THURSDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2025 – The Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP) is Ireland’s independent body responsible for inspecting prisons, investigating deaths in custody and monitoring conditions of detention. Its Annual Report 2024 and its Strategic Plan 2025-2029 have been published today (6 November 2025), highlighting serious and systemic challenges across Ireland’s prisons, including overcrowding, mental health needs, and conditions that fall short of human rights standards.

These new reports highlight the record 31 deaths in prison custody in 2024, the highest number since the OIP’s investigative role began in 2012. This represents a more than 50% increase in the total number of deaths in 2023. Contributing factors include overcrowding, mental health pressures, and gaps in the provision of healthcare services. The Inspectorate also identified serious deficiencies in risk assessment and complaints handling across prisons. The OIP’s reports outline what a functioning system should look like: all prisons and places of detention should provide humane conditions that meet international standards, better access to mental health care, effective complaints handling, and accurate recording of serious incidents.

Commenting on the reports, Chief Inspector of Prisons, Mark Kelly, said, “Overcrowding is not only a matter of numbers, it is a root cause of worsening mental health outcomes, restricted regimes, unacceptable living conditions for prisoners, and poor working conditions for prison staff. Currently, Ireland’s prison population exceeds more than 5,600, of whom almost 500 are being obliged to sleep on mattresses on the floor. In Ireland, in 2025, a significant number of people in prison are being held in conditions that can only be described as inhumane and degrading.”

Mr Kelly continued: “These are clear symptoms of a prison system that has breached its capacity. No comparable jurisdiction has ever succeeded in building its way out of overcrowding, and immediate action is required, at the highest political levels, to address this ongoing crisis”.

The Inspectorate’s Annual Report highlights its findings during inspections completed in 2024, which include:

Arbour Hill Prison (Inspected March 2024)

Running at 98% capacity when visited:

  • Relationships: The Inspectorate was pleased to note that relationships within the prison were positive and respectful. Many prisoners told the OIP that they were treated fairly by prison staff.
  • Education: The school was a highly valued resource within the prison and was well attended by people in the prison. There was evidence of good integration with other services within the prison, such as work training.
  • Sentence Management: The prison had significantly strengthened and improved its delivery of Integrated Sentence Management. Additional resources were in place, and sentence planning practices were individualised, targeted, and benefitted from the collaborative input of services like work training, the school, and the Probation Service.
  • Overcrowding/inadequate living space: The doubling of cells, which were already small, resulted in many prisoners having less than the minimum 4m² of living space per person, as recommended by the Council of Europe’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
  • Inadequate sanitation: Toilets in cells were not partitioned, and some lacked lids. Beds on the lower bunk were in close proximity to the open toilets, with observed distances as low as 40cm and 60cm.
  • Safety Risk: Bunk bed ladders were often inaccessible due to a lack of space, requiring men to climb on furniture to reach the top bunk.

Midlands Prison (Inspected June-July 2024)

Midlands Prison was operating at 112% capacity at the time of inspection, with major concerns around overcrowding and restricted regimes:

  • Inhuman and degrading conditions: Overcrowding led to an average of 31 men sleeping on mattresses on the floors during the inspection, in conditions described as degrading. Occupants often ate meals on the floor next to unpartitioned toilets.
  • Restricted regimes/solitary confinement: Some prisoners on restricted regimes were offered only 30 minutes of daily yard time and 30 minutes for shower/cell cleaning. Many declined the yard time, meaning they could spend 23.5 hours daily in their cells, which was observed to impact their mental health. There was limited planning to reduce the number of men on a restricted regime.
  • Use of refractory clothing: The practice of systematically placing prisoners in refractory clothing (naked under light ponchos) in Close Supervision Cells (CSCs) continued, despite previous national and international recommendations to end this practice.
  • Health and Safety: Only one night nurse was on duty for a population of 986 men, which was deemed a serious concern and insufficient to respond to medical emergencies.

National Violence Reduction Unit (NVRU)

  • Lack of therapeutic engagement: The NVRU was found to be predominantly security-focused, with limited meaningful therapeutic engagement for people living there. For example, 50% had no engagement with Psychology Services.
  • Lack of progression: There appeared to be no structured progression plans in place for men in the unit.

