• People within the prison system are afraid to come forward with concerns, the former inspector of prisons reported just before she left office. 

The former inspector, Patricia Gilheaney, told the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee that co-operation was not always forthcoming from those working in the prison system.

Ms Gilheaney told Ms McEntee that her experience as inspector had been that “challenges and barriers arising from cultural issues within the prison had inhibited the work of her office in her experience,” according to minutes taken at a meeting between the inspector and minister.

Ms Gilheaney said:

Her office had to take measures to deal with this so that members of IoP (Inspector of Prisons) staff attend prisons in pairs to be assured that their version of events can be corroborated. 

The department denied access to the minutes following a request under the Freedom of Information Act from the Irish Examiner and only released the documents after an appeal to the Office of Information Commissioner.

The meeting took place last February days before Ms Gilheaney left her office without fulfilling her full contract. Sources in the prison system insist that she left because of the kind of frustrations which she outlined to the minister in the meeting.

The meeting took place at Ms Gilheaney’s request to present the minister with a report into serious allegations of mistreatment in the women’s prison, the Dochas Centre. 

The inspector had carried out a statutory investigation on the minister’s instruction as a result of claims of intimidation of staff and prisoners and harassment within the prison. At the meeting, Ms Gilheaney informed the minister that she had uncovered further issues in the course of her investigation.

“The IoP also referred to a range of specific concerns which had been brought to her attention in the course of gathering information for the s.32(2) report, including some serious allegations, which she had not reported on as they were outside the terms of reference for the report,” the minute states. 

“Asked how these should be considered, the IoP said she would ask one of her colleagues to assess these further, and that the relevant records were retained by her office.”

The investigation, under Section 32 of the Prisons Act, was ordered by the minister in August 2020 when Ms Gilheaney brought to the minister’s attention serious allegations in the Dochas of which she had been made aware.