Total of 277 cases of Covid-19 in prisons since pandemic began, Dáil told

There have been 277 cases of Covid-19 in the prison population since the outbreak of the pandemic in March last year, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said in the Dáil.

Ms McEntee told Labour TD Duncan Smith that 112 prisoners had already tested positive for the virus before they were committed to prison.

She confirmed “there have been hospitalisations” and referring to the death of one prisoner with Covid, she said it was the first death in custody linked to the virus, “which was extremely distressing and upsetting for everyone working in the prison.

“It was the first and it showed the amount of effort made in keeping people safe” since the pandemic began.

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It is understood the prisoner who died was serving a life sentence for murder, had been suffering from a terminal illness and died in hospital after contracting the virus.

Ms McEntee was speaking during Dáil justice question time after it emerged at the weekend that the Irish Prison Service is currently dealing with 71 positive cases of Covid-19 among prisoners and another 49 cases among staff.

It also emerged that Dublin’s Cloverhill prison, a remand facility, is the most severely affected, with 37 positive cases among staff and prisoners and the outbreaks have limited the service’s ability to bring prisoners to and from court.

Ms McEntee, who did not give details of outbreaks in individual prisons, stressed that “for most of last year there were absolutely no cases in the prison setting”.

She commended the prison service and said management and staff were all “working tirelessly” to try to combat the virus.

The Minister said that like the rest of society “we can’t keep people in 24-hour lockdown. When we were in level 5 lockdown it was very severe in prisons as well.”

There had been no visits in person and other events such as educational programmes were not happening.

She said they were moving away from that because there is a “consciousness that we have to live with Covid”. She said that they wanted to keep people safe but also respect their human rights and prison visits had restarted in September.

Impact

Mr Smith asked about the impact on access to the courts and the number of hospitalisations in the prison population.

The Dublin Fingal TD stressed that “the intent of this question was a genuine update.

“It wasn’t a kind of ‘gotcha’ or anything like that, because our prison service has done a remarkable job since the start of the pandemic” in trying to keep the virus under control.

In the same way that the virus affected society, he said, it was important “we don’t forget about our prison community, both workers and prisoners,” many of whom were living in very cramped conditions pre-pandemic and would be more vulnerable to the spread of infection.

The Minister, who confirmed there had been hospitalisations, told him the virus had affected the Courts Service’s ability to operate normally, and there had been greater use of information technology.

She said that a detailed management plan was in place in courts and prisons and “there is constant engagement between director general of the Irish Prison Service and CEO of the Courts Service”.

Ms McEntee said her department is working with the Irish Prison Service and Courts Service to put the right measures in place and provide additional funding to assist as both “amend and adapt their own services”, particularly in relation to technology.