons
The Prison Officers Association said prisons were already at 'breaking point' and when the number of inmates goes over the 5,000 mark, it will be 'a point of no return'. Picture: Dan Linehan
The overcrowding crisis in prisons is a “ticking time bomb”, prison officers have warned, as daily prisoner numbers are on the verge of breaking the landmark figure of 5,000 people.
Official figures show last Tuesday, almost 4,970 inmates were crammed into cells — cells with the capacity to hold about 4,500 people.
Bunk beds have been shoved into many cells, providing a bed to 270 of those extra inmates — but almost 200 are sleeping on mattresses on the floor of cells, beside a shared toilet.
Last Tuesday is the highest figure to date in Irish prisons and compares to just over 4,700 last December, about 4,350 a year before and fewer than 4,000 in December 2019.
The Prison Officers Association (POA) said prisons were already at “breaking point” and when the number of inmates goes over the 5,000 mark, it will be “a point of no return”.
Both the POA and the Irish Prison Service have publicly expressed concerns at the rising prison population for some years.
In a letter sent last week, the POA told the Irish prison Service chiefs that short-term extra capacity was “a matter of urgency”.
The letter, seen by the , said the association had continually alerted the IPS and the Department of Justice that there was “serious potential for a disturbance” in the coming months.
The POA, and other prison sources, have said having four to five people in a three-person cell or two to three people in a single or double cell was a “recipe for disaster” in the warmer months.
POA deputy general secretary Gabriel Keaveny said: “We have reached saturation point, indeed we are long past it and when we hit the 5,000 mark we will be at the point of no return and we feel we are already at that.”
He said the situation was the worst he had seen it in his 33 years as an officer.
"We have said to the minister and the director general [of the IPS] how do they think we are going to get through the summer without a serious disturbance. I hope we will, but tensions are already running high. This is a ticking time bomb."
Figures show that the most overcrowded prisons are Limerick Female, Cork, Cloverhill, Limerick Male, Castlerea, Mountoy Male, and Mountjoy Female.
A prison management source said: “The overcrowding crisis is horrendous. People are sleeping on a mattress on the ground, their heads beside the toilet. It could be in cells with prisoners with psychiatric issues or who are violent, or who have diarrhoea.
Sources said the IPS was constrained by having just two options open to it: increase capacity or release pressure by giving more people temporary release.
More court sittings, longer prison sentences, more people being held on remand, new offences, a rise in female committals, and a growing number of life sentence prisoners have contributed to the crisis.
In a statement, the Department of Justice said Helen McEntee secured on Wednesday €49.5m in capital funding to progress four building projects at Cloverhill, Castlerea, Midlands, and Mountjoy prisons.
It said “preparatory work” would start this year with construction “expected to start” on a phased basis in 2025-2027.
In a statement, the IPS said it “must accept” all prisoners committed by the courts, noting pressures resulting from a significant increase in remand prisoners, who can’t be given temporary release.
It said it hoped to create up to 95 additional spaces this year through modular units, refurbishment of houses in two prisons, and the recommissioning or refurbishment of cells in others.
Medium-term projects should provide a further 106 spaces: 78 in Dóchas and 28 in Castlerea, including six disabled-access cells.
