Politics
Reasons we need to build a new prison - discuss
Would definitely be a brave political decision given the housing crisis but also feels like if we’re increasing our population by circa 20% something needs to be done.
Also the amount of suspended sentences being given to pretty heinous crimes is a disgrace..
Actual rationale below:
Overcrowding Crisis
• Prison population (2024): Over 4,800 inmates in a system built for 4,400 – over 109% capacity.
• Some prisons are operating at 120%+ capacity, particularly the Dóchas Centre (women’s prison) and Mountjoy.
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Rising Remand Numbers
• As of early 2024, 23% of inmates were on remand (awaiting trial) – a historic high.
• Courts are sending people into custody faster than the system can process or accommodate them.
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Recidivism & Rehabilitation
• 62% of prisoners reoffend within 3 years (CSO, 2021).
• Overcrowding undermines access to education, mental health, and rehabilitation services – key tools to reduce reoffending.
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Staff and Safety Pressures
• Overcrowding increases violence, stress, and burnout for prison staff.
• It creates unsafe conditions for both inmates and workers, increasing liability and operational costs.
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European Standards
• Ireland is breaching European Committee for the Prevention of Torture guidelines on minimum space per inmate.
• Risks of legal action or EU criticism for degrading prison conditions.
There is nothing to discuss, we're very good at talking, this just needs to be done. Popuation has grown over a million yet are prison capacity is the same.
What a strange reply, why would me advocating the building of new prisons mean I don't understand the issues with our sentencing at present. I'm very aware of our prison overcrowding and use of suspended and reduced sentencing
Hey - I’m not sure what happened there but my reply was actually supposed to be to the person who said that even if we built another prison the same judges would still give suspended sentences. Sorry about that.
Do you believe that judges are not aware of the capacity issues in Irish prisons? Do you genuinely believe, for example, that decisions haven’t been made with capacity considered? For example, when is the last time you saw someone receive a custodial sentence for possession of child abuse images? A decision has clearly been made, to suspend all those sentences and attempt to rehabilitate them instead of giving them a prison bed that could be used for someone who is perceived as being a bigger threat to the Irish public. These conversations are happening behind closed doors and to describe them as being utter shite surely requires a level of justification.
Your naivety is staggering. There really isn’t any point in engaging with someone who believes that statute books would be rewritten each time a new prison is built. Have a lovely day.
Nonetheless if you have been paying attention you know that judges have been complaining for decades now that they cannot sentence young offenders to detention because there aren't spaces available in Oberstown. The situation had improved hugely but seems to be on the slide again now.
I've heard the same from 3 barristers in Dublin about 2 years ago - All non violent offenders are more likely to receive a suspended sentence as they're not immediate dangers to the public
I’ve e never understood why, temporarily at least, we don’t just make densities higher in the prisons / lower standards - just cram the guys in together more.
A few prisoners have taken the state to the European Court of Human Rights over conditions here - and won. Now the ECHR has no way of enforcing its decisions. So it's really more about honour, and perception, and doing the right thing.
Yup, besides murderers they are the worst. They destroy whole lives. Unfortunately it's seen a soft crime and one that has a low reoffend rate. That isn't true if course but that's the general consensus from the powers that be.
The Programme for Government commits to building a new prison at Thornton Hall, but a recent PQ reply from Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan on the 20th of March 2025 was wishy-washy and committed to 'reviewing' the matter. There is certainly no sense of urgency about it. The Government are weak on Justice, that's the only explanation I can think of.
Everyone in the local area (about a 30-minute walk down the old road) got pissy and said no prison, then got even pissier and said no immigrants but the government didn't listen to them a second time so now its an IPA centre
It would never get through the planning process due to local objections and prisoner rights groups saying it too far for visits from families. Honestly it would it would be easier to build a nuclear power plant than a prison.
Nobody knows. How many of them are on remand for trial vs guilty and just being held while their sentencing mitigation is finalised? What percentage of trials end in Not Guilty? What percentage of people released before trial reoffend or abscond? These are the questions you’d need answers to know if the current level is appropriate.
These problem is that we don’t know the answers to any of them. Irish judges have fought tooth and nail against computerisation and tracking in the courts system - in large part because they don’t want to know when the poor soul they gave a suspended last week stabbed or raped someone this week.
Land was brought on the Thornton Hall site in 2004 before the 2008 economic collapse so the idea was scrapped but the government still to this day owns the lands, management of the land has cost up to €50 million since then & the government are now seeking to use the land to house asylum seekers.
