MORE THAN 100 imprisoned gangland criminals are to be housed in special isolation units as part of a new drive to prevent them running their gangs via mobile phones from prison cells.
The units will be regularly searched by specially trained teams of prison officers using sniffer dogs and small cameras to find concealed mobile phones and drugs.
Electronic equipment in the units will alert prison officers when a smuggled phone is in use.
The moves come after the murder in Limerick last weekend of Shane Geoghegan. He was killed by a gang whose leaders are in prison but are suspected of organising drug deals and gun attacks from their cells by phone.
A number of jailed Dublin criminals have also been recently linked to the smuggling of more than 30 guns and drugs worth almost €5 million from the Netherlands. Gardaí believe other multi-million drugs hauls and fatal gun attacks have been directed by inmates.
While a new segregation unit housing 20 inmates has opened in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin, further units are now planned for the new Thornton Hall jail in north Co Dublin and in the planned new jail at Kilworth, Co Cork.
At least 40 high-risk inmates will be housed in the Thornton Hall unit, while 30 will be housed at the Kilworth unit. It is also anticipated the unit already in Cloverhill will be extended.
That means over 100 gangland prisoners will be held in the special units when the new projects are complete.
Sources said the units would be "high-security jails within a jail".
The prisoners will be chosen for segregation after consultation with gardaí investigating gang activity in Dublin, Limerick and other gun-crime blackspots.
Inmates known to lead major gangs or who are in jail for commercial-scale drug-running, major armed robberies and fatal gun attacks will be transferred to the new units.
Other criminals found to be exerting "undue influence" over the rest of the prison population will also be selected for the units.
The prisoners will be locked away from the rest of the prison population and will have their own exercise yards. Visits will be much more closely monitored to prevent mobile phones and other contraband being passed to them.
Under plans by the Irish Prison Service, the new segregation units will also be searched thoroughly and often.
"Because you're dealing with fewer people than in a full jail it will be a lot easier to go in and regularly turn the place over," said one prison source.
The searches will be carried out by operational support groups using tiny cameras to search down toilets and piping where contraband material is often concealed.
Team members will also use sniffer dogs. Some 16 dog units will be in place by the end of the year.
Gardaí and the prison authorities believe gang leaders are forcing other inmates returning from periods of temporary release to smuggle mobile phones back into jail by internal concealment.
Meanwhile, new figures from the Department of Justice reveal the prison population has exceeded 4,000 for the first time in recent weeks. There are currently 3,700 prisoners in jail with 370 more on temporary release.