The highest number of prisoners on record are now being held in Irish jails - as bosses scramble to deal with an overcrowding crisis.
On Tuesday the Irish Prison Service marked a record 4,718 prisoners in the system - with only 4,478 beds available.
That is the highest number of Irish prisoners in custody on record - but there are concerns that that number is set to grow even larger in the coming days due to ongoing court proceedings. As of Tuesday there are 219 prisoners sleeping on mattresses due to the overcrowding issue.
The Dochas Centre Women’s Prison is currently the most over capacity - recording 173 prisoners in the system - despite there only being 146 beds on Monday.
It is understood that prisoners without beds have instead been supplied with mattresses on the floor - but sources say that temporary measure is untenable in the long run.
The Midlands Prison in Portlaoise is the most populated and on Monday was said to be operating at 107 per cent capacity with a huge 938 prisoners recorded with 875 beds.
In Mountjoy male prison there were 810 prisoners in custody with 755 beds - while in Cloverhill, the country’s remand prison, there were 475 prisoners to 433 beds on Monday.
In a statement the Irish Prison Service said it was obligated to accept all prisoners committed by the courts and “as such the Irish Prison Service has no control over the numbers committed to custody at any given time.”
The IPS went on to say that its system is “of course, subject to peaks and troughs,” and that “where the number of prisoners exceeds the maximum capacity in any prison, the Irish Prison Service make every effort to deal with this through a combination of inter-prison transfers and structured temporary release.”
“Decisions in relation to temporary release are considered on a case by case basis and the safety of the public is paramount when those decisions are made,” their statement continued.
“We have been working closely with the Department of Justice to ensure a safe working environment for staff and the safety and security of prisoners in our custody and we are taking a number of short and medium term steps to address the issue of increasing prison numbers.”
The IPS says the government provided significant funding to it in order to enhance its infrastructure - including the construction of the new male and female facility in Limerick.
The new Limerick prison site is said to provide an additional 90 ale spaces and 22 new female cell spaces. While the male accommodation is already open, the female section is set to open later this month, the IPS said.
In April the then Minister for Justice Simon Harris announced that he had brought a memo to the Government outlining capacity issues in prisons.
The IPS says that through working with the Department of Justice, the Minister identified four short-term projects at Castlerea, Cloverhill, the Midlands and Mountjoy prisons that could deliver over 400 prison spaces over the next five years.
“That would provide accommodation for a minimum of 620 additional prisoners,” an IPS spokesperson said.
