Ireland’s independent prisons watchdog, the Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP), has echoed the “deep concern” expressed by Council of Europe monitors in a new report published today (24 July 2025).

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) visited six prisons in Ireland last year and its report has been published together with the response of the Irish Government.

The CPT’s report acknowledges meaningful progress in some areas. However, it also highlights longstanding systemic challenges for the prison system including safety concerns, inadequate mental healthcare provision, overcrowding, and failures in the management of vulnerable populations.

The Committee expresses “deep concern about the deterioration of physical safety in male prisons, where there were some indications of staff ill-treatment, excessive use of force by custodial staff on prisoners, high levels of inter-prisoner violence and some preventable deaths, which illustrate the inadequacies of existing protections.” International monitors “observed overcrowded cells where three or four prisoners were held in cramped, squalid spaces with insufficient ventilation. Many prisoners, including mentally ill individuals, were forced to sleep on mattresses [on the floor] or flimsy camp beds.”

Commenting on the CPT’s report, Chief Inspector Mr Mark Kelly said:

“I fully share the ‘deep concern’ expressed by the Council of Europe about the state of Ireland’s prisons. The findings of the CPT echo those set out in a number of the Inspectorate’s recent inspection reports, as well as in our annual report for 2024. The Committee’s recommendations mirror those of the Inspectorate on critical issues including imposing an enforceable ceiling on the number of people who may safely be held in each prison.”

In its response, the Government sets out the measures it is taking to implement the CPT’s recommendations. In some instances, the response indicates that the Irish Prison Service agrees with the Committee’s recommendations but considers that it cannot currently implement them due to the level of overcrowding across the prison estate. These include a CPT recommendation that steps be taken to ensure that mentally ill prisoners do not have to sleep on mattresses on the floor.

Commenting on the Government’s response to the CPT’s report, Chief Inspector Mr Mark Kelly said:

“It is commendable that the Government has agreed to the publication of the CPT’s report, together with its response. However, taken as a whole, this is not an adequate response to the most urgent measures recommended by the CPT. Overcrowding cannot, and must not, be used as an excuse for prisoners to continue to be held in the inhuman and degrading conditions that have been found by the CPT, and by the Inspectorate. As the CPT and the Inspectorate have repeatedly made clear, no comparable jurisdiction has ever succeeded in building its way out of overcrowding. A focus on increasing prison capacity is not the answer to tackling the grave crisis in Ireland’s prisons”.

“The CPT’s findings are a clarion call to the Government to take courageous political action to reduce the use of imprisonment, including by ensuring that it is only ever deployed as a measure of last resort”, Mr Kelly concluded.

Other notable elements of the Government’s response to the CPT include a renewed commitment to publish the Inspection of Places of Detention Bill this year. Once enacted, this Bill will enhance the role of the Inspectorate of Prisons by empowering it to undertake inspections in all places of detention across the criminal justice sector, including Garda stations, court holding facilities and detainee and prisoner transport. Ireland has also reaffirmed its intention to ratify the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and to designate National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) under that treaty.

 

Note to Editors

The Report to the Irish Government on the visit to Ireland carried out by the Council of Europe’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 21 to 31 May 2024 (document CPT/Inf (2025) 22) and the Response of the Irish Government (document CPT/Inf (2025) 23) are available to view and download on the website of the Council of Europe: https://www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/home

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 2024 was submitted to the Minister on 31 March 2025.

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.

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).

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