A man who served a jail term for IRA membership has brought a High Court action claiming his human rights were breached by the “slopping out” regime in Portlaoise prison.
Sean Mulligan (58), a native of Carmalughogue, Co Louth, who was sentenced in December 2002 to five years imprisonment for IRA membership, claims he was degraded and humiliated by being forced to use a five-inch deep round "potty" to defecate and urinate into while in his cell.
He is seeking damages for alleged breaches of his rights, under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights, to respect for his privacy and not to be subject to degrading treatment.
The case is against the Governor of Portlaoise, the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform, the Irish Prisons Service and the Attorney General who deny the claims.
Opening the case, Paul O'Higgins SC, for Mr Mulligan, said the slopping out issue had been a "running sore" since it was raised the UN Committee on the Prevention of Torture 1994. Despite an undertaking in 1999 by the prison authorities the problem
would be dealt with, by May 2004, when Mr Mulligan was locked up for 22 hours a day, nothing other than "lip service" had been paid to that promise, counsel said.
The court also heard a new wing with in-cell sanitation opened in Portlaoise prison last month.
The case, due to last eight days, is being heard by Mr Justice John McMenamin who was shown an example of the "potty" which was described as extremely difficult for a grown man to use.
This difficulty meant some of its solid or liquid contents would invariably spill over the side, Mr Mulligan claims. These unhygienic conditions were worsened by the fact he had to use the potty in a small, badly- ventilated cell where he also had to eat and sleep.
"Slopping out" the waste every morning meant carrying the potty onto a landing where he claimed, no matter how hard he tried, he would get splashed on his arms or face with its contents. The potty had then to be poured into a sluice and washed down with a tap.
Some prisoners, who did not want to keep the potty in their cells overnight, defecated into newspaper and threw it out their windows on to the exercise yard, the court heard.
Mr Mulligan said this meant it was difficult to avoid walking on the excrement while out exercising despite efforts by the prison authorities to have it cleaned up. Some of these "parcels" of excrement were thrown out by prisoners in for drug offences and it was "almost impossible" not to carry it back into his cell on his shoes after exercising, he said.
He became extremely concerned about the effect the lack of in-cell sanitation would have on his health and feared picking up diseases including TB, meningitis and Hepatitis-A.
Mr Mulligan, who had served another sentence in Portlaise in the 1970s and 1980s, said the slopping out regime had caused him worry and anxiety since the first time he was in prison. It meant he was forced to go to the toilet at times when he was outside his cell with the result he developed haemorrhoids and other problems which required surgery.
As a result of a prisoners' protest in May 2004 over compassionate leave, Mr Mulligan and 21 other inmates were punished by being placed in 22-hour-per day "close confinement" for 28 days which meant the unhygienic conditions were worsened, he said.
He brought separate successful judicial review proceedings over this at the time in which a judge found the close confinement punishment had been unlawfully applied.