PRISON officers' lives were "put at risk unnecessarily" when no armed escort was provided for Thomas Clarke, the prisoner who escaped from custody last month, according to the president of the POA.
Mr Michael Lawton said prison officers are "an unarmed body and as such must rely on the other State security services when escorting dangerous prisoners."
"The least the Government should do is provide that sort of protection when it is blatantly obvious that it is necessary", he said.
"The use of a set of handcuffs as a security measure is of little use when one is staring down the barrel of a handgun.
Thomas "Bomber" Clarke escaped on the Naas Road on April 25th when a gang of armed men rammed the prison van carrying him to court in Dublin. His escort of four prison officers and one garda were unarmed. Clarke was facing firearms charges. The gang forced his escort to release him at gunpoint.
Mr Lawton told the POA annual conference that regional Garda authorities "must have the necessary resources available to provide armed escorts when needed".
"They must never again be placed in a position where decisions taken could unnecessarily put the lives of prison officers at risk."
He said that "an examination of the prisoner's track record in regard to previous escapes and the fact that he regularly used firearms should have been enough to warrant a high security escort.
"Incredibly, with all the knowledge to hand, a decision was taken to treat the escort as medium security, with the only explanation offered so far being `lack of resources'," he said.
That explanation would have been "little comfort to the family of a prison officer, or a member of the public, if the escape incident had gone tragically wrong".
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, said she was relieved that no officer received serious injury. She hoped those involved were well over their ordeal".
"There has been much comment in the media about the manner of this escape and the level of protection", she said. "It should be noted that the escort in the Naas Road incident consisted of a garda and four prison staff a sizeable escort by any standard."
She added that she had received a report from the Governor of Portlaoise prison and a preliminary report from the Garda on the escape. "As soon as all the reports are in, I will have my Department carry out a thorough reassessment of this kind of situation.
She said she was not responsible for day to day operational decisions, but wanted to know if lack of resources could have been a factor in deciding what level of escort accompanied Clarke.
Mr Lawton called for the setting up of a crime task force which would use all the State agencies involved in tackling crime.
Successive governments had failed to deal with the issue in a serious manner, Mr Lawton said. "Aside from the paramount importance of public safety, consideration should be given to the ever increasing financial cost of crime both in the public and private sector. This should have resulted in a serious and sustained war on criminals."
A task force was needed so that the State bodies acted in a coordinated way against crime. "Demoralised gardai, chaos in the courts and overcrowded prisons will not improve the situation," he said.
Task forces had been set up to cope with the hepatitis problem and the closure of factories such as Packard in Tallaght. "Where is the Government's task force to identify the necessary and immediate responses to crime and ensure that they are implemented?"