There is "light at the end of the tunnel" on the issue of the chronic overcrowding in the State's prison system, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has said.
He said he was looking forward to the day when the name of the State's principal prison, Mountjoy, was not "synonymous with overcrowding and all the other issues that follow from that".
Last year, the POA national executive discussed industrial action over the issue of overcrowding as the prison population reached peak levels, causing great strain on staff and resources.
Figures produced at the conference show that in a prison system with a capacity designed for a maximum of 2,382 prisoners, there were 2,786 in custody. In Mountjoy Prison, with a design capacity of 547 inmates and bed capacity of 670, some 737 prisoners were held. The POA said this entailed prisoners sleeping on floors and, sometimes, tables.
The worst overcrowding appears to have been in Cork Prison which had 279 prisoners in a building with a design capacity of 150.
In an address to the conference, the POA president, Mr Frank McDonnell, said: "The job of a prison officer today is a difficult one in normal circumstances. It is made even more difficult in the unacceptable circumstances of an overcrowded prison. "The increased risk to prison officers carrying out their duties in circumstances of gross overcrowding is all too often forgotten by our employer and by the general public."
He pointed out that in Mountjoy, where all prisoners are sent on committal by the courts, there is still no in-cell sanitation and prisoners still have to go through the process of "slopping out" every morning.
The POA welcomed the Government programme to provide places for an additional 1,000 prisoners.
In his address, the Minister said the Government's aim was "to eliminate forever the overcrowding problem that has bedevilled the Irish prison service for decades." He told the prison officers the first group of prisoners would be accepted to the new remand prison at Cloverhill in Dublin by June. The extension to Portlaoise Prison, known as the Midlands Prison, should also have its first prisoners by the end of this year. The new separate women's prison at Mountjoy should also be completed this summer.