The worsening overcrowding crisis in prisons highlights the need for reform of a failing justice system, according to Social Democrats justice spokesperson Gary Gannon.
Deputy Gannon, who will visit the Dóchas women’s prison this week alongside his colleague Senator Patricia Stephenson, said:
“The most recent figures show the Dóchas facility is operating at 138% capacity – this year, we’ve seen the national prison population rise to over 5,528, with nearly 460 people now sleeping on cell floors.
“Amazingly, it has been reported that some prisons may soon be forced to use recreation halls and even classrooms to house inmates – this is what happens when you treat prison as a catch-all solution to complex social issues.
“Addiction, poverty, trauma, mental ill-health – these are the drivers of so much of the offending we see. Imprisoning people without addressing those issues doesn’t solve anything. It just compounds the harm.
“Yes, we need to address capacity pressures, but how we do that matters – if we simply build more cells without meaningful investment in non-custodial alternatives, rehabilitation, and early intervention, we’re not fixing the problem.
“We’re just creating more places for people to fall through the cracks.
“We urgently need a smarter, evidence-led approach that focuses on keeping people out of prison in the first place – that means access to addiction services in the community, it means housing supports, it means mental health care that doesn’t come with a prison gate attached.
“If a person’s only route to care is through incarceration, then the system has already failed them – the Minister for Justice has even admitted that some judges are sending people to prison so they can access detox or treatment services.
“Prisons should be a place of last resort, not a stand-in for the community supports that have been stripped away over years of neglect – there’s a cost to all of this.
“Failing to invest in early intervention doesn’t save money, it simply shifts the cost onto the prison system, onto families, and onto communities living with the fallout – that’s an abdication of responsibility by this government.”
July 21st, 2025