OVERCROWDING in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, reached its worst level ever on Thursday night and 58 people were temporarily released or transferred yesterday morning.
Thirty-one prisoners were transferred to other prisons from Mountjoy and 27 were allowed out on temporary release.
More than 100 prisoners slept in a committal area with capacity for 40 people, according to a prison source. The B basement held 102 people in 14 cells, divided between nine four-person cells and five single cells.
Last night the prison governor, Mr John Lonergan, confirmed that 675 people were accommodated in the prison on Thursday night. "It is an absolutely huge number. We're always grossly overcrowded. We have been for the past 12 months. But last night's number was the highest ever, as far as I'm aware."
The prison, built for 480 prisoners, can hold 630 prisoners with doubling up in cells. However the 40 spaces in the high-security Separation Unit have been closed since the siege in January, when four prison officers were taken hostage. The unit is due to reopen in about three months.
Mr Lonergan said it was a particularly bad time of the year" for prisoner numbers and the next surge would be in October. The first new spaces in the Government's £135 million building programme are not expected to be available for at least six months.
"Tension is rising at Mountjoy," the source said. "It's dangerous and prison officers are absolutely furious." According to the source, more than 14 prisoners had been put into one cell on mattresses. You can imagine what a sauna that cell must have been."
Asked about the mood in the prison, Mr Lonergan said it was "undesirable to have huge over-crowding from everyone's perspective. It puts pressure on everybody and every aspect of the job when numbers are so high." So far things were quiet he said, "touch wood".
Mr Lonergan said he was "not the slightest bit optimistic" that the pressure would ease until extra accommodation became available.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said 55 extra, prison spaces in Limerick Prison are due to be completed next October. The 137-person unit at Castlerea, Co Roscommon should be ready in February 1998. The foundation stone for the Castlerea unit was laid by the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, last week.
The programme should provide 35 per cent more prison spaces, she said, with a 420-person remand unit in Wheatfleld, Dublin and a women's prison in Mountjoy for 60 prisoners.
A report last month showed there had been a 50 per cent increase in the number of people committed to prison since 1990. The Government has promised to set up an independent prisons agency within the next two years, a move first recommended 12 years ago by the Whitaker committee.
