The use of padded cells in prisons is "at best sensory deprivation and at worst torture", according to an unpublished report by the prison chaplains.
Last year an 80-year-old infirm prisoner was handcuffed while being transferred from Cork Prison to Arbour Hill, the report says. "We feel that this amounts to torture and we will bring this to the attention of the European Commission for the Prevention of Torture."
In a damning indictment of the prison system, the report describes inhumane conditions, overcrowded prisons, and a system that is failing "abysmally" to rehabilitate prisoners, and in some cases using "barbaric" methods.
"Something is needed for psychotic prisoners," the head of the prison chaplains, Father Fergal MacDonagh said. "If someone is at serious risk to themselves they need psychological care, not being locked in a darkened room with no sense of time and no sound." The report warns that prisoners who have been raped or sexually assaulted in prison will have a strong case for damages against the State for failing to protect prisoners from such attacks.
Among its 79 recommendations are calls for the abolition of padded cells; the restriction of numbers in Mountjoy to 547; and the abolition of prison sentences for fine defaulters who default on an offence that does not carry a sentence. The report also says remand and sentenced prisoners should not be held together, nor should long- and short-term prisoners, juveniles and adults.
The report calls for an abolition of the mandatory life sentence for murder and says that mandatory sentencing should not form part of the judicial process. There should be regulations on the handcuffing of elderly prisoners, who should be held in minimum security arrangements.
Fifteen- and 16-year-olds should not be remanded to prison, and prisoners who serve time on remand and are subsequently acquitted should be entitled to compensation, it recommends.
The bodies of 10 republican prisoners executed during the Civil War and buried in Mountjoy Prison should be returned to their families, the report says.
The report describes the practice of "barrier handling" used in Portlaoise Prison on the six prisoners involved in the hostage-taking incident in Mountjoy last year as "barbaric".
These prisoners have no physical contact with prison officers. "We believe that it will create extremely violent people who are more likely to attack again. One day these prisoners will be released. What kind of people will we have created?" Units to deal with violent prisoners should be graded, the report says.
The system has taken a "one size fits all approach", so that a "violent 19-year-old prisoner can be contained alongside an incontinent 80-year-old". Juvenile prisoners were locked in for more than 16 hours a day, and remand prisoners had a disturbingly high suicide rate.
The report also calls for low-security prisons for sex offenders, as they are not deemed likely to escape, and an expansion of the existing 10-place treatment programme for such offenders.
The media are also criticised for photographing prisoners, who are being "hunted by both freelance and newspaper photographers during their trial. Their family members are often jostled in a frenzy to get a picture. Some prisoners have even been provoked by photographers."
