How the prison system is failing the Kerry man with almost 550 convictions
Two thirds of the prison population are repeat offenders, according to the Irish Prison Service.
As a new year dawns, resolutions are being made by many to change their lives, to learn something new, to visit somewhere different.
For Richard O’Brien, one of Ireland’s most prolific offenders who currently has almost 550 convictions, the new year brings freedom but it remains to be seen for how long that freedom will last.
Sitting in a courtroom before Judge Brian O’Callaghan in Galway Circuit Court on December 5, the Kerry man's future lay in the judge’s hands.
The possibility of the triggering of an 18-month suspended sentence from a conviction in June 2022 for a Galway burglary was hanging over him, thanks to his having re-offended twice in the aftermath of that court conviction for a burglary in Claddagh, in Galway City.
Sitting alongside prison officers, the tall, burly O’Brien cut a quiet presence as he awaited his fate, after his probation officer, Catriona Brosnan, told the court he had not fully complied with the conditions of the suspension.
She said while he had a “relatively good probation attendance initially”, this deteriorated over time and there was also a relapse with alcohol. She also referenced his convictions — one for intoxication in a public place in Killarney in June and another for a burglary of a hairdressers' business in Fermoy in July.
Barrister Conall McCarthy told the court on the day about O'Brien's loss of his relatives in a Killarney accident and continued: “He has had a life of struggles with alcohol, he is an older man now. I can’t in any way put a gloss on the fact that he committed two offences.”
He urged Judge O’Callaghan not to trigger the 18-month suspended sentence and asked the court “to give him one last chance”.
In agreeing to do so, Judge O’Callaghan said there was a co-accused in the case relating to the Claddagh burglary who was the “more senior offender” and he said Richard O’Brien had encountered a serious challenge in his life.
“With my fingers crossed, I am not making any order and I will not revoke any part of the 18-month suspension.” He said he was giving him “one final chance”.
O’Brien is one of many recidivists within the Irish prison system. According to the Irish Prison Service, there were 4,975 individuals in custody on September 30, of which just 1,642 (33%) were in custody for the first time — meaning two thirds of the prison population were repeat offenders.
Statistics released by the Central Statistics Office in 2023 showed three in every five people released from prison reoffended within the following three years, after analysis of the prisoners released in 2017.
The study found the three-year recidivism rate stood at 78% for burglars and public order offenders, 71% for those convicted of theft and related offences, 40% for drug offenders and 12% for sex offenders.
However, recidivism rates have also been shown to be high for people given probation in lieu of a court conviction, according to a report issued in November from the CSO.
The report found 27% of those given probation by the courts in 2019 had reoffended by 2020.
It found 55% of men aged 17 or younger offended within a year of being given probation, with the rate dropping to 23% in the 25-44 age group. For women, the rate of reoffending within the first year stood at 25%.
The issue of legal aid for reoffenders is one which has often been highlighted by politicians, and earlier this year, then taoiseach Leo Varadkar said in the Dáil that justice minister Helen McEntee was “giving examination to a suggestion … that perhaps the cost of legal aid could be recouped from recidivists after they are found guilty”.
When asked by the if this was under consideration, a Department of Justice spokesman said the General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Bill 2023 published last year would modernise the operation of the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, “introducing strengthened oversight and governance structures for criminal legal aid”.
“It is intended that the Criminal Legal Aid Bill will update the court application and eligibility process, and, in appropriate cases, an applicant may be subject to an assessment of income. Following this assessment, the Legal Aid Board will be able to recommend to the court if the applicant can make a contribution to the costs of legal aid.
“There is also a dedicated team in the department working on this reform. They are currently laying the foundations for an improved, more efficient system of administering criminal legal aid.”
As the country’s prisons deal with a record-breaking number of inmates, there is concern chances for rehabilitation of prisoners will take more and more of a hit because of the growing pressure on staff. Richard O’Brien’s track record is indicative of a failure in attempts at rehabilitation.
