Inspectorate Team
Mark Kelly
Mark Kelly is an international human rights lawyer who has extensive international and national experience in the areas of monitoring prisons, police custody and administrative detention.
He was appointed as Chief Inspector of Prisons by the Minister for Justice in August 2022 and is the Chief Inspector Designate of the Office for the Inspection of Places of Detention, which will be designated as the National Preventive Mechanism for the criminal justice sector in Ireland under the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (OPCAT).
In 2014, he was elected by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to that organisation’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), on which he served as Vice-President from 2017-2021.
Previously, he has served as a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights Commission and a member of the Board of the Equality Authority of Ireland, pending the creation of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, to which the President of Ireland appointed him as Commissioner in 2014.
Mark is also a former Head of Division in the Secretariat of the Council of Europe’s CPT (1991 – 2000) and former Executive Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (2006-2016).
Helen Casey
Helen Casey, Senior Inspector, a graduate of University of Limerick (MA in Human Rights in Criminal Justice). Helen joined the Inspectorate in November 2015, prior to this she held senior positions in the Irish Prison Service and in the Department of Justice.
Ciara O'Connell
Dr. Ciara O’Connell joined the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in December 2020. Prior to this, Ciara was Deputy Principal Investigator and Research Fellow with the PRILA (Prisons: the Rule of Law, Accountability and Rights) project, based out of Trinity College Dublin. In this role, she examined the experience of prison oversight from the perspective of people in prison and prison staff, specifically in Ireland, Scotland and Norway.
Ciara’s background also includes research on gender and human rights, with a particular focus on gendered harm in the African and Inter-American regional human rights contexts. In 2018, she was a recipient of the Vice Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship Award at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Previously, Ciara held positions and carried out consultancy work with the Centre for Human Rights (South Africa), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (USA).
Ciara has published widely in the area of human rights, including recent publications on deprivation of liberty, with a focus on gender and prison oversight in Crime, Law and Social Change (2021), prisoner and prison staff perspectives on oversight and recommendations in Law & Social Inquiry (2022), and the experience of COVID-19 in prisons in Ireland in The Impact of Covid-19 on Prison Conditions and Penal Policy (2022).
Ciara holds a PhD in Law (University of Sussex, UK) and LLM in International Human Rights Law (Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway). She has expertise in qualitative research methods and analysis, and data collection in prisons.
Mark Wolfe
Mark joined the team in January 2021. Prior to this Mark worked as an investigator at the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission – GSOC. He has also worked for the Revenue Commissioners in areas such as: Customs Intelligence and Profiling unit & the Customs Maritime unit. Mark holds qualifications in areas such as tax, public relations, investigations and most recently in 2020 completed an Advanced Diploma in Corporate, White Collar & Regulatory Crime at the Honourable Society of Kings Inns.
Sarah Curristan
Sarah joined the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in April 2023. Sarah holds a B.A. in psychology (Trinity College Dublin), an M.A. in cognitive science (University College Dublin), a Pg.Dip. in statistics (Trinity College Dublin), and has worked extensively in social science research.
She recently completed her PhD at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin. Her doctoral research examined the experiences of prison staff and prison management of human rights based mechanisms of oversight, including inspection and complaints.
Prior to joining the OIP, Sarah served on the Visiting Committee for Cloverhill prison and worked in the Economic and Social Research Institute where she conducted research in the areas of social inclusion and migration.
Michelle Martyn
Michelle joined the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in April 2021. Prior to this, Michelle was Policy and Research Manager with the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT). In this role, she led IPRT’s annual human rights flagship project, Progress in the Penal System (PIPS): A Framework for Penal Reform, and managed a variety of other research projects. Michelle also authored IPRT’s (2012) report, “Picking up the Pieces”: The Rights and Needs of Children and Families affected by Imprisonment.
Previously, Michelle was Research, Policy and Fundraising Assistant in EPIC (Empowering People in Care), working with young people in State Care.
Michelle worked as an Independent Consultant for the Probation Service. She published, Drug and Alcohol Misuse among adult offenders on probation supervision: Findings from the drug and alcohol survey 2011 in the Irish Probation Journal. She was also a field worker for University College Dublin and the National Advisory Committee on Drugs (2014), Study on the prevalence of drug use, including intravenous drug use, and blood borne viruses among the Irish prisoner population.
Michelle holds an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice (University College Dublin), MA in Criminology (Dublin Institute of Technology), and Bachelor of Social Science (NUI Maynooth).
Fiona O'Dea
Fiona joined the Office of Inspector of Prisons in November 2020. She is a qualified Solicitor and an accredited Mediator. Fiona was awarded a Masters in Laws(LLM) from Trinity College in 2008. She was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in Ireland in 2011.
Fiona trained and worked as an Associate Solicitor in a criminal law practice in Dublin where she gained much experience in regulation, investigation and enforcement along with knowledge of the legislation underpinning the regulation of the prison system in Ireland. She then moved to Australia where she spent 5 years working in regulation for the NSW Insurance Regulator. Her role involved leading a team, investigating decisions and making professional assessments in accordance with prescribed statutes and legislation which were able to withstand legal challenges. Fiona has always worked in an environment where it is imperative to present facts, analysis, finding and decisions clearly and concisely whilst adhering to relevant legislation and universal human rights principles.
Administrative Support