A “crisis” response group to overcrowding in prisons is to meet this week as records show the director general of the Irish Prison Service sought more urgent action in recent months to tackle “unprecedented” capacity problems.
In correspondence to the Department of Justice last October, Caron McCaffrey called for the overcrowding response group to be “urgently” reconvened.
She said the group, comprising representatives of the department, the prison service, Courts Service, Probation Service and An Garda Síochána, had last met in September 2024, when there were fewer than 5,000 people in custody, and prison capacity was at 110 per cent.
A Department of Justice spokesman confirmed to The Irish Times that the cross-sectoral group has since met in January of this year and is due to meet again this week.
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McCaffrey’s call came as prisons matched their “highest ever number in custody”, with 5,581 imprisoned.
“Certain prisons are now under extreme duress as a result of operating at higher than the average capacity figure (120 per cent), with six of our prisons operating between 123 [and] 154 per cent of capacity,” the director general wrote last October.
Since her letter, which was released under Freedom of Information laws, the number of people in custody has grown by 300. The prison estate population reached 5,909 towards the end of last month, with the overall estate operating at 125 per cent capacity.
This figure has since dropped, and there were 5,776 inmates as of last Friday. With prisons at 122 per cent capacity, there were 530 inmates sleeping on mattresses on the floor, including 172 in the Midlands Prison and 97 at Cork Prison.
With 224 women incarcerated, the Dóchas Centre at Mountjoy was at 153 per cent capacity, while Limerick Women’s Prison was at 152 per cent capacity with 85 inmates.
McCaffrey met departmental officials last October to discuss management and mitigation of risks due to “unprecedented” overcrowding. She pointed to the prison service in the United Kingdom, where capacity limits are set at ministerial level to ensure safe prison numbers.
The Irish Penal Reform Trust, a non-governmental organisation, said “persistent overcrowding” over the last three years has led to “degrading and dehumanising conditions” in most prisons.
“Multiple people now share cells the size of a car-parking space, with more than 500 sleeping on mattresses on the floor beside unpartitioned toilets,” said the trust’s executive director, Saoirse Brady.
The departmental spokesman said a pilot temporary release scheme was introduced for suitable candidates at Limerick Women’s Prison in 2024 on foot of the group’s recommendations. The eligibility criteria for the scheme is now being expanded to include more women there, he said.
The Probation Service has been engaging with the judiciary to encourage the use of community service orders as an alternative to prison sentences of a year or less, he said. The Government has also committed to implementing electronic tagging for some categories of prisoners.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan secured €495 million for infrastructural projects, which include provision of up to 1,500 additional prison spaces by 2031 in what would be the “largest-ever building programme in the prison estate”, the spokesman said. Jail capacity expanded by 232 spaces over the last two years, and 65 further places are expected to be built this year, he said.
Brady, of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said overcrowding is a “policy failure” and a result of unnecessarily imprisoning too many people, including through the use of short sentences. Instead of building more prisons, she said, the State should invest in prevention, rehabilitation and non-custodial options.
