Gangland threats to three Mountjoy prison officers
The Prison Officers’ Association said the worrying development reflects what it claims is a worsening threat to staff from violent inmates.
Speaking at its annual conference in Galway, POA president Stephen Delaney said: “I am aware of three prison officers having equipment installed in their house arising from threats made by an offender — actual death threats.”
He said this was part of a wider culture of “gang warfare” within the prison system.
“In the current environment we have threats, assaults, drugs, weapons, attacks on family homes, and the capacity to control matters outside the prison,” he said.
POA assistant general secretary Gabriel Keaveny said that a security review is conducted by gardaí when there is intelligence of a threat.
“Where we are threatened and we feel it’s a serious threat, they do a full security assessment and then they will do an analysis and inform the prison service if they believe it’s actually real.”
He added: “In recent times in one of our prisons, a female officer was targeted. Damage was done to her car. Her house was targeted on a number of occasions.
“It is not unusual for a prisoner to say to you, ‘I know where you live; I’ll burn your house down; I’ll get your kids’.
“Unfortunately, the prison service had to bring in a specific protocol to deal with that, which involves security cameras and monitoring by gardaí.”
Mr Delaney said gang bosses were still able to operate their drug empires on the outside from inside jails, facilitated through the smuggling of mobile phones.
“Phones are still getting into prisons,” he said.
“A lot of the time prisons are surrounded by houses and you’d nearly throw one in from a house.
“Mountjoy especially is like a small little town. It’s almost impossible to search every large vehicle that comes through.”
Mr Keaveny said there was a large seizure of phones in Mountjoy recently and they were coming in through a certain area.
“We used to have a dog unit patrolling there but that was cut.
“It just shows what can happen when there are cuts to units,” he said.
Official figures show that 648 phones were seized by prison security staff in 2016, up from 626 in 2015.
There were 715 drug seizures (808 in 2015) and 435 seizures of weapons (564 in 2015).
In addition, 1,904 seizures of other types of contraband were made (1,713 in 2015).
Meanwhile, a motion was passed at the conference, calling for discussions with the Irish Prison Service about addressing fears that passive effects on officers of drugs consumed by inmates may result in a positive roadside drug test if an officer is tested.