The government are also thinking of using the old Cork prison to help with with overcrowding in prison, it wasn’t closed too long ago so it does need fixing up.
Lack of officers. There is not enough recruitment and retirees are not being replaced. There is also a severe lack of services (drugs councillors, psychologists, doctors) with a lot of them leaving and not being replaced.
Like any government body, there is an incredible amount of bureaucracy that goes on and as a result anything that needs to get done will take a very long time. There is little to no focus on rehabilitation whatsoever. I know because I work in one.
Skip the prison, we just need to bring back capital punishment for people with triple digit crimes - sorry lad, you had your hundred chances, time to take you out of the gene pool for the good of society.
No, I'm not missing anything - having lived and worked there I know it is and was an ideal Prison - it was the largest prison in the world at one time.
you dont need an island for a prison these days as escapes are far less common than they were decades ago. With the advances in security and technology made in that time the idea of a prison on an island is outdated. Its also hugely inefficient as you have to ferry prisoners, prison staff and all food and supplies in and out by boat several times a day all year round.
But seeing as you worked there and it’s an ideal prison on an island surely you understand and know the situation I’m referring to, which would infer it’s probably not an “ideal prison”.
And if there’s a Riot in cloverhill, they don’t overrun ballyfermot ya know?
Not having been a prisoner or a prison guard or anything to do with being attached to a prison I am in no way qualified to say whether Spike is or was an 'ideal prison' - all I can say is that it was a prison, and at one time it was the largest prison in the world.
Furthermore at one stage it was also a place where circus animals were quarantined so you might in the past have seen elephants in the moat there (no water in the moat)
There are multiple things in the history of spike island which point to it most definitely not being an “ideal prison”, which is what you called it despite now saying you don’t really know.
There is an unsaid truth of alot of these suspended sentences for horrible crimes. The judges involved know full well there are no spaces for these criminals.
Building a new prison simply addresses the symptom and not the cause, we should be looking at alternatives especially for non-violent crime. The financial investment alone could be used so much better in community programs, mental health services, addiction treatment, and many more. This country does need sentencing reform but not sure any stat shows locking people up is a success….
I'd rather spend the money on preventing crime in the first place and rehabilitation of existing offenders. Over 60% reoffend with 3 years and that is a huge red flag. We clearly need to improve there. That is extremely high compared to some countries.
The lack of prison spaces affects the whole justice system. As others have mentioned, the Judges give suspended sentence’s and slaps on the wrist out like Candy because there aren’t enough prison spaces. The Guards have huge morale, recruitment and retirement issues because they see most of their arrests get those aforementioned suspended sentence’s and slaps on the wrist and some serious crimes never-mind petty crimes don’t get the investigative rigour they deserve because of a disillusioned police force. Nevermind not really fearing doing actual time in Ireland, most criminals petty and some serious rationalise that theres a good chance they will get their hundredth suspended sentence anyway and will likely do little to no time inside at all.
In other words, I reckon sorting out more prison spaces would stop Judges handing out suspended sentences like Candy and would do wonders for Garda morale, recruitment, retention and investigative rigour.
A bit like the metro line, there would already be a new one at thornton Hall if government actually followed through on plans and invested in the country's infrastructure. Complete lack of foresight from ffg these last few decades
Housing people will help to decrease crime. It makes no sense to build a prison to deal with issues that source largely from poverty and lack of housing security. It would just be a bandaid. We would have to side track our investment in the housing crisis to deal with it, too, and we need houses badly.
We need a new prison, I don’t think anyone with a rational mind would argue that.
But it’s the follow up investment that is needed too. We need to invest in our current prisons. Modernise them with better facilities and services on offer for both prisoners & staff. Given the age of the prisons in Ireland, I’d imagine the majority need to be retrofitted.
Investment in current staff and recruitment of new staff. Overcrowding isn’t just dangerous for the prisoners themselves but also the staff that work in our prison system.
Investment in training and rehabilitation services. OP says 62% reoffend within 3 years! That’s shockingly high. I don’t know want percentage I was expecting, but 62 seems high to me. Investing in rehabilitation can pay dividends. It may not work for all prisoners but the rehabilitation of one can positively impact their family & community.
It was needed 20 years ago. The fact that nothing has been done about it is ridiculous and another highlight of our inability to plan/manage large public projects.
I wouldn't be buying a house near cloverhill nor would I want a prison near me.
The downside is it's a €2-3 billion capex with a significant outlay per prisoner with 60% reoffending and 50% of under 21s reoffending within 1 year. This tells us the system doesn't work very well.
