Prison officers ‘were illegally tracked’

JUSTICE Minister Charlie Flanagan has requested an investigation into alleged covert surveillance of prison officers.

Tracking devices were illegally placed in prison officers’ private cars and conversations between prisoners and solicitors were recorded by a private detective agency and passed onto gardaí, the Irish Examiner reported a whistleblower as claiming yesterday.

The surveillance was intended to catch those smuggling contraband into prisons, according to the serving prison officer who made the allegations in a sworn affidavit sent to the Justice Minister.

Yesterday, Mr Flanagan said he had asked the independent Inspector of Prisons Patricia Gilheaney to carry out an urgent preliminary investigation into the claims.

‘It must be stressed that these are allegations, and we must in the first instance determine if they are factual,’ he said.

According to the Irish Examiner, the affidavit claimed a private detective agency was hired to install surveillance devices, so as to shield the prison service from the legal repercussions that could arise if it was done directly. Prisoner rights group the Irish Penal Reform Trust echoed calls for an investigation and emphasised the need for transparency, citing a 2014 independent inquiry into the recording of phone calls between prisoners and their legal advisers for which no report was ever published.

Prisoners in Ireland do not have access to an independent complaints system.