COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 24 Apr 2008

Chapter 17 - Collection of Fines.

Mr. S. Aylward (Secretary General, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform) called and examined.

Chairman

Witnesses should be aware that they do not enjoy absolute privilege. Their attention and that of members is drawn to the fact that, as and from 2 August 1998, section 10 of the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act 1997 grants certain rights to persons identified in the course of the committee's proceedings. These rights include: the right to give evidence; the right to produce or send documents to the committee; the right to appear before the committee, either in person or through a representative; the right to make a written and oral submission; the right to request the committee to direct the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents; and the right to cross-examine witnesses. For the most part, these rights may be exercised only with the consent of the committee. Persons invited to appear before the committee are made aware of these rights and any persons identified in the course of proceedings who are not present may have to be made aware of them and provided with the transcript of the relevant part of the committee's proceedings if the committee considers it appropriate in the interests of justice.

Notwithstanding this provision in legislation, I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House, or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. They are also reminded of the provisions within Standing Order 158 that the committee shall refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or a Minister of the Government or the merits of the objectives of such policy or policies.

I welcome the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Seán Aylward. I ask him to introduce his officials.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will introduce to the committee the officials accompanying me from the two connected agencies, the work of which comes under the microscope today. With me are Mr. Michael Fay, head of human resources, and Mr. Brian Purcell, director general, Irish Prisons Service. Also with me is Mr. Noel Waters, assistant secretary, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who has special oversight responsibility for overall financial matters in the Department and is also head of human resources. Mr. Seamus Clifford is an accountant who works in our financial services centre in Killarney which looks after the justice group of Votes, as well as a number of other Votes for which we exercise the back office function on behalf of other Government agencies and Departments. Also here is Mr. Diarmuid MacDiarmuida, senior official in the Courts Service with special responsibility for the operation of the District Court and who has a particular insight into and expertise around the imposition and collection of fines. Alongside him is Mr. John Conlan, director of finance for the Prison Service. I have tried to bring along people who pick up on points of extreme detail where I may not be able to help the committee fully.

Chairman

Thank you. Mr. John Thompson from the Department of Finance is present. Is nobody else coming today?

Mr. John Thompson

My colleague, Mr. Jim O'Farrell, is due to attend. I do not know why he has been delayed but I hope he will be along in the next few minutes.

Chairman

Could Mr. Thompson tell us the purpose of his presence here?

Mr. John Thompson

I deal with the public expenditure side in the Department of Finance, while Mr. O'Farrell deals with the administrative budget. He has more involvement than I in matters like the sick leave issue.

Chairman

I ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce the 2006 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, chapter 5 - The Management of Sick Leave in Prisons; Audited Appropriation Accounts 2006: Vote 19, Office of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and Vote 21, Prisons; and Special Report No. 56 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Improving Performance - Public Service Case Studies, chapter 17 - Collection of Fines. The full text of the chapters can be found in the annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General or on the website of the Comptroller and Auditor General at www.audgen.gov.ie.

Mr. John Purcell

I will begin with chapter 5.1 if this suits the committee. Over the years, I have paid particular attention to the level of sick leave in our prisons in view of the fact that it has been far in excess of that experienced in the rest of the public sector and private sector and because of its significant financial impact. Historically, it has also been greater than in the prisons in the UK, particularly Scotland. Sometimes it is hard to make a direct link because of the different ways of computing sick leave.

While the nature of prison work is a contributory factor to the high level, the most important factor appears to be the link between the taking of sick leave and the use of the overtime system to cover for the absences. This link had long been recognised by the Department to be at the heart of the matter. After protracted negotiations, new arrangements were introduced in all institutions by February 2006 whereby overtime working was replaced by an additional hours attendance system.

While the new system seems to have had the desired effect in fixing the annual quantum of expenditure for extra hours, its impact on the rate of sick leave has been less than expected. The targeted reduction was 33% but in 2006, sick days per capita remained around the same level. However, there was an improvement in 2007 when sick days per capita fell from an average of 26.2 days in 2006 to 21.64 days. That is a drop of 17% or so, which is a significant achievement in itself but is perhaps an indication that other factors contributing to still high levels of sick leave need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. These include using more sophisticated and integrated IT systems, better monitoring of patterns of absence and research into the underlying causes of sick leave and absenteeism in the Irish prison environment.

In respect of the collection of fines and the follow-up section of my special report on improving performance published last year, I revisited my earlier report on the collection of fines to establish what action had been taken in the meantime to overcome the shortcomings identified. One of the features of the fine system is that responsibility for its management is shared between the Courts Service and the Garda Síochána, with the Department having an overarching role. This was referred to by the Accounting Officer when he introduced the officials with him. This characteristic makes good co-ordination essential to the effective operation of the system. That was not evident at the time of the original report seven years ago.

A high-level group set up to examine the matter in response to the report's findings recommended the establishment of an executive office to carry out the fines management function but this recommendation was not proceeded with. An alternative approach was adopted which, on the collection side, involved the outsourcing of the work to a credit management agency on a pilot testing basis. I understand the outcome of that exercise was that some 22% of the cases referred, representing the collection of some €455,000 in overdue fines, were resolved. So in that sense, it was somewhat successful.

There have also been some positive moves in the administration of the fines collection system which should lead to an improved performance, including the implementation of IT systems in the courts which should go some way towards providing the type of information to support better management of this area of activity. The extension of the fixed penalty charges to a large number of traffic offences also has the potential to reduce the demands on the courts and, by extension, the fines collection system.

However, other proposals like the payment of fines by instalment, the identification of persistent defaulters and reducing the time from summons application to appearance in court have been much more difficult to progress. I am sure the Accounting Officer will be able to explain why.

Turning briefly to the two Votes, the main areas of the €340 million net expenditure under Vote 19 in 2006 were €140 million for dealing with asylum seekers, €64 million in legal aid and €45 million for administration. A total of €13.5 million went on commissions and tribunals. The details of those are in note 15 of the appropriation accounts of Vote 19.

In respect of Vote 21- prisons, the bulk of the €410 million expenditure here -€230 million - goes on pay, while €111 million goes on buildings and equipment. This latter expenditure was facilitated by a Supplementary Estimate which provided an extra €76 million for the prisons capital programme.

Members might wish to note that the property portfolio comprising 16 prisons and places of detention is not included in the statement of capital assets as the comprehensive valuation exercise commissioned was not completed when the Appropriation Account for the year was presented. The only property included in the statement is the Thornton Hall site at its purchase price of €29.9 million.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Purcell. Will Mr. Aylward make his opening statement?

Mr. Seán Aylward

As a courtesy to the committee, I will telescope what is in the statement circulated to members. I propose to cut approximately four-fifths of it so that we can have more give and take and discussion with the committee. I hope the committee will indulge me if I make very brief remarks.

I hope that I can demonstrate to the committee today that we are getting to grips with the two challenges highlighted in the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, namely, the collection of fines and eliminating unnecessary working in the Prison Service and the rocketing overtime bill we experienced back in 2006.

At the heart of the prison overtime system was a problem of sick leave days. There was an unusual psychological effect in that persistent absentees in the system were generating additional income for their colleagues who stood in for them. Today, with the new system we have in place which has eliminated that type of informal overtime, people who are persistent absentees are now generating a requirement for additional attendance without additional income for their colleagues. To put it mildly, a person who generated income for his colleagues in the past might have been popular or not unpopular. Today, somebody who is a persistent absentee generates additional attendance and his colleagues are forced to stay back to fill in for him and their income stays static. So one can understand the psychological impact this would have. There are genuine reasons for sick leave in any employment and I do not want to denigrate anyone suffering a long-term illness or diminish the fact that some people in difficult law enforcement jobs sustain injuries on duty, but there was a considerable quantum of sick leave. Breaking this pattern of sick leave cannot be achieved overnight, but good gains have been made in 2007 and 2008.

I do not want to harp on about the data too much, but an aspect of the aggregate number of sick leave days computed here and in the public service as a whole can be misleading. In our system, we count days to which people had an entitlement to take off with the adjacent sick leave days they took. If someone in the mainstream Civil Service is out sick on a Friday, the following Saturday and Sunday would be counted as sick leave days even though the person is not expected in on those days. This situation is compounded in the case of prison officers. As they are shift workers, the rest days to which they are entitled are included in the count. No matter which way we slice the issue, there is a major problem. I was director of prisons for five years until 2004, in which time this problem was a scourge.

The process of annualising hours has led to the removal of 1 million hours of extra attendance per year. The figure has been cut in half, as we are only paying for 1 million man hours in the system per annum. There is no incentive for people to find reasons to stay later at work or to go on sick leave unexpectedly.

In any employment, persistent absenteeism leads to substantial psychological issues, early back-to-work interviews and the need for a dedicated medical service to deal with those showing persistent health problems. I acknowledge the assistance given by the Department of Finance to us and the Prison Service in sanctioning an augmentation of the office of the chief medical officer for the public service. A recruitment process for two dedicated staff to assess persons who are persistently ill is under way.

