Mobile phone found in Portlaoise Prison

Gardai and prison authorities have started an investigation into how a mobile phone was smuggled into the State's highest-security prison.

The phone was found last week in a rubbish bin on a landing in Portlaoise Prison, where high-security prisoners, including the Veronica Guerin murder suspect, Mr Brian Meehan, are held.

A senior Garda source last night denied that the phone was found outside Mr Meehan's cell and said it had been put in the bin on the landing. The phone was believed to have been disabled, although it was still intact. "It's possible that someone knew there was about to be a search and got rid of the phone," the source said.

The drug trafficker, Eugene Holland, who had a 20-year sentence reduced to 12 years on appeal is also housed on the same landing, a security source said. The criminals on the landing are separated from terrorist prisoners.

Last month prison officers at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin found a mobile phone after a search of a prisoner's cell. The search was ordered after a member of the public complained of having received a call from the man in the early hours of the morning. According to a prison source the man was on remand, and it is believed that he was trying to intimidate a witness.

All prisoners have access to public phones, with the permission of a prison governor, with both incoming and outgoing calls monitored by authorities.