An end to the "culture of overtime" in the Prisons Service was signalled yesterday by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, who said it was absurd for officers to be working up to 70 hours a week.
With some prison officers now earning up to £75,000 a year - more than a prison governor - the issue is set to dominate discussions between the Department of Justice and the Prison Officers' Association in the next 12 months. In the meantime, the Minister wants an immediate curb on the most excessive hours worked.
The POA agrees there is a problem, but warned the Minister at its conference in Kilkenny yesterday that eliminating overtime would come at a big price in compensation to staff.
Mr O'Donoghue told conference delegates that the cost of overtime in the Prisons Service, £38 million last year, was unsustainable. "Grossly excessive levels of overtime working by some officers, in my view, puts everyone who works with them at personal physical risk," he said.
"I am talking about people working up to 70 hours per week, week after week. I have asked the director-general [of the Prisons Service, Mr Sean Aylward] to bring this absurd situation to an end without prejudice to the longer-term issue of overtime working. I have told him I want an overall limit set to the extra hours that individual officers may work in the interests of health and safety."
Mr Aylward later told journalists the highest overtime earners in the service were receiving £45,000 to £50,000 on top of basic salaries of between £25,000 and £30,000.
The Minister said a review conducted by a Prisons Service team, published in February, had concluded that the problem could be addressed without extra staff.
At present, he said, there was widespread inappropriate allocation of staff, no cover for court duties and inadequate cover for annual leave.
The POA president, Mr Frank O'Donnell, said it was not acceptable for Mr O'Donoghue and Mr Aylward to "chastise prison officers and their representatives over the unacceptable levels of overtime".
The service had relied on overtime since the 1970s and too much emphasis had been put into trying to curtail the level of overtime instead of trying to address the inherent problems causing it.
"Let there be no mistake, overtime is a management tool used by our employer as the cheap option to address staff shortages in our prisons," Mr O'Donnell said.
The union's deputy general secretary, Mr Tom Hoare, said change was inevitable, but compensation for loss of overtime would be a primary objective. Prison officers required a long-term settlement and £47 million, the estimated expenditure on overtime this year, did not match the kind of costs they had in mind for such a deal.
The issue is to be addressed by an eight-member team, with four each from the Prisons Service and the POA, established in March. It is expected to report by next spring.