Regarding the fines system, Ireland is by no means unique in having a problem with collecting fines. They add up to a great deal of money but the amount involved in the case of someone who fails to pay is small compared to the cost of collection through the use of, for example, the police. We are trying to work smartly and a fines Bill will be introduced shortly. The previous Bill was withdrawn on the advice of the Parliamentary Counsel, who wanted to redraft some of its sections. The new Bill's draft provisions, which must be approved by the Government, will give additional powers to courts in respect of defaulters. It is a matter of Government policy but a number of options are in play, including the possible treatment of unpaid fines as civil debts.

A matter touched on in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report is the type of people who should be used to go after and find defaulters. I am a proud public servant but we are not the ideal people to do that. This is a reason for our being keen to try a debt collection agency. I am also interested in using sheriffs. Generally speaking, we should acknowledge that chasing people for money is not something at which the public service is particularly good at, it is not one of our strengths. The draft Bill, which will be published shortly, may provide additional tools to go after unpaid fines.

I will defer to my colleague from the Courts Service regarding other improvements that are on course, such as data capture and going on-line. The Courts Service has undergone a significant transformation since becoming a separate agency with its own leadership several years ago. Many benefits are flowing from this transformation, including data capture in respect of debt and fine defaulters.

Chairman

Thank you. May we publish the report as presented? Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before Deputy Shortall begins, I will ask a question concerning something to which no reference has been made. Mr. Aylward telescoped his comments. Under subhead D4, asylum seekers' accommodation, approximately €250 million has been spent in recent years to house asylum seekers. Some €246.3 million has been spent on direct provision - rooms and subsistence payments - to asylum seekers. Last year, the figure was €83.2 million. It is a staggering figure of approximately €260 per week per resident. In some cases, residents have been in centres for more than ten years because of the convoluted system of assessing residency applications. What is Mr. Aylward's opinion on whether the State is getting value for money in what it is offering the people in question and what quality controls are being used?

A report on inspections of asylum seeker accommodation states that the most conspicuous absences are the voices of the residents and staff members. The space marked "representations", where officials were invited to note any comments made by staff or residents, is empty in almost all of the returned inspectors' forms. Without getting the opinions of staff and residents in the centres, how can Mr. Aylward be satisfied that the taxpayer is getting value for money while providing the residents of the centres with the treatment they deserve? In some cases, for example, it has been reported that food is cooked on Fridays for consumption on Sundays, that there is gross overcrowding - families of five in rooms that are too small by any standard - and that there is a strong suspicion among residents that some centres are tipped off before inspections take place. This is an allegation, not a statement of fact.

Given that approximately €250 million has been spent housing asylum seekers in recent years, how can Mr. Aylward assure the committee that the taxpayer is getting value for money and that the consumer - the residents and staff - are getting the treatment they deserve?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I shall start with an assertion that may surprise the Chairman. The money he has identified represents a bargain from the State's point of view, an assertion I will attempt to justify. Before the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform took responsibility for direct provision, people were being housed through the health boards in rented accommodation, particularly in Dublin. The costs were very high and rocketing. The message going out to the world was that one could apply with one's family for asylum in Ireland and that premium accommodation, such as individual houses, would be provided. It was acting like a magnet by drawing people into the country. Direct provision, through which people are housed in hostels and former hotels, represented a significant reduction in the average cost per family unit compared to the previous situation.

The Chairman referred to the quality of the accommodation. Accommodation must be consistent with the provisions of the Housing Act 1966. The company used by Fáilte Ireland to inspect holiday and tourist accommodation is used by us to inspect the direct provision facilities, which I am assured are no more put on notice of visits than are the hotels and people trading commercially in the tourism business. I have visited a number of the centres, from older accommodation in Waterford to newer accommodation at Balseskin. I have also visited Mosney. I have taken a personal interest in this matter and have seen the quality of the food and accommodation. I have also visited a centre in Limerick.

When I visited some of the centres, it worried me a little that the quality of the accommodation and some of the equipment available to the families would lead to negative tabloid coverage, such as reports of big flatscreen televisions, elaborate kitchens and high-quality showers. Family units were being held in family suites that one would use in budget hotel accommodation. There is a great deal of hype about the calibre of accommodation. One of the reasons underpinning this is the continuous pressure by those in accommodation to follow the track of those who were given houses to stay in while the application to remain in Ireland was being processed. Given that some of these hostels are in areas away from large centres where there may be clusters of people of different nationalities and casual work available, there is continual pressure from people to get from the west of Ireland to Dublin. Many of the complaints derive from the desire of the people not to be in that location.

I wish to respond by correspondence to the issue of people not filling in a specific part of a form. I have not looked at those forms - the Chairman sprung it on me - but we would be happy to respond.

It is within the scope and compass of Oireachtas committees to visit any of the operations that the State manages and whose expenditure this committee scrutinises. The committee would be welcome to visit the headquarters operation of our immigration services or any of our centres. A number are quite close to Leinster House.

I stand over the accommodation provided. I have visited the centres without notice and been impressed with the professionalism with which these places are managed. I caution that there is a motive behind the critique of accommodation.

One of the areas of sensitivity for families and those who are in an environment they do not want to be in, whether prisoners or those in a hostel provided by the State, concerns food and family customs regarding food. There are religious aspects to diet and those from different parts of the world have different customs. We go to great efforts to meet the dietary observance held by people of different faith groups and I am proud of the work done in that regard.

Chairman

Mr. Aylward refers to being satisfied that the State is getting value for money. Could he write to the committee in respect of a number of centres, such as the those at Rochestown and Macroom, where contracts were entered into and the buildings were subsequently not used? What was the liability to the State in respect of not proceeding with those projects? There were also a number of questions I asked that were not answered.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I think we will respond in writing. I could talk about the campaigns of local people against those centres.

Chairman

I am asking about the contracts and the liability to the State as a result.

Mr. Seán Aylward

We will give a full account.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I welcome Mr. Aylward and his colleagues and thank him for his presentation.

I refer to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the management of sick leave in prisons. The report before us is the 2006 report, the follow-on to the 2002 report that found that the average number of sick days per prison officer was 19. The Comptroller and Auditor General expressed concern over the high level of sick leave used. Recommendations were made but when the Comptroller and Auditor General examined the situation again in 2006, the situation had disimproved significantly rather than improved. The average number of sick days had gone from 19 to over 26. I ask Mr. Aylward to account for how the situation was allowed to disimprove so significantly with such high costs involved.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I am sorry, Chairman, I was just checking a fact. We must put the matter in context. We had one of the most bitter industrial relations struggles that the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform ever encountered in bringing the prison officers to agree, narrowly, to a new way of working. It was a very bitter confrontation and the organisation was deeply divided over it. A very large number of prison officers voted against the terms but the State, as the employer, made it clear that if there could not be an agreement to end this pernicious system it would consider other options including wholesale privatisation of the prison service, not something that I, as a public servant, would be happy to do. The State was haemorrhaging money and prisoners were suffering because we could not make the required investment in prisons. It is a matter of surmise but it took almost a year after that vote to get staff to recognise that this was a new way, that we would roll out the new system and that they would have to abide by their democratic decision.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

This refers to a four year period, from 2002 to 2006. Attention was drawn to the high level of sick leave in 2002 and I ask Mr. Aylward what action was taken to address this. Was any action taken, given that the situation disimproved over the next four years?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The action we took is that we brought the prison officers to the brink, showed them that we would replace them if they did not accord with the new agreement and secured the deal. That deal turned the situation around. Through the four-year period to which the Deputy refers we used every conventional method within our power, including stopping sick pay to hundreds of staff, medical interviews, disciplining and dismissing officers, but the only way to end this was a fundamental change in the working conditions. We secured that and nothing would change it except the ratchet effect. People were going out sick, were paid for doing so and were generating additional income for their colleagues. We had to end it and we did.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I am aware of the intolerable situation that was allowed to continue. My question is why the situation was allowed to get so bad up to 2002 and, following the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, why did the situation not improve but get worse in the following four years.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I can simply say that this was a side effect of a very bitter industrial struggle in the prisons, which I am pleased to say we brought to an amicable and fair end from the point of view of the staff.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I want to move on to one of the areas identified by the Comptroller and Auditor General as a problematic area. Our predecessor committee made a recommendation in 2005 that work should be done on monitoring the causes of sick leave and tackling the factors involved in such causes. In 2003 and 2004 the Department changed to a new computer system that allowed it to gather information on the causes but, for some reason, the Department reverted to an older data collection system. That is hard to understand, given the recommendations made. What has the Department done since then? It brought in its consultants in April 2006 and the Prison Service action plan, under Towards 2016, contained a specific commitment to develop and put in place a new human resources system. That is supposed to be in place by July. What actions have been taken since the review? Can Mr. Aylward provide us with an assurance that a new system will be in place by July, as he promised earlier?

Mr. Seán Aylward

With the Chairman's indulgence, I will ask Mr. Brian Purcell to respond on this point because it is recent and he has the most up to date information on it.

