A ROW over a €13.70 lunch allowance has significantly reduced the operating hours of new sniffer dogs that search visitors for drugs in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison.
Visitors are now flocking to the jail during those hours when they know they will not face being searched by the dogs.
The handlers are based at Wheatfield Prison in Clondalkin and the dogs they handle are kennelled in a compound there.
Every morning the handlers collect their animals at Wheatfield in west Dublin and bring them for work in Mountjoy in the north inner city. They perform drugs searches on up to 300 visitors per day. Visiting hours are from 10am to noon and from 2pm to 4pm.
Up until two weeks ago the handlers had been taking their lunch break in Mountjoy. Because they are attached to Wheatfield they are entitled to a €13.70 dinner allowance for taking their break away from their base.
However, the week before last officials managing the sniffer dog unit withdrew the allowance as part of efforts to reduce expenditure. Since then the handlers have been travelling back to Wheatfield for their break.
To be in Wheatfield to clock off for lunch at 12.45 they have had to leave their post in Mountjoy at about 11.30am. They must load their dogs before driving the animals to the Wheatfield kennels.
When they clock back on duty again at 2pm in Wheatfield they drive across the city and unload the dogs at Mountjoy where they return to work at about 2.45pm.
The row is a source of embarrassment for the Prison Service, which is trying to introduce a drug-free regime. Mountjoy has the worst drugs problem by far of any Irish prison.
Prison officers told The Irish Timestheir colleagues were satisfied with the now discontinued arrangements and that the new regime had been imposed on them by management of the dog unit.
Prison sources said visitors trying to pass drugs to inmates quickly realised the dogs were missing just before and just after lunch and that these visiting times are now “extremely popular”.
“You will get away with not having the dogs there for a day here and there at set times but when it happens repeatedly people notice after a few times,” said one prison source.
The Irish Prison Service did not reply to queries from The Irish Times.