Sick days earn warders €8.6m

PRISON officers took an average of 19 sick days last year, claiming €8.6 million for days missed.

Officers at Cork Prison topped the league for days missed at an average of 34, compared to nine in Loughan House in Co Cavan.

The legacy of foot-and-mouth disease and the need to police the State’s points of entry led to one State employee working all hours to earn a staggering €85,000 in overtime last year.

The Department of Agriculture’s total overtime bill for 2002 was over €20m, similar to the previous year when the foot and mouth crisis was at its height. Nearly 1,000 employees earned between €6,350 and €85,000 last year. Blanket policing of ports and airports partly explains how some employees earned vast sums, according to a department spokesman.

But while the bill at Agriculture is large, it is dwarfed by the spend on overtime by Garda management and the Irish Prison Service, where phenomenal sick rates partly explain the €60m bill. One officer earned €80,000 while 2,622 pocketed more than €6,350. The average was €18,000.

Overtime among gardaí amounted to €65m, with all members claiming at least some payment. The highest was €56,825, while 3,762 were paid over €6,350. The average was just over €5,000.

Shift allowances paid to most members cost a further €80m while miscellaneous payments, including compensation to gardaí and to members of the public, reached €59m.

In his report, auditor John Purcell focussed on accommodation for asylum-seekers as questions have been asked about the purchase of sites that have never been used.

Broc House in Donnybrook, Dublin, was bought in June 2000 for €9.2m but remains the subject of legal challenges from residents, as is Lynch’s Lodge in Macroom, Co Cork, bought in October 2000 for €3.5m. The cost of security for the unused buildings was €900,000 up to the end of August.