Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has defended the Government's record on prisons and said that overcrowding was not to blame for last night's disturbance at Mountjoy.
Two separate investigations by the prison service and the Garda into last night’s riot are currently underway. .
Speaking this afternoon Mr Ahern praised prison staff for their handling of the disturbance and said "it was patently not the case" that overcrowding was to blame for the disturbance.
"The figures in Mountjoy, why they are high, are lower this week than they have been for the last number of months," he said.
Responding to criticism from the Opposition, which had attributed last night's riot to overcrowding, Mr Ahern said an additional 18,000 prison spaces had been built since 1997. He said that in addition to creating extra spaces, the Government had sought to lower the number of inmates in prison by cutting the number of people admitted for minor offences.
Mr Ahern admitted that the numbers of prisoners in jail has risen dramatically over the past few years. He attributed the rise to the fact that there were additional gardai on the streets, more prosecutions and that longer sentences were being handed out.
Officers in riot gear were called into the prison to quell a disturbance during which more than 70 inmates barricaded themselves into an exercise yard for over two hours.
Three prison officers were hospitalised after they were beaten by inmates using a pool cue and pool ball in a sock. Teams of riot squad officers were called into the north Dublin jail from other prisons in the city, including St Patrick’s Institute on the Mountjoy campus and Wheatfield and Cloverhill prisons in west Dublin.
Teams of gardaí were also deployed but remained outside the jail off the North Circular Road as the prison service’s riot squad gathered and began to restore order.
The officers, dressed in full riot gear with batons and shields, moved in to the yard of the A division and took control of the area again just after 9.30pm. The incident had begun at 6.50pm.
Sources said some of the inmates in the yard had armed themselves with iron bars and the legs of chairs. Some of these clashed with the riot squad officers and one officer was injured.
The Irish Times understands the incident began when a staff member and an inmate became involved in a physical altercation in the jail's A division at 6.50pm.
A large number of inmates gathered around the officer. As he was being assaulted his colleague went to his aid but he too was beaten.
A large group of prisoners then poured into a nearby recreation yard, some of them arming themselves as they went. They refused to leave the yard to be locked in their cells for the night at 8pm and a tense stand-off ensued.
Staff lost control of the area but the inmates, a group of between 70 and 90 according to differing accounts, were contained in the yard.
Senior prison staff were drafted in to manage the situation. A decision was taken to send for back-up from staff in other prisons in the city. Prison vans could be seen last night carrying riot gear and prison officers into the jail.
The three injured prison officers were taken to the Mater hospital beside the prison. Their injuries are not life-threatening.
A spokesman for the prison service said the situation had been brought under control by 9.30pm and that inmates were then being taken to their cells. The spokesman said the control and restraint teams had dealt with the incident “quickly and effectively”. He said the disturbance was sparked by an isolated incident and not related to overcrowding.
The country’s prison population reached more than 4,400 during the week, according to the prison service. Mountjoy has repeatedly held more than 700 inmates since May despite the Inspector of Prisons stating in February 2009 that the population should not exceed 600.
Speaking today on Morning Ireland, Liam Herrick of the Irish Penal Reform Trust said overcrowding at the prison means staff and prisoners are in an "impossible position".
He also said Mr Ahern needs to have a strategy for the increasing prison population. “On one hand the Government for the last 15 years is asking courts to give people longer sentences and asking for more charges to be brought but on the other hand not taking the consequences of that," he said. “If you have policies leading to the increase in prison population well then you have to have a strategy to meet that,” he added.
Fine Gael justice spokesman Alan Shatter said the riot is “violent proof” the Minister for Justice has “failed to exert any control over a prison service in crisis”.
“The entire system is operating in a dysfunctional manner, with the lack of prison space posing one of the principal problems," he said. "There was a 90 per cent increase in the number of people given a prison sentence for the non-payment of fines in 2009 compared to the previous year. That type of sentencing policy is unsustainable and simply makes no sense."