STAFF AT Mountjoy Prison have made one of the biggest ever drug seizures at the jail, finding over 3,000 tablets with an estimated value of about €15,000.
The discovery raises serious questions about how such a large consignment of drugs could be smuggled into the jail despite a whole range of new security measures having been introduced in recent years.
The latest seizure was so big prison management took the unusual step of calling gardaí in to investigate it.
“Anything over €13,000 is a commercial quantity of drugs by law so the guards were drafted in,” said one source at the jail.
The drugs, believed to be tranquilisers popular with heroin users, were discovered during a search of a cell on Thursday afternoon. More than 3,000 tablets were found packaged in small plastic bags, ready for sale to inmates.
The drugs were found under the floorboards of a cell occupied by a convicted drug dealer serving a lengthy jail term for dealing heroin. The suspect is in his 30s and is from Blanchardstown in west Dublin.
Prison officers found two mobile phones, two chargers and two hands-free kits with the drugs. The haul is believed to have been discovered following a tip-off.
Informed sources said the tablets are tranquilisers usually sold as part of a drugs cocktail to heroin users with chronic drug addictions.
“They are usually sold to someone to take when they shoot up heroin,” said one source. “The thinking is that taking a tablet prolongs the effect of the heroin.”
The tablets would typically be sold on the streets for about €1.50 but in a prison setting, where drugs are much harder to source, they would be worth up to €5 each.
The discovery of the haul comes just weeks after the latest new anti-drugs measure were introduced at the jail. Nets have been erected over two of the prison’s nine exercise yards in an effort to prevent drugs being thrown into the yards from outside the prison walls.
The Irish Prison Service decided earlier this year to erect the nets, after decades of drugs reaching inmates by being thrown over the perimeter walls.
The installation of the nets has coincided with the appointment of new Mountjoy governor Ned Whelan, who took over the running of the north Dublin prison last month on the retirement of John Lonergan.
Thursday’s drug seizure comes after a difficult week at Mountjoy.
Yesterday week a prison officer was slashed across the face by a prisoner with a razor blade. The officer needed 16 stitches.
On Tuesday most prison officers abandoned their duties for four hours in protest at the transfer of Dublin criminal Leroy Dumbrell to the prison.