During a session of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee in February, the director general of the Irish Prison Service, Caron McCaffrey, acknowledged engaging in education and work training could reduce the risk of prisoners reoffending on release, and admitted resources for prison schools were under pressure.
She revealed 101 full-day closures in schools across the prison estate in the first eight months of last year.
“The predominant draw from prisons is on escorts. We have received additional funding to increase the number of staff in our escort corps and we have been working towards that, but certainly the number of school closures has been reducing and every prison has a regime management plan and there is a very strong effort made by all governors to keep our school and our work training activities open because when people are engaged in structured activity it also contributes to safer prisons for those prisoners and for our staff.”
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said information requested by this newspaper on how many school day closures to date in 2024 and all of last year “is not readily available to the press office and such an exercise would require a manual examination of an inordinate number of individual records which is not possible given the current pressure on staff resources”.
On November 6, 2024, the numbers in the prison system reached an all-time high of 5,124 in custody and a further 523 on temporary release. On that day, the Midlands Prison where Richard O’Brien was in custody was running at 12% over capacity.
In its annual report for 2023 published last December, the Irish Prison Service noted the daily average prison population in 2023 was 4,582, up 11.2% from 4,122 in 2022.
It highlighted there was a notable increase in committals for the non-payment of fines, rising from 205 in 2022 to 552 in 2023.
And it said that “3,035 persons were on remand in 2023, highlighting the ongoing challenge of managing remand prisoners in addition to those serving sentences”.
The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) executive director Saoirse Brady says the overcrowding situation is concerning from a human rights perspective.
"It is well-documented that short sentences offer limited scope to engage in some of the positive rehabilitative services available in prison such as addiction services, psychology and training programmes.
"On the other hand, community sanctions, which are sentences served in the community, often have lower reoffending rates, are less damaging than prison, are less costly, and provide benefits to the community.”
The release of the latest Irish Prison Service annual report in December highlighted “a significant increase of people committed to prison in Ireland in 2023, including an increase in people committed on short sentences of less than 12 months, more women imprisoned and nearly a tripling of the number of people being imprisoned for non-payment of fines,” according to the IPRT.
In calling on the incoming government to take action to reduce prison numbers, Ms Brady said: “In public attitudes polling commissioned by IPRT in October 2024, four out of five people stated that it is important for them that the next government prioritises alternatives to imprisonment in response to non-violent offending (81 per cent).
She cited the Prison Overcrowding Response Group, delivered to Justice Minister Helen McEntee in March last year but only made public recently through a Freedom of Information request.
The report highlighted the increased prisoner population resulted in pressures on staff and had "a direct knock-on effect" of decreasing access to education and rehabilitation services.
“The cumulative effect of prison overcrowding is not limited to the prisons then, as the disruption to services intended to address root causes of offending or provide supports to prepare individuals for release, decrease the likelihood of reintegration. This ultimately results in an increased threat to public safety.”
The report ironically was made public on the same day Richard O’Brien received his most recent sentence — a five-day imprisonment for intoxication in a public place, at a court hearing in Tralee.
Ms Brady said the report recognised the “disproportionate impact short sentences of 12 months or less may have on individuals and their path towards desistance, when contrasted against equivalent community-based sanctions”.
“The group proposed a number of clear and practical solutions to addressing short sentences, including engaging with the judiciary (while recognising their independence) to encourage the use of community service orders rather than imposing short sentences of 12 months or less, and expanding eligibility of the drug treatment court for people sentenced for low-level drug offences.”
The newly-established Irish Penal Abolition Network compiled a document ahead of last November's general election calling for three things — an end to prison expansion; a reduction in the prison population, and an invest in communities.
It comes amid efforts by the outgoing government to expand prison spaces to meet the increased prison population. According to the Department of Justice, the capital budget for the Irish Prison Service will increase by more than 70% in 2025 as part of the plan to deliver 1,100 extra spaces between now and 2030 and hire hundreds of extra staff.
As part of the plan, 150 prison staff are to be hired in 2025, in addition to 240 prison officers recruited last year. According to the department, the plan “represents one of the fastest ever expansions of prison capacity in Ireland”.