Chairman

As an addendum to Deputy Shortall's question, looking at figures from 2001 to 2006, even though overtime allowances decreased from €56 million in 2001 to €32 million in 2006, other allowances increased dramatically from €12 million to €37 million. When one examines total extra remuneration between 2001 and 2006 one sees a net increase of €5 million. Are we playing with figures? What are these other allowances?

Another table provided, regarding analysis of sick leave patterns, shows that in some areas sick leave patterns increased dramatically between 2003 and 2006, in one case from 30 days per individual to 40 days per individual and in another case from 23 days per individual to 35 days per individual and in a further case from 15 days per individual to 39 days per individual. Those figures blow out of the water the assertion that the problem is being tackled.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I want to categorically assure the committee that the problem is being tackled. Some of the figures which the Chairman cited relate to the settlement whereby a once-off payment was made to staff for the termination of the overtime system. It was part of what was negotiated.

Chairman

We did not know this because they are not defined.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I am just responding to the Chairman's point. Part of the additional allowances included a once-off payment.

We replaced an overtime system which generated payments for 2 million additional hours per annum. We took 1 million of those hours out of the system. Every year, we now pay for an additional 1 million hours attendance. These allowances partly reflect this. The figures for 2006 contain a once-off payment to all staff.

Chairman

So that we know what we are talking about, what are the allowances for 2007?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I shall get the Chairman that figure in a moment. To be clear on this, the Chairman cited figures on average absentee rates due to illness in various prisons. I am looking through the details and the scorecards I have for 2006 and 2007 show a drop per capita in virtually every prison. The Chairman cited one place, which is Beladd, where the figure increased. Only 21 people work in this unit so one person with long-term sick leave, who may have cancer, would distort this figure.

Chairman

I did not cite Beladd at all.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I apologise.

Chairman

I cited Cork, Portlaoise and Mountjoy. I did not mention Beladd.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I am looking at the figures for sick leave for 2006 and 2007. The percentage change in Portlaoise was a decrease of 30.42%. This is almost one third. In Mountjoy between 2006 and 2007 the figures decreased by 8.62%. These are the latest figures available to us.

Chairman

We did not have them.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I happened to have them and I wanted to bring the Chairman up to date. We have a real decrease in sick leave. I would not for one moment be happy or complacent about it. We are struggling with a pattern that has existed for decades. We are showing solid progress and a good decision was taken and it has been vindicated by events.

If the Chairman agrees, I will invite my colleague, Mr. Brian Purcell, to address some of the points raised by Deputy Shortall.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Does Deputy Shortall want me to deal with any particular query first?

Deputy Róisín Shortall

No.

Mr. Brian Purcell

With regard to overtime during this period no one explanation exists as to why it rose before it decreased. The Secretary General referred to the fact that from the outset one of the difficulties involved with sick leave in the prison service was that much of it generated overtime payments. We had a cycle of overtime and absenteeism. The question arose as to whether overtime caused absenteeism or vice versa. As the Secretary General stated, while we tried to take whatever measures were necessary, including monitoring of the sick leave records and interviewing staff with the involvement of local management and headquarters, the figures continued to rise disturbingly. The only long-term solution to the sick leave problem was the introduction of the new attendance arrangements. It could not be scientifically proven that this was the cause and during the period in question negotiations were intensive and often emotional because remuneration is a major aspect of the employer-employee relationship.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

My specific question was on the commitments given on introducing a new data collection system. Is the Department on target to have this new system in place for July?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We will not meet the July 2008 target. My hope is that we shall see the new system in place towards the end of the year. As Deputy Shortall correctly pointed out, when this matter was raised previously, we were proceeding with the HRMS system as defined for the Civil Service in general. However, a number of issues arose, particularly with regard to--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Since then consultants were employed in 2006 and a commitment was given to have a new system in place by this year.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Yes.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

So where is the Department on this?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We have taken it some way along the road but the direct answer to the question is that we will not have it in place in July 2008 but I expect--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

When will it be in place?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I expect that by the end of 2008 we will see the new system in place. A few issues arose with regard to its introduction. We wanted to identify the best possible way of implementing it to give us the type of system we need.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Has it been done?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We have identified it. We believe that tacking on further development of the system we use at present to the PeopleSoft elements of the centrally designed HRMS system will give us what we want. Unfortunately, we will not be in a position to implement it.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

This was a clear recommendation made by this committee in 2005. It is not acceptable for Mr. Purcell to come back and tell us he will not meet the target date in the middle of this year. When will he be in a position to go to tender on this new system?

Mr. Brian Purcell

An element will be a redesign of our in-house system and this will be done internally.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Okay.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I shall make one point, and I believe the Comptroller and Auditor General referred to it in his report. We went through a period of change unprecedented in any prison system in Europe during the period Deputy Shortall is discussing. We had the introduction of new attendance arrangements which effectively took ten years and, as the Secretary General stated, were the cause of severe and acrimonious dissent among the staff--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

And cost the taxpayer considerable money.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I am aware of that. We pushed as hard as we could to bring this to the point where we now have a system. We are beginning to see the benefits of the hard work put in to bring this to a conclusion.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It is disappointing that the target will not be met given the seriousness of this issue.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I am disappointed about this also.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

There should be accountability for it. I want to move on to the new annualised hours system now in place. I understand that under the annualised hours system all prison officers are paid for 360 hours per annum, regardless of whether they work that number of hours. Is that correct?

Mr. Brian Purcell

No.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Can Mr. Purcell clarify it?

Mr. Brian Purcell

Broadly, the Deputy is correct. There are four bands and 360 hours is the maximum band. Most prison officers are on that band.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What is the rate of pay for those 360 hours? Is it the standard rate or is there a premium paid?

Mr. Brian Purcell

There is a premium payment of 1.8.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Staff are paid overtime for 360 hours currently. What is the average of those 360 hours actually being worked?

Mr. Brian Purcell

It varies across the system. In some places, almost all of the 360 hours are worked. The maximum write-off is approximately 50%. I can furnish the Deputy with exact figures on that, right across the system.

One of the advantages of the annualised hours attendance system, as referred to in the report, is that it encourages what has been described by the private sector as "smart working". It was believed that because staff would be paid for a specific amount of additional hours, which they could be called upon to work, regardless of whether they actually worked them, would encourage smart working. That was seen to be an advantage of the new system. Built into all of the models of annualised hours attendance systems that we examined in the private sector was a belief that staff might benefit from a write-off of hours. We have been slated by the unions that we are not achieving the level of write-off they expected. Hopefully, as the system beds down delivery will improve.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Let me put it to Mr. Purcell that in a prison service which has one of the highest ratios of prison officers to prisoners, at approximately one to one, the deal that has been worked out with prison officers whereby they are guaranteed to be paid almost double time for 360 hours per year, irrespective of whether they work those hours, is a very sweet one. The Comptroller and Auditor General made the point that overtime is inextricably linked with sick leave. Can Mr. Purcell make the case for us regarding the introduction of the new system, which contains a very generous overtime allowance? What is the net impact of that new system, in terms of salary costs in the prison service?

Mr. Brian Purcell

The figure for the write-off is actually 28% on average. Write-offs are part and parcel of any annualised hours systems, wherever they have been introduced, in order to encourage the concept of smart working. It generates a belief among staff that if they work smart, they will obtain a write-off. That is a core element of the system. It is not some sort of scam to pay staff for hours they did not work. It is accepted as a core element of all annualised hours schemes. That is the attraction of the system.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Surely it is a very expensive way of buying oneself out of an intolerable situation which existed for too long.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I will give the Deputy the figures she is seeking. The net gain to the State has been approximately €30 million. The Secretary General described earlier how there were 2 million hours of overtime. With the new system, the prison system is being run with 1 million extra hours. We have effectively achieved a 50% reduction in the hours worked, which equates to a net saving of €30 million per annum.

With the old overtime payment system, there was a cost to the State for every day's sick leave. Now, the cost is to the staff because they get the overtime payments, regardless. There is no repetition of the old situation whereby if an officer was absent on sick leave, he or she was replaced by another officer on overtime. The cost to the State for long periods of sick leave has virtually been eliminated. The net gain to the Exchequer is €30 million a year, going forward.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

How long are prison officers guaranteed the 360 hours overtime? What period of time is applicable? When will the deal be reviewed?

Mr. Brian Purcell

That is in there, going forward.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Indefinitely?

Mr. Brian Purcell

Yes. Presumably if we ever reached a point where the write-offs were dropping consistently, we would have to examine the manning levels that were contributing to that. However, the intention at the moment is that the deal done with the Prison Officers Association will remain in place, going forward.

Mr. Seán Aylward

If I might come in for a moment. In order to assure members of the committee that this is not a sweet heart deal and the taxpayer, whose guardian they are, is not being ripped off, I wish to provide some background information. One of the people we spoke to when we were putting together the proposal to introduce an annualised hours system was Mr. Finbar Flood, who has done much work in the industrial relations machinery of the State and who, before that, was a very skilful manager in Guinness. The Guinness brewery introduced an annualised hours system, as did many other commercial employers. Many industrial employers who have brought in such a system have far higher levels of write-off than 180 of 360 hours. However, the dividend, commercially, is so great that it is seen as a bargain by both sides.

