ALTERNATIVES TO the use of chamber pots by prisoners, such as camping toilets or lavatory escorts, are unsuitable for the high-security Portlaoise jail, the director general of the Irish Prison Service has told the High Court.
Brian Purcell was giving evidence in the continuing action by former IRA prisoner Seán Mulligan (58), who is suing the State over the “slopping out” regime in Portlaoise, claiming it breached his rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Purcell said camping toilets required chemicals which could have been used as improvised explosive devices or as weapons against staff or other inmates.
Escorting prisoners to the lavatory after night-time lock-up – “toilet patrols” which are used in other prisons – presented an inherent security problem in a high-security prison as staffing at night was less than during the daytime, he said.
The case by Mr Mulligan, who was sentenced in December 2002 to five years for IRA membership, centres on 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.
The action is against the governor of Portlaoise prison, the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform, the Prison Service and the Attorney General. The claims are denied. In response to a number of reports since 1994 from the UN Committee for Prevention of Torture, the Government had made it clear it was in the process of ending the slopping-out regime in Irish prisons, Mr Purcell told John O’Donnell, for the State yesterday. However, he added, this related to prisons other than Portlaoise with a more significant problem of overcrowding, such as Mountjoy.
A number of modern facilities were built at Wheatfield and Cloverhill in Dublin, and renovations took place in parts of a number of other jails, including Limerick, Mountjoy, St Patrick’s and Spike Island in which in-cell sanitation was provided, he said.
About 70 per cent of the prison system now has in-cell sanitation compared to about 30 per cent in 1994 when the Committee for Prevention of Torture first criticised the slopping-out system, Mr Purcell said.
The hearing before Mr Justice John MacMenamin continues.