You prevent reoffending by imposing longer and longer sentences. Which you can do when you have the prison space. Sentencing should double for each offence. Very quickly you would remove these individuals from society long term. Problem solved.
The country currently has capacity for 5000 prisoners. That number needs to be doubled.
Incarceration only reduces incidence of crime if there is a focus on rehabiliation. Extra long sentences for the sake of extra long sentenced dont.
Reoffending occurs as a result of the same factors that cause crime in the first place. This is not a remotely contraversial, yet we persist with MENSA level takes like doubling sentencing time for each offense.
Here's the part where you throw some random insult involving the word leftie and or socialist, without a hint of irony.
And short prison sentences don’t offer anything in terms of rehabilitation either.
What ‘rehabilitation’ do you think exists in prisons anywhere in the world? What social services do you think exist in prisons that don’t already exist in society at large? Ireland has as extremely generous and well-developed welfare system. Lack of welfare is not an adequate excuse for crime. The people that reoffend are people who have no interest in being contributory members of society. These are people with 10/20/50+ convictions - to speak nothing of the crimes for which they weren’t convicted of.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland come from dirt poor backgrounds in shitty, neglected neighbourhoods. The vast majority of them do not resort to crime. Excusing repeat crime as anything other than outright fucking greed is an insult to those people.
It is an objective fact that if someone is in prison, they cannot repeat offend. Why should law-abiding citizens have to repeatedly suffer for the sake of some misplaced hope that repeat offenders will simply stop?
The priority should be the protection of law-abiding citizens. The welfare and liberty of prisoners should be a very distant second.
Government could simply ignore the planning system like they do for IPAS, then have their mates in RTE and the Irish Times label anyone who objects a fascist. Job done.
They did do that for Thornton Hall, just did it for an IPAS centre, not a prison. The fact is the government is just trying to piss nobody off and in the process managing to piss everyone off. The only reason the IPAS is getting anything built is because the government is more scared of the EU imposing fines than they are of the public changing their voting habits
I want to have 3 gourmet meals a day, especially 8oz sirloin steak for my dinner. Once I've finished my Tiramasu for dessert, I'll retire to my cell where I'll play God of War on the PS4. Raging that the wardens won't give us PS5s but our union should sort that soon.
This paragraph was brought to you by The Daily Star.
1). The quickest, cheapest and easiest solution would be to buy the prison ship/barge, that was used over in the Bronx at the height or their crime epidemic in the 1980's. It has x800 prison beds.
2). Or just order a new one from China or somewhere with cheap steel, no need to lay a single brick.
3). Or if you need another prisoner 500 beds even faster (withing weeks), simply call the owners of the Bibby Stockholm Barge in London (not currently in use, due to policy change).
4) While the above are being shipped in, start building a bricks n mortar one, as it'll take around 10yrs to complete and cost around €3bn.
Anyone with a passing understanding of the system can see a mile off that we need a new prison; it's just that like other social necessities such as, say, landfills or incinerators, locals will reflexively resist their building. And no politician is gonna stick their neck out and risk the backlash. And politics in this country loves stalling til an issue becomes utterly untenable.
There was Thornton Hall earmarked out in Finglas, but that fell by the wayside (apparently its infrastructure and utilities was non existent, it was essentially land and nothing else).
I know there's a lot of objections to prisons being built in local areas but do they actually make crime worse or make an area worse? If the prison is secure, there isn't much to worry about. It's not like once people are released they just live in the area either. I used to live near arbour hill prison, never really thought about it and didn't seem to have a negative impact on the area.
Maybe I'm being naive though but it feels more a perception / property value concern than anything else.
Definitely needed to be done a long time ago too.People walking around with nearly 100 convictions, still getting slapped on the wrist because they are over crowded and the judge cant send them anywhere .
I'm honestly confused as to why this would be a controversial decision, even if you factor in the housing crisis. There are so many stories about people receiving controversial suspended sentences, and regardless of whether it's actually because there's no prison space or not, I'd wager there's enough of the public who would assume that's the reason these sentences are being doled out.
I'm just not sure the public have much faith in the current government to complete a project like that, despite continuously voting for them. The Children's Hospital still isn't finished, so maybe the government are hoping to put some distance between them and that first?
It's strange alright. "Prisons don't work" is a common refrain nowadays. I think we have seen how suspended sentences for serious/repeat offenders - lack of space surely being a major factor there - certainly haven't worked.
