“Tensions are high” within Irish prisons, with an estimated 70% of the inmate population suffering from addiction issues, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has warned. 

However, despite the high number in need of treatment, the prison service lacks any specialist addiction nurses. 

On The Claire Byrne Show, IPRT spokesperson Saoirse Brady warned that lack of appropriate medical care is fuelling a “revolving door” between prison and the community. 

“Three out of four people are going to prison for a year or less,” she explained. 

“They're not actually getting to the top of the waiting list to get assessed for what treatment they might need before they're out again.

“If you don't get the help that you need in prison, you're back out in the community, you don't get the help that you need there.

“So the likelihood is that you end up back in prison.” 

Cloverhill Prison. Picture by: PA Archive/PA Images.

Ms Brady that many of the drugs prisoners are addicted to are extremely dangerous - such as crack cocaine and opioids. 

As a result, there have been a number of overdoses in prison. 

“We really need to be treating that,” she urged. 

“We know that there are supports in prison, certainly in terms of therapy.

“But when we think about ring fenced addiction nurses for people coming in with physical issues who need to detox. 

“We need to actually put money and investment into that, both investment into the staff and investment into the individuals coming into the care and custody of the prison service.”

Investment

Amid severe overcrowding, prisoners are routinely forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor. 

It all means that “tensions are high”, especially if someone is sharing a cell with an addict. 

“You've two, three people to a cell with the toilet in the corner that they all have to use in lockdown in the evening,” she said. 

“If somebody is detoxing without proper support, then it's going to make for a very tense and unpleasant situation.”

Last year, the Department of Justice was allocated €2.8 billion for capital projects in the justice sector. 

However, Ms Brady urged the Government to re-allocate some of the funding towards boosting staff levels. 

“We really feel that this Government is focused so much on the infrastructure and pouring money into that,” she said. 

“But what we really need to see is investment in staff, investment in people and looking at better community supports.

“As I said, there are people going in for very short sentences, maybe a matter of weeks or months - they're not going to help get the help that they need in there before they're out in the community again.

“This is serving no one, this revolving door and not actually having the supports that are in place.”

Main image: A prisoner in a cell. Picture by: PA.