Director of the Prison Service Michael Donnellan said he is preparing a three-year plan to deal with overcrowding, in-cell sanitation and the other major problems in the country's prisons.
Mr Donnellan said that while he was aware of the conditions in Limerick Prison some of the elements of the Inspector Prisons Report were shocking.
He said the prison population had increased by 30% over the last five years and that the committal rate in Limerick prison alone had increased 84%.
Even though more people are being sent to prison the finances are no longer available to build more prisons, so the director says he is embarking on a variety of alternative strategies to reduce the number of inmates in the country's jails.
He said he would work with community-based programs, the Gardai and the Judiciary to divert people away from the country's jails.
He described his plan as a radical approach which will be presented to the Minister for Justice at the end of March which will include timelines and targets to rebalance the prison population.
He said today there were 500 inmates serving sentences of 12 months or less and he wanted these people to serve their penalties in the community, and swap prison time for community time.
However, Mr Donnellan also insisted that those who need to be in prison will be kept in prison while alternatives will be found for the others.
He also said he was confident that his plan would work and he promised that the problems at Limerick Prison highlighted in the Inspector's report are being remedied and would be resolved in the immediate future.
