Management about-face in prison talks, claims POA

The Prison Officers' Association has accused the Irish Prison Service of scuppering a breakthrough in crisis overtime talks, accusing it of rowing back on key concessions it had been willing to grant.

In a circular to members sent last Friday, the association said an unexplained about-face by the prison service took place after last Wednesday's Labour Relations Commission proceedings at which the first significant progress had been made.

The document, obtained by The Irish Times, claims that following the apparent breakthrough officials from the prison service returned to the LRC on Thursday morning, only to significantly alter their position.

The talks were then halted. They are due to resume before the LRC tomorrow. In the circular to its members the POA wrote: "Our talks ended yesterday because management, having initially moved away somewhat from their (annualised hours offer), then did an about turn. This is of immense concern to us as negotiators and indeed for all of you.

"The difficult position has emerged at the LRC after all parties were contributing positively (on Wednesday) to a solution on the additional hours to be worked issue.

"To our surprise management significantly altered their position to this positive progress yesterday (Thursday). It is very difficult to make progress when one party pulls back for whatever reason - as management did yesterday."

The circular concluded that the association would continue to fight to ensure officers "cannot be called into work at anytime management decide". It would also continue to seek "a reasonable level of recompense for the massive productivity package now on the table".

Both sides are bound by a strict level of confidentiality, under which all LRC negotiations take place. Neither would comment on the issue last night.

The Government wants the prison officers to accept a pay rise of, on average, €10,300 each, in exchange for working up to 360 hours overtime per year.

The officers would also get a one-off payment of over €12,000. The offer is aimed at cutting by half the €64 million overtime bill within the prison service.

The officers are concerned that under the deal they will be called to work at very short notice, claiming requests to work at short notice will seriously affect their free time.

In the absence of agreement on annualised hours, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has decided to close two prisons in an effort to cut costs. The Curragh place of detention closed last week, with some 80 prisoners transferred to Portlaoise.

Spike Island prison, Cork, will close at the end of January. A small number of inmates have already been transferred to St Patrick's Institution, Dublin. The remaining inmates will be transferred, mostly to Limerick prison, before the end of the week.

The prison service confirmed it is to go ahead with plans to recruit prison officers on a greatly reduced basic salary compared to the current level of €35,000. An international advertising campaign will be launched to attract entrants to the prison service on a basic salary of between €20,000 and €25,000.