Frankly, this has brought to an end a system which was pernicious. Under the old system people were encouraged to take sick leave and some of them earned scandalous amounts of money because overtime working was à la carte . We had a situation where, in some years, some officers made more money than I did as director general. We brought a scandal to an end.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Nobody is arguing with those points. We accept it was a pernicious system but there are certain people who were responsible for allowing that pernicious system to develop and who left it unchecked for a number of years. That is what we are discussing here.

I wish to move on, if that is all right.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Chairman, I can only say that the committee is meeting here with the people who brought it to an end.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I would like to move on and talk about what has happened since 2006. In table No. 27, details are provided on what has happened in respect of sick leave for the first four months of 2007. Overall, there is a reduction of 10%, although there are wide variations between the different prisons. The target contained in the new plan and the new arrangements for annualised hours was to reduce sick leave by 33%. That in itself is conservative enough, given that the prison system was starting from a very high base.

The figure of 10% is disappointing, even if it is moving in the right direction. Can the witnesses provide us with the annual figure for 2007? At the end of that year, what was the average rate of sick leave?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I will address that question.

Chairman

Did the delegates ever benchmark our system against those in other jurisdictions?

Mr. Brian Purcell

The reduction achieved in 2007 was 17% and while the target set was 33%, it must be pointed out that the first run of prisons that came in with the new attendance arrangements was in November 2005. We introduced the system into all the prisons within a three-month period. We took a sling-shot approach. We started in November and within three months, every prison had the new attendance system in place. As one can imagine, this was a massive programme of change, which involved 14 institutions, as well as the setting up of the new escort corps. There was a significant change programme which was completed in a very stretched target of three months. We are only two years into that and it has not been implemented - as members will imagine - without some difficulties and a number of bumps.

However, now that we are two years into the process we have begun to turn around sick leave, with a 17% reduction in 2007. We are not yet at the 33% level but I hope we will get there. I do not think anyone could have reasonably expected a 33% reduction in sick leave the moment this system was introduced. While I accept what the Deputy said, we have to set ourselves stretched targets and that is what we are doing. It is not easy to achieve them in the context of the culture that existed. As the Deputy will be aware, it is impossible to change cultures overnight. I am not suggesting that we are fighting a battle because that is not the case but we have turned the corner and I hope we will achieve the 33% target.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What is the target for 2008?

Mr. Brian Purcell

The target for 2008 is to reduce the figure to 18 days.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

When does Mr. Brian Purcell expect to reach the target of a 33% reduction?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I hope to reach it in the next five years.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

That is a very conservative estimate. I am aware results cannot be achieved overnight but people are being paid for 360 hours overtime irrespective of whether they work nights. That is being introduced immediately, so we should expect the corresponding reductions to happen fairly quickly. A five-year period is rather lax.

Mr. Brian Purcell

We will push the matter. In respect of the 17% in 2007, we have achieved 50% of the target. There will be a degree of diminishing returns the closer we get to our target but I hope we reach it within five years. Turning this around is an achievement. Unless one is part of the culture described by the Secretary General, it is difficult to fathom from the outside how it operated. It is not something we could have ever been expected to turn around overnight and, while we are not finished, we are making progress in the right direction.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Mr. Brian Purcell claimed that reductions of 17% were achieved last year in sick leave but sick leave in the Mountjoy Women's Prison increased by 35%. While there may be reasons elsewhere for high levels of sick leave, such as poor conditions, this is a new prison and one would expect conditions to be good.

Mr. Brian Purcell

We may be talking at cross purposes. The actual figure for the Dóchas centre was a decrease of 3.65% in 2007. The Deputy may have been referring to the first few months of the year but the full year figure reveals a reduction.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Can Mr. Brian Purcell provide us with the figures for the full year?

Mr. Brian Purcell

Yes.

Chairman

Mr. Brian Purcell did not answer the question on benchmarking. Deputy Shortall referred to Mountjoy but what is happening in the Prison Service escort corps? Sick leave there was up 79% in the first three months, whereas Limerick was up 11%.

Mr. Brian Purcell

They are all up, although I am not sure of the exact explanation for this. Off the top of my head, a number of senior staff applied for transfers to the escort corps when it was established and, in general terms, they are at an age bracket that tends to be more susceptible to illness. I am not saying that is the sole reason, however.

Chairman

It is up 80% but Mr. Brian Purcell does not know why.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I do not think it is 80%.

Chairman

That is the figure we have for the first three months.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I will revert to the committee with a more detailed breakdown of the figures. Limerick is one of the success stories, with a 33% reduction in sick leave figures for 2007.

Chairman

The figures we have are for the first four months.

Mr. Brian Purcell

The first four months revealed an increase. I will provide the committee with the full 2007 figures for all prisons. Limerick was one of the success stories.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Has there been an increase in any prison?

Mr. Brian Purcell

There has been an increase in Beladd but that has a small staff complement and the figure could be distorted by just one person. Loughan House showed a 3% increase.

Chairman

If Mr. Brian Purcell has the figures, will he circulate them to members while he is here?

Mr. Seán Aylward

We are happy to share the figures. We did not circulate them in advance of the meeting because we were scrutinising 2006.

Chairman

I ask Mr. Brian Purcell to speak about benchmarking.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I do not have the exact figures but they do not compare favourably with prison services in the UK. We know for a fact that our record is worse than that country's.

Chairman

In any serious analysis of these issues, comparisons would surely be made with other jurisdictions. Mr. Brian Purcell is telling me he does not have those basic comparators.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Our figures do not compare favourably. The average in the UK is 16 days per annum. However, for a number of reasons the comparisons may not be exact. One of the factors that undoubtedly contributes to the lower sick leave record in the UK is the existence there of privately run prisons.

Chairman

Why should that matter?

Mr. Brian Purcell

The pay and conditions are not the same as those for public service employees in this country. It is possible that people who do not come to work in privatised companies in the UK will lose their jobs much quicker than they would in the public service here.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I want to ask about Vote 21 in respect of the prisons. Why was a Supplementary Estimate made under every subhead in the accounts? Is something wrong with the Estimates process?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I do not want to give a rushed answer to this. We have been making up for a 100-year deficit in capital investment in the prison system. Where the opportunities arose in terms of spare money in the Vote or where it was possible for technical reasons to provide humane accommodation with flush toilets for prisoners in the open centres, the director of the Prison Service asked us if he could incur additional expenditure in order to ameliorate and improve conditions for prisoners. The opportunity was availed of in several aspects of the Vote to make further investments in improving prisoner conditions. To the best of my recollection, that is the main reason underpinning the significant amounts in Supplementary Estimates.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It is under every subhead, not just prisoner conditions.

Mr. Seán Aylward

That was the main reason.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Every subhead contains a Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Seán Aylward

In regard to one of them, it is fair to note that by agreement of the Department of Finance, we bought out a long-term hire purchase agreement with a builder.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I am not referring to individual cases. I am asking whether, on an overall basis, there is a problem with the Department's Estimates process.

Mr. Seán Aylward

That €36 million was the largest component of the Supplementary Estimate. We also undertook urgent work to upgrade the fire safety arrangements in Wheatfield, one of our biggest prisons, and put in a new control room there.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

My question was not about specific subheads. I am asking about the Estimate process, given that the Department had to apply for a Supplementary Estimate under every subhead. That is my point and it raises questions.

Mr. Seán Aylward

In a prison system one cannot lay down an iron-clad provision for how much money one will spend. One must deal with the number of prisoners sent by the courts. One seeks to predict that and the related outgoings. This and the expenditure arising from moving prisoners around the country derive from the level of activity by the Garda and the courts. We have to respond to fluctuating conditions. In that sense we are like a hotelier. We cannot turn people away and if we have to buy more food for them because more of them come, that is a necessary expenditure. Every element where our Vote is scrutinised--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I am not talking about that, but about the whole range of headings in the prison budget. I am making the point that there are questions to be asked about the Estimate process given that Mr. Aylward had to seek Supplementary Estimates under every one of those. I would like to move on to Vote 19.

Chairman

The Deputy's time is up. I interrupted a few times, but her time is well over.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

On Vote 19 for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I want to ask about legal aid. The allocation for legal aid is €64 million, but two thirds of that, €42 million, is under subhead C1, legal aid, criminal. Could Mr. Aylward explain what that is please?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The criminal legal aid system is largely managed by the courts. It is completely demand driven and derives from people accused before the courts of criminal offences who are asked by the judge whether they have the means to meet their own defence. Where they have not, the judge assigns legal aid to them. They get to select their solicitor and the solicitor picks their counsel. The daily rates are set down by agreement. It is a completely demand driven activity and is an efficient and fair service. This service gets defence counsel of the highest quality and people who trade in the private side of the law. Indigent prisoners can have the finest quality lawyers and legal teams money could buy and they get a very good service.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I know that, but the difficulty is that many of those who get free legal aid -€42 million is an extraordinary bill - are also being pursued by the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB. I have questions about the willingness of the State to pay the legal bills of people who are making quite a healthy living from the proceeds of crime.

