McDowell threatens to privatise jails in officers row

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell last night threatened to privatise new jails unless prison officers accept his pay offer within 10 days.

In a toughly worded ultimatum, Mr McDowell said he was determined to return "sanity" to the service.

He insisted that tenders for prisoner escorts would be issued within 21 days if the deal was rejected.

The Justice Minister also signalled he was prepared to order the wholesale privatisation of new jails being built at Spike Island, Cork and Thornton, Co Dublin.

"I'm determined to bring about an end to à la carte overtime in the prison service and to restore sanity to that service.

"My priority has always been that the prison service should be run by public servants. If that's not possible I will have to look to other solutions," he said.

Mr McDowell was speaking after a meeting with the general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association (POA) John Clinton.

Prison officers have been offered essentially the same deal of annualised hours to cut the €60 million overtime bill, which they rejected overwhelmingly last April.

But Mr McDowell said some "tweaks" had been made so that prison officers are not forced to work overtime.

The Justice Minister warned if he did not receive an agreement from the POA before July 11 he would go ahead with his plan to privatise prison escorts and to hand the running of the country's remaining open prisons Loughan House in Co Cavan and Shelton Abbey in Co Wicklow to an independent agency.

He added there was now a final "window of opportunity" for the State's 3,200 prison officers.

"Once I go down that road it will not be reversed.

"A small window of opportunity now lies open to enable the prison officers and their families to grasp what I believe is an extremely generous and sensible arrangement."

Mr McDowell made it clear he had lost patience with the POA, saying there had been 300 meetings with them, years of negotiations and the involvement of the Labour Relations Commission.

The POA said it was not optimistic that the deal would be accepted by its members

"As we said before, we don't believe the deal we've been offered will lead to a resolution and we're very disappointed that our proposal, which would have involved no additional cost to the exchequer, has been rejected," said Mr Clinton.

The stand-off came as Inspector of Prisons Justice Dermot Kinlen called for jails in Ireland to be run by private companies.

"It seems to me that private prisons may be essential for the further development of prisons," said Justice Kinlen in his annual report.

"I strongly recommend that the minister should open at least one prison to private companies."