Prison officers warned ahead of vote

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell yesterday warned prison officers that the Government had given the green light to radical measures to cut the prison overtime bill.

But last night the Prison Officers’ Association said recent threats of closures, prison privatisation and yesterday’s statement from the minister, showed callous disregard for proper industrial relations procedures.

The measures - thought to include prison closures and privatisation of services - are set to be triggered if prison officers turn down an overtime offer.

The minister’s warning will serve as a threat to prison officers who begin voting this Saturday.

“In the event that the prison officers’ ballot results in a rejection of the proposal on the terms on offer the government will give urgent consideration to implementing the range of measures which it has discussed,” a spokesman for the minister said.

He said the minister had declined to give specifics other than to say that “major steps” would be taken to ensure the Prison Service stayed within this year’s budget of 300 million and next year’s likely allocation.

It is understood the closure of up to four prisons has been discussed.

The institutions are thought to be the Curragh Place of Detention, Co Kildare, Fort Mitchell Prison in Cork, Loughan House open prison in Co Cavan and Shelton Abbey open prison in Co Wicklow.

The 300 or so prisoners in the four institutions would either serve out their time and be released or be transferred to other institutions.

The Prison Service has capacity for 135 people in Midlands Prison in Co Laois.

It is also understood that options for Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail complex were also discussed by the Government.

This includes the closure of the complex, incorporating Mountjoy Jail, St Patrick’s Institution and the Mountjoy Training Unit, and sale of the site which could fetch up to 60m.

The sale would provide for the construction of a replacement prison, possibly close to Dublin’s M50 motorway.

The minister’s statement was broken to the Prison Officers Association (POA) yesterday evening at a meeting with Prison Service director general Sean Aylward.

Mr McDowell yesterday said the measures, both short and long term, were about to be triggered in order to curb the overtime bill, which is set to reach 64m this year.

The Government’s offer includes a contractual obligation on officers to work 360 additional hours at a rate of 1.8 the hourly pay.

The offer was not acceptable to the POA and talks collapsed two weeks ago.

The POA has said there was no way of predicting the work schedule in the offer, in other words, the authorities couldn’t show officers when they would be expected to work overtime and when they would be off.

The POA said this meant officers would literally have to sit by the phone to see if they had to work.

Mr McDowell yesterday said he still held out hope that agreement could be reached by the end of October.