I have two questions on the underspending - the outturn compared to the Estimate - under two other subheads. The first relates to E10, the allocation for child care, where the Estimate was €24 million but the outturn was only €17 million. That seems an extraordinary figure given the high demand for child care services throughout the country that is not met. I cannot understand how the Department is under spending in that area. The second area of under spending relates to G3, the budget for the CAB, where there is an Estimate of €6.8 million and an outturn of €5.2 million. Most of us in the Dublin area are conscious of the need for the CAB to expand its services and get more involved in some of the crime figures we see around our constituencies. Why has the outturn been so much lower than the Estimate in both cases?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Most years when I was Accounting Officer we burst the allocation for child care but on that occasion the expenditure was only for the period 1 January to 31 March. The money was then transferred to the Vote of the Minister of State for Health and Children with responsibility for children, Deputy Smith. It was for technical reasons. It looks like an under spending but that money was reallocated.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

There was under spending the previous year as well.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I am answering the specific question the Deputy put to me. In most years during which I was responsible for child care we burst our budget and got into a bit of trouble with our colleagues down the way for doing that. In that year the only reason it looks like we undershot is that this is only for a three month period after which it was transferred.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

The Secretary General is talking about it transferring to the Minister of State, Deputy Smith's office. Who picks up the tab for it then?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The Department of Health and Children.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Does that Department pay the full child care budget?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Yes.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

And the CAB?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I was going to mention a point related to the CAB, which the Deputy brought up. The Judiciary makes assessments and assigns criminal legal aid to people. It is an offence for people to apply for legal aid making a false statement or concealing any material fact about their means. They can receive a sentence of imprisonment not exceeding six months for so doing. The CAB has the most extraordinary powers, has been exercising them with considerable vigour against these people and has sequestered the assets of many of the people about whom Deputy Shortall spoke. There was another question.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I asked why there was under spending in the CAB budget.

Mr. Seán Aylward

The CAB acts as a separate office, incurs bills and sends them to us, and we meet them. We always set a fairly generous provision for the CAB so it will not be under-funded and will have the scope to pursue anybody it needs to pursue. Since it was established we have taken an attitude as a Department that the CAB should never fall short of money. The CAB is an operational business. As intelligence information comes to it, it pursues people. It has a large budget to do so and an under-shoot should not be misinterpreted.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Where public representatives request the CAB to take on new cases they are told that it cannot because its budget is restricted.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Deputy Shortall sees the evidence of the budget it has and which it had in that year. I cannot speak for whoever--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I am asking if there is a reason for the under spending.

Chairman

The CAB is accountable to us as an organisation and has been here before so maybe--

Mr. Seán Aylward

I cannot speak for the CAB.

Chairman

Before I call Deputy O'Brien, we have the figures for 2007 sick leave and the average figure is down approximately 17% over 2006. As members will note there are several exceptions and there are still high levels of absenteeism, for example at a very modern prison, Dóchas Centre, there is still a per capita rate of 38.4 days per year. Cork Prison stands at 35.4 days per year and at Wheatfield there is a figure of 23 days per year, a reduction of only 3% over 2006. Why are these hiccups there in the overall trend?

Mr. Brian Purcell

Right across the spread of any organisation one will have ups and downs. One will not get the average right across the board. The Dóchas Centre is the female prison and quite a high proportion of the prison officers are female. The high number of sick leave days may in some cases be related to pregnancy-related illnesses. The disproportionately high number of female officers in the female prison may be one of the reasons. The figure for Cork Prison is still high compared to the rest of the system but is moving downwards. In Cork we have a disproportionately high number of prison officers who have been out on long-term sick leave, some of them with cancer and such illnesses. The age profile of the staff in Cork may be higher than in some of the Dublin prisons.

I am unsure of the reason we have only achieved a 3% reduction in sick leave in Wheatfield. I cannot think of a reason for this. It is moving in the right direction.

Chairman

Mr. Purcell might give us a report on that.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Yes, we will have a look at that.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I wish to briefly return to Vote 21. Issues with sick leave have been covered substantially. I know there have been substantial changes in working and human resource practices, which are never easy in any organisation, be it public or private. I am certainly pleased to see the trend is in the right direction. Every year there will be an update on that.

On the capacity of the 14 prison units we have, from 2001 to 2006 there has not been a substantial increase in prisoner numbers. In 2001 there were 3,000 and in 2006 there were 3,192. What is the physical capacity of the current prison stock?

Mr. Brian Purcell

The bed capacity of the system is 3,597.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

So we are under capacity?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We are slightly under capacity but that can possibly be explained by the fact that in the maximum security prison in Portlaoise, we are considerably under the bed capacity due to the nature of the regime there and the type of prisoner held. By and large, we are operating, on average, pretty close to capacity most of the time.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

Has the capacity increased at any time during the course of the past five years or have we been steady at approximately 3,500?

Mr. Brian Purcell

It has been pretty steady in recent years. Some extra spaces have come on-stream in the period and with the current capital programme, we have a new block almost ready in Portlaoise. There are increased spaces in the open centres and a new remand block will be ready towards the end of the year in Castlerea. I hope another remand block will be ready in Wheatfield at some stage in 2009.

Essentially, the current capital programme, which includes the major development at Thornton, will give us an increase and replace 40% of our existing prison estate. It will bring us to a point where we should virtually eliminate the problem we have had down through the years of slopping out. We should have a prison system which is appropriate for the 21st century.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I thank Mr. Purcell. One of the reasons I ask is that there seems to be public perception and every so often we have reports of overcrowded prisons and poor prison conditions. We can take Portlaoise out of this as I understand there is a different maximum security regime there. Considering our other prisons, the figures tell me that in the main we do not have a problem with overcrowding. Is that correct?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We are operating pretty much at full capacity. It is the nature of the court system that in certain periods, there is a surge in the number of committals, which at times during the year will create pressure of numbers within the system.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I understand that but based on these figures, the prisons are approximately 10% under capacity. That is taking into account the 3,500 beds.

Mr. Brian Purcell

It would not be 10%. We would be pretty close to 100% capacity, particularly if we take out the Portlaoise figures. We would be at 97% or 98% of bed capacity.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I will not dwell on this but it is important in dealing with a perception. I know we have quite a substantial capital programme in place to try to improve prisons where needed. The heart of the matter is whether our prisons are currently overcrowded and the figures tell me they are not. Is it correct to state it in such a way?

Mr. Brian Purcell

We do not have overcrowding in the same sense we would have had ten or more years ago. We still have surges in numbers that create a pressure.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

We are not overcrowded at the moment.

Mr. Brian Purcell

No, not in the sense we were ten or 15 years ago. There has been some investment in the prisons and over the past five or ten years we have had significant investment in the prisons. There will be major investment aimed at giving us predominantly single-cell accommodation.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

It may be helpful to supply to the committee our capacity numbers for our 14 different prisons and the number of prisoners in each of them. It would be handy to see such a breakdown.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Yes.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I do not need it now.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I can supply an exact breakdown for a given day.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I understand there will be changes in the number. Perhaps Mr. Purcell will come back to the committee on that.

Mr. Brian Purcell

We can certainly do so.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

I will not return at all to sick leave, except for one question relating to certified sick leave. I fully understand that the job prison officers have within the prison is not comparable to any other job, except perhaps the Garda and Army. There will always be additional stresses and pressures and there will always be a higher rate of sick leave than in other jobs.

With regard to certified leave, after how many days would an employee in the prison system have to submit a medical cert indicating he or she is on sick leave?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I believe it is the same in the prison system as the public service in general. After two days one must submit a cert.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

Right.

Mr. Brian Purcell

The Deputy is bang on in terms of the type of job. It is difficult and carries with it a level of risk and stress that does not pertain in most other employment, apart from the Army and Garda, as the Deputy stated. We stated this in the past and the Comptroller and Auditor General acknowledged in his report that it undoubtedly contributes to the difficulties we have had with sick leave down through the years. It is a well-made important point.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

That is good to know and I wished to clarify if sick leave certification was different.

I will move to Vote 19 and subhead D, which is under asylum and asylum seekers. That has been covered to some degree already in the meeting so I will not add to that. Mr. Aylward mentioned direct accommodation, whereas several years ago we would have had much private rented accommodation. What percentage of asylum seekers are now in direct accommodation and are any left in, for example, health board-type private rented accommodation?

