Drop in staff sick leave in early 2007 breaks trend
Total sick days for the first quarter of 2007 fell to 22,765 from the comparable 2006 figure of 24,893.
However, the level of sick leave in the prison service over the period 2002-2006 showed a deterioration from the average level per officer of 19 days in 2004 to an average in excess of 26 days in 2006.
The total number of sick days in the prison system grew from 63,230 to 77,925 to 81,503 to 82,580 over the years 2003 to 2006.
At 10,867, Mountjoy had the highest total number of sick days in 2006. Next on the list was Portlaoise and Cork was third highest at 9,293.
When broken down into the number of sick days per officer, Cork was the highest at 40.58 in 2006 with Mountjoy (female) next highest with 39.79 sick days per officer.
The average number of sick days per officer between January and April fell from 7.99 to 7.17 days, a fall in excess of 10%.
The Prison Service attributes the improvement to increased vigilance in tackling absenteeism together with the new additional hours system.
In August 2005, a deal aiming to bring to an end the overtime culture among prison staff was introduced.
Overtime working, which peaked at 2.1 million hours and a cost of €59.3m in 2002, was replaced with the new additional hours attendance system.
In lieu of the overtime lost, all prison officers were paid a bonus payment of approximately €13,000 per officer payable over a three-year period.
Previously, an officer could recoup the cost of taking sick leave by doing overtime; this is now not the case. Under the annualised hours system, if an officer fails to report when due for additional hours duty, those hours are deducted from that officer.
The Prison Service has said that the full effect of the new system will not become apparent until the end of the second year of operation in February 2008, and has projected that annual sick leave days per capita will fall as far as 22.92 days per head in 2007.
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