Prisoners set to be moved if strike starts

STAFF and inmates at two prisons earmarked for closure may be transferred within weeks as the long running and fractious overtime dispute threatens to boil over into strike action.

Spike Island in Cork and Curragh Prison in Kildare will be mothballed, and maybe re-opened in the future, while two other facilities will be removed from the management of the prison service under proposals to be discussed by the Cabinet today. Justice Minister Michael McDowell will also ask the Government to approve the privatisation of prison escorts, which eat up an estimated 25% of the overtime bill, €64m this year.

There is informed speculation Mr McDowell wants the two prisons closed and staff and inmates transferred by the start of the next financial year, which begins in just six weeks time. This is expected to be reflected in the 2004 Estimates due to be published soon.

It may take longer to privatise the two other facilities, Loughan House in Cavan and Shelton Abbey in Wicklow, the current home of notorious killer Malcolm McArthur. Staff in the two open prisons will eventually be transferred as well. All the staff are likely to be offered places in the Midlands Prison and Limerick.

Prison officers are furious at management and Mr McDowell, claiming a proposal that would have saved €30m was rejected without discussion.

“I am absolutely astonished that they are not even going to talk to us about it,” said Eugene Dennehy, deputy general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA).

Prison service director general Sean Aylward, in a letter to the POA, said the proposal was not even a basis for discussion because it included a pay claim outside of the partnership process. But prison officers believe there is room for such a claim if it was linked to cost savings. Even at this stage, prison officers want LRC-brokered talks with management.

Mr Dennehy believes the Government may be working to a different agenda.

Was it all the time about closure and privatisation? Are they going further and is it linked to the right of the prison officers having a representative body at all?”

He said the POA’s executive would carefully consider the proposals emanating from today’s Cabinet meeting. He would not be drawn on whether strike action would be taken.

Prison officers overwhelmingly rejected a management offer that would have given them a lump sum of just over €10,000 in return for working a maximum of 360 hours overtime per annum and a payment of €12,250 over three years. The money would be paid even if the hours were not worked. But the POA argued it effectively tied officers in to a 47 hour week.

Prison service and justice officials are believed to have already worked out a detailed closure and transfer plan. There are 277 free prison beds across the State, mainly in Limerick and the Midlands, enough to house all those transferred from Spike and the Curragh.