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THE IRISH PRISON Service says it will write to apologise to solicitors who had phone calls with inmates recorded.
The Prison Service says that over 2,800 conversations were recorded on prison phones over a four-year period, with 1,000 calls still being investigated.
Those phone calls, the Prison Service believes, relate to prisoners who are no longer in custody.
The taping occurred in situations where an inmate had two solicitors, but only one was identified by prison authorities.
In these cases, calls to additional solicitors were, the Prison Service says, inadvertently recorded as they were “outside the restriction parameters that were then in place on the Prisoner Phone System”.
The anomaly was discovered on foot of a request by the Director General of the IPS Michael Donnellan to the IPS IT section last week, but that the anomaly
Donnellan says he wished to confirm that there were no issues in relation to the recording of phone calls after the revelation of taping in Garda stations.
The Prison Service says that no third parties had access to the calls.
In a statement, the Prison Service says it will add non-recordable slots to each prisoner.
“The permanent solution to this issue will involve adding three extra non-recordable slots for each prisoner.
“In future any additional solicitor numbers will be entered in these slots. The slots will be further protected by having a relationship drop down of solicitor only to further remind staff that these are only for solicitor numbers.
“It is expected to have this solution in place within a number of weeks.”
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Given how much organised crime is managed from inside prison I’m happy to hear the phones are bugged.
this is beyond ignorant, the “organised” crime you speak of is not done over landlies owned by the state!! the calls in question relate to innocent until proven guilty people trying to talk to their solicitors, in private, like they’re supposed to be able to do!!
All calls from the prison are recorded – apart from those to one number – the landline of their solicitor. Prisoners know that their phone calls are recorded, and this evidence has been used in criminal cases.
This issue relates to prisoners calling a second number, apart from their secured solicitor’s landline – it might be another solicitor or their solicitor’s mobile number.
These calls are not accessible to the gardai, and don’t appear to have been used in a malicious fashion.
Gearoid. Many of the calls were by sentenced prisoners. Many of which would be ringing their solicitor regarding appeals and other legal matters. And lest you forget it was the prisoners own fault for putting another Solicitors number on their phone form in one of the slots reserved for family and friends. Prisoners can place 4 numbers on their call list. The line 1 is exclusively kept for a Solicitor and is not recorded. Lines 2 to 4 are recorded and every prisoner commited to prison is made aware of this fact as is all incoming and out going mail except mail addressed directly to their Solicitor, the Courts, etc.
I hope this is not an invite to open the floodgates of compensation.
Or worse. Sentences being overturned or hugely reduced.
As these calls are not accessible to the gardai, and don’t appear to have been used in a malicious fashion, it appears that there will be no legal consequences.
Why shouldn’t they be recorded, sc’m have no rights, they belong to the state
private phonecalls between someone accused of a crime and their solicitor are quite rightly entitled to be private!wtf!!
It’s sad to see you having to argue these points gearoid. Everyone has rights, and there is nothing more dangerous than authorities believing themselves above the law they are tasked to enforce. The real skum in this case are not the ones paying their debts to society.
Gearoid and Silent. The onus is on the prisoner when filling out their phone number form to place their Solicitors number in the correct line. Which is clearly marked for Solicitor use only. If they wish to change their Solicitors number they can. But they know full well the the other 3 number slots are recorded and are ment for family and friends. They do not have space for 2,3 or a 4th Solicitors number.
Sorry Mick but that will not do. The onus is not on the prisoner that they must keep their contacts with their legal counsel private, the onus is on the authorities not to listen in on conversations whose privacy is protected by law. You say prisoners do not have room for more than one solicitor’s number – well then this is another failure of the prison authorities as many people have more than one solicitor, and their consultations with any and all of those solicitors are protected.
I find it quite distasteful that you are trying to blame the victims of crime for their failure to protect themselves, rather than blame the actual criminals for breaking the law.
Silent. The calls in Slots 2 to 4 are automatically recorded and prisoners are made fully aware of this. And Slot 1 is Clearly marked “For Solicitor only”. When they are given the form they are told quite specificly that Slot 1 is the Only one that should be used for their Solicitor. If they choose to use Slots 2 to 4 for anything other than what they were intended for (Family and Friends) they do so in the full knowledge that these calls are being recorded. They know full well that they can only have 1 Solicitors number at any given time and if they wish to change that number they can.
Is there a law that states they may only have one solicitor, or do prison authorities feel they can decide what legal rights should be granted to those in their care, a law unto themselves so to speak?
