Standards in Irish prisons plummeted last year as the prison service battled with “severe and escalating” overcrowding as well as “routine” imprisonment of people needing mental healthcare, a new report has found.
The report from the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) said Ireland is “sinking under the weight of prison numbers”, with the average daily number in custody up almost 10 per cent last year to 5,417.
The report said 3,653 prisoners could not toilet in private last year, while 377 people shared a cell with three or more others, and 596 were sleeping on mattresses.
There were 248 recorded incidents of self-harm, attempted suicide, or actual or suspected suicide last year, compared with 203 in 2024.
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The report placed a particular spotlight on mental health in Irish prisons, including access to psychiatric and psychological care, while examining the impact of increasing prison numbers and overcrowding across the prison system.
IPRT executive director Saoirse Brady said the agency is “extremely concerned” prisons are acting as “inadequate waiting rooms” for people with psychosocial disabilities and mental health challenges “with nowhere else to go”.
People needing psychiatric care or access to mental health community supports are “routinely being imprisoned”, something that is exacerbated by the housing and homelessness crisis.
Construction of new prison spaces “is not a silver bullet”, Brady said. “The “significant, systemic issues” would not be immediately solved even if the prison population was substantially reduced.
“At what point will we see meaningful measures to reduce the prison population and stem the flow?” she asked.
“With one in five people held in pretrial detention, and 74 per cent of committals to prison resulting in short sentences of less than 12 months, we need to ask why many of these people were required to go to prison at all.”
The report noted the average annual cost of keeping a person in custody in 2025 was €103,334, compared with the €1,450 cost of administering a community service order (CSO).
While welcoming recent legislative provisions for expanding the use of CSOs, this required adequate funding and “time and patience to see the result of this investment”, said Brady.
The report assessed the Irish penal system against 35 evidence-based standards grounded in human rights, equality, dignity, transparency and accountability.
Progress was found in just one standard last year – a reduction of deaths in custody to 14, compared with 31 in 2024 – with 21 standards assessed as regressing.
Brady said positive efforts and developments to improve conditions “are too often undermined by the serious strain on overstretched prison services and supports”, exacerbated by the “unsustainable” volume of prisoners.
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Highest occupancy rates were 147 per cent in Limerick Women’s Prison and 133 per cent in Mountjoy female prison, while Limerick and Mountjoy male prisons had rates of 124 per cent.
An average 28 people were awaiting transfer from prison to the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) in 2025, while 2,410 were awaiting psychology services in November 2025.
Transfers from prison to the CMH fell from 41 in 2023 to 31 last year, despite significant growth in the prison population.
The report made recommendations concerning forensic mental health capacity, diversion from prison, mental healthcare within prisons, and reducing reliance on imprisonment.
Brady said the onus is on the State to legislate for workable alternatives “and ensure that prison truly is a sanction of last resort”.
The State also has “a moral and legal duty to address the lack of dignity and the inhumane conditions experienced by so many people in custody”, she added.