Mr. Seán Aylward

It is virtually 100% but there would be some legacy cases. There may be a handful of unique cases, where for humanitarian reasons, the asylum seeker may be a genuine refugee fleeing here for his or her life. That is a minute amount.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

It is a tiny percentage.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Occasionally there would be people who are at risk and who would be accommodated uniquely as a result. Their numbers are absolutely tiny. At this moment the figure is two. Their accommodation is related to reasons of personal security.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

What about the overall context?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The direct provision is done for virtually 100% of the people. It is striking that with asylum seekers, a very high percentage are in the country for approximately three months before they apply for asylum. It is also interesting that quite a few people who end up in prison apply for asylum from the prison, and they are not accommodated directly. It is direct provision but it is done by Mr. Purcell.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

It is State accommodation anyway.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I apologise for interrupting the Deputy but to be absolutely precise, in 2007, 225 asylum applications were made from prisons, which was 5.6%. While 100% of the people at liberty are in direct accommodation, 5.6% applied from prison in 2007.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

The Secretary General quotes the numbers relating to asylum and the long process relating to asylum applications has been mentioned. The Chairman alluded to the cost involved and in some cases applicants wait ten years, although I do not suggest that this is the norm. It is difficult to say because each case is different but is there a benchmark for a turnaround time for processing an asylum applicant? If so, what is it?

Mr. Seán Aylward

One of the canards of the system is the complaint made about people being forced to wait years for a determination as the opposite is the case. People actually use every instrument available to drag out the process and the legal system is used to its limit in this regard. We deal with most people within three weeks but they then fire up the legal cylinders and go into the appeals process, which has become far quicker. After this the courts system is used and when every ground of appeal is exhausted, the clock is set back to zero by an application for humanitarian leave to remain. Again, this will be fought in the court system.

Some people are before the Supreme Court for the second time and will appeal deportation and injunct us at the steps of the aeroplane. The system in Ireland is one of the fairest in the world; in terms of court access, the threshold one must cross to gain a High Court hearing or interlocutory injunction is, perhaps, the lowest on the planet. This is used to the full to string out the process. It is not that bureaucrats are losing files and dragging out the process - on the contrary, the legal system is being used to breaking point for this purpose.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

That is why I asked for a clarification. In my experience I have found what Mr. Aylward describes to be the case.

Regarding figures and the number of new applicants, do we know how many asylum seekers are in this jurisdiction at the moment?

Mr. Seán Aylward

A high proportion of asylum applicants drop out of the system. For example, in 2007, some 689, or 17%, of the 4,152 cases processed by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner were deemed withdrawn because they entered the system but did not co-operate further with the process or disappeared. I would say the figure is upwards of 17%.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

At the moment how many asylum applicants are there, including those pending in the system now, whose cases go back three, four or five years and those who just arrived in recent months?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will try to give the Deputy an accurate number in the next few minutes.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

Fine.

Mr. Seán Aylward

In the process I described people can string out the system and set the clock back to zero after a refugee application has been rejected by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the appeals authorities and the High Court and the Supreme Court. We have been working on legislation, which is before the Oireachtas, that will make people who apply for asylum in Ireland set down any other grounds on which they may wish to claim to stay in the State. These claims will be considered in the aggregate so they will not be able to set the clock back to zero. We hope to address this issue.

My colleagues have done some quick calculations relating to the figures the Deputy requested. In September 2001, there were 6,500 in the system at different stages. At the end of February this year, there were 2,236 people, in total, still in the system. This represents a dramatic reduction in the backlog of applications over this period and it was achieved at considerable expense. At the end of February 2008, the latest date for which I have figures, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner had only 151 cases on hand over six months. I cannot give a complete breakdown of those cases but I suggest they relate to what I call problematic countries or people on whom we sought information from international authorities. We must be fair and do not wish to return a person to a country where he or she may be in harm's way. Things must be verified and checked and this can take time when one relies on other authorities.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

There has been a substantial decrease from 2001 to 2007; to what would the Secretary General attribute it? I know there has been a lot of hard work but were there changes in procedure? The Secretary General mentioned that achieving this decrease cost a lot of money.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Over those years we addressed some of the pull factors. The matter of Irish born children was a significant pull factor and this was dealt with by the people through a referendum. Direct provision was another factor. The word was spread throughout the world on the Internet that one could come to Ireland and apply for asylum. Our process was deemed slow and it was said that applicants would be housed in "luxury accommodation" by the State. These factors exerted a vast pull.

Over time, through direct provision, through putting more staff in place to process cases quickly, through smarter working and the use of computers, through better information and through a lot of support from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, which provided much data that exploded the credibility of many applicants, the pull factors started to decline and our processing improved. We vigorously defend what we do through the courts and the growth of legal expertise in the people representing the State has helped counteract some of the specious arguments put before the system.

In fairness, the downward trend I have recorded has been reflected across Europe. Another factor that helped us is our use of the Eurodac system through which we share data with colleagues across Europe. We can swiftly find out when people have already applied elsewhere and it is worth giving some data in this regard. In 2007, some 468 applicants, or 11.7% of all applications, were found, through the Eurodac system, to have already applied for asylum in other EU member states. These were fraudulent applications that we were able to flatly reject.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

Excellent.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Through the use of data, better identity cards and biometric fingerprinting and photograph systems we have been able to cross-check with other countries. We have found that we are able to take on the process of what we call asylum shopping, people going from country to country allegedly seeking safe refuge. These factors drill away at the figures.

Deputy Darragh O’Brien

Does the Department find the situation substantially better now, with the additional systems that are reflected in the figures, than in 2001?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I concede that but there is still a huge level of fraud in the system. We must work hard and be unremitting and vigorous. We need the support of new, tighter legislation to eliminate some of the abuses of the system that are still prevalent.

Chairman

In the Secretary General's response to Deputy O'Brien mention was made of the fingerprinting system. With regard to the fingerprint identification system that cost about €19.9 million and was funded between the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Garda Vote, the information before us suggests there was no expenditure up to 2007 on that project. What has happened since?

Mr. Seán Aylward

They operated a manual system in the period under review but we have now gone live with a computerised system and it is working incredibly well. We are getting hits on that system all day, every day. It is linked to the British system and other systems around Europe and it is creating great dividends. It is working very well.

Chairman

What was the cost?

Mr. Seán Aylward

We are still meeting some of the bills but it is €20 million over a three-year period. The dividend for the State on every hit we get on it is incalculable.

Chairman

A report on the operations of the forensic science laboratory said it was seriously hampered by the lack of funding and personnel. As regards the development of a DNA database, how many of the 40 recommendations concerning the State forensic laboratory has the Department implemented?

Mr. Seán Aylward

We have accepted all the recommendations and recruitment is under way to meet the extra staff requirements.

Chairman

The question was how many of the 40 recommendations have been implemented.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will have to give the Chairman a note breaking that information down. I can only say the report has been on hand for about 12 months and we have taken action under most headings, although I am not saying it has been completed. A great many of the recommendations were of quite a long-term character. For example, the DNA database, to which the Chairman referred, requires legislation.

The building of new premises is something I would heartily support. A site had to be identified for it, which we have identified. Plans had to be put together for it and that has been done. However, the actual pouring of concrete and the laying of bricks and mortar takes time when one must follow due process, such as procurement procedure and planning. As one of the people who suggested that this study should be done, I knew we would put ourselves under the spotlight and that it would show up deficiencies, but we were quite prepared to ventilate those. We have done so and have acted on it. The State gets a great return from what is a modestly structured service. We are moving it forward on every front.

Chairman

Does the Secretary General believe the absence of development up to now has hampered gardaí in their investigation and successful prosecution of major criminals?

Mr. Seán Aylward

No. I would not say that at all. It was a time factor. We would like to turn things around much more quickly because justice should be swift as well as sure. The turnaround on major crimes such as rape or murder is almost instant. I do not want to cite a particular case, but I am aware of one serious case in the west where staff worked through the weekend to make the DNA match and nail the perpetrator. When it comes to the most serious crimes there is no significant delay.

As regards drug seizures, when one is talking about bags and bags of seized material, and one is running tests to see if it is cocaine and of what purity, there can be backlogs and delays. Those delays are not acceptable to us or to the director of the service. We brought in the best person in the world in the field to examine it and see if he could help us to make a case for the investment we think is required. I must acknowledge that although some of the recommendations were on the expensive side, we have had the support of our colleagues in the Department of Finance in committing to the investment which will now flow from that report. For example, we were given extra money in the budget this year in response to that. An extra €1 million was included in the budget but there is a far bigger commitment coming down the pipe now for the DNA laboratory. We will move forward on the legislation as well.

Chairman

Will the Secretary General provide the committee with a report on the recommendations implemented and those that are pending?

Mr. Seán Aylward

If it is acceptable, we will provide the information in tabular form as to what is happening about the recommendations.

Chairman

Very good.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I welcome Mr. Aylward and his staff. We are often critical of people who appear before the committee to give evidence, but I believe in giving credit where it is due. Mr. Alyward has done a tremendous job on the overtime debacle in the prison service. As he rightly said, it was a difficult issue to tackle. I will not go into it in great detail because Deputy Shortall has already done so.

