Gangs 'do not control' prisons

The head of the Irish Prison Service, Michael Donnellan, has rejected claims that criminal gangs are now more powerful than ever in Irish jails.

"We will not allow any prisoner to dominate our environment," he said. "We are in charge of our environment. We will run that safely without fear or without favour. Gangs will not rule our prisons."

Mr Donnellan, a former head of the Probation Service who has recently taken over as director general of the prison service, made his comments at the annual conference of the Prison Officers' Association. He was reacting to claims by association president Stephen Delaney that gangs controlled some parts of the prison system.

Mr Donnellan said gangs who were active in the community now had smaller sub groups, or factions, locked up in jails. These continued to operate together as a faction and did not leave their criminal tendencies "at the gates" of jails.

However, he said the prison service had a wide range of options to cope with the factions. "We have a senior management group that meets with all the governors of the closed prisons that risk assess these gangland people. We have strategies then about how we move them, house them, manage them and separate them."

"We also have the operational support unit which has airport-style security. We have passive and active dogs in relation to drugs and phones. And then we have intelligence gathering from our own internal security staff."

Mr Donnellan said prison staff also liaised closely with gardaí about serious criminals in the prison system, adding the prison service did not tolerate or turn a blind eye to gang-based intimidation or bullying.