NINE plasma televisions were confiscated from some of the most hardened criminals in the State during a search last year of Portlaoise Prison, it has emerged.
The televisions were taken following a search of the E1 landing, which housed prisoners including John Gilligan and Limerick drug trafficker Christy Keane.
The news emerged yesterday at the Prison Officers' Association (POA) conference in Kilkenny where there was criticism of the way in which the Irish Prison Service (IPS) handled the search.
It was carried out a year ago this week after convicted armed robber John Daly, who has since been shot dead, rang the RTÉ radio show Liveline from a mobile phone smuggled into his cell.
The call provoked a thorough search of the E1 landing and led to recovery of mobile phones, Sim cards, chargers, drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine, and even two budgies. A plasma television was confiscated from each of the nine cells on the landing, along with other electrical items.
Speaking at the conference, Portlaoise prison officer Noel Tuohy said that, contrary to public perceptions, the televisions had never been smuggled into the prison, but were allowed in with the support of the governors.
He accused the IPS of effectively "criminalising" the officers by not correcting the perception that the TVs were smuggled in. "The subliminal message was that prison officers were smuggling plasma televisions into the prison, and if they could smuggle them in, they could smuggle anything, drugs, phones or anything else," he said. The Portlaoise prison officers had been victims of a "tactic of smear", he added.
"It was on every national newspaper and on the news that a plasma screen television had been smuggled into Portlaoise. It wasn't. It was brought in with the full knowledge of the governor."
He said a "tuck shop" arrangement had been in place for 30 years in Portlaoise which allowed prisoners to buy items like televisions, using their own money. Agreement was sought from the governor of the jail and the goods were bought for prisoners by prison staff, he explained.
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service denied a false impression of the nature of the seizures had been given. "We made it clear at the time . . . electrical goods that were bought by the prisoners were allowed in." But, he said, "it was felt that type of concession shouldn't have been allowed to the extent that it was".
"There was no impression given by the Irish Prison Service that we suspected officers of smuggling."
Portlaoise POA branch chairman John O'Mahoney called on the prison service to publish the results of a report commissioned after the John Daly Liveline incident. A retired garda superintendent and senior prison service official were asked to carry it out.
"I would say that it's about time that the IPS clarified these matters and defended the good name of the staff at Portlaoise Prison and published this report," he said.
The IPS spokesman said the report was an internal one and would not be published.