The woman who killed herself in prison on Wednesday night and another woman who attempted suicide half an hour later had both been seen by the prison psychiatrist earlier that day.
Ms Pauline Reilly (33) was found dead in a ground-floor cell in the women's prison at Mount joy, Dublin, at 10.10 p.m., 10 minutes after being checked by a prison officer. She had been under close observation as she was considered a suicide risk and had a history of psychiatric problems.
Records seen by The Irish Times show Ms Reilly had been sent to the Central Mental Hospital from Mountjoy eight times since 1991, when computer records were first kept. She had been in and out of the prison for at least three years before that. Since 1991, she was convicted six times and sent to prison for five periods of six months and one of nine months. Her last conviction in December was for assaulting a man with a syringe in the grounds of the Mater Hospital in Dublin.
Ms Reilly did not have a drug problem, according to a prison source, but was a heavy drinker. She was also seen by the welfare officer attached to the women's prison hours before her death. At 10.35 p.m. prison officers found a second woman, a remand prisoner, hanging from the door of an in-cell toilet cubicle.
This woman, who was successful revived, had also been seen by the prison psychiatrist that day as she had spoken of being depressed when admitted to the prison on January 2nd.
The prison governor, Mr John Lonergan, said the two women had not known each other. The second woman may have heard the commotion in the prison when Ms Reilly was discovered. She was on remand, charged with breaking a barring order taken out against her after drink-related incidents in the family home.
Mr Lonergan said the prison had been adapted to try to prevent suicides, with the window frames adapted so prisoners could not hang themselves. He praised the work of prison officers who discovered the second potential suicide after Ms Reilly's death.
"Prison was her last refuge and last resort even it has now failed her," he said of the dead woman.
Ms Reilly, from a family of 14 in Donnycarney, Dublin, was described by local curate Father John Kelly as a friendly woman. "If she was rich and from a wealthy family she would have been sent to John of God's, but she was poor and marginalised."
At the family home they refused to talk, saying they were angry with coverage of their sister's death. "She was a great sister. And that's all," a young woman said.
A spokesman for the probation and welfare service said the Government's failure to give resources to the service would mean services to the new women's prison would be inadequate.
Ms Alice Leahy, the chairwoman of the Sentence Review Group and director of Trust, the organisation for the homeless, said Ms Reilly's death highlighted the need for more community services. "A lot of women like her shouldn't be in prison. For some of them the only home they have is prison. How many people have died in prison recently when they should be elsewhere?"
A 1996 report by two prison doctors found one in four women in Mountjoy had drink problems, while one in two suffered from psychiatric problems. A quarter of the prison population had been admitted for psychiatric treatment and one in three had attempted suicide.
Dr Valerie Bresnihan, of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said the suicide showed prisons did not work. "They are damaging environments despite the best efforts of all who work in them."
