Parliamentary Question: Prison Staff

18th November 2003

424. Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform further to Parliamentary Question No. 551 of 4 November 2003, if the planned €30 million in savings from prison officer overtime in 2004 will be ringfenced for redeployment on educational and rehabilitative services for prisoners and to upgrade facilities to a proper standard as recommended by the prison inspectorate and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. [27624/03]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell): Over the lifetime of all Irish Governments since the 1980s, overtime costs in the Prison Service have increasingly grown out of control. Meeting these inflated costs has led to the repeated diversion of funds allocated by the Oireachtas every year for major building, refurbishment and other improvements in the prison service generally. The level of sheer waste in human as well as cash terms is simply unacceptable to me.

In excess of €60 million will be spent on overtime payments for about 3,300 prison officers this year. This expenditure will be considerably in excess of the overtime expenditure for 2003 on the entire Garda Síochána with its 11,900 members and this situation cannot be allowed to continue. The Government has authorised me to take unilateral action in the event that agreement on the official side proposals on staffing arrangements cannot be achieved by end year with the Prison Officers Association. I earnestly hope however that the POA will re-engage in discussions on those proposals without delay. It is important to note that, despite seven years of consultation and dialogue, it has not been possible to date to secure POA support for the necessary reforms in this area. The POA has offered to accept some technical elements of the reform package while insisting the overtime system be kept in place or 1,200 extra staff recruited. They have demanded a basic pay increase for this "concession". This is not a workable solution.

I share the Deputy's concern that henceforth the expenses associated with paying prison officers should not eat into the funding provided for the delivery of education, training and rehabilitation services to prisoners on a scale which is in line with best practice internationally. Factually, however, it is only fair to record that the salaries of teachers in prisons are met from outside the justice Vote - from the local vocational education committees who employ the staff concerned with funds provided by the Department of Education and Science. Also the probation officers attached to prisons are not salaried by the Prison Service. The scope for greater interpersonal work with prisoners by prison officers is considerable and the new staffing arrangements currently proposed by the Prison Service would facilitate more activity in this respect. Indeed, more training in regard to working with offenders is provided for under the new staffing arrangements.

The proposals which have been put forward, and to date rejected by the POA, would ensure that the resources of the Irish Prison Service, as voted by the Oireachtas, would not in future be dissipated in paying overtime for excessive manning levels or restrictive and outmoded operational practices. Instead the money would be made available to improve the physical infrastructure and rehabilitative programmes of our prisons.