Prisoner tagging to go back to tender amid ongoing overcrowding at Cork Prison 

No responses to a Government tender for electronic monitoring of prisoners were made by the deadline, the Department of Justice has said, as overcrowding in Cork Prison is near record levels.

Justice minister Jim O’Callaghan said last August that an initial rollout of electronic monitoring was expected later in 2025 following a procurement exercise to select a service provider.

A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Echo: “The tender for electronic monitoring closed at 5pm on February 6, 2026.

“No responses were received by the deadline, with one response being submitted after the closing time.

“Therefore, the competition was cancelled … late responses could not be accepted. The tender has been reissued.

“The programme for government commits to implement electronic tagging for appropriate categories of prisoner. Work is under way to operationalise electronic monitoring in line with existing legislative provisions, with a pilot phase expected to be operational in 2026.”

It comes amid ongoing overcrowding in Cork Prison, which had 420 people in custody yesterday, 116 more than it has capacity for even after an additional eight beds were added at the start of this year.

Overcrowding

The overcrowding record, 423, was set last Friday, and the prison is regularly the most overcrowded men’s prison in Ireland, though the Irish Prison Service as a whole has also been stretched beyond capacity since 2023, with 1,140 people imprisoned without a bed yesterday.

Cork Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice said that in May 2025: “Minister O’Callaghan described the delays in the rollout of electronic tagging for prisoners on temporary release as ‘embarrassing’.

“Incredibly, nearly 20 years since legislation was enacted on electronic tagging we have seen no progress,” he said, adding that the commitment to a pilot phase this year seems “unlikely”.

Mr Rice said: “When I visited Cork Prison in October last year, I was very concerned about its conditions. Irish prisons are already bursting at the seams.

“Across the country, some prisoners are forced to sleep on floors and eat their meals off the ground beside unpartitioned toilets. Overcrowding undermines safety, rehabilitation, mental-health care, and basic human dignity. There’s no time to waste.”