The Department of Justice has agreed with an interim report from the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee which said there were still serious deficiencies in the prison.
The report, which was delivered to the Department on Thursday, repeated previous findings that the prison was overcrowded, that medical services were inadequate, that the building was decrepit and sanitation services were substandard.
However, it praised some of the services there, notably the kitchens, and acknowledged that the opening of the new women's pri son and of the new remand prison at Cloverhill would ease the situation in Mountjoy, clearing the way for its refurbishment.
In a statement, the Department said the Minister had already said a major refurbishment of Mount joy would begin in 1999. The programme would take four years and would include in-cell sanitation, as part of a £10 million prisons refurbishment budget.
It said that with the new facilities coming on stream, "Mountjoy Prison will no longer be the pivotal prison in the Irish prison system. The Minister believes, how ever, that a refurbished Mountjoy Prison will continue to play a valuable role in the Irish prison system."
The Labour Party spokesman on justice, Mr Brendan Howlin, said conditions in Mountjoy appeared to have deteriorated over the past number of months, and it was built for 300 prisoners fewer than it now accommodates.
"At this level of overcrowding, the security of the prison is under a constant threat, and conditions are more conducive to health risks on the part of the prisoners. The other distressing element of the report is the lack of any improvement in the level of drug abuse within the prison," he said.
"The fact that drug-rehabilitation facilities in Mountjoy are totally inadequate means that many prisoners leave the prison much more drug-dependent than they were before entering."