2024 was another busy and productive year for the Inspectorate of Prisons. The Inspectorate pursued its new programme of unannounced general inspections of prisons, with visits to Arbour Hill Prison, Midlands Prison, Limerick Women’s Prison and a follow up visit to Cloverhill Prison. Reports on five inspections were completed, on: Mountjoy Men’s Prison, the Training Unit, Cork Prison, Cloverhill Prison and the Dóchas Centre. These are currently with the Minister for Justice, awaiting his consent for publication. We have found that the scourge of overcrowding continues to afflict almost every prison in Ireland, and the situation has worsened significantly over the last year. In March 2023, the prison population had already exceeded 4,900 people, a figure that I then characterised as “many hundred in excess of the number that can be safely accommodated”. Today, as I write, the population is nearly 5,300 and very many prisoners are being held in conditions that can be described as inhuman and degrading....

The Inspectorate has now inspected both of the prisons in Ireland accommodating women, the Dóchas Centre and Limerick Women’s Prison. It is increasingly recognised that many women living in prison have suffered various forms of physical, sexual or psychological violence, including domestic violence, before their imprisonment. They may also have a high level of mental health-care needs, drug dependency, specific health-care needs, and demanding caretaking responsibilities for their children and/or their families. Consequently, a key focus of the 2024 inspection of Limerick Women’s Prison was to assess the purported trauma-informed nature of this new prison, and to examine if and how this ethos was being implemented in practice...

PDF P.6 Preventive Mechanism in Ireland - In 2024, the Inspectorate continued to build its engagement with NPM counterparts across Europe, through the Council of Europe NPM Forum... The conference brought together 140 participants from 38 European countries. Participants included representatives of NPMs, decision and policy makers responsible for the design, implementation and monitoring of drug treatment interventions in custodial settings, practitioners working in detention, academia, international and civil society organisations and the Council of Europe including representatives of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).

PDF P.16 Death in Custody Publications and Recommendations in 2024 - As outlined in report Table 3 the fifteen reports published in 2024 contained 56 recommendations for consideration by the Director General. Of the 56 recommendations made in published reports: • 38 were accepted; • 7 were part-accepted; and • 11 were not-accepted. Recommendations typically related to policy, health and wellbeing, record keeping and the safe operation of the prison by increasing efforts to prevent drugs from entering prisons. Tragically, the OIP encountered deaths associated with synthetic opioids entering the prison system.... 

Contraband & Secretion of Drugs: The issue of contraband in prisons and the serious risks resulting from the secretion of drugs figured in a number of 2024 DiC investigations and a series of recommendations were made as a result. One more than one occasion it was recommended that the Irish Prison Service should intensify its efforts to physically prevent contraband from entering the prisons and to detect its presence once on the premises, including through technological means. It was further recommended that the Irish Prison Service should intensify its engagement with other relevant stakeholders, including An Garda Síochána, to develop a multi-agency written strategy to counter contraband entering a prison. This strategy should examine the use of technology, architectural disruptions, as well as how to prevent exploitation and coercion being used as a means to bring drugs and other contraband into a prison. The Irish Prison Service should introduce a health care focused policy to respond to the threats and safety risks posed by the internal secretion of drugs and other items of contraband. This policy should clarify the roles and responsibilities of management, prison officers, and healthcare staff. This new policy should provide for a central role for health care professionals in decision making regarding the supervision and care of a person where there is a suspicion of internal secretion of drugs and other items of contraband. All such decisions should include a recorded risk assessment. If it is deemed necessary to isolate a person from the general prison population, because of a suspicion that that they have internally secreted drugs or other items of contraband they should be subject to health care, not security observation – including at night – irrespective of whether they are held in a Special Observation Cell (SOC), Close Supervision Cell (CSC) or separation cell.