This article was written in December 2025.
The Prisoner Ombudsman has claimed that the Northern Ireland Prison Service was “at fault” for failing to prevent an inmate’s attempted suicide in Maghaberry.
Darrin Jones said that “silo working” practices within the prison meant that information regarding the inmate’s mental health was not communicated to the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (SEHSCT), the body responsible for healthcare in prisons.
The criticism comes as new data obtained through a Freedom of Information Request shows there have been a disproportionate number of suicides and instances of self-harm in Maghaberry compared to Magilligan over the past five years.
Maghaberry holds just over double the number of prisoners as Magilligan, yet recorded five times as many suicides and “potentially self-inflicted deaths”.
There were also five times as many incidents of self-harm in Maghaberry compared to Magilligan during the same period.
Mr. Jones’ remarks pre-empt a report due to be published by his office later this month about a case in which a remand prisoner in Maghaberry attempted suicide only seven days into his incarceration.
The report is expected to show that ineffective communication between the Prison Service and the SEHSCT was a factor in the failure to prevent the suicide attempt.
It is not the first time that communication between the Prison Service and the SEHSCT has been criticised, with a 2024 report by the Criminal Justice Inspectorate (CJI) stating that the organisations often “failed to engage constructively” and share “appropriate information”.
There have been two “potentially self-inflicted deaths” in Northern Irish prisons this year, one in Maghaberry and one in Magilligan.
A “potentially self-inflicted death” in prison can only be classed as a suicide once a Coroner’s Inquest has concluded.
From 2020-2025 there were 11 suicides or potential suicides in Northern Irish prisons; nine in Maghaberry and two in Magilligan, constituting over a third of all prison deaths.
Table 1: Suicides and Potentially Self-Inflicted Deaths in NI Prisons 2020-2025
| Year | Suicides | Potentially self-inflicted deaths | ||
| Maghaberry | Magilligan | Maghaberry | Magilligan | |
| 2020 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2025 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Jacqui Durkin, Chief Inspector of CJI, believes that part of the reason for the disproportionate number of suicides in Maghaberry is because it is the remand prison for Northern Ireland.
“Maghaberry has a very large remand population”, she says, “usually when people come into custody it’s at a very vulnerable point for them”.
“Practically all prisoners in Magilligan are sentenced prisoners who have something purposeful to do every day. But at Maghaberry, because of the high percentage of remand prisoners, they don’t have access to the same time out of cell”.
The number of prisoners on remand has hit a ten year high, representing over a third of the total prison population.
That puts Northern Ireland in stark contrast to the rest of the UK, with prisoners on remand in England and Wales constituting only 18% of the total population and 28% in Scotland.
Studies have shown that prisoners on remand are significantly more likely to attempt suicide.
“If someone is going to commit suicide, they would commit suicide, or attempt it, within a couple of weeks of coming into prison”, Mr Jones explains.
Despite these concerns, the wellbeing of inmates across Northern Ireland’s prisons has improved over the past decade.
From 2012 to 2019 there were an average of three suicides and 745 incidents of self-harm per year.
But from 2020-2025 that had decreased to an average of two suicides and 321 incidents of self-harm.
Table 2: Recorded Incidents of Self-Harm in NI Prisons 2020-2025
| Year | Maghaberry | Magilligan | Hydebank Females | Hydebank Males |
| 2020 | 180 | 32 | 16 | 13 |
| 2021 | 192 | 41 | 24 | 18 |
| 2022 | 170 | 36 | 39 | 15 |
| 2023 | 219 | 42 | 29 | 27 |
| 2024 | 182 | 39 | 27 | 32 |
| 2025 | 163 | 27 | 34 | 11 |
“The key improvement has been around supporting prisoners at risk and putting in place a better structure of support”, said Ms. Durkin. “By identifying particularly vulnerable people, prisoners receive quicker access to mental health services on admission”.
CJI’s most recent report on Maghaberry highlighted how the prison now implements changes more quickly following a suicide, with staff no longer waiting “for the Prisoner Ombudsman’s or Coroners’ reports to take action following a death in custody”.
Maureen Erne, Lead Prison Inspector at CJI, has witnessed a particularly significant improvement in prisoner wellbeing at Magilligan over the past ten years.
“At Magilligan the rates [of suicide and self-harm] from our most recent inspection were really low”, she says, “I think that’s a combination of a really good prisoner safety and support team, but also the whole ethos of the prison”.
Yet there are still serious challenges impacting mental health provision in prisons.
Chief among these are staff shortages, with CJI’s 2024 report on Maghaberry highlighting how staff shortfalls hindered attempts to improve prisoner wellbeing.
“People are leaving and they can’t get people in fast enough”, Mr. Jones says, “they can’t get them onto the wings, and it’s the same with health staff”.
The overall prison population has also reached a ten-year high, peaking at 1,966 inmates in 2024/25.
“Resources are under pressure, the staff are trying to manage more accommodation, and more prisoners than they did before, and that in itself is a risk area for the prison service”, Ms. Durkin explains.
There are also areas in which the mental health needs of prisoners are completely unmet.
“There are no personality disorder services in Northern Ireland”, Ms. Durkin says, “our legislation doesn’t recognise it as a mental health condition, so there are a lot of unmet needs that in other parts of the UK there would be provision for”.
The Department of Justice was contacted for comment but did not respond.
You can contact the Samaritans at the link below if you have been impacted by any of the issues raised in this article:
https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan