One person still in hospital after prison overdoses

The Irish Prison Service said that one person from the Midlands Prison remains in hospital following a series of overdoses on Friday.

It said the issue was localised within the Midlands Prison and following a targeted security operation and information campaign, no further overdoses have presented since.

In a statement it said: "We continue to work with the HSE to identify the drug concerned and are engaged with An Garda Síochána to identify the source of the drug."

It described the assault on two staff on Friday as "unacceptable" and said the matter has been referred to gardaí for investigation.

Four prisoners were hospitalised yesterday as a result of overdoses, after drugs were dropped by drone into a prison yard, according to a source.

"A drone dropped drugs into D yard on Friday," a source told RTÉ News.

Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon described what happened in Midlands Prison as "worrying" and that he believes it reflects "that there has been an increasing normalisation of addiction in prison".

"Obviously that addiction is being met by people engaged in nefarious practices in how they bring those drugs in - but those drugs oftentimes coming in, as we've seen, are incredibly poisonous.

"I want to send my regards to the staff there," Mr Gannon said.

The Dublin Central TD added: "The situation is no longer tenable within our prison services, of that acceptance of addiction and the absence of any sort of recovery options."

"I think one of the issues with drugs in prisons is, it’s a symptom of everything else in society, we have people in a contained closed environment and still we can’t remove drugs from the campuses.

"I think we should be looking at, when we have people in prisons, that’s the opportunity for intervention.

"It costs nearly €100,000 to keep a person in prison - surely that money should stretch to recovery because the vast majority of people in prison are there because of issues regarding their addiction and once they’re in there, their addiction becomes worse."

"That makes sense to nobody unless you understand that we cannot police or imprison our way out of addiction, but then when you have people in that closed environment - the idea that it becomes worse and now they’ve become poisoned by the products available - that's a systematic failure.

"It’s not reflective of the staff in the Midlands [Prison], of our overarching system that doesn’t see people as humans worthy of intensive recovery options rather than just left there for short periods of time to become worse in their addiction."