'Prisoners are brazenly stockpiling contraband': Rising number of criminal gangs operating in prisons

Mountjoy Prison has the most gangs, with 16 criminal factions, including the Kinahan cartel, the Hutch crime group, and Blanchardstown crime gang.

Prison officers are grappling with a sharp rise in the number of criminal gangs operating in jails, many of them driving a booming trade in drug, weapon, and phone smuggling.

This internal gangland threat is accompanied by rising levels of violence in a prison system that is buckling under an escalating overcrowding crisis.

Speaking at the Prison Officers' Association (POA) annual conference in Kilkenny, prison boss Caron McCaffrey said the Irish Prison Service (IPS) had identified 34 known criminal groups in prisons in 2025.

This is compared to 19 criminal gangs recorded in 2024, reflecting an increase of 80%.

The IPS director general said these 34 gangs comprised 172 prisoners, a 25% increase on the previous year.

But she stressed that the 174 prisoners still only represents 3% of the prison population.

Mountjoy Prison has the most gangs, with 16 criminal factions, including the Kinahan cartel, the Hutch crime group, and Blanchardstown crime gang.

Addressing the conference earlier, POA acting president Peter Redmond said: “Drugs, phones, and weapons in our prisons, are now on an alarming scale, controlled by organised crime gangs in custody, who are making significant profits for their endeavours.

“There is so much contraband in our prisons, that prisoners are brazenly stockpiling contraband everywhere and anywhere they can, for future sale and use.” 

He said there were almost 400 identified drone drops in 2025, burning through overhead nets and smuggling in everything from drugs, phones, weapons and even tools to open up vents and light fittings to hide contraband in cells.

IPS figures show a 28% rise in drug detections, from 1,035 in 2024 to 1,325 in 2025.

Ms McCaffrey said keeping drugs out is “a game of cat and mouse” and once they shut off one avenue, gangs find another.

She said they had introduced metal mesh netting in Wheatfield Prison, resulting in a 73% decrease in drone incidents. 

She said it had also been installed in Mountjoy and Cloverhill and was “hugely successful”.

The POA has called for the netting to be installed at all closed prisons, but Ms McCaffrey said it is “incredibly costly” and the IPS had spent €7m on it and would be extending it to Castlerea Prison.

Meanwhile, justice minister Jim O’Callaghan told the conference he would be having discussions with An Garda Síochána and the IPS regarding the possible extradition of Daniel Kinahan from the United Arab Emirates.

He said: “I can assure you that when high security prisoners need to be accommodated in the prison service that there is a very stringent security system in place and that will be discussed between myself, An Garda Síochána and the Prison Service.”