The Prison Service has confirmed it will review security after three prisoners escaped from custody while attending court hearings in Cork city yesterday.
A Prison Service spokesman said three men broke out of the holding area at Anglesea Street Courthouse at around 12.45pm when they rushed prison officers who had opened a cell to allow a solicitor in to talk to a client.
The prisoners entered the yard behind the courthouse but one, a 24-year-old man, could not scale the 6ft wall surrounding the courthouse and prison staff recaptured him.
Two others, a 20-year-old man serving an eight-year sentence for a violent attack on a priest and aggravated burglary, and a 26-year-old man convicted of manslaughter in a joyriding accident, climbed the wall and got away on foot.
But Sgt David Treacy saw them and gave chase in his car. He caught up with one on Union Quay and held him until a patrol car from nearby Anglesea Street Garda station arrived.
Sgt Treacy handed over the recaptured prisoner to his colleagues and then joined other units in searching for the other escaped prisoner who had fled across Trinity pedestrian bridge to Fr Matthew Quay.
Garda sources said Sgt Treacy drove around to the South Mall via Parliament Bridge and back on to Fr Matthew Quay in his search for the prisoner.
Sgt Treacy - who was in plain clothes - went into Holy Trinity Church where a Mass was in progress. He was joined by a uniformed colleague, Garda Brendan Daly from the Bicycle Unit, and they began checking the confessionals.
Sgt Treacy saw a man in a track suit similar to that worn by the escaped prisoner sitting with a missal in his hand at a side altar behind the main altar and when the two gardaí approached him, he gave himself up and was re-arrested.
"It's a bit ironic the fact that the guy should be seeking sanctuary in a church given that he's serving time for a vicious assault on a priest but thankfully everyone was recaptured and came back peacefully," said a Garda source.
It is understood that two of the four prison officers on duty at the time with the nine prisoners were injured in the escape incident.
One officer sustained a suspected wrist fracture, while a female colleague suffered a wound to her hand.