Crisis talks aim to avert strike at Mountjoy
Local discussions are ongoing and national talks are due to take place in the next day or so.
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) is not confident of a resolution and said, if that is the case, a ballot for industrial action — up to and including strike action — would be held.
“Discussions are going on locally and we’re meeting the Irish Prison Service nationally in the coming days,” said POA president Stephen Delaney. “Staff have already made a decision to ballot. If those talks are resolved to our satisfaction — but I’m not sure that they will — then there will be no need for a ballot.”
POA members in Mountjoy stopped working for four hours on Tuesday, shutting down the jail. They took this decision after they were told that morning by management that a violent prisoner, Leroy Dumbrell, was going to be housed in the prison’s recently opened separation unit.
The POA said the placement of what they describe as a “disruptive” inmate in the separation unit breached an agreement between them and prison management.
“The regime and staffing levels agreed for the separation unit did not cater for disruptive prisoners, that’s the crux of the issue,” said Mr Delaney.
The separation unit houses around 50 inmates who are on protection, either for their own safety or that of other prisoners.
Mr Delaney said the unit had “minimum staff levels”, which had been agreed based on the type of prisoner housed there and the regime in place.
“Is was not for prisoners regarded as dangerous. His [Dumbrell’s] record shows he’s a disruptive prisoner. He wasn’t in a segregation unit for nothing.”
Dumbrell was transferred from Mountjoy in December 2009 following a riot in the prison in which four prison officers were injured and two inmates hospitalised. Dumbrell, who is serving an eight-year sentence after leaving a man blind in one eye in an unprovoked assault, was put in solitary confinement in a segregation unit at Castlerea Prison. Last week, the High Court ruled the solitary confinement was unlawful and he was sent back to Mountjoy.
Prison governor Ned Whelan told RTÉ radio yesterday he had not broken any agreement. He said Dumbrell was a “protection prisoner” and not a “disruptive prisoner”.
He said his number two told the local branch on Tuesday morning what the arrangement was, but said he was “always available” to talk to the local branch.
He accused officers of putting the security of the prison at risk and the “safety and security” of staff who remained in the jail during their action at “major risk”.
THE Irish Prison Service defines a disruptive prisoner and a protection prisoner as follows:
“A disruptive prisoner is one who compromises good order and security in the prison through constant and ongoing violent, inappropriate and/or non-compliant behaviour and is deemed unsuitable for normal regime.
“Protection prisoners are those prisoners who would be considered to be under threat or ‘at risk’ in the general population due, for example, to gangland feuding, drug debts, because they gave evidence in a court case or because of the nature of their offence.”
