Deaths caused by the toxic effect of drugs (poisoning deaths) are preventable and good clinical practice with supporting legislation can help prevent such deaths. Irish data on poisoning deaths show an increase in direct pregabalin-related poisoning deaths from the years 2013 to 2016.¹

The 16th annual report from National Self-Harm Registry Ireland was published in 2018.¹ The report contains information relating to every recorded presentation of deliberate self-harm to acute hospital emergency departments in Ireland in 2017 and complete national coverage of cases treated.

A recent Irish study¹ analysed trends in addiction treatment demand in prisons in Ireland from 2009 to 2014 using available national surveillance data in order to identify any implications for practice and policy.

A recent Irish study aimed to explore prison governors’ and officers’ views on barriers and enablers to HCV screening and treatment.⁴ In this research, published in the BMC journal Health & Justice, five focus group sessions were conducted among two grades of security staff: the prison governor and the prison office.

In order to plan preventive measures, an investigation was commissioned by the National Suicide and Harm Prevention Steering Group to review the deaths of prisoners in Ireland between 2009 and 2014.⁴ Coroners’ findings were analysed, including postmortem tests, to assess whether drugs played a role or not.

The Health Service Executive’s National Office for Suicide Prevention and the National Suicide Research Foundation assist the Irish Prison Service with data management, data analysis, and reporting. This article highlights findings from a report¹ detailing the first 12 months of data on the analysis of all episodes of self-harm across the Irish prison estate in 2017.