Prison officers’ €60m overtime bill ‘will be slashed’
Following the collapse of negotiations on Wednesday night, the minister said the time for talk was over and he had to take action.
"I laid down a maximum timeframe within which agreement would have to be arrived at before I would act unilaterally. I've played a considerable amount of extra time," said Mr McDowell.
"I want now to consult with my Cabinet colleagues, but I cannot over-emphasise to the public generally and to any interested party the gravity of the situation. There is no money to proceed as we have in the past and I must take action.
"I will take the appropriate action to ensure Ireland will get the kind of prison service it deserves at a cost the taxpayer is entitled to expect," he added.
Mr McDowell said Ireland had a huge number of prison officers and a considerable number of prisons.
"As far as I am concerned the problems which have been identified and which have not yet been addressed after a seven-year process must now be finally tackled and that's what I intend to do."
The strong words will come as cold comfort to the Prison Officers' Association (POA) and its 3,200 members.
The director general of the Prison Service, Sean Aylward, is completing his plans for the minister and laying out his options.
These include closure of some prisons and privatisation both of services, such as escorts, and possibly of entire prisons.
The Prison Service offered officers 360 hours of contractual overtime every year at a flat rate of 1.8 times the hourly pay.
Mr Aylward said this would cut the number of overtime hours from 2.2 million to 1.1m reducing the annual bill by up to €30m.
The POA wanted 1.85 times the hourly pay and expressed doubts over how the service could be run by cutting overtime hours so much.
The POA feared that if 360 hours overtime was not enough to run prisons that officers would be compelled to work extra hours.
The association also said the deal did not show when officers would be working and when they would be off work.
The POA has called on Mr Aylward to formalise his proposals so the union can put it to their members by means of a ballot.
The director general said he would not do so unless he knew the POA was going to recommend it to their members, something the POA is not willing to do.
The Minister for Justice also responded yesterday to a report by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) which said allegations of ill-treatment by some people in garda custody had credibility.
Mr McDowell said the claims were a matter of deepest concern, but pointed out that the vast majority of gardaí behaved professionally.
The minister added he had yet to decide whether or not persons questioned by gardaí should have the right to have a lawyer present, as recommended by the CPT.
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