Referencing the Prison Overcrowding Response Group report, a department spokesman said actions proposed by the group currently being implemented include “developing new, innovative responses to deliver structured temporary release for suitable prisoners, progressing actions to increase the use of community service as a priority, and advancing legislative changes to support the delivery of community-based sanctions more generally”.
“In addition, and to further consider future prison capacity needs, the minister for justice has established a new working group which will make recommendations on the numbers and types of prison capacity needed out to 2035.”
However, in the wake of November's general election, law and order is just one of a long list of areas fighting for space on the new programme for government to be drawn up ahead a new government being put in place.
In its pre-election campaign, the Irish Penal Abolition Network said the €53m allocated to capital funding for prison expansion in the recently-announced budget for 2025 could be spent in ways which would strengthen communities and impact individuals most at risk of contact with our systems of punishment.
It argues investment in communities makes communities safer than extra prison spaces do.
"Support those who are practising harm reduction in their communities.”
Highlighting spending an additional €25m on Housing First would increase its 2024 allocation by more than two-thirds, the network added: “While €18m could provide five-week residential placement, 10-week outpatient placement, and 24 months of continuing care for up to 1,000 people. An additional €5m would provide 500 annual apprenticeships, with the remaining €5m committed to diversion programmes.”
According to the network, the 1,100 extra prison spaces promised by the outgoing government exceeds the pace of population growth projected in the same time frame.
It argues the focus needs to be on meeting the needs of people at community level to tackle causes for offending, and says: “Most prisoners come from a small number of very deprived neighbourhoods; have left school early and lack basic literacy skills. Many are homeless prior to going into prison and will be released into homelessness.
Saoirse Brady echoes this. “If we truly want to tackle reoffending rates, we need to take a step back and look at where greater investment would actually make a meaningful difference, namely prioritising community-based wraparound supports that target the root causes of criminality and support people to overcome any underlying challenges they face.
"We cannot expect someone who is imprisoned to address those challenges in an environment where trauma is rife, offers no respite from those challenges and may indeed exacerbate them.
“Many factors that can prevent reoffending, such as good mental health, access to addiction recovery supports, accommodation, education, and employment, sit outside the scope of the justice system, meaning there is clear need for a whole-of-government and person-centred approach to support individuals in the criminal justice system and to make our communities safer as whole.
"When we hear warnings from the Irish Prison Service about the high number of people in prison solely due to their homeless status, we need to think about the supports they require that would make a difference.”
Efforts to address addiction and mental health issues within the prison system are also suffering, according to statistics provided by Caron McCaffrey at a September sitting of the Oireachtas committee on drug use.
She revealed 600 prisoners were seeing an addiction counsellor, but 800 were on a waiting list for the service, with more than 70% of the prisoner population struggling with addiction. There were 600 inmates seeing a psychologist, with a further waiting list of 2,000 others.
As of August 1, 2024, the number of people being treated through the prison psychology service was 526, while about 2,090 were waiting to be seen. According to the Irish Prison Service, the average wait time for a psychology service is 31.4 days.
In August, prison visiting committees for 2022 were published by the Department of Justice and several raised concerns about mentally-ill people being in the prison justice system.
For example, the visiting committee for the Dóchas centre for women in Mountjoy reported: “As Visiting Committee, we reiterate our significant concern and unease about the inappropriate detention of women with serious mental ill-health in the Dóchas Centre and continue to request urgent action in this matter. Our concerns also reflect international best practice.
"The Bangkok rules state that women who are in prison should have gender-specific responses to mental health care and that alternatives to prison should be available for women.”
The report for Mountjoy men’s prison highlighted: “The lack of appropriate and adequate services in the community for persons with mental health difficulties, the level of homelessness in the community, lack of adequate wraparound services for support and care post-release contributes a high level of reoffending and readmission.”
It is clear that attempts for rehabilitation of Richard O’Brien have not worked, while efforts to address his alcohol dependency have also not been successful.
