Prison officers a moving target for McDowell

LIKE all my colleagues in the Irish Prison Service, I was aghast to hear Justice Minister Michael McDowell announce the closure of two prisons and transfer the only remaining open centres to outside agencies.

At a time when the minister’s officials and my trade union are involved in talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC), the minister’s actions are an unprecedented snub to a very effective State organisation.

That such a snub emanates from a minister (presumably with Government backing) beggars belief.

Mind you, given Mr McDowell’s reluctance to enter talks at the LRC, this action is hardly surprising.

So much for the Government’s obligations to maintain industrial peace though Sustaining Progress, our current national pay agreement.

As worrying as the current situation is for us in the prison service, it is merely a piece of a much bigger, more sinister scenario.

For the first time in the history of national agreements, pay increases awarded to counteract inflation are contingent on civil servants meeting certain targets.

These targets appear to be movable, hence the failure of the Government to pay the increases to some civil service grades because, it is claimed, these targets haven’t been met.

It is very difficult to hit a moving target as any marksman will confirm.

The fact that the price of basic necessities has risen consistently doesn’t seem to matter to our highly paid Government.

After all they didn’t have to meet any targets to receive their pay increases.

In the late 1980s, the Government embraced the trade union movement as ‘partners’ to encourage wage restraint and industrial peace.

The unions responded in the national interest.

In due course the economy grew and gave birth to the Celtic Tiger.

Now that they have served their purpose, the unions are being cast aside, the views and needs of their members ignored.

In addition to the prison officers, witness the antagonistic attitude of the Government to workers in Dublin Bus and Aer Rianta, and to civil servants on the decentralisation issue.

The Government cannot continue to expect trade union members to keep making sacrifices only to be rewarded with continually eroded spending power.

The time has come for the trade union movement to demand that any future basic pay increases in national wage agreements are given without strings attached.

Unless, of course, the Government can grant us immunity from inflation!

Patrick Jordan,

St Patrick’s Institution,

North Circular Road,

Dublin 7.