By Conor KaneUpdate 5.20pm: The Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan told the conference last night that “the safety and wellbeing of prison staff” is of paramount importance to him and the prison service management. Any assault on a member of prison staff should be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including the loss of remission, he said. The prison service is to conduct a review of the prison disciplinary system later this year. Update 3pm: Prison officers have claimed that jail inmates have cast aside an “unwritten rule” that existed in the past which held that female prison officers would not be assaulted. Mr Delaney said that when he joined the Prison Service over 30 years ago, the assault of a prison officer was “a rarity” and something that reverberated around every prison in Ireland.

Source: Evening echo April 19, 2018 14:03 UTC