Voices 2025 - A Day in the Life
DCU Alumna Caron McCaffrey is the Director General of the Irish Prison Service. Here, she offers a glimpse into her daily life, her passions and her goals.
Q. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
A. I begin my day with a strong cup of coffee and a quick scan of my emails and morning news — it helps me get grounded before the day begins. My mornings are a blend of structure and urgency: I start by getting my children ready for school, packing lunches and managing the usual flurry of activity that comes with the school run. Once they’re out the door, I shift focus to my workday. I review my schedule, go over any key documents or briefings, and prepare for meetings ahead.
Q. What does your workday entail?
A. No two days are the same. My role involves strategic planning, policy development, stakeholder engagement, and overseeing operations across the prison estate. I also spend time visiting institutions and speaking directly with staff and prisoners. In addition to my responsibilities within the Irish Prison Service, I serve as President of EuroPris, the European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services, which allows me to collaborate with colleagues across Europe to promote professional prison practice and share innovations in rehabilitation and correctional policy.
Q. What is your favourite part of the working week – and the most challenging?
A. I love the moments when I get to see the impact of our work, whether it’s a successful rehabilitation story or a new initiative taking shape. Those are the days that remind me why I do what I do. Balancing urgent operational demands with long-term strategic goals can be challenging. There’s always a need to respond quickly, but I try to keep sight of the bigger picture.
Q. What are your current strategic priorities in your role?
A. I am committed on modernising the prison system, enhancing rehabilitation services, and improving staff wellbeing. Creating safer, more humane environments is at the heart of our strategy. Unfortunately, the severe overcrowding that we are currently experiencing is hampering our ability in this regard, building significant new capacity has emerged as the most pressing strategic priority and where a lot of my focus is. However, we shouldn’t and don’t use this as a reason to haul change and innovation and some of our more exciting strategic priorities currently includes using technology.
Q. Where does the Irish Prison Service excel; and where do improvements need to be made?
A. The Irish Prison Service excels in its commitment to rehabilitation and innovation, with education and work programmes that rank among the best in Europe. Individual transformation by people in custody is only possible through the dedication of our staff, whose daily interactions foster dignity, structure, and hope for a better future away from crime. Irish Prison Officers are widely recognised as among the finest in the world due to their exceptional blend of professionalism, compassion, and adaptability.
However, we continue to face challenges around overcrowding and infrastructure capacity, which places pressure on our ability to deliver humane conditions. The Irish Prison Service must accept into custody all people committed to prison by the Courts. As such, the Prison
Service has no control over the numbers committed to custody at any given time. As of, 05 September 2025, there were 5,445 (117%) prisoners in custody with a bed capacity of 4,675. On the same date, there were, 413 prisoners sleeping on mattresses. Since 2022 capacity across the prison estate has been increased by 380 new spaces, with 126 delivered in 2024, 43 delivered to date in 2025 with plans to deliver a further 98 additional spaces this year.
Q. How can we all contribute to ensuring safer communities across Ireland?
A. Much of the time the discussion about rehabilitation happens within the criminal justice system and oftentimes recidivism is seen as a measure of how successful our prison services are. I get quite exercised when I’m told that relatively high recidivism rates in
Ireland are an indication that prison isn’t working. The facts are that prison works, while people are in our custody all of their needs are met in a holistic way, health, mental health, education, social, spiritual etc. and people can make huge strides in terms of self-development.
For me, what doesn’t work is the lack of a similar holistic service post release and many times the gains made in prison are lost; if you are returning to homeless accommodation, it’s very hard to stay drug free and avoid your old peers. For people living chaotic lives the simple task of attending an appointment can result in failure. We need a whole of government, whole of society approach to support desistance. This is not the role of any prison service on their own.
Q. What is your proudest achievement to date?
A. Leading the Irish Prison Service through the Covid-19 pandemic is, without question, the proudest achievement of my tenure to date. From the earliest stages of the crisis, we mobilised a whole-of-service response, establishing an Emergency Response Planning Team, implementing rigorous infection control protocols, and taking the difficult but necessary step of reducing the prison population to enable safe physical distancing. These actions were not just operational, they were deeply human. We also accelerated the introduction of digital technologies to support communication, education, and healthcare across the estate, modernising how we deliver services and laying the foundation for long-term reform. In recognition of this work, the Irish Prison Service was honoured with a Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Award in 2021 for ‘Leading Reform during Covid-19.
Q. What’s the best advice you ever received?
A. Back yourself, believe in your own vision, potential and capability. Often, we are our own biggest critics and don’t choose to celebrate our inner strengths and our achievements I find this particularly true of senior women in leadership.
Q. How do you wind down?
A. I enjoy the gym, reading, and spending time with family. I also love to travel – it’s a great way to decompress or switch off.
My College Life - DCU Reflections
How did your time at DCU shape your career path?
I completed a Master’s degree in International Relations at DCU, graduating in 1999. It was a dynamic and formative time. DCU offered me a forward-thinking academic environment that encouraged critical engagement with global issues. The experience helped shape my perspective on public service and international cooperation, which has remained central throughout my career in the justice sector and my current role as President of EuroPris.
Did you have a mentor at DCU?
Professor Gary Murphy was the person I most admired and looked up to during my time in DCU.
Have you any connection to DCU since graduating?
Yes, I’ve maintained a strong connection with DCU through alumni events and professional collaborations. Most recently, I had the pleasure of hosting Professor Yvonne Daly, Dr Lorraine Boran, and Ms Lynn Clarke-Hearty at the Dochas Centre our female prison. It was a valuable opportunity to engage with DCU academics on issues of criminal justice and evidence-based practice.
You were an alumni awardee in 2024 – can you comment on receiving this recognition?
It was an achievement that I hold very highly in my career to date and I was humbled to receive the award given the incredible achievement the 100,000 plus graduates of DCU have made across the country and indeed the globe.
Can you comment on the importance of education, and continuing education across life?
Education is transformative. It opens doors, broadens perspectives, and empowers people to shape their own futures. I’ve seen first-hand how continuing education across life can change the trajectory of someone’s story, especially in our prisons.
It is sobering to remember that 70% of people in custody are early school leavers and the average school leaving age is 14 in terms of people in prison in Ireland today. Many of the people in our custody left school before the age of 15. For them, education isn’t just about qualifications, it’s about dignity, confidence, and hope.
When someone picks up a book, learns a new skill, or earns a certificate, they begin to see themselves differently. They begin to believe they have something to offer. That’s why lifelong learning matters. Not just in childhood or early adulthood, but throughout life, especially for those who were failed by the system the first time around. In prison, education becomes a second chance.
And for many, it’s the first time they’ve ever felt seen, supported, and capable. We must never underestimate the power of learning to heal and to rehabilitate.