Bunk beds are being purchased for prisons as part of an attempt to deal with record overcrowding, which led to more than 350 inmates sleeping on mattresses on cell floors.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan told the Dáil it was “extremely important” that prison overcrowding is addressed and that bunk beds were among the measures being used to improve the situation for inmates.
More than 5,300 prisoners were in custody earlier this month, with 358 people sleeping on floors because of the lack of beds, according to the Irish Prison Service.
The Minister said capacity “across the prison estate” has increased by more than 300 spaces since 2022. He said 134 of these were delivered in the past 12 months “and more than 100 additional spaces will be added this year”.
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He said the issue is “a priority for me” and that he plans to visit every prison in the State.
Speaking during justice questions, he said he would change the law around community service orders and increase the maximum number of hours that can be imposed from 240 to 480. He also said he would introduce electronic monitoring “particularly in respect of remand prisoners”.
Mr O’Callaghan was replying to Social Democrats justice spokesman Gary Gannon, who pointed out that “hundreds of people are sleeping on floors” in prisons. He noted that the number of prisoners who died in custody increased from 20 in 2023 to 31 last year.
Mr Gannon said that in many cases prison conditions “are nothing short of Dickensian” due to overcrowding and that is a “serious failing of our criminal justice infrastructure”.
The Dublin Central TD acknowledged that certain cases should result in prison sentences but “right now, prisons are filled with people serving short sentences for petty, non-violent crimes”.
Mr O’Callghan told him that as part of measures to lead to “decarceration” he proposes to amend the 1983 Criminal Justice (Community Service) Act.
He said judges currently have to consider a community service order if a sentence of up to one year could be imposed.
“I am going to extend that so that when a court is considering a sentence which carries a penalty of up to two years, the court must also consider a community service order,” he said.
The Minister he would not be “going down the route taken in England and Wales” to release serious offenders at a very early stage to deal with overcrowding.
Mr Gannon called for an audit “of who exactly the people are in our prisons”.
“What we have at the moment is a conveyor belt of people who, for various reasons, usually addiction, go into our prisons, sleep on floors and continue that addiction.”
Mr O’Callaghan agreed that “many of the people who are given prison sentences have addiction issues and chaotic lives”. He said judges sometimes give prison sentences because they think “individuals can get some mandatory services provided to them there”.
