Help sought to resolve prison dispute

PRISON officers are to seek independent intervention in a dispute with prison bosses over Mountjoy jail.

But prison chiefs last night claimed all issues at Mountjoy had been resolved to the “satisfaction of both sides”.

The dispute flared dramatically last week when staff at Mountjoy Prison walked out of work for four hours, shutting the prison down.

The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) claims the Irish Prison Service (IPS) is breaching an agreement between them over the use of the recently opened separation unit in the jail.

This issue was sparked by the decision of Mountjoy governor Ned Whelan last Tuesday to house a violent inmate, Leroy Dumbrell, in the separation unit. The POA claim the agreement said such violent inmates should not be placed in the unit.

The two sides were due to talk at a scheduled meeting last Friday, but this was cancelled by the IPS on Wednesday night.

The IPS said the meeting had been set before the walkout on Tuesday and a decision by prison officers to hold a ballot for industrial action. The POA wrote to the IPS last Thursday criticising its “small mindedness” and asked that the meeting go ahead. It got a letter back on Friday restating the Wednesday letter: that the meeting would not go ahead because of the ballot.

A spokesman for the POA said yesterday: “The IPS is refusing to meet us. We will utilise mechanisms under the agreement to see how we can resolve this in order to promote stable industrial relations.”

He added: “This is not about one prisoner, this is about the agreement on the separation unit. We believe they breached that.” He said third party mechanisms normally include the Labour Relations Commission and the Civil Service adjudicator.

He said the POA will contact the public services committee of the ICTU to seek intervention.

A spokesman for the IPS said: “Following discussions between the governor of the prison and the representatives of the POA all issues raised in the dispute have been addressed to the satisfaction of both sides. The governor has agreed to the redeployment of one prison officer to the separation unit.”