More than 1,000 inmates on bunks or mattresses in overcrowded prison cells
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More than 1,000 prisoners are being crammed into cells on bunk beds or mattresses on the floor and many are forced to use toilets in front of each other.
The overcrowding has led to heightened tensions and disputes among prisoners which is endangering staff.
A 40% increase in injury cases from prison officers in the last two years has been blamed on the overcrowding and drug smuggling, which is causing fights, resulting in injuries to officers when they break them up.
Last week, the inspector of prisons Mark Kelly said in a report on Cloverhill Remand Prison that “violence was the inevitable result” of overcrowded cells, with inmates subject to degrading conditions of an unscreened toilet.
Bunk beds and mattresses are supposed to be temporary or crisis measures, but have become the norm, with around 20% of all inmates now living in such conditions.
The Irish Prison Service (IPS) has been forced to deal with rising numbers of prisoners being sent to already overcrowded institutions, leaving it with only two main options — pack more people into cells or leave even more prisoners out on temporary release.
The third option is build more prison spaces, which has not happened and is only likely to start coming on stream in around three to four years, by which time prison sources expect numbers to have increased further again.
The approach of building more prison capacity is strongly opposed by the Irish Penal Reform Trust and others, who want the focus on sentencing policy, expanding probation, and non-custodial options and enhancing temporary release schemes.
IPS figures provided to the were based on the same date (December 17) for the last three years.
This showed that use of mattresses has risen more than four-fold: from 63 in 2021, to 141 in 2022 and to 290 in 2023.
The top three prisons affected are:
- Mountjoy Prison, where the number of mattresses on floors has gone from 25 in 2021, to 12 in 2022, before rising seven-fold to 97 in 2023;
- Cork Prison, were numbers have gone from 0 to 29, to 47 (numbers reached 57 earlier in December);
- Cloverhill Prison, were numbers have increased from 16 to 25, to 51 (numbers reached 68 recently according to the inspector of prisons report);
A separate set of statistics, obtained by the , provide estimates on the number of bunk beds in the system.
Because they are considered temporary measures, statistics on their use are not gathered centrally and are only available at individual prison level.
These figures capture data for 11 of the 12 institutions (Midlands not available) and suggest around 850 bunk beds are in use.
Prison sources explain that what typically happens is that the bed or beds in a cell are taken out and replaced by bunk beds, and that many single cells are too small for bunks.
The prisons with the most bunks are: Wheatfield (189), Castlerea (150), Cork (144), and Mountjoy (114).
Dóchas Women’s Prison, originally designed with ‘rooms’ rather than standard cells, has almost all been doubled up, with an estimated 70 bunk beds.
Limerick Female Prison, which was substantially upgraded and opened in October 2023, now has 20 bunks. Where it has prison capacity for 56 inmates there were 85 in it on December 2, meaning it was 153% over capacity — the highest in all prisons. This is despite 34 prisoners being on temporary release.
Sources have indicated management is already taking risks on temporary release. The number has gone from 287 on December 2, 2022, to 424 on the same date in 2023, to 547 on December 2 this year.