Former minister of state Ivor Callely is due to be told this morning if he will stay in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, to begin his sentence, or if he will be transferred to another.
The most likely place he will spend the first weeks, and possibly months, of his five-month term is in the Training Unit – a drug-free prison on the Mountjoy campus.
That is where businessman Seán Quinn spent nine weeks for contempt of court. He was released in January last year. Former minister Ray Burke also spent time there during his six-month sentence for revenue offences, before being sent to Arbour Hill, Dublin.
However, when former Fine Gael councillor Fred Forsey was jailed for four years in 2012, for taking planning-related bribes, he spent six months in Mountjoy without incident before being transferred to the Training Unit and then Shelton Abbey open prison in Co Wicklow.
Informed sources expect Callely to be sent to the Training Unit or the Midlands Prison.
Addiction questions
After being sentenced yesterday at the Criminal Courts of Justice, north Dublin, Callely was taken by prison van with other prisoners to Mountjoy.
He arrived at about 3pm and was put in a holding cell with others sentenced by the courts yesterday morning for a range of offences, before being processed into the system. Prisoners have their photographs, fingerprints and measurements taken and any marks on their bodies are noted. In a committal interview they give details about themselves, including any addictions.
Callely would also have supplied the details of people he wants permission to phone from prison and those he wishes to visit him.
After being officially committed into the prison system in the “reception area”, all prisoners are then transferred to the basement area of Mountjoy known as the B Base where they spend their first 24 hours in custody.
The area has been recently refurbished as part of works that have seen conditions throughout Mountjoy transformed. It is intended as the least intimidating setting for an introduction to prison life before the harsh reality of the prison regime proper is faced.
All prisoners meet the governor while in the B Base as well as medics. The majority of prisoners committed are drug users or recovering users and meetings with medical staff will determine if they are given heroin replacement drugs.
Callely’s cell in the B Base where he spent last night has in-cell sanitation, a TV and kettle. Once he was unlocked this morning, just after 8am, he would have collected breakfast and brought it back to his cell – locked in alone while he ate.
Prison regime
The regimes in all prisons are broadly similar.
After collecting breakfast the prisoners are locked in until 9.30am, when they are let out for recreation, work or education. They return to cells at noon to eat and stay there until 2.15pm.
Recreation or training follows until 4pm when they collect tea and are locked in cells until 5.30pm. Then there is 90 minutes of recreation until 7.30pm when they are locked into cells with TV or reading to occupy them. The vast majority of cells are single occupancy.
