Cork prison is over capacity with 100 extra prisoners.
It comes as The Irish Prison Service say the rising number of people being jailed has led to overcrowding within the system.
396 prisoners are in Cork prison today but there are only 296 beds in the facility.
The Irish Prison Service say 100 prisoners do not have a permanent bed with many left with no other option than to sleep on mattresses.
In a statement to RedFM News, The IPS say that because of the latest rise in prisoner numbers and prison overcrowding, they have been looking at using the old Cork Prison to help resolve the issue.
The IPS have had a number of discussions over the past few years on what to do with the site that is across from the current Cork Prison however the service say that the talks "have only been exploratory in nature"
The site would be used to deal with national overcrowding within system and the service say they expect prisoner numbers to rise in the future.
5,247 inmates were in the prison system across the country today but the bed capacity in the service is only 4,515.
Out of the 732 prisoners without a permanent bed, 117 of them are sleeping on mattresses.
