The head of the Irish Prison Service, Brian Purcell, has said plans for industrial action by prison officers over the introduction of a new prisons searches regime are in breach of the national pay agreement.
The Prison Officers' Association (POA) has decided to hold a one-hour work stoppage on Friday week in protest at the prison service's search plans.
The dispute has arisen because the POA believes its members should be allowed to clock in for work before they are searched going in to prisons.
The association believes the prison service's plans to search officers before clocking in effectively means they will be performing a work related task while still on their own time. It believes the time taken to search officers should be counted as part of their working day.
The POA has balloted its members on industrial action over the issue and has informed the prison service of its intention to go ahead with a one-hour stoppage on Friday, November 30th.
The planned new search regime is one of the main components of a major new drive in prisons to prevent illicit items such as telephones, drugs and weapons, being smuggled to prisoners. A new search regime will also apply to members of the public visiting inmates. It is envisaged the system would be as comprehensive as security checks at airports. Searches will involve metal detector checks.
The prison service contends that because prison officers are not ready for work until after they have been searched, they are not in a position to clock in until the searches are complete.
Mr Purcell said the officers already benefit from a 10-minute grace period meaning if, for example, they clock in at 8.10am they are paid from 8am.
He said the decision to go ahead with the work stoppage "is in clear breach" of Towards 2016, the national wage agreement.
"(The agreement) provides for independent third party arbitration to deal with disputes that may arise, but in the meantime staff are to co-operate with the changes while the issue is being dealt with," he said.