A MAJOR operation was carried out at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison following a weekend of mayhem in which an officer was sliced and another had a hot cup of tea thrown in his face.
The Irish Sun has learned that around 30 phones and 5,000 tablets were seized at the jail today.
Officers also nabbed bags of crack cocaine, while weapons were also discovered.
Sources have also told how there has been heightened tensions at the prison over the weekend.
The most high-profile incident, which was revealed by the Irish Sun, saw one officer sliced from his lip to his chin.
The lag who carried out the attack is a dangerous criminal with almost 80 convictions whose behaviour has been extremely volatile behind bars.
But there have also been at least two further attacks on staff in Mountjoy, with one officer 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: “Tensions at the prison have been high in recent days.
“There is clearly a lot of drugs in circulation and this is leading to incidents, often violent.
“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”.
‘FIREBALL’ PACKAGES
It is suspected that much of the contraband is being delivered by drones in packages dubbed as ‘fireballs.’
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.
‘EXTREMELY CONCERNED’
Hundreds of thousands was spent on “interceptor drones” but were never used while other technology invested in is outdated.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.”
