Jail closure plan to cut €60m overtime bill

A RADICAL plan to close jails and privatise part of the Prison Service is being drawn up to cut the €60m overtime bill.

The proposals, drafted by the Prison Service following the collapse of talks with unions, will be presented to the Government within days.

The Prison Service offered a deal whereby officers would work 360 contractual hours of overtime every year at a flat rate of 1.8 times the hourly pay.

This would cut the annual overtime bill by €30 million.

The country’s 3,400 prison officers earn, on average, €19,000 from overtime annually.

Prison Service director general Seán Aylward yesterday dismissed calls from the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) to formalise his proposals so they could put the offer to their members.

“There is such a gap between us, it’s so great, that my view as manager of prisons, that it is prudent to report to our minister, and say that we have to start considering our options urgently.

“As regards formalising the offer. Before we go printing off large volumes of documents I need to know if they are for real, negotiations wise. I need to know are they going to recommend it, and not recommend it be rejected.”

Mr Aylward said he was considering prison closures and privatisation of some activities, such as escorts. He also said privatising some prisons entirely could not be ruled out.

“I’m not excluding it as an option. You hear claims that private prisons are horrific. They are good private prisons and bad ones. There is no reason to believe that if we went down the track of privately-run prisons that they’d be bad. Why should they be?”

But he said the decision would be for Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

Last April, Mr McDowell told prison officers at their annual general meeting that he was setting a three-month deadline for agreement to cut the €60m overtime bill.

He warned he would force through his own conditions if they failed to do so.

Mr Aylward said this year’s overtime bill would hit €64m and that €20m originally intended for prison refurbishment work had to be diverted to pay overtime.

He said the Prison Service proposal would reduce overtime hours from €2.2m to €1.1m in a year.

POA general secretary John Clinton dismissed Mr Aylward’s claim that prison officers wanted to work 460 hours overtime.

“We said our members would not work more than the Organisation of Working Time Act, which was 460 hours.”

He said the POA could not say until the executive met next Wednesday if they’d recommend a formal proposal to members.