MOUNTJOY has suffered from chronic overcrowding for almost as long as anyone can remember. Four years ago the Visiting Committee described the prison as a "potential volcano" because of the pressure on accommodation and facilities.
Its report added: "There is a frightening lack of incentive to encourage prisoners to avail of the opportunities, such as they are, in the prison and thus enable them to return to normal life. The prison runs on crisis control. It is a great tribute to the staff that they cope with this appalling situation.
The prison has to accept all prisoners remanded by the courts system, regardless of the fact that there is no accommodation for them. A prisoner sentenced or remanded in custody awaiting trial on anything other than a very serious charge is unlucky if he or she has to actually spend more than a night in Mountjoy.
This has led to the somewhat overworked but entirely accurate simile about the "revolving door" syndrome in the State's prison system.
The regime in Mountjoy, however, is liberal compared to that in most western European states. It is both prison and Department of Justice policy that prisoners in the State are treated with compassion. The Irish prison system is not a punitive one. The removal of freedom is regarded as sufficient punishment.
The assistant secretary in charge of prisons pointed out, in an address to prison officers two years ago, that the State does not operate a policy of maintaining "warehouses for human beings".
It is accepted that drug taking is a way of life for Dublin criminals inside and outside prison. Drugs are brought into the prison mainly by relatives. Women visitors hide the drugs in their mouths and pass them to their incarcerated spouses or boyfriends as they kiss goodbye.
It would be simple to stop this but it would entail the universal imposition of "closed" visits, where physical contact would be stopped completely and prisoners and visitors would only be allowed to speak through intercoms or voice boxes in perspex screens. This is considered acceptable in many countries but inhumane here.
Such restrictions on human contact would greatly increase tension in the prison. The drug supply would be reduced but this, too, would increase tension.
The Department of Justice's 1993 five year plan report observed: "Recognising that the elimination of the problem of drug abuse would necessitate the introduction of an excessively harsh and inhumane regime and that therefore some alternative means must be found to control the problem.
The programme to tackle the problem has included the introduction of methadone maintenance treatment and assistance for prisoners who want to become drug free. This has worked quite well in Mountjoy, according to prison sources.
Medical treatment within the prison system has progressed to the point where AIDS and HIV positive prisoners fare much better inside than at liberty.
The pursuance of a liberal, caring regime is one of the reasons the roof has stayed on Mountjoy since the last serious riot there five years ago. After the riot and roof top protest by more than 100 inmates, it became clear that the problems in the prison were being internalised. The possibility of break outs had almost disappeared with the improvement of perimeter security.
The prison authorities were acutely aware that Mountjoy would eventually experience a hostage situation. Two years ago the Department began sending teams of prison staff to study procedure in Scotland where several prisons had experienced hostage crises and riots.
The Scottish Prison Service has exactly the same overcrowding, drugs and HIV/AIDS problems as seen in Mountjoy. During the 1980s and early 1990s Scottish prisons experienced crisis after crisis, with riots, roof top protests and hostage taking.
The Scottish Prison Service devised a well thought out hostage management plan which was passed on to Irish prison officers sent there over the past two years.
Scotland has had no hostage taking in prisons for the past three years until this weekend. The siege at Glenochil Prison, near Alloa, in which two members of staff were held hostage, ended yesterday with the release of a prison officer and a nurse.
The two were seized while the nurse was administering drugs to an inmate, shortly before the prisoners were due to return to their cells after watching television.
Coincidentally, within the past two weeks there had been successful drugs searches in Glenochil, which accommodates prisoners serving more than four year terms.
A similar search in Mountjoy had stopped a consignment of heroin coming into the prison at New Year. Three of the Mountjoy hostage takers are heroin addicts, although it is not known for certain that they reacted after their drug supply was cut off.
Glenochil has no overcrowding but has a drugs problem. There are complaints about lack of facilities and work for prisoners. Scottish prison sources indicated that the hostage taking there was probably caused by a troublesome prisoner with a grievance. The same man was responsible for Scotland's last prison hostage situation in 1993.
Another similarity appears to be that the Irish hostage takers also see themselves as victims, claiming in messages to their families that they are being victimised and feel they will be attacked by other prison officers when the siege is over.
Mountjoy prison staff were, indeed criticised in last year's report by the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture, which visited the prison the previous year. It expressed concern about alleged assaults on prisoners after an incident in which a prisoner had set fire to his cell. Ten prisoners required treatment after this incident but no disciplinary measures were taken and the Prison Officers' Association strongly disputes the findings.
One of the Scottish inmates claimed that he was being victimised by staff and another that he is a hostage and not a hostage taker.
The separation unit in Mountjoy is one of the few areas in the prison without a space problem. However, all of its inmates have some form of a grievance against the prison system. Two have convictions for serious assaults on prison officers and another is facing similar charges.
Sources close to the prison say the general poor conditions in Mountjoy only provide a backdrop to the events in the separation unit. The real reasons probably arise from frustrations and anger among the hostagetakers, directed at the system in general but taken out on individual officers.
The negotiators - who have stopped families, prison campaigners and lawyers from talking to the six hostage takers - will attempt to assure the prisoners that their complaints will be investigated, their grievances considered and that there will be no retribution against them.
Eddie Ferncombe and Joseph Cooper, who already have convictions for assaulting prison staff, will be particularly difficult to reassure.