Limerick Women’s Prison (Inspected November 2024)
The prison was operating at 144% capacity due to severe overcrowding, despite being newly designed, which undermined its intended trauma-informed ethos:

  • Accommodation: The standard of accommodation in some parts of the prison was excellent.
  • Healthcare Delivery: Healthcare delivery at the prison was generally very good. However, the Inspectorate noted that primary healthcare services would benefit from additional nursing cover.
  • Structured Temporary Release: The introduction of the Structured Temporary Release Programme was a positive development and is intended to provide greater support to women on their release to the community.
  • Overcrowding and safety: Overcrowding was impacting the physical, psychological, and emotional safety of women. Rooms intended for single occupancy were doubled with bunk/camp beds.
  • Trauma-informed ethos: Deficits in provision were at odds with a trauma-informed environment, including the lack of requisite items in independent living areas (e.g., cookware in kitchenettes), and limited choice and activities for women.
  • Access to information: Women did not receive information booklets on committal, and there was little written information on rules, regimes, or accessing support services, affecting trust.
  • Mental health: 66% of women surveyed reported that a lack of adequate support for mental health was the biggest issue, and 87% disagreed that the prison was equipped to support people with mental health issues.
  • Complaints system: 54% of women surveyed did not feel safe making a complaint, mirroring concerns across the estate.

Cloverhill Prison (Follow-up Inspection December 2024)
Overcrowding remained the primary issue, with conditions deteriorating since the previous inspection:

  • Severe overcrowding and degrading conditions: 34% of the population (168 of 491) were accommodated four-to-a-cell in cells designed for triple occupancy. The number of men sleeping on mattresses on the floors had drastically increased, ranging from 51 to 68 during the follow-up inspection. The vast majority of people were found to be living in degrading conditions.
  • Sub-standard living conditions: Toilets were not fully partitioned in multi-occupancy cells. Some men had to stand while eating meals due to insufficient chairs. High temperatures of 25-26 degrees Celsius were recorded in winter with limited ventilation.
  • Access to basic sanitation: The limited time allocation for showers (maximum one hour daily per landing) did not permit all men on larger landings access to a daily shower.
  • Inappropriate detention: The prison accommodated men with serious mental illness who should be diverted to appropriate therapeutic settings, as well as immigration detainees, whom the OIP believes should not be held in prison.
  • Safety risk: Prison officers had placed tape and a card over the cell alarm system to mute calls on various landings, which is a serious safety concern.

As the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has recently stressed, findings such as these highlight: “the importance of Ireland ratifying the Optional Protocol to
the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) and establishing a fully resourced National Preventive Mechanism (NPM). This step is crucial to ensure continued oversight and improvement of conditions within the prison estate.”

The Inspectorate will continue to monitor implementation of its recommendations and engage with government, civil society and international partners, including the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), with which the Inspectorate will co-host an event in Dublin on 11 November 2025, focusing on the implementation of international and national recommendations to improve the situation.

The Annual Report 2024 and Strategic Plan 2025-2029 are available on the Inspectorate’s website at: www.oip.ie :

ENDS

Chief Inspector Mark Kelly is available for interview and comment.

For all media queries, please contact:

Aislinn Burke / Niall Cowley
Account Manager/Managing Director – We the People
[email protected] / [email protected]

089-492-8237/083-835-4976

Note to Editors:

ABOUT THE OFFICE OF THE INSPECTORS OF PRISONS

The Office of the Inspector of Prisons (OIP) is Ireland’s independent watchdog for the prison system. Established under the Prisons Act 2007 and headed today by Chief Inspector Mark Kelly, it inspects prisons, investigates deaths in custody, and monitors conditions of detention to ensure they meet human rights standards. The OIP was established to be a fair and impartial body, and it reports publicly on its findings and makes recommendations to improve transparency, accountability, and the humane treatment of people in custody.

The OIP’s role, established under the Prisons Act 2007, is to provide independent oversight through inspections, investigations and public reporting. The Inspectorate monitors conditions across all prisons, investigates deaths in custody to prevent recurrence, and tracks the implementation of its recommendations by the relevant authorities.