Overtime row threatens to shut down four prisons

FOUR prisons face closure in a programme of shutdowns to begin in January unless agreement is reached in the overtime dispute with prison officers, prison bosses warned yesterday.

As talks aimed at solving the dispute opened at the Labour Relations Commission in Dublin, director general of the Irish Prison Service Sean Aylward said: “Overtime costs must be tackled. Doing nothing is not an option.”

Among the institutions earmarked for early closure are Fort Mitchell and the Curragh Prison. Shelton Abbey and Loughlan House, both so-called open prisons would be closed temporarily and thereafter privatised

Spike Island prison in Cork, which caters mostly for young offenders, would also shut down. “I would hope Spike Island could reopen shortly but if there is no agreement we will have to move young offenders from Munster to Dublin,” Mr Aylward said.

Mr Aylward, who was in Cork Prison for the launch of an advice booklet , said the cost of keeping each inmate, at almost 85,000 a year, was double that of Britain and that overtime costs contributed largely to this.

“The capital budget for prison development is being gobbled up in overtime. That situation is crazy and cannot continue,” he said Mr Aylward said all prison governors had been informed that overtime spending was to be halved next year:

“They will have just 30 million to spend on overtime in 2004. At the moment it is costing over 60m and that is clearly not sustainable.”

He said former chairman of the Employer Labour Conference the late Basil Chubb was largely to blame for the introduction of the current overtime regime. “Staff are not to blame for the rostering system which is haemorrhaging money from the capital budget,” he said.

Annual expenditure on the State’s 16 prisons topped 331m last year. Of that, 204m went on pay. The Government and the prison service wants officers to accept an offer of 10,300 extra in return for working up to 360 hours overtime per year as well as a one-off payment of 12,250 payable over three years.

The prison officers have rejected the deal. “There is one prison officer who worked so much overtime last year that he earned 122,000, just 1,000 short of what I earn myself,” he said.