A full investigation will be carried out by the governor of Wheatfield Prison and the gardai into the apparent suicide of a 31-year-old prisoner at the facility on Thursday night.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said he was saddened by "this tragic loss of life." An inquest would be held in due course.
Mr O'Donoghue said the reality was that if a person was determined to take his own life, it was virtually impossible to stop. "All the facts in this case will be carefully examined by the Suicide Group in the prison and any lessons that can be learned from it will be learned."
The prisoner was serving two terms of six months running concurrently for common assault and malicious damage. He was due for release in August.
The Fine Gael spokesman on Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Jim Higgins, called on Mr O'Donoghue to carry out a full prison security review.
"Already this year a prisoner has been stabbed to death at Mountjoy jail and a prison officer was seriously injured when he was stabbed in Limerick jail."
The Green Party spokesman on Justice, Mr John Gormley, said the prisoner was a first-time offender and under special watch.
"If the person was diagnosed as being of a `disturbed' nature, why were efforts not made to have him moved to a more benign environment or is it simply the case that the alternatives do not exist?"
He urged Mr O'Donoghue to provide funding to support the increased use of the probation welfare system and community service orders.
Ms Patricia McKenna MEP said the Minister should fully implement the recommendations of the 1991 report on suicide in prison, Death In Custody, instead of commissioning another survey into the causes of death in custody.
The probation and welfare officer branch of IMPACT, whose members provide a welfare and rehabilitation service in the prisons, said:
"Our members would recommend that any review of procedures around the prevention of suicide would address firstly the need to increase the presence of welfare officers in prisons and secondly the need for observation wards for identified suicide risk prisoners, as exists in psychiatric hospitals, and these wards would be in prisons."