THE Mountjoy hostage incident represents the first test of new guidelines and training programmes drawn up last year to deal with such crises.
Although there have been no serious incidents of hostage taking in an Irish prison in two decades, the guidelines and a programme for prison staff and officials were prepared to recognise international advances in managing hostage crises. They were also thought necessary because better prison security was reducing the prospects of escape and the influx of drugs, leaving increasingly disaffected prisoners to seek other means to vent their frustrations.
A committee made up of representatives of the Department of Justice, gardai, prison governors and officers visited the Scottish Training College in January last year as part of the preparation of the guidelines. Later, selected gardai and prison officers completed new training courses in the procedures. Advice was also obtained from the Northern Ireland prison service.
In addition, prison officers have been trained over the past year in new "control and restraint" techniques to deal with less violent incidents.
A detective inspector from Garda headquarters is leading the negotiating team along with two senior officials from the Department of Justice.
When the incident began on Saturday evening the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, and the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, were immediately informed. The Minister is briefed as soon as possible of any prison incident, including minor disturbances such as a prisoner barricading himself in his cell.
The hostage situation management plan implemented in Mountjoy involves three "centres from which the situation is controlled. One consists of the negotiating team, a second is established at the prison which backs up the negotiators and keeps contact with the third, set up at the Department of Justice to keep Ministers informed.
Once the names of the six prisoners involved were known, the team contacted the gardai who had arrested them to build up, prisoner "character profiles".
These, drawn up with the help of a psychologist, are to help the negotiating team predict how the prisoners will respond to their initiatives and to avert a sudden crisis.
The prisoners' families were also contacted to see if they could assist the negotiators.
The team is trained to meet the hostage takers' demands which are deemed reasonable and ensure they are supplied with food and heat. The negotiators hope to gradually build trust between themselves and the prisoners. The first 10 hours are considered the most dangerous, after which the danger diminishes as negotiators and hostage takers establish a rapport.
Twenty years ago a violent response towards hostage taking was considered one of the most effective options, not only to end the immediate crisis but to deter other potential hostage takers. But as negotiating skills have developed there has been a move towards pursuing a peaceful end to a crisis. Force is seen as a last resort.
This method was reinforced after the disastrous FBI handling of the siege at Waco, Texas, in 1993. The organisation was criticised for a botched storming of the Branch Davidian cult's compound and for a strategy of trying to "rachet up" pressure on the cult members, who responded by setting fire to the buildings, killing more than 70 people.
A prison hostage crisis demands further care because tension increases throughout the complex during such an incident. Mountjoy is currently in "lockup", with prisoners confined to their cells, and taking exercise and meals in small groups.
There are hundreds of violent incidents in prisons annually - about a quarter of them violence against prison officers by prisoners - and the growing abuse of drugs has helped to make some prisoners' behaviour unpredictable.
In Mountjoy, where about 70 per cent of the 650 prisoners are addicted to some type of drug, there are several seizures of drugs a week.
The increase in measures to halt the flow of drugs into the prison, such as new cameras in the visiting rooms, has made the addicts' life more difficult.