Prisons

Northern Ireland’s High Court has refused an application for judicial review where it found that the applicant’s probation release had been delayed by factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic and his own failed drug tests. In considering this application, the court found that one of the rel

Government proposals to reform the inspection of prisons will not allow Ireland to ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT), the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has said. The rights body will become the co-ordinating national preventative mechanism (NPM) u

In its new report published today on its visit to Bulgaria in October 2021, the Council of Europe’s committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) hails rare occurrences of ill-treatment by staff, reduction of prison population and certain improvements in living conditions. However, it regrets

Continued delays to the introduction of a new prisoner complaints system is of "critical concern", according to a new report. The latest annual report from the prisons inspectorate notes that no progress was made on a new prisoner complaints system in 2021 despite five years of warnings that the exi

A rise in prisoner numbers suggests the penal system is returning to "business as usual" after the pandemic, experts have warned. The Irish Prison Service (IPS) yesterday published its annual report for 2021 as justice minister Helen McEntee visited Limerick Prison to review its major expansion proj

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a discrimination claim brought by an Irish man who was disqualified from receiving a State pension while he served a prison sentence in the State. The claim was based on Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights and concerned the operation

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) has been ordered to pay €55,000 to a senior official with a heart condition who was denied the right to work from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. The complainant instructed solicitors in June 2020 to lodge two complaints with the Workplace Relations Commission

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) will be placed on a full statutory footing with a non-executive board and other structures aligning with best practice under new government plans. The IPS is currently a non-statutory agency of the Department of Justice. It has approximately 3,500 staff and an annual b

Individuals released in 2019 from custodial sentences lasting between three and six months had the highest likelihood of re-offending within a year, new statistics show. Justice Minister Helen McEntee has welcomed the latest publication by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of a statistical release

Human rights lawyer Mark Kelly has been appointed as Ireland's new inspector of prisons. Mr Kelly will replace Mark Toland, who has been fulfilling the role on an interim basis since the dramatic resignation of Patricia Gilheaney in February.

Inmates at Cork Prison gained experience of working in a live restaurant environment after an intensive eight-week culinary skills course ended with a pop-up restaurant event yesterday. The pilot programme was co-managed by the Irish Prison Service, the Department of Tourism and Hospitality and the

Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal has dismissed a claim that a prisoner’s human rights were infringed when his housing benefit was denied for four months during his period of imprisonment. The court found that there had been no discrimination between treatment of convicted and unconvict

Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal has delivered a judgment on the appropriate method for calculating custody expiry dates for prisoners facing concurrent sentences. The court rejected the argument that the calculation of a release date for one offence must take into consideration any period o

The Irish Prison Service has announced plans to lift a number of Covid-related restrictions from Monday. Infection control screens will be removed from physical visiting booths and physical contact between prisoners and visitors will be permitted in line with Prison Rules.

Foreign nationals and people from ethnic minority backgrounds are receiving longer prison sentences for drug offences and sexual offences than white Irish people, new research suggests. The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) today launched a new report on the rights, needs and experiences of foreign na