The Council of Europe’s human rights watchdog, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) made public their report yesterday, which along with stinging criticism of conditions, illustrated an “unsafe nature of certain prisons in Ireland”.

While the committee’s report spared Cork in it’s depiction of the violent culture that is sweeping through Irish prisons, it did highlight the poor condition of its main accommodation blocks, along with Mountjoy Prison and the A and B wings of Limerick Prison. Of particular concern to the watchdog, was the fact that prisoners held in these locations were still obliged to defecate in chamber pots in the presence of other inmates, in the cells in which they lived.

The severe findings outlined in the report follows the committee’s visit last year to 15 detention facilities including garda stations, prisons and the Central Mental Hospital. Among the causes for concerns were reports of attacks and abuse on suspects while in police custody and prisons and reports of prison officers, under the influence of alcohol, fuelling deliberate rumours to incite violence among inmates.

Social Party Councillor Mick Barry, jailed in 2001 for three nights for his opposition to bin charges, says, “The penalty a citizen pays when sent to prison should be loss of liberty. This penalty should not be added to by having to endure sub-standard conditions in the prison itself.

“Accordingly, the slop-out system should be ended straight away, overcrowding should be tackled as a priority and real improvements should be made to the library, the gym and other prison facilities.”

The Government and Prison Service, in an official statement released with the report, disagreed with the assertion that three prisons are unsafe, but did acknowledge that older prisons, including Cork, are too old to be refurbished, and that replacing them remained a priority. There is, as yet, no official date for work to commence at the proposed new prison site in Kilworth, Cork. 

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