Cork Prison had highest level of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults last year

Cork Prison experienced higher levels of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in 2025 than any other Irish prison, as officers say overcrowding results in “gangs taking over”.

Figures provided by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) show that Cork Prison had the highest number of prisoner-on-prisoner attacks last year, with 227 incidents, up 68% from 135 in 2024.

There were also 15 prisoner-on-staff physical assaults in Cork Prison, the second-highest in Ireland after Mountjoy.

This is despite the fact that Cork Prison is less than half the size of Mountjoy, Midlands, and Wheatfield prisons, and smaller than Cloverhill, Limerick, and Castlerea.

There were 421 people in custody in Cork Prison yesterday, close to the record high of 430 recorded in March this year, making it the most overcrowded men’s prison in Ireland.

Overcrowded 

At the Prison Officers’ Association annual conference in Kilkenny, deputy general secretary Gabriel Keaveny said: “I’m 35 years in this job, and I’ve never seen prisons so chronically overcrowded.

“We are nearly at 6,000 prisoners, and for our members to manage that is nigh-on impossible, and the levels of violence, the levels of drug-taking associated with overcrowding — it is just unsustainable.

“Something is going to happen, and it will be too late then.”

Nationally, the number of assaults on staff has jumped by 40%, from 219 in 2024 to 306 in 2025, and there has been a 37% rise in prisoner-on-prisoner violence, from 874 incidents in 2024 to 1,197 in 2025.

POA general secretary Karl Dalton said overcrowding means “the gangs take over, the violence takes over”.

“We’ve had incidents of staff being cut with blades, staff being physically assaulted — punches, kicks — as well as ongoing daily threats,” he said. 

Crisis

“Staff are working in this overcrowding crisis in this heightened state of alert all the time.

“We are currently going through an endless cycle of violence, drugs, intimidation, threats, and assaults, and staff having to intervene in prisoner assaults, so everything is more stressful.”

He said they were pushing for members to have body-worn cameras and officers to have incapacitant sprays and batons to protect against serious injury. The IPS is piloting batons in the summer in Cork Prison, and body-worn cameras are being piloted later this year in Mountjoy.