However, one of his neighbours in Killarney is slow to be tough on him and has great time for his family.
“His family are good people and are very well-respected around here. Once you have addictions, you will beg, borrow or steal for it. There are not enough services there for these people and jail is a college for criminals.”
In one of his most recent court cases, in July 2023, the district court in Galway heard from his solicitor Conall MacCarthy, who outlined that his client came from a very respectable, hardworking Kerry family. But he said O’Brien’s criminality flowed from his alcohol addiction and he got involved in crime to fuel his addiction.
On that occasion, he was sleeping rough in Galway City and a more recent court case in Mallow last year heard he was living in a tent in a car park in Fermoy town when he carried out a theft at a hair salon.
With his release date approaching, it remains to be seen if a new year can help him turn over a new leaf or whether he continues to be just another statistic in a system that has failed him.
Convictions Timeline
With year’s end came the latest release date for Richard O’Brien, a man who has hundreds of convictions across the country and beyond.
O’Brien, whose most used address in court is 14 Ardshanavooley in Killarney, was serving sentences for offences in Cork and Kerry, including a five day sentence handed down in Tralee district court on October 16 for intoxication in a public place. The five-day sentence was the latest of 548 convictions picked up by 53-year-old O’Brien since his first convictions in 1992, covering crimes including public order, burglary and theft.
Among his very long list of convictions are:
November 1992
At a sitting of Killorglin district court in Cahirciveen, he received his first convictions for common assault and malicious damage, at the age of 18 years old.
May 1994
An appeal against a three-month imprisonment for malicious damage was struck out. The sentence had been imposed for his part in an incident during which bars, sticks and stones were used in an attack on a hotel in Ballybunion in April 1993. In a separate case, at Listowel district court in the same month, he was fined £50 for being drunk and disorderly and refusing to quit a licenced premises in Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick. He was also fined £100 for engaging in offensive conduct calculated to lead to a breach of the peace, and ws sentenced to three months detention for using threatening, abusive and insulting word, as well as six months detention for refusing to leave the vicinity of the licenced premises. He was given three further six month sentences for assaulting two gardai and a garda sergeant, and a three-month sentence for damaging a garda patrol car.
January 1995
He was again fined £10 for driving an untaxed car at Deerpark, Killarney the previous August.
March 1997
He was fined £50 for failing to display a tax disc in Fairhill, Killarney, the previous October.
April 1995
He was fined £10 for driving an untaxed car in Killarney in October 1994.
He was convicted and fined £85 for having no motor tax at Muckross Road, Killarney in September 1994.
April 1996
He was given a 10-month jail sentence after being convicted of a late night assault in a Killarney take away.
May 1996
The then-22-year-old was convicted of assaulting two gardai by headbutting them on April 21 and was given a 14 month prison sentence at Killarney district court.
June 1996
He was given a three-month prison sentence at Killarney district court for using threatening and abusive language, with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, on April 7. The incident occurred outside a bar in Killarney town.
September 1998
He was fined £60 for failing to comply with the direction of a garda at Plunkett Street, Killarney, the previous month.
March 1999
During a hearing during which he admitted stealing 24 bottles of cider and a bottle of port, a court was told that he had failed to be admitted to treatment for alcoholism. He was fined £200.
April 2000
He pleaded guilty to the assault of two men at Plunkett Street in Killarney on March 10. Among his 32 previous convictions were nine for assault, the court heard. Judge Humphrey Kelleher imposed a six-month suspended prison sentence on the defendant on each conviction and ordered him to pay £250 compensation to each injured party.
May 2001
He was given a five-year sentence in relation to unlawful seizure of vehicles.
November 2004
He was convicted of drunk driving and driving without insurance the previous June and fined a total of €1,500 at Killarney District Court. He was also disqualified from driving for two years.
October 2005
Celebrating the birth of his child the previous month led to a conviction for a public order offence at Tralee district court, adding to his then 39 previous convictions. The then 31-year-old was fined €150.
