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Phones seized from dissident inmates' cells

DOZENS of mobile phones were seized in cells occupied by dissident republicans in the Republic's maximum-security prison yesterday.

Specially trained officers launched a blitz in Portlaoise Prison at 7am, ordering inmates out of their cells before combing E Block.

They quickly began finding smuggled phones, modems for internet access and USB memory sticks for storing computer data.

It is understood prison chiefs ordered the search after receiving intelligence that dissidents were successfully bringing communications equipment into the jail.

The operation, which continued for hours, was led by the Prison Service's Operational Support Group, which was established in 2008 to help governors crack down on contraband.

A previous major search in Portlaoise in 2007 yielded a cache of mobile phones, SIM cards, chargers and phone batteries on the D and E wings. Items were found hidden in toilet U-bends, beds and hollowed out chairs.

It was sparked after one inmate, Dubliner John Daly, rang RTE Radio's Liveline programme on a smuggled mobile phone.

He was later transferred to Cork prison for his own safety but was murdered in the Finglas area of Dublin weeks after his release.

The maximum security facility in Co Laois has been used to house "subversive prisoners" since 1973.

Prisoners on E Block include Real IRA boss Michael McKevitt, who was the first person in the Republic to be jailed for directing terrorist activities in 2003, and was among four men found liable by the High Court in Belfast for the 1998 Omagh bombing.

Republican group eirigi last night criticised the search and warned that any change of approach by authorities to republican prisoners could "very easily jeopardise the relative calm of Portlaoise".

Spokesman Padraic Mac Coitir said: "The timing of this search is highly suspicious, coming as it does as a number of prisoners are involved in court actions to have their remission increased from one quarter to one third."