The Republic is “probably sending too many people to prison”, which is exacerbating overcrowding, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has said.
The Minister has also promised prison officers that electronic tagging of prisoners would be in place by the end of the year, which he believes would reduce pressure in crowded jails.
It was “embarrassing on the part of the legislature” that tagging had not been rolled out despite the legislation providing for it having been enacted in 2007.
He was also concerned at the smuggling of drugs, phones and other contraband into prisons via drones, after the Prison Officers Association (POA) said each delivery of contraband was valued at between €50,000 and €60,000, with 110 such deliveries in the first three months of the year.
The POA added that drone deliveries had become so sophisticated that they were being flown up to cell windows or into landings or kitchen areas via air vents. Prisoners had triggered sensors that opened the vents by burning paper when they knew of the approaching drone.
In some cases, the devices were communicating with smuggled mobile phones in the jails and tracking phone co-ordinates to make a delivery to cell windows or other locations.
Addressing the annual delegate conference of the POA in Galway city on Thursday, Mr O’Callaghan said he had heard the association’s concerns that a gun may be smuggled into prisons via the increasingly daring and frequent drone deliveries. Some €5 million had been set aside for the installation of mesh nets over exercise yards to prevent burning items, dropped from drones, destroying the nets and creating a flight path for the drones.
“We’ve all also seen the videos of drones burning through the nets and drugs getting in that way,” he said. “We need to increase the security around prisons so that drones don’t get in. Technology keeps advancing all the time. Criminals are using advanced technology and we, similarly, need to improve our technology.”
Mr O’Callaghan said he had already asked his officials to make the arrangements required for the roll-out of tagging. He told the prison officers he was giving them his “commitment” to introduce tagging for prisoners “by the end of the year at the very latest”.
The Irish Prison Service previously tagged some prisoners on temporary release, but that scheme was abandoned due to concerns it was not cost-effective. At present, no prisoners are tagged in the Republic.
However, in the United Kingdom tagging is used to monitor the movements of some sex offenders as well as prisoners released early, including to ensure they comply with conditions of their release such as curfews. The release of prisoners early, but tagging them while they are in the community, has been used to alleviate prison overcrowding in Britain.
Mr O’Callaghan said that while tagging was one means to free up prison spaces, non-custodial sanctions such as community service orders should be used and he planned to advance legislation to ensure their greater use. The POA said on one wing in Portlaoise Prison, a handful of republican prisoners were being housed there, away from the rest of the population, with more than 160 spaces on that wing not in use.
Mr O’Callaghan said he would “consider” the POA’s suggestion that the small number of republican prisoners should be kept elsewhere and the wing refurbished and put into full use. He had also visited Cork Prison and believed some of the land there could be developed to create more prison spaces.
He was determined to “expediate” the process of the extra prison spaces – some 650 in all – at Cloverhill in Dublin, the Midlands in Portlaoise and Castlerea in Roscommon, as well as a four-story block on the Mountjoy campus.
