PRISONERS in Limerick Prison had family visits and meetings with their legal representatives cancelled in a highly unusual move by the prison services.
The Irish Prison Service (IPS) confirmed that a number of scheduled family and professional visits at Limerick Prison were cancelled on Thursday June 19.
“These cancellations arose due to operational demands, including the redeployment of staff for court escorts and hospital appointments. Such disruptions are infrequent and are only enacted when no alternative arrangements can be facilitated,” the IPS told the Limerick Post following queries around the visitation cancellation.
The cancellations happened on a day when the prison was very overcrowded, according to official numbers from the IPS website.
Limerick Prison has a capacity of 311 men and 56 women.
On June 19, there were 390 men accommodated and 84 women, with 40 prisoners forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor because there were not enough beds, even in shared cells.
“A total of 57 visits were conducted at Limerick Prison on 18 and 20 June, comprising of 19 facilitated via video link and 38 held in person,” the IPS confirmed to this newspaper.
“During the week of 16 to 22 June, 155 family and professional visits took place, of which 63 were conducted through video link.
“The Irish Prison Service remains committed to fostering family engagement as a cornerstone of prisoner rehabilitation and reintegration. In support of this objective, a National Family Connections Officer was appointed in 2024 to lead and enhance related initiatives, informed by both the Childhood Development Initiative and international best practice.”
Limerick – like all other prisons – faces a difficulty in that if a court commits a prisoner to jail, either on remand awaiting trial or to serve a sentence, the prison must accept that person regardless of overcrowding.
The IPS website states that it “must accept into custody all people committed to prison by the courts. As such, the Irish Prison Service has no control over the numbers committed to custody at any given time.”
“Where the number of people in custody exceeds the maximum capacity in any prison, officials in the Irish Prison Service make every effort to deal with this through a combination of inter-prison transfers and structured temporary release.
“Decisions in relation to temporary release are considered on a case-by-case basis and the safety of the public is paramount when those decisions are made.”
