Almost 250 more than in 2020.
A record of nearly 1,400 mobile phones were seized in Irish prisons last year, twice as many as five years earlier.
It's illegal for an inmate to have a mobile phone in prison, without the permission of the governor.
But 1,387 were seized in jails last year - 249 more than in 2020.
It's over twice as many as the 648 in 2016.
Last year, 557 were seized in Wheatfield Prison in Dublin alone.
Drug seizures also soared in Irish jails last year, rising from 1,148 in 2020 to 1,588 in 2021.
The Irish Prison Service says the suspension of visits for long periods, as a result of Covid-19, led to a shift in the methods used for trafficking contraband into prisons.
It says there's been an increase in 'throw-overs' - involving people outside throwing mobile phones and drugs into exercise yards.
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