December 2005
He was fined €100 at Killarney district court for being drunk in a public place on Plunkett Street, Killarney on October 30.
June 2007
He pleaded guilty to entering as a trespasser a house in Macroom, Co Cork, with intent to commit an offence or interfere with property, on the previous December 27. Macroom district court heard he had demanded alcohol from the occupants of the house. He held 51 previous convictions, including 10 for drunkeness and five for assault. The court was told that he had a severe drink problem but that he had completed an addiction programme in the months before the court case. He was given 30 days imprisonment, to run consecutive to a six-month sentence he was already serving at present.
May 2008
Before Waterford district court, he was given a one-month sentence for the theft of a bottle of wine from a shop in Waterford city. The defence solicitor representing the then 35-year-old said he had a tragic past which included the deaths of six members of his family in a car accident. He was serving a two-month sentence at the time of the sentencing and the one-month sentence was to run concurrently with it, ordered Judge Elizabeth McGrath.
November 2008
He was before Killorglin district court, charged with engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour on the middle day of the Puck Fair in August. The court was told he had 77 previous convictions. He was convicted and sentenced to four months jail, suspended on condition of good behaviour for a period of two years. He was also fined €250.
January 2009
He was sentenced to five months in prison and given a 10-year driving ban for drink driving.
March 2009
He was sentenced to six months in prison for burglary in Youghal.
October 2010
A fine of €250 was handed down after he was convicted of being in possession of an illegal drug when searched at Bandon garda station six months earlier. Bandon district court was told he had 117 previous convictions at that point.
July 2011
He was convicted and fined €250 for being intoxicated in a public place at Plunkett Street, Killarney, the previous January, after a guilty plea was entered by his solicitor, Padraig O’Connell. The court was told that O’Brien was not in court because he was “presently being dried out”.
February 2012
He was convicted in Portlaoise for public order.
January 2013
He was given a four month suspended sentence for three theft convictions in Galway.
March 2013
He was convicted of being drunk in public and fined €150 at Killarney district court, in relation to an incident at Fairhill, Killarney the previous October.
June 2013
He was convicted for shoplifting in London.
January 2014
He received a conviction for defamation of an officer during or in connection with lawful performance of his office in the Midden Nederland court in the Netherlands.
January 2014
He was sentenced to seven months in prison for a sexual assault in Cork city.
Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec 2014
Convicted on public order charges in Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford.
Jan-Jun 2015
Received convictions in Kerry, Cork city, and Athlone for public order.
June 2015
Conviction for theft in Galway.
February 2017
Convicted at North west London Magistrates Court for assault of a police constable and given a conditional discharge of 12 months. Between then and May 2017, he also got convictions for thet. and being drunk and disorderly in the UK.
2018 / 2019
Several public order incidents in Cork and Kerry.
2020
Convicted of offences in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal; Galway, and Killarney on theft and public order offences.
2021
Convictions in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin, Waterford, Kerry and Cork for offences including public order.
June 2022
Described in press reports as a native of Killarney with no fixed abode, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison, with the final 18 months suspended, at Galway Circuit Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to his role in a burglary at a house in Galway city on August 2021. At the time of the sentencing, he was serving an eight-month sentence due to shortly expire. The court was told that he was on a waiting list to see a counsellor for his alcohol addiction while in prison.
November 2022
He was fined €250 for being intoxicated in Killarney the previous July. At the hearing, his solicitor, Padraig O’Connell, said his number of convictions was a record for Kerry.
December 2022
He was given a five-month sentence for theft, at a sitting of Killarney district court.
July 2024
He pleaded guilty to two more public order charges at Cork District Court, admitting to having been drunk and a danger and engaging in threatening behaviour outside Gallaghers pub on MacCurtain Street in Cork city on June 29. The court heard he already had 342 convictions for being so intoxicated that he was a danger to himself or others and 56 for engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace. On hearing that he had a total of 544 previous convictions, Judge Mary Dorgan said on hearing this: “That must be a record.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
