Booze behind bars
Over 4,300 pints, or 2,000 litres of hooch has been taken from Irish prisoners behind bars, according to a report today.
The Irish Daily Star discovered that booze, made by inmates using water, sugar, food and bread, is a feature at almost all the State's institutes.
In total, 2,046.95 litres of hooch were taken from prsioners by staff over the last two years.
The largest quantity seized was in the Midland Prison in Portlaoise, where 321 litres were found last year. A haul of 162 litres was taken from Cork Prison in 2014 while Dublin's Mountjoy Prison saw 105 litres seized by officers.
And even the high security facilty in Portlaoise wasn't hooch free, with 105 litres also found there.
Even at St Patrick's Institution, for offenders aged between 17 and 21, 20 litres of the stuff was seized.
The Dochas Centre, for female offenders, had no booze seized last year.
The overall total taken from prisoners in 2014 was down last year, with 889.75 litres taken compared to 1,175.2 in 2013.
A spokesperson for the Irish Prison Service told the paper that a 'range of enhanced measures' had been put in place to crackdown on all types of prison contraband.
These included 'security screening areas in all closed prisons, the introduction of a canine unit, increased searching of cells and their occupants, and the installation of nets over exercise yards'.