A new system to electronically tag prisoners in the Republic, which will be used in an attempt to ease chronic overcrowding in Irish jails, will be established and wholly run by a private company.
It is the first time any part of the criminal justice system has been privatised. It follows similar developments in other countries, including the UK and US, where tagging systems, and even prisons, have been privatised.
However, garda and prison sources said there was significant confusion across the criminal justice system about whose responsibility it will be to respond when prisoners who are freed on a tag breach their conditions.
In particular, if a response does not occur, or does not occur fast enough, and a tagged person goes on to commit a serious crime, it was unclear who would be answerable.
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The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) has also questioned how a private company running the new tagging system will communicate in real time with An Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, the Probation Service or the Courts Service.
“It is unclear what oversight mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that it operates ethically and appropriately,” said IPRT executive director Saoirse Brady, adding it was not clear who would oversee the private operator and what form that oversight would take.
“We need to think long and hard about whether this is the right thing to do before it is introduced and ensure that monitoring and evaluation is built into the pilot scheme to inform any future decisions about continuation or expansion”.
The privatisation of prisoner escorts was considered in the early 2000s but the idea was eventually abandoned. Instead, the Prison Service Escort Corps, which is part of the prison service, was established in 2005 to escort prisoners to and from court appearances and other appointments, including for medical treatment.
In Britain, where tagging is being expanded, the House of Lords’ justice and home affairs committee has recently highlighted the “dire” performance of some private companies that operate tagging systems there. It questioned the ethical basis of tagging some prisoners, including those arrested in relation to their immigration status and then granted bail.
There has also been a notable reduction in time served by prisoners since tagging was introduced.
Dublin gangland criminal Liam Byrne, who ran the Kinahan cartel’s drugs distribution operation in Ireland, was jailed in the UK for five years in October, 2024, and was released on a tag three months later. He had 17 months of his five-year sentence served as he was remanded in custody for about 14 months before he was put on trial and sentence.
In recent weeks, documents have been issued by the Department of Justice for the supply of the software and hardware to establish an “electronic monitoring system” that would tag, and then continuously monitor, prisoners.
In reply to queries, the department has confirmed that once the system has been created, the same company that put it in place will carry out the monitoring.
“Data from the tags will be recorded by the service provider and shared with the relevant agency according to agreed operating procedures and reporting,” it added of the 12-month pilot to tag 50 prisoners released on bail or temporary release.
The proposal comes at a time of chronic prison overcrowding, all across the network of Irish jails
In June 2024, the number of prisoners in custody had passed 5,000 for the first time but has risen since then to 5,800, with the system 25 per cent above official bed capacity and 50 per cent above capacity in the women’s prisoners in Dublin and Limerick.
In March 2025, the number of prisoners in the men’s jail on the Mountjoy campus reached 1,000 for the first time and is now above 1,100.
