Four of the six prisoners involved in last year's siege in Mountjoy Prison told members of the prison visiting committee that "matters got out of hand". The four prisoners were interviewed separately by three members of the visiting committee after the siege in January last year. They claimed they were trying to protest about conditions and did not intend taking officers hostage.
A fifth prisoner involved in holding four prison officers hostage for more than 48 hours refused to be interviewed and the sixth prisoner had been transferred to Cork.
In an unpublished report to the then Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen, the committee recommended that better measures be put in place "for identifying serious areas of tension in specific areas of the prison."
Last week, the prison governor, Mr John Lonergan, said it was unfair to link the siege with the overcrowding crisis in the State's largest prison. At that time more than 760 prisoners were being held in Mountjoy, which is designed to hold 500.
Prison sources described the situation as volatile and dangerous.
Last year's report, which has been seen by The Irish Times, welcomed the safe resolution of the hostage crisis and described the negotiating procedure leading to its end as "impressive".
However, the report said that the prisoners who said they were protesting at conditions had not been told that the prison planned to renovate the high-security separation unit where they were being held. In fact it was noted that "The visiting committee were unaware of these renovation plans."
The report also said the prisoner handbook given to prisoners when they enter the prison "is long overdue for revision and updating". And it recommends giving prisoners information on how they can contact the committee.
It also recommends a better approach to news media, taking account of prisoners' access to radio, TV and newspapers.
The report recommends "an agreed approach, based on best practice and overall safety considerations, should be decided, and all involved in the prison informed."
Four members of the committee, Mr Michael Burke, Mr Tom Leydon, Ms Nuala Fennell and Ms Mavis Arnold, interviewed the four prisoners in Portlaoise Prison on February 1st, 1997.
"All the prisoners said that matters got out of hand. Their intention was to go on the roof of the TV room in the Separation Unit and protest about the conditions, for which they had prepared a flask of tea and a tin of biscuits.
"When they saw that this would not be possible after they had taken off a false ceiling and were detected by a prison officer who sent up the alarm, they felt they had no choice but to lock themselves in."
The report goes on to say that two of the prisoners, both aged 24, had been in prison since the ages of 15 and 17. "One prisoner told us he was the most hated prisoner in Ireland, and would not be safe in any prison now."
Another said he had an "aggressive nature" but claimed he was provoked by prison officers. "It's like putting a tiger in a cage and poking him through the bars all the time."
Three of the men said they were on drugs. "One takes heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine.
"They said anyone could see that they had not preplanned for the siege. They used shoe laces to tie up one officer, and their weapons were table legs. They further claimed that they had only used an improvised syringe, a fountain pen with a pin stuck into it."
In an account of the siege, the acting chief officer said he responded to an alarm call at 6.10 p.m. on Saturday, January 4th.
"We heard chairs being thrown around the recreation hall. I pulled the door open and saw four officers seated on the floor on the left hand side of the room and prisoners standing over them, one with a bar and one with a syringe."
The report does not give accounts of the experiences of the officers who were taken hostage. They were released uninjured on the evening of Monday 6th.