THE prison officer slashed in the face after an attack in Mountjoy Prison has undergone plastic surgery.
It’s understood he’s in a stable condition and recovering at Dublin’s Mater Hospital.
The brave officer, who is in his early 40s, had his face slashed in a number of places during the incident on Sunday afternoon.
The lag who allegedly attacked him in the B wing used a makeshift weapon. The man, who is in his early 20s, is now expected to be charged in the next few weeks.
The lag who carried out the attack is a dangerous criminal with almost 80 convictions whose behaviour has been extremely volatile behind bars.
It comes as a major operation was carried out at Mountjoy following a weekend of mayhem.
The Irish Sun has learned around 30 phones and 5,000 tablets were seized at the jail yesterday.
Officers also nabbed bags of crack cocaine, while weapons were also found.
Meanwhile, one officer was injured when he had a hot cup of tea thrown in his face.
Another was assaulted in the same part of the lock-up.
In the ‘D’ division, inmates have been smashing lights and swinging brushes at staff.
One source said: “There is clearly a lot of drugs in circulation now and this is leading to incidents, often violent.
‘FIREBALL’ PACKAGES
“And it is prison officers who are at risk here in these situations.
“There was an operation in the prison on Monday to try and get on top of it. A large number of phones and drugs were seized.
“But it is clear that large amounts of contraband is flowing into this prison”.
It is suspected that much of the contraband is being delivered by drones in packages dubbed as ‘fireballs.’
‘EXTREMELY CONCERNED’
This is where packages are set on fire and dropped on yard nets by drones to burn through into the grounds before they are collected by lags.
There were four drone drops in one day to Mountjoy recently.
The Irish Prison Service has been grappling with the issues of drone deliveries for a number of years.
Hundreds of thousands was spent on “interceptor drones” but were never used while other technology invested in is outdated.
Following the incident in which the prison officer was sliced on Sunday, new Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said he was “extremely concerned” about the incident.
He added: “I wish him a full recovery and can assure people that this serious criminal offence will be investigated thoroughly so that justice will be done.”
