Cloverhill Prison was one of the first prisons in Ireland to receive a full unannounced inspection under the Inspectorate’s new inspection programme, which began in late 2022. The unannounced general inspection of Cloverhill Prison took place in May 2023 and gave rise to profound concerns. Section 31(1) (c) of the Prisons Act 2007 provides that, “in the course of an inspection or arising out of an inspection” I may bring “any issues of concern” to the notice of the Governor of the prison concerned, the Director-General of the Irish Prison Service or the Minister. On 1 June 2023, I issued an Immediate Action Notification to the Minister for Justice and the Director General of the Irish Prison Service raising serious concern regarding the degrading conditions in the cells at Cloverhill. I highlighted, in particular, the conditions in cells designed for three persons, certain of which were accommodating four prisoners, one of whom was obliged to sleep on a mattress on the floor.1 I also emphasised that “inter-prisoner violence is the inevitable result of confining four adult men in degrading conditions of this nature.”

In October 2024, I attended Cloverhill Prison in the sad circumstances of investigating the violent death of a prisoner. Based on my initial findings, I again wrote to the Minister for Justice highlighting that holding people in the overcrowded and degrading conditions at Cloverhill Prison, for 22 hours a day or more, was creating a breeding ground for violence and generating a risk to life.2 I also stressed that the absence of effective risk assessment processes on admission to the prison exacerbates the threats to the physical integrity of people living and working in the prison. In view of the gravity of the Inspectorate’s findings, I decided to carry out a follow-up visit to Cloverhill Prison in December 2024, the findings of which are captured in this report. Over the period that Cloverhill has been closely monitored by the Inspectorate, conditions of detention there have continued to degenerate. At the time of the Inspectorate’s June 2023 Immediate Action Notification, the prison was 104% overcrowded and there were mattresses on the floor in 38 cells; by October 2024, this had risen to 121% overcrowded, with 72 mattresses on the floor. 

This follow-up report focuses on the implementation of the recommendations made in the report on the Inspectorate’s 2023 inspection of Cloverhill. Unfortunately, the Inspectorate has concluded that, at the time of its 2024 visit, the majority of those recommendations had yet to be implemented. As during the full inspection in May 2023, the conditions in which the vast majority of people were living in Cloverhill Prison could be qualified as degrading. The only significant difference was that a higher proportion of people in the prison were being held in degrading conditions.

Rec. ID CH23-16 - P.10 Delivery of addiction services in Cloverhill Prison should be enhanced in such a way that waitlists to access counsellors and treatment are reduced, prisoners are provided with tandem medical and psychological supports and clear links are established with community drug treatment programmes to support sustainable continuity of care for people on release from prison. Consideration should be made to ensuring regular allocation of an addiction nurse to Cloverhill Prison.
There are 37 patients accessing addiction counselling in the prison. 57 people are on the waiting list to access addiction counselling. The average wait time to access an Addiction Counsellor is approximately eight weeks. Currently, the addiction counselling team is resourced with 0.8 full time equivalent staff, which is half the approved resource of 1.6. A number of men had addiction issues. For example, there were 110 patients on Opiate Substitution Therapy, 103 patients on Opiate Substitute Therapy (Maintenance), 43 on Librium Detox Therapy and seven on Methadone Detox Therapy. There is no dedicated Addiction Nurse and no on-site pharmacist.
This recommendation remains open