Mountjoy bakery closed after years of contraband trafficking
The bakery at Dublin's Mountjoy Prison has been shut down after internal Irish Prison Service (IPS) files revealed it was being exploited as a route for smuggling drugs and phones to inmates. The closure, uncovered by the Irish Mail on Sunday through a Freedom of Information request, followed years of negotiations between IPS management and staff, and highlights how a once-celebrated rehabilitation facility became a security liability exploited by gangland figures.
An October 2024 email from IPS governor Mary Leydon described the bakery, which supplied bread to all Dublin prisons, as a known "channel for contraband" also plagued by long-standing health and safety concerns, with closure phased in over 12 to 18 months. The shutdown was only made public a year later, in November 2025, when Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan told the Dáil the facility cost €660,000 annually to run, €110,000 more than a commercial alternative, and would be replaced by a certified baking training facility. Prison officers said deliveries to the bakery's loading bay, close to the prison's main gate, were not always properly checked or secured, allowing drugs to be hidden in flour deliveries and distributed via service lifts deeper into the prison.
- Mountjoy Prison's bakery closed over fears it enabled drug smuggling.
- IPS internal emails called it a known "channel for contraband".
- Minister cited cost and security; bakery to become training facility.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Those who back the closure argue that a prison workshop cannot be allowed to double as a smuggling route, however valuable its rehabilitative aims: once flour deliveries and service lifts were being used to move drugs and phones to gangland figures, security had to take precedence over sentiment. They also point to the financial case, noting the bakery cost some €110,000 more each year than a commercial supplier, and see replacing it with a certified training facility as a way to preserve the rehabilitative and vocational benefits while removing the physical vulnerabilities – the poorly secured loading bay and lax checks – that had been exploited for years.
The case against
Others would argue that closing the bakery altogether was a blunt response to what was fundamentally a management and security failure, not a flaw in the concept of prison work itself, and that better screening of deliveries and tighter control of the loading bay could have preserved a scheme that gave inmates real skills, structure and income towards rehabilitation. They would also question why the closure, agreed internally in October 2024, was not disclosed publicly for a year, seeing this delay as part of a wider pattern of prison authorities being slow and reluctant to admit long-standing security lapses to the public and the Dáil.
Business Markets Space Technology World
Read the full article at the source →
Originally published by Daily Mail as “REVEALED: Inside story on why red-faced prison bosses ordered the shutdown of Mountjoy’s most prized facility – and how this gangland threat meant they had no choice”.