The recent resolution of the long-running dispute between the Prison Officers' Association and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell on overtime pay is to be welcomed.
It removes the threat of strike action, and creates an opportunity for the Government to address the appalling conditions in our jails.
Controlling costs is a necessary part of any reform programme. And addressing the issue of overtime pay in our prisons, where a basic grade officer could earn more than €100,000 a year and the annual overtime bill amounted to €64 million, became a priority for the Minister. The terms now accepted by prison officers, following negotiations lasting more than a year at the Labour Relations Commission, are designed to see that overtime bill shrink by €25 million. In return, the Minister will abandon privatisation plans for the prison escort service, which generates one-quarter of all overtime, and for the running of minimum security prisons at Loughan House and Shelton Abbey. Prisons closed as cost-savings measures last year, at Spike Island and the Curragh, are expected to reopen.
For a number of years, prison visiting committees, prison chaplains and the Director of Prisons, Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen, have all complained about chronic overcrowding and deteriorating services for inmates. They described our prisons as "finishing schools for criminality", awash with drugs and lacking the educational and psychiatric services that might help inmates break a vicious cycle of recidivism. The administrative system was denounced as top-heavy and inefficient. And the use of prisons as detention centres for non-nationals awaiting deportation was criticised.
Five long years of discussion involving the working conditions of prison officers ensured that these issues did not receive the attention they deserved. That is understandable, if unfortunate. But resolution of industrial relations issues must not now be used as an excuse to "park" the introduction of necessary reforms that would benefit prisoners. Mr McDowell spoke in the past about overtime pay "cannibalising funds for building, refurbishment and the improvement of services generally". He appears genuinely interested in improving conditions. And he has purchased a greenfield site on which to build a new Mountjoy Prison.
The Minister is aware that remedial services are desperately needed within our ageing and dilapidated jails. They will cost money. But if the reoffending rate of prisoners - amounting to 70 per cent in some inner city areas - is substantially reduced, there will be a real saving. And the lives of many young people could be transformed.