In one of his replies, Mr. Aylward said that when calculating the number of days that somebody is out ill, if it happens to be on a Friday, the Saturday and Sunday are included also. That seems to be an archaic system which is obviously skewing the matter in the wrong direction, as far as the Department is concerned in presenting a proper case. Could Saturdays and Sundays be taken out, thus giving the actual days that a person has been out sick?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I would not want to lean too hard on it. It is absolutely as the Deputy described it but the trend is the significant thing, rather than the aggregate number. It is a public service-wide system and it also concerns people who might bundle up their sick leave with annual leave. There are historical reasons behind it. It would be an interesting exercise, which our colleagues who manage the prison service on a day to day basis might do, to see what happens when one disaggregates the adjacent days. I will ask them if they can try to do that. I accept fully the point the Deputy has made but we calculate the numbers on a basis laid out for the whole public service. It has a distorting effect when people's actual sick leave is put back to back with rest days to which they might be entitled. I accept that but at the same time I acknowledge that the trends are real, whether they are up or down, and the data is not recorded so as to mislead anybody.

I thank the Deputy for the bouquet for the work done by the management side in getting the deal done and ending this pernicious system. In fairness, however, although they practically fought us in the trenches, the Prison Officers Association leadership fought for the best deal they could get for their colleagues. At the end of the day, they set out the case for and against very fairly. Having secured a good deal for their members, it was a difficult job for them to get the members to co-operate with its roll-out. I also acknowledge the work of the Labour Relations Commission. People put in incredible hours at Beggars Bush to negotiate a resolution of what was a very bitter dispute. Prison officers regarded overtime as their birthright or a human right. They said "If you make us work and we do the hours, we get the overtime". They were very bitter and entrenched about that. The change that has happened is historic and it has not happened anywhere else in the public service that I know of.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I presume one of the difficulties Mr. Aylward will have is the question of calculating benchmarking with other areas if they are not using the same system to collate the number of days of absence. Could somebody be asked to work more than 360 hours overtime per year?

Mr. Brian Purcell

No, except in an emergency, but that is a specific situation and the Minister must declare the emergency.

Mr. Seán Aylward

It would only occur on formally laid out grounds such as a riot, fire or earthquake.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I realise the type of work undertaken by a prison officer and one cannot compare rates of sick leave in the prison service with any other job in the public sector. Some people may be out long-term as a result of physical injury or stress or trauma due to some incident. Is it possible to take those out of the equation and do an average on what is left? It might give a fairer picture.

Mr. Seán Aylward

While we have rightly been berated for not meeting our target of July, the new system should help. I will ask my colleagues to see if we can start putting components into the new HR system to help us to disaggregate factors such as long-term sick leave referred to by the Deputy.

The Chairman referred to Cork Prison. A friend of mine who was dying of cancer worked in that prison and was out for nearly a year. Sadly, he has now gone to his reward. Some figures, particularly for a small unit of the service, can be somewhat misleading when someone has a completely genuine reason for absence.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Page 68 refers to the management of sick leave in prisons. The total number of sick days in 2006 was 82,580. If one multiplies that figure by eight, the number of hours in a working day, one gets roughly 650,000 hours, whereas Mr. Aylward told us at that time the amount of overtime being covered was 2.1 million hours. The only way one can get such a figure is if they are 24-hour rather than eight-hour days.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Not all overtime was attributable to sick leave absences. We inherited a post system in the prison where no staffing was provided for prisoner escorts. The only authorised posts - every post was authorised by the Department of Finance - were in-prison posts. All attendance at court and all transportation of prisoners was done on overtime. It was what they called recalls. As part of our restructuring, we got posts for those activities so that the staffing levels reflected the work required. That was called the SORT process. It took ten years of the most bitter negotiations to pin down those posts, but we did so. While a very large chunk of the overtime bill for the 2 million hours a year was down to sick leave, that was only part of the story. The average prison day is 10.5 hours, by the way, to answer another point raised by the Deputy.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I have a question on fines. I do not know whether the reports I have read from time to time are true. Is it the case that a person who is hit with an on-the-spot fine and decides to take his or her chances in court has only a 50-50 chance of ending up in court and for that reason many choose not to pay the fine and to go that particular route?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The odds are moving against people who take that bet. There is now a 60% plus probability that defaulters will end up in court and we are working constantly to improve that.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Are the chances increasing?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Yes. It is annoying to any law-abiding citizen that there is such a possibility but people need to remember that they are gambling and if their gamble goes wrong, a bench warrant will be issued and they could end up being lodged in our prisons. They are taking a bet on it and it is a bet where the odds are moving ever more in the direction of the State.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Earlier the Secretary General mentioned the great difficulty in collecting these fines. Various notes can be sent out. If somebody is fined, the Department has the registration number of the car. If the fine does not come in, can that be notified to the local authority and the fine set against the car so that the person cannot retax the car until such time as that fine has been paid? One of the reasons I ask this is that there is a certain cohort of individuals in a certain part of the community in this country who tend to park illegally their cars and caravans willy-nilly all over the place and we are told we are helpless to do anything about it. Could one use such a simple system of imposing a fine on them and if they refuse to pay it, it would go against them whenever they went to retax the car?

Mr. Seán Aylward

A number of Members in the House, including Deputy Kenneally, suggested that and it is being actively looked at in consultation with the Department of Transport. I mentioned earlier that Members of the Dáil and Seanad will have an opportunity to bring forward ideas like this because we will be reintroducing legislation in the area of fine collection in the next few months. The Government will bring forward some measure. An opportunity may arise for the Oireachtas to bring that forward. In the meantime, we will research the matter to see whether that would be viable. It has been done in other countries. We find it an attractive proposition because we would much prefer, as the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, that these unpaid fines were gathered by the motor tax system rather than by gardaí who--

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Have enough to be doing.

Mr. Seán Aylward

- -have even higher priorities to exercise.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Will that come before us in the context of the Fines Bill 2007?

Mr. Seán Aylward

There is a new road traffic Bill which will create that opportunity. In the past week alone officials from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as well as members of the Garda Síochána and staff from the Road Safety Authority, met the Department of Transport at a meeting they convened to consider aspects of that legislation. The discussions have centred on the issue of enforcing fines and particularly fixed-charge notices which comprise the vast bulk of traffic fines.

We acknowledge that the current system, where many of these fixed-penalty notices are issued, becomes cumbersome in terms of going after individuals. All I can say is that there must be further dialogue between the Department of Transport and the Attorney General's office about the legal and constitutional parameters to any new arrangements, but the Deputy's suggestion is in contemplation.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I am glad to hear it. That would be a positive development.As legal aid was mentioned, a question popped into my head. A cut-off is applicable to people who wish to qualify for civil legal aid and if a person is €50 above the limit, he or she will not get the legal aid. Could a system be put in place where if a person is slightly above the cut-off point, he or she would pay the amount by which they are slightly above as a contribution towards the cost of it? It is unfair that a person who is just outside the cut-off point cannot qualify.

Mr. Seán Aylward

When I became Accounting Officer in August 2004 I found that the threshold was slipping. It was low and excluded many people who would not have the means to pursue a legitimate civil claim. We have had to calibrate it carefully in order to meet our obligations. Gradually, the disposable income threshold has been increased. I want to be clear that it is a disposable income threshold. In the calculation of disposable income many matters are taken into account and not counted as disposable income. The threshold has risen from €13,000 to €18,000 and a great many other things are added on. The number of allowances on top of that €18,000 has been greatly increased. Deputy Kenneally is calling for a type of tapering off of the scheme.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

Exactly.

Mr. Seán Aylward

To the best of my knowledge, that is not the way it works. There has been a concentration more on raising the limits to bring them closer to a level where the cut-off point would not be so severe on people. I will take the suggestion and seek views on it. A tapered scheme would clearly incur more expenditure because more people would benefit, but it is worth looking at.

It is a principle of the State that people should have access to justice and we have tried to ensure that. We were heading for a deficit where people were not able to pursue cases such as family matters and were discouraged unfairly. We are much closer to capturing the group who need help. That said, to the best of my knowledge, we do not have a tapered scheme. I will inquire to see what is the position and I will respond through the Chairman.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I thank Mr. Aylward. My last question is on asylum seekers. Deputy O'Brien went into this in great deal and I will not do so. I am one who thinks that perhaps we are being too fair, that we bend over backwards to give people every opportunity.

Earlier Mr. Aylward made an interesting point about the number of people who were applying from prison and who have a criminal record. Is that taken into account in assessing whether they are allowed remain in the State? My view is that if they have a criminal record in this country, they should be excluded immediately.

Mr. Seán Aylward

In an application for asylum a person's character cannot be taken into account. If a person has a well founded fear of persecution, whether he or she is a violinist, an opera singer or a burglar, human rights law requires that he or she be treated as a human being at risk. Where a person who is a criminal makes an application to remain in the State, his or her behaviour while in the State is taken into account. It is an interesting fact that more than one in 20 applications made in 2007 were made from within a prison.

Deputy Brendan Kenneally

I thank Mr. Aylward.

Chairman

I am not trying to stifle questions but there is a good reason we have to be out of here as close to 1 p.m. as possible.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Reform of prison officers' working hours was mentioned. To date 1 million hours of overtime have been taken out of the system. Has this had any impact on manning and safety levels among staff officers who might believe they have fewer colleagues working with them than previously?

