Consumption of “hooch”, a crudely made alcoholic drink, “is an ongoing issue” in Irish prisons, an inquest has heard.
Ned Connors was 38 when he died in Mountjoy Prison on January 3rd, 2022.
A postmortem found he died from acute alcohol intoxication. However, the source of the alcohol Connors consumed has not been established.
When prison officers at Mountjoy searched the wing in question for hooch on January 5th, 2022, no evidence was found, the inquest heard.
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The Office of the Inspector of Prisons published a report on Connors’ death in May which said he may have ingested hand sanitiser before his death. A prisoner told inspectors that some inmates “regularly consumed hand sanitiser during Covid-19 restrictions” as they believed it contained alcohol.
Another prisoner said inmates “removed the sanitiser from the dispensing units on the landing, boiled the contents in a kettle which reduced and liquefied it”, according to the report.
However, hand sanitiser provided in Mountjoy and other prisons does not contain alcohol.
Alcohol-based sanitiser was banned from Irish jails after three prisoners were rushed to hospital after drinking a mix of handwash and prescription drugs at Limerick Prison during Christmas 2014.
Connors was found unresponsive in his cell on the morning of January 3rd, 2022.
Chief State Pathologist Prof Linda Mulligan, who carried out a postmortem, said the “rigidity” of his body would suggest he had been dead for about eight to 10 hours before discovery.
The inquest on Wednesday heard that Connors’ brother Michael, who was also in Mountjoy at the time, told prison staff his brother was “staggering” around his cell after drinking “a clear liquid” in the hours before he died.
The source of the alcohol Connors drank before he died could not be determined, Dublin District Coroner’s Court was told. Officers were questioned as to whether or not prisoners could have made “hooch” – an alcoholic drink made with fermented fruit, sugar and yeast – or gained access to chemicals used in the laundry room at the prison. Neither scenario was confirmed.
“It has not been possible to establish ... the source of the ethanol,” coroner Dr Myra Cullinane told the jurors before they started their deliberations.
Chief officer Tony Malone, via a written statement, told the inquest that staff at the prison were concerned Connors could have ingested hooch before he died. The inquest heard that the making of hooch is often difficult to conceal as it smells “quite pungent”.
However, the inquest was told that some eastern European prisoners have introduced a “more sophisticated” method of making hooch that involves using electricity. This method is harder to detect and typically results in a drink with a higher alcohol content.
Wayne Fox, a governor at Mountjoy Prison, said contraband gets into the prison despite efforts to prevent it, sometimes being dropped into the complex via drones. Hooch “is an ongoing issue” in prisons, he added.
Mulligan, appearing via video-link, told the inquest that very high levels of ethanol (alcohol) were found in Connors’ blood and urine.
She said Connors also had an underlying condition known as steatotic liver disease. She said this may have been a contributing factor but would not have caused his death.
A verdict of misadventure was returned at the inquest.
This means the death resulted from an unintended outcome of a deliberate, voluntary act that carried an element of risk.
After delivering its verdict, the jury recommended that the Irish Prison Service (IPS) gather a list of all chemicals on site within prisons to establish if any of them contain ethanol and if they can be replaced with similar substances that do not contain ethanol.
The jury also recommended that general cell searches “be completed immediately following a significant incident”.
Connors’ three sisters were present at the inquest.
Cullinane extended her “deepest sympathies” to the family, whom she said had recently suffered another bereavement. She said she would pass on the jury’s recommendations to the IPS, adding that perhaps they could “prevent something similar happening in the future”.
