ANTHONY SMITH, found hanging by his shoelaces in his prison cell on Saturday, fitted almost none of the at risk categories of potential prison suicides.
The average profile of a suicide risk in prison involves someone who is emotionally unstable, in their teens or early 20s, often with a serious drug problem and who is beginning a lengthy jail sentence.
Smith was more than half way through a 21 month sentence, having earned 50 per cent remission.
He had earned an early parole deal by agreeing to work as an orderly in the high security surroundings of Portlaoise Prison where republican paramilitary prisoners still refuse to carry out orderly duties. He had no connection with any paramilitary group in Portlaoise.
As part of the early release scheme for non paramilitary orderlies in Portlaoise, there is a programme of weekend releases, including educational trips run by local VECs. Smith was on the verge of qualifying for these weekend privileges.
He was, as one prison source said, "within sight of the gates".
Imprisonment was also not a new or daunting experience for him. He had served jail sentences before and had no history of problems, suicide attempts or of depression. His present term of imprisonment had not led the prison authorities to be concerned about any suicide threat.
Portlaoise is the State's highest security institution but it has no record of suicide in recent times unlike Mountjoy, Arbour Hill or St Patrick's Institution.
While it has a regime of tight security, the relatively unregulated life style of the paramilitary prisoners usually means less isolation and opportunity for depression, self immolation or suicide.
There was no suggestion that Smith had come under any undue pressure from the republican prison population which includes about 30 Provisional IRA and a similar number of prisoners from other groups.
There was no history of turbulent family or social problems in Smith's case. He was unmarried and still lived at his mother's house at Casement Villas, a working class area of Dun Laoghaire.
Gardai describe him as an unsuccessful, if persistent, petty thief. His 21 month sentence was for 14 charges of theft and receiving stolen goods.
He was not known to be a drug addict, although thought to have been in the less serious category of "social" drug abuse.
It is also unlikely there are any drug related problems inside Portlaoise. The high security and intensive searching of visitors puts off drug smuggling which is commonplace in other prisons.
The outcry over the level of prison suicides in the late 1980s - led to the setting up a system for identifying and monitoring suicide risks in prisons. Prisoners at highest risk are put in cells without bars on the windows or any item of furniture which could be vehicles to suicide.
However, even under the closest observation prisoners kill themselves. Prison sources report that one man in a special observation cell pushed a knotted sheet through the peep hole on his door until it caught, wound the other end around his neck and pulled his feet up from the floor until he strangled himself.
Another managed a similar feat with a sheet tied to a wash hand basin in his cell.
Despite the measures put in place to identify and prevent suicides, there have been at least seven deaths in custody, from prisons to Garda stations and psychiatric institutions, so far this year.
A senior prison source yesterday said there would be an investigation into Smith's death, but questioned whether there was any significant difference between the suicide rate among young men inside or outside prison.