FINANCIAL WASTE is rife in the Irish Prison Service, prison officers said yesterday, citing a litany of poor spending decisions, including a 100 per cent rise in the cost of medicines since the introduction of new “blister packs”.
Speaking at the Prison Officers’ Association annual conference, Cork delegate Mick Sheehan referred to a 200 per cent increase in spending on new chamber pots, which he said went largely unused, as well as spending on teaching materials at five times an alternative quote.
A number of delegates said such waste would lead to further calls for savings in terms of pay cuts, and that individual examples needed to be highlighted in the media before this happened.
Describing what he called “poor management decisions”, Mr Sheehan said an opinion had been formed in Cork prison that more robust chamber pots which would be long-lasting and “could be recycled for longer” should be used. This was, he said, in preference to a “plastic bucket and lid” which cost €19.96 inclusive of vat.
The model chosen to replace the bucket was a “camping kasi”, he said, which cost €60.
However, he said the prisoners retained the plastic buckets because they did “not want that heap in the room”.
He said medicines, predominantly tablets that were dispensed by nurses in prisons, were now bought in “blister packets”, but this had led to a 100 per cent increase in cost.
A spokesman for the association later confirmed that medicines such as antibiotics which had cost €20 were found to cost €40 in blister packets for the same quantities.
Mr Sheehan also instanced the purchase of art materials by Cork prison which he claimed were available in stores locally in Cork at a sale price of €8.99. He said a request was made for authorisation to spend up to €100 on the materials but this was disallowed because the supplier was not on an approved list. A request for money from petty cash was also turned down “because there wasn’t any”, he said.
Ultimately, Mr Sheehan said, the purchase of materials was authorised, but from an approved supplier who was not having a sale and who charged €49.99 per unit instead of €8.99.
“€500 was spent instead of €100, and all of this is at a time when the prison service is attacking our basic pay and and taking more money off us.”
The conference passed a motion approving efforts to highlight such issues in the media.
Paul Purcell, information officer with the association, said the body was well aware of spending waste and would be issuing a statement on it at a later date.
The service rejected a claim that Brian Purcell, director general of the Irish Prison Service, had arrived at the conference in a State car “at a time when Ministers were losing theirs”. A spokeswoman said Mr Purcell had been driven to the event by a colleague and did not have a State car.