Silent there is a Prison Rule that says they may only have 1 Phone slot for a Solicitor. They can have as many legal representitives as they want but they must choose what number they want on their phone card. They may change their Solicitors number at any time.
And evidently this prison rule was wrong, if not illegal, or was the apology issued to prisoners today actually for the poor options on the breakfast menu? Making someone aware that you are breaking the law is not a valid legal defence.
Why is it wrong? Prisoners are private access to legal representation. If they choose to use a slot outside the one specifically set aside for legal use that is not the fault of the prison service.
Let me put it like this. If I light a fire in a fireplace to keep you warm. And I place a fire guard in front of it. And I tell you that if you need too, use the poker to stoke the fire but do not use your bare hand. And if you ignore what I have told you and you use your bare hand and burn it. Who is at fault? Me for providing you with the fire and specificly giving you instructions of what to do or you for ignoring the instructions.
Let me put it like this, citizens are guaranteed certain rights and privileges by the law, and if you choose to ignore the word of the law and decide yourself what rights people should have, occasionally in contravention of the law, then who has broken the law?
Or let me ask, why the apology if nothing wrong has been done? In a civilised country a few warders would be exchanging places with the prisoners for these crimes, be they the result of malice or incompetence. Lucky for them they live in Ireland!
Nobody is preventing them having a private conversation with their legal representitives. But it is their responsiblity to ensure that they use the correct line to do it.
Its like having a conversation in a private room or in public area. You know full well that if you have the private room available but still choose to use the public area and others can hear your conversation you cannot cry about others hearing what you have to say.
Every prisoner is fully aware of the phone restrictions and what lines are recorded. Yet they use the non restricted lines. That is their choice and their own fault. So I cannot see why the Prison Service should be apologizing for what prisoners knowningly did to themselves.
Are prisoners restricted by law to only one solicitor/counsel? If not (and they’re not) what right did the prison authorities have to only allow them privacy when consulting with one solicitor?
Before you try to defend the indefensible further, they had no right to do so, and this is why they are apologising. Again, informing someone you plan to break the law is not a defence for breaking the law. The only question that remains is was this the result of criminal intent or criminal ineptitude on behalf of prison staff, but “criminal” will a remain factor no matter the motivation.
Again they are not restricted to just one legal representitive but neither are they stopped from changing the number on their phone card.
Their are 4 slots available for each prisoner. They system is set up to recognise slot 1 as a legal line and restricted from recording. As the vast majority of prisoners have only 1 solicitor at any given time it is not practical and would add major complexity and expense to have a system that scanned every individuals phone card to select a different slot. An example could be. Prisoner A has one Solicitor and has them in Slot 1. And Prisoner B has two Solicitors. And they have one Solicitor in Slot 1 and the other in Slot 3 then the Phone system would have to be set up for each individual prisoner which in turn would mean expanding the System memory exponentially.
Only apologise when you’re caught redhanded. Otherwise, carry on knowingly with corruption, greed and waste
There seems to be a pattern here across the entire public service and semi state orgs.
Sounds like in this case the DG if the IPS asked the questions himself & is being quite open about it. Just heard him in Morning Ireland saying that he was responsible for the mistake & for fixing it. I thought he came across as quite refreshing compared to others who have handled similar things very differently.
Were these calls recorded on Prison Phones or Cell Phone????….
I would think that is kind of expected.
“Dear bud, sorry bout that, yea?”
The prison service should NOT apologise alot of prisoners rights should be out the window once a prisoner. Keep the recordings going. Absolutely disgrace that their controversy over this.
Ordinary phone calls home etc are recorded and prisoners are aware of this. However they are asked to specify which number is their solicitors and are assured calls to this number are not recorded.
Whatever your views on prisoners rights this is wrong.
Ger, Exactly right what you said, The phone calls between the prisoner and his/her counsel must be kept private.
To say sorry is not good enough. This should not have happened in the first place along with the Garda recordings. There are not many people in this country now trust the gardai and I myself would be very apprehensive to ring any garda station now to be honest. Recordings in Prison service and Garda station. What else is going to be revealed and I would love to know who actually authorized the ridiculous behavior. The state could be sued here for millions.
That’s it, sue the state for millions because they recorded the phonecalls of criminals. Where should the money come from, the state can barely make ends meet and you want to compensate criminals who should have no rights while in prison.
recorded peoples conversations that were accused of crimes and hadn’t been sentenced yet! this is not on!!
@David Higgs you are well informed david, obviously your a pr man for IPS. So tell us more.what of the monitoring of staff phone calls . Are currently any investigation’s ongoing into this
Apologise me b*ll*cks.. can of worms opening.
it was only 80 calls the other day!!
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