LAST UPDATE | 15 Aug 2024

INVESTIGATORS INTO the drug overdose of twelve prisoners in Portlaoise Prison believe it was smuggled into the facility in tablet form by an inmate returning from a temporary release. 

A prisoner has been placed on a protective custody block inside the prison as anger mounts among other convicts following the major incident. 

The incident happened on Tuesday at the facility in County Laois as ambulance and prison bosses scrambled to save the lives of multiple prisoners.

Sources have said that the drug was a “psychoactive synthetic narcotic” and tests are being carried to determine the exact nature of the substance. 

It is believed that prisoners crushed up the tablets into a powder and that the drug was then inhaled in lines. A source said that this drug is more potent than alternative being used in prisons.

Prison officers were fast to administer naloxone which reverses the fatal effects of opiod overdoses. Such was the volume of overdosing inmates that the National Ambulance Service was called in urgently to help and as many as 12 prisoners, some of whom were critical conditions, were taken to hospital.

Similar drugs such as nitazene have been detected in prison searches. 

Extra naloxone kits are being acquired and Irish Prison Service said it is continuing to work with the HSE in relation to the incident. They are also carrying searches of cells.

The Prison Officers Association said the mass overdose is a direct result of inaction from successive Ministers and governments.

Last month, the Irish Prison Service issued a nationwide public warning about a dangerous cocktail of drugs which it has been alerted to.

While there has been no confirmation on what type of drug was taken by the 12 prisoners in hospital, the Prison Officers Association has also criticised an attack on a staff member’s home in recent weeks, which it says was related to drugs.