A Mountjoy prison chaplain has cast doubt on whether it will be possible to place prisoners requesting protection in single-occupancy cells as recommended by the Minister for Justice yesterday.
Fr Charlie Hoey said the proposal was like a lot of policies in that "it will happen in paper but it won't be realised in the prisons" because of chronic overcrowding.
"To make a statement that people looking for protection should be given a single cell. Well, of course they should, but they [the cells] are not available. Most single cells have at least two people in them," he said.
Mr McDowell introduced the policy yesterday following the murder of Gary Douch (21) in a holding cell in Mountjoy prison on Tuesday. Mr Douch had asked for protection the day before his death.
The interim recommendation was made by former senior civil servant Michael Mellett, who has been appointed by the Department of Justice to inquiry into Mr Douch's death.
Fr Hoey's scepticism as to the viability of Mr Mellett's recommendation echoes that of the Prison Officers' Association, which said last night that overcrowding means placing prisoners requesting protection in single-occupancy cells was unlikely to be possible.
Fr Hoey said what was frustrating for people working in Mountjoy was that the problems of overcrowding were well documented in the recent annual reports and an incident like the killing of Mr Douch was almost inevitable.
"I wrote to IPS [Irish Prison Service] quite recently expressing concern at the numbers in the holding cell."
He said an increasing tendency for people to be jailed for non-payment of fines coupled with a fall in the number of places to treat people with severe mental illnesses were contributing to an increase in the prison population.
The chaplain added that it was "outrageous" for judges to jail someone who hasn't paid a fine, saying that there are ample alternatives for dealing with this type of crime.
Last night another Mountjoy prisoner was stabbed, bringing to three the number of prisoners seriously assaulted in the prison over the past seven days.