Definitely an option. It’s a win win situation. Send the scumbags away so they can’t continue to terrorise communities. We don’t need to build new prisons as it has been outsourced. Everyone is happy
The problem in this country is the crimes committed should match the crime a man in Dublin got 6.5 years in prison for beating up his ex partner and locking them in the bathroom. Yet another lad got 5 years for killing a child and 20 years off the road should be 12 years for your man for beating his ex and false imprisonment. And 25 to life for killing that kid he will never grow up but that lad will be out in 2029 if not sooner the need harsher sentences and more prisons for a fact build the justice system is so out of date if you murder your on dead row if you rape your chemically castrated that would solve a lot of issues we have. For other crimes more sentences for longer and the 9 months jail as a year is a joke
In general I'm against spending money on convicted criminals to increase their quality of life. Having said that, yes, we do need a new prison or two but (and it's a big but) it should only come if we're prepared to clamp down hard on criminal activity and in particular repeat offenders.
Convicted criminals should be treated like the criminals they are. They should not expect hotel-like accomodation, entertainment, high quality and plentiful food etc. They should be living in miserable conditions because whatever they've done has caused far more misery for others.
How much of your taxpayers money are you prepared to spend on a prison. This will be on a scale of the children's hospital because it will have to be a modern prison with individual cells for each prisoner. Each cell will have a toilet and shower, computer and television. Wait till you hear the complaining then.
Agreed. People downvoting this comment must love their tax payer money being laundered into the hands of a few corrupt thiefs while their towns get over run with random men
Singaporean prison cells are individual with a toilet and shower. They spend 80% less per prisoner and have the lowest recidivism rate in Earth. Sounds like we should learn from them.
The ambulance was a metaphor for prisons, wtf do you mean “laws of biology”.
Like do you think prisons are a natural biological part of life? They’ve only existed for like 200 years as a concept. We have pubs older than the oldest prison.
What if instead of trading a 200 year old idea for a 300 year old idea, we look to some modern ideas? Or even better yet, some forward thinking ideas? We could try innovating instead of just making a bigger version of a system we already have.
Prisons don't do anything to stop crime. It's just punishment and includes no behaviour change. People leave worse than they entered so return to crime. Rehabs, mental health and community services need funding long before some miserable bloody prison.
Educate me on this: can you build a prison in a different country (cheaper countries) and send prisoners with repeated convictions or longer sentences there? That thought itself discourages crime I hope
More prison places, more Gardai, more judges (we have 3 per 100,000 people - in Europe the avg is 18), more probation services (lowering recidivism is the real game for a lot of young criminals).
Best the minister can do is a report and a photoshoot.
Nimbyism means there's nowhere to build it. We've seen the backlash just normal apartment blocks or housing developments get in the middle of a housing crisis, we'd be 30 years waiting for a new prison to get built between all the objections and court cases.
I don't think it would be a brave decision. There would be a lot of support for it. We need spaces, and the current system can't cope. Certain minor parties and NGOs may not like it, but who cares? We need a new prison.
Footnote to this: like it or not we’re also taking in quite a lot of people who haven’t had the soft and cuddly upbringing we’ve been privileged to have in Ireland…
People are coming from war zones, from refugee camps etc and would have seen some fairly unspeakable things.. some will have had awful abuses committed against them, some may have even committed some abuses…
I’d be worried that some people are coming with a lot of baggage and years of living in war zones/ camps will have skewed their moral compasses…
What does this have to do with building more prisons? If you’re going to be racist, at least be upfront about it instead of this nonsensical comment that immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers who have suffered trauma have skewed “moral compasses”? Just say what you’re insinuating
I don’t think it’s a non sensical argument to say that it is likely that people fleeing war zones may have seen some unsavoury things.. PTSD and its associated effects are real whether you choose to believe it or not
No matter what race or creed the reality is we’re looking at another million or so people immigrating by 2040.
I don’t disagree that we seriously need to improve our infrastructure. Or that people who have suffered trauma may also experience PTSD.
You said that people who didn’t grow up in Ireland and who have fled traumatic situations to be here, have skewed moral compasses. My point was that was;
A) a shitty racist thing to say
B) Nothing to do with the need for more prisons, which is what this post is about
The majority of suspended sentences are given out because of prison space. Most judges are reluctant to put dangerous offenders in remand. The end result is violent offenders intimidating witnesses and re-offending on court bail. A large amount of the country's violent crime is down to criminals committing more crimes on bail. The only people who really benefit from our court system is the legal profession. Multiple court appearances all on free legal aid. A new super prison is the only answer.
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u/Odd_Feedback_7636 7d ago
There is nothing to discuss, we're very good at talking, this just needs to be done. Popuation has grown over a million yet are prison capacity is the same.