Mountjoy strike vote due as officers express safety fears

The overcrowding crisis at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin has escalated with news that staff at the jail are to ballot on industrial action. The decision to call a ballot was taken following a meeting of more than 150 prison officers at the jail yesterday during which many expressed fears for their safety.

Staff say the overcrowding issue has heightened tensions at the prison in recent weeks and contributed to the murder of Gary Douch last week. They also believe the high numbers of inmates and the closure of workshops and other facilities had contributed to a series of recent stabbings and other violence.

The Prison Officers Association is to begin preparing for the ballot immediately. It is expected to begin next week and will be run until at least the end of the month to enable officers on holidays the opportunity to cast their vote.

The POA last night described as "most remarkable" comments by the director general of the prison service Brian Purcell that the failure of prison officers to report for duty had contributed to the closure of some facilities for inmates.

"For Mr Purcell to assert that workshops are only being withdrawn because staff do not turn up flies in the face of a recent letter from one of the governors to the local POA branch in Mountjoy which confirms that workshops and education facilities are being withdrawn because of budgetary constraints," said POA general secretary John Clinton.

The letter, which has been seen by The Irish Times, said a number of cost-cutting measures were being introduced so that the "quarterly allocation" of funding was not exceeded.

These measures include "the school to be closed for the remainder of the quarter" and "the workshops to be closed from next week". Other documentation reveals the prison library is now closed most of the time.

The number of inmates using the library fell from 5,959 in 2003 to 788 last year. Figures for last month reveal the library was open for one full day and part of the day on three other dates.

Similar closure trends are in evidence for each month since the beginning of the year.

A spokesman for the prison service said any decision by the POA to ballot its members on industrial action was a matter for the association. However, he said Mr Purcell was always available to discuss any matters.

The spokesman questioned statements by the POA on the lack of workshops and other activities. He said more than 200 inmates, from about 470, were involved in some form of organised activity in Mountjoy every day.

Many facilities in the prison system were closed or scaled back from late 2003 as the dispute over prison officer overtime escalated. This has been resolved but cutbacks have remained in place to reduce expenditure. Spike Island, Co Cork, and the Curragh place of detention, Co Kildare, were also closed in an effort to reduce expenditure and halve the €63 million annual overtime bill.

The POA has called for these facilities to be reopened to alleviate overcrowding across the prison system.