Crowe Ireland was commissioned in late 2019 to conduct a Health Needs Assessment (HNA) for the Irish Prison Service (IPS) as a whole and for the 12 individual prisons within the IPS estate. As part of their analysis, Crowe visited each prison and conducted interviews with all relevant stakeholders, internal and external. In 2022, they delivered their report which included 60 specific recommendations around strengthening and improving the IPS’s Healthcare Services (see Appendix III). This second report focuses on the progress made in implementing the recommendations of the IPS HNA from June 2024 to June 2025.

P.6 Drugs Strategy
The HNA made recommendations regarding the provision of addiction services in prison. The IPS have progressed a number of actions under the IPS Drugs Strategy 2023 – 2026 including enhanced compliance with statutory obligations in terms of Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST) and improved access to urgent testing of illicit substances in the setting of an overdose cluster scenario via links with the National Drug Treatment Centre. The IPS also joined the Strategic Implementation Group (SIG) 3 of the National Drugs Strategy and contributed to the next iteration of the Strategy. As part of the ongoing work between the HSE National Social Inclusion Office and the IPS to address the issue of opioid overdose, where possible naloxone is being provided to at risk prisoners on release across the prison estate