PRISON OFFICERS ESCORTING prisoners to a Dublin courthouse found a quantity of drugs hidden inside a toilet brush holder at the facility believed to be destined for a jail. 

Last Wednesday the Irish Prison Service Escort Group accompanied accused people who were on remand to the facility in the city centre. 

Sources have said the incident happened at the court on Chancery Street in Dublin city centre, near the Bridewell Garda Station.

It is understood that inside a toilet there was a large quantity of drugs wrapped in plastic inside a toilet bowl brush holder in a public toilet. The substances were in tablet and powder form. 

The officers were searching the toilet during their duties so that prisoners could use the facility.

The Prison Service has confirmed the find and that gardaí are set to test the quantity. Investigations are ongoing. 

Sources said it is believed, given the way the drugs were wrapped, that the drugs would be concealed internally by a prisoner. 

A Prison Service spokesman said that the toilet where the drugs were found were accessible to the public.

“The placing of drugs in a public environment represents a severe threat not to only to the Prison Officers on escort and those back in the prison should it be successfully smuggled, but also to the prisoner and other persons, including children, using the Court facilities.

“The escorting staff are commended for not only playing a part in providing safe and secure custody, but also for playing a continued part in ensuring public safety to the wider community,” a Prison Service spokesman said. 

In figures released in October of last year more than 90 prisoners suffered drug overdoses in prison. 

As many as 6,201 seizures were recorded for 2021 to October of last year, in the same period between 2015 to 2010 there were 6,181 seizures recorded.