Prisoners hand in hundreds of nitazene tablets following inmate death

It comes as an investigation into the death of an inmate of Cork prison from a suspected nitazene overdose has found that his cell was not searched for drugs after he became ill and required hospitalisation.

In relation to the latest death, a statement said: “The Irish Prison Service can confirm that there was a death of a person in custody in Mountjoy Prison on July 18, 2024, and the next of kin have been notified. All deaths in custody are investigated by the Irish Prison Service, the Inspector of Prisons and An Garda Síochána, where circumstances warrant.

"The cause of death is determined by the Coroner’s Office.” 

The statement followed a drug alert to all the country's prisons on Thursday, after analysis conducted by the HSE National Drug Treatment Centre Laboratory confirmed the presence of a nitazene-type substance, associated with recent overdoses in the prison system.

Sources said the IPS was not waiting for the cause of death to be established by the coroner before issuing a warning about nitazene-type substances following the overdose death — the second to be linked to the drug since March. There have been two other deaths in the community linked to the drug, in Limerick and Dublin, earlier this year.

One source said: “The problem is that people think these are sleeping tablets, that they are benzodiazepines.” 

He added: “These drugs are circulating in huge numbers around the prisons today".

He said there was a "considerable" amount of this drug handed to staff voluntarily on Thursday by the prison population.

"We are talking hundreds of tablets," he said.

While efforts are now being made to establish the supply of the drug to prisoners, including to the man who died, the source said: “That is very much a needle in a haystack kind of thing but because it is such a lethal substance, it may be possible to trace it back and they [prisoners] might come forward.” 

It is understood the Irish Prison Service is conducting a review of all medical presentations in Mountjoy Prison in recent days to establish if any other medical incidents are related to the drug.

The first prison death linked to the drug was in Cork Prison in March.

A report into that death from the Office of the Inspector of Prisons has been published today by the Department of Justice.

The report has now recommended that in all cases where a prisoner is removed from his/her cell following a suspected overdose, a thorough search of the cell should immediately be conducted to establish the presence of any drugs.

The Cork prison inmate, referred to as Mr K in the report, died in his cell before 8am on March 14 – after returning to Cork prison from the Mercy University Hospital the previous morning.

The 27-year-old was taken to the hospital at around 3am on the morning of March 13 after becoming unwell in his cell. He was discharged two and a half hours later and returned to the prison.

The report outlined that Mr K was the subject of regular checks on the night of March 13 into March 14. It continued: “Mr K was checked nine times between 06:01 and a final check at 07:40 (on March 14). At 07:43:36 Prisoner 1 activated the in cell call bell which alerted staff to cell 6. Officer C arrived at 07:44:05 and reported that Prisoner 1 informed him Mr. K was not breathing.” He was pronounced dead shortly before 8am.

Mr K and another inmate, called Prisoner 1, had been placed on the Vulnerable Persons Unit following two separate incidents. The report outlined that Mr K had been found unresponsive in his cell on March 12 while Prisoner 1 had been self-harming.

The report into the death of Mr K has recommended a number of measures in the wake of the death, including the provision of remote technology which would help prison staff identify signs of life in prisoners.

A sub group of officials from the Irish Prison Service has now been established to spearhead the project and has met with European colleagues as part of investigative work on the project.

The report praised the IPS for its “rapidity and effectiveness of its reaction to the discovery of the apparent presence of Nitazene in Irish prisons”.

It added: “Had it not reacted so swiftly and decisively, the lives of other prisoners could have been placed in jeopardy. Nonetheless, the events leading up to the death of Mr. K and the very similar pattern evident in the events surrounding the repeated hospitalisations of his cellmate, Prisoner 1, demonstrate that there is clear room for improvement in the handling of cases of this kind, both by the IPS and the HSE.”