Ireland’s statutory prisons watchdog, the Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP), has recently completed an unannounced follow-up inspection of Cloverhill Prison, Dublin. The Inspectorate’s three-day visit concluded on Wednesday 11 December 2024, with a formal meeting at which the Inspectorate shared its preliminary findings with the Governor, senior staff and a representative of the Irish Prison Service (IPS).

The purpose of this inspection was to follow up on the unannounced general inspection of Cloverhill Prison carried out by the Inspectorate from 15 to 25 May 2023, as well as an on-site visit to Cloverhill by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on 5 October 2024, in the immediate aftermath of the violent death of a prisoner at that establishment.

Section 31(1)(c) of the Prisons Act 2007 provides that the Chief Inspector may “in the course of an inspection or arising out of an inspection bring any issues of concern to him or her to the notice of the Governor of the prison concerned, the Director-General of the Irish Prison Service, or the Minister”. Following the unannounced general inspection of Cloverhill Prison in May 2023, on 1 June 2023, the Chief Inspector raised serious concerns regarding the degrading conditions in the cells at Cloverhill Prison with the Director General of the IPS and the Minister for Justice.

Speaking after the recent follow-up inspection, Chief Inspector Mr Mark Kelly said:

“At the time of our May 2023 inspection of Cloverhill, 38 people were sleeping on mattresses on the floor in overcrowded, stuffy and malodorous cells. Out-of-cell time was very limited for many prisoners. The in-cell lavatories at Cloverhill were not partitioned and prisoners ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in these highly restricted spaces. The Inspectorate concluded that inter-prisoner violence was the inevitable result of confining four adult men per cell in these degrading conditions. By the time of our December 2024 follow-up inspection, the number of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor had risen to 68 and the prison was 117% overcrowded.”

“The degrading conditions seen in cells at Cloverhill Prison continue to have a critical adverse effect on the people living there.”

The follow-up inspection visit was carried out by:

  • Mark Kelly, Chief Inspector
  • Michelle Martyn, Lead Inspector
  • Dr. Sarah Curristan, Inspector
  • Matthew Butterly, Inspector

The Inspectorate of Prisons was assisted by Frances Moss and Ger Quirke, from the Department of Education Inspectorate. (*)

Notes to the Editor 

The Office of the Inspector of Prisons is a statutory body, independent in how it carries out its work, set up under the Prisons Act 2007.

The law underpinning the role of Chief Inspector of Prisons is set out in Part 5, Sections 30 to 32 of the Prisons Act 2007. Section 30 provides for the appointment of the Chief Inspector, Section 31 sets out the functions of the Chief Inspector and Section 32 specifies the requirement to submit an Annual Report to the Minister for Justice, by 31 March in any year. The Inspectorate’s Annual Report for 2023 was submitted to the Minister on 29 March 2024.  Section 32(3) of the Act provides that, “as soon as practicable” after receiving the Annual Report, the Minister for Justice shall “cause a copy of it to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and to be published”.

Under Section 31 of the Act, the Chief Inspector of Prisons is obliged to carry out regular inspections of prisons and for this purpose may: at any time enter any prison or any part of a prison, request and obtain from the Governor a copy of any books, records, other documents or extracts from such documents, and, in the course of an inspection or arising out of an inspection bring any issues of concern to the notice of the governor of the prison concerned, the Director General of the Irish Prison Service or the Minister as the Chief Inspector considers appropriate.

The Chief Inspector may, and must if he receives a request from the Minister, investigate any matter arising out of the management or operation of a prison and shall submit to the Minister a report on any such investigation.

Governors, prison officers, other persons employed in prisons and prisoners, must as far as reasonably practicable, comply with any request for information that the Chief Inspector may make in the performance of his functions.

Since 2012, the Chief Inspector has also been obliged to investigate the circumstances of all deaths in custody and those within one month of temporary release from custody. To date in 2024, there have been 27 deaths falling within the Inspectorate’s mandate, all of which are being independently investigated.

In addition to the legislative authority derived from the Act, the Chief Inspector has specified functions under Prison Rules 2007-2013 in relation to the Irish Prison Service Prisoner Complaints Procedure (Rule 57B) and letters from prisoners (Rule 44 (1) (h)).

It is anticipated that, in the near future, the Inspectorate will become the Inspectorate of Places of Detention, with an expanded remit as the National Preventive Mechanism for the Justice sector under the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT).

(*) The OIP has concluded a Memorandum of Agreement with the Inspectorate of the Department of Education, enabling it to benefit from the expertise of colleagues from that Inspectorate when assessing educational provision in prisons.

For further information, please see: www.oip.ie