The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration has today authorised the publication of the report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons on the death in custody of Mr J 2020. This report was submitted to the Minister’s predecessor in October 2024. The Chief Inspector’s report is published together with a disclaimer stating that the current Minister has decided that “it would be contrary to the public interest” to publish the summary of the State Pathologist’s post mortem examination report set out in section 12 of the Chief Inspector’s report. An action plan prepared by the Irish Prison Service in response to the recommendations in the report has also been published today.
Reports on deaths in prison custody prepared by the Office of the Inspector of Prison are anonymised in an effort to respect the privacy of the next of kin of the deceased. Consequently, the Office is not in a position to confirm the identity of Mr J 2020. The Chief Inspector of Prisons does not comment on the content of anonymised death in custody reports and will not be commenting further on the report on the tragic death of Mr J 2020. The Chief Inspector considers that the content of his report speaks for itself.