Mr. Brian Purcell

There are agreed manning levels which form part and parcel of the agreement with the Prison Officers Association. We try to maintain the agreed manning levels. In short, we do not believe the safety of our staff has been compromised.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Have there been many assaults on prison officers since the new regime was introduced? How many assaults occurred in 2006 and 2007?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I do not have the exact figures for the number of assaults on staff but will provide them. I do not believe there has been a considerable increase in the number of assaults on staff which would be attributable to the new attendance arrangements.

Deputy Seán Fleming

An annualised hours figure of 360 was mentioned. What would happen if there was a requirement for somebody to work beyond this number?

Mr. Brian Purcell

There is no requirement other than what I stated in response to Deputy Kenneally's question, that is, in the case of a clearly defined emergency.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Somebody mentioned comparisons with the position in England or Scotland. How does the figure for sick leave among prison officers compare with that among prison officers in Northern Ireland? Is it similar?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I believe the level of sick leave is higher than that in Northern Ireland.

Deputy Seán Fleming

We all read about prisoners' access to mobile phones, the searches and confiscations made. I was surprised by the whole affair. There are devices in cinemas to block mobile phones. I would have thought that such devices would be available in our prisons but was amazed to hear they were not. What is the position in respect of the use of that technology?

Mr. Brian Purcell

I do not believe there are such devices in cinemas. I believe they are illegal, as one cannot jam signals. One of the big problems in trying to come up with a technological solution to the problem of mobile phones in prisons is that one does not have an "off the shelf" package. It is cutting edge technology which must comply with the requirements ComReg so closely monitors. The mobile phone companies are very careful. The problem for prison systems throughout the world in the use of mobile phone blocking systems is that one must have a system which blocks the signal within the perimeter of a prison but which will not interfere with mobile phone reception outside it. Many of our prisons are located in urban settings. The Mater Hospital is located directly across the road from Mountjoy Prison, while Portlaoise General Hospital is close to Portlaoise Prison. There is a clear-cut issue and we must deal with both sides and deliver a system which will block signals within the prison perimeter without an overspill. It is very difficult to achieve this. That is the reason for the delay and the time spent on trying to develop a technological solution to the problem. This is state-of-the-art technology and so far no prison system in Europe or elsewhere has managed to develop it. However, we believe we are close to doing so with the pilot project in the Midlands Prison. When we achieve it, people will come from all over to see how we did it.

Deputy Seán Fleming

I would not have thought the technology would have to be developed by the prison service. This is a mobile phone issue. Mobile phone operators have licences from the State to operate. I can understand why they believe they will lose revenue if they lose calls from these locations. When they receive their licences, the State, for security reasons, should have the right to use such jamming equipment. The issue must be addressed. Knowing how business works, I suspect the mobile phone companies will probably seek compensation for the loss of these calls. Who is developing the technology? I envisage that we will end up paying the mobile phone companies for prisoners not being able to use their mobile phones in prison.

Mr. Seán Aylward

There is a slight sensitivity which I will explain. Part of the problem for the mobile phone companies is that if somebody is trying to make a 999 call from the roadside but cannot get through and there is loss of life or a serious injury, the issue of liability arises. It is possible to completely cut off a signal in a large geographical area and it has been done to prevent the triggering of terrorist bombs. We have engaged in a number of exercises in parts of the State, in co-operation with the telephony companies, to stop the triggering a possible bomb. It is possible to do this in large geographical areas. However, in confined areas, as described by Mr. Purcell, technically, it is difficult to confine the signal. A prison can be spread out with houses located right up against the walls, as in the case of Portlaoise and Mountjoy Prisons. People's back gardens run almost to the walls of prisons. That presents a challenge.

I have negotiated with some of the telephony companies. Commercially, they are a very strong group in Europe and operate very aggressively. It is very difficult for the State to lay down, or to get regulators to lay down, such demands or conditions, particularly when the technology has not been established or proved. The success to date of the pilot project in the Midlands Prison - we will not declare it a success yet - is due to the use of very advanced technology and it is paying dividends. It is looking good. When I was in the prison service, I tried to see if we could twist the arm of the service providers through ComReg but at the time the technology was not available to it to block telephone signals in a prison setting without a spillover. We may now have that technology in place. As Mr. Purcell said, it will be a first.

Deputy Seán Fleming

We are pleased to hear that because the country was bemused when all the incidents mentioned came to light. I know the devices used in cinemas are probably illegal, but they possibly work. The objective should be to try to legalise whatever system is put in place.

What is the longest period somebody using the Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice processes has been availing of direct provision? How many have been availing of direct provision for over five or six years?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will obtain a table for the Deputy. I do not want to give anecdotal evidence but it is not difficult for it to run to four years or more if someone goes right through the system to the Supreme Court. When cases are listed or interlocutory injunctions are obtained, the courts system must take matters in sequence.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Who pays the legal fees of challengers? Obviously, the State pays its own fees.

Mr. Seán Aylward

The refugee legal service pays.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Does that come within the Department's Vote?

Mr Seán Aylward

Yes.

Deputy Seán Fleming

The Department is paying for both sides. It is paying for the people making their cases and it is also paying other barristers to defend the cases.

Mr. Seán Aylward

If I am wrong, I will correct it in a note. I am told that in the year in question approximately €10 million was spent on that refugee legal service.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Was that in defending the State side or paying the legal costs of those asylum seekers?

Mr. Seán Aylward

That was providing the legal support for the asylum seekers to challenge the decisions made by the system. One could take it that there was matching expense on the State in answering the cases.

Deputy Seán Fleming

That was similar.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Yes.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Forgive me for asking an obvious question. Why would every asylum seeker, if he or she has free legal aid paid by the State, not place an injunct on the State at every step along the way? Why would an asylum seeker not do it, if it costs him or her nothing?

Mr. Seán Aylward

A large number do but a good percentage of people drop out of the system or leave the State.

Deputy Seán Fleming

What does Mr. Aylward mean by "drop out"? Does he mean that they go somewhere else?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Approximately 90% of the people who apply for asylum in this State do not apply at the frontier, at a border post, or at a port or airport. They turn up, usually at our centre on Mount Street. Most claim to have arrived here by air. We are fairly clear in our understanding that the majority are people who lawfully enter other parts of Europe, usually the UK, usually on a visitor visa or a work permit, and either before or some time after their lawful permit has expired, they pop over to Ireland, cross through the Border with the North and apply here. When such people see that their indirect provision is perhaps not in a part of the country in which they want to be and when they realise that the State will not put its hands up and give them permission to remain, often they exit by the same means through which they entered the State and move elsewhere.

Deputy Seán Fleming

What percentage of those granted asylum would the State believe are genuine asylum seekers?

Mr. Seán Aylward

A figure below 5%. Some 90% of asylum applications are unfounded.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Bogus?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will not use emotive language. They are economic migrants, often fleeing situations of great poverty, and they are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. I do not want to load it.

Deputy Seán Fleming

We will not. I take back that word.

Mr. Seán Aylward

They are unfounded. The threshold is not that one must establish that one is a genuine refugee beyond all reasonable doubt. What one must establish is that there is a possibility that one is genuine. We would say that less than 5% may be genuine.

Chairman

What of the responsibility of other states, if they come in from France, for instance?

Mr. Seán Aylward

There is an international agreement, called the Dublin Convention, under which we can return them. That is why I referred earlier to the hits on what we call the Eurodac system, which shows where people have applied for asylum in other EU states. In 2007, the most recent period for which I have information, 468 of all applications - more than one in ten applicants - was found to have already applied for asylum in other EU member states, but it is fair to say that the vast majority of the balance are people who would have lawfully entered the UK on visitor or work permit visas.

Deputy Seán Fleming

How many were repatriated last year having fully gone through the system?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will try to get that number in a few minutes. We have returned people through two methods, deportation by aircraft and under the Dublin Convention, mostly to the UK, using both buses and the ferry, which is obviously a more economical method. One of our difficulties is that at the point of deportation we get a blitz of writs to stop it and new issues raised. That is a frustration for the officials and the system.

Deputy Seán Fleming

Do many of the people in the direct provision locations around the country - we all know there is a new one in my area in Portlaoise - have cars?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Where anybody has access to a private vehicle, it has not been funded by the State or any arm of the State.

Deputy Seán Fleming

I am not suggesting that. I am not going that road at all. Some of the people would have their own private means and access to means if they have cars. I stress again that the cars are not being provided by the State.

Mr. Seán Aylward

The adults get €19 per week pocket money from us.

Deputy Seán Fleming

They are not getting the cars from the Department.

Mr. Seán Aylward

They are not coming from us. There may be anecdotes around that, I do not know.

To answer the Deputy's question about the number of deportation orders effected, six were effected in 1999, 188 in 2000, 365 in 2001, 521 in 2002, 591 in 2003, 599 in 2004, 396 in 2005, 302 in 2006, 135 in 2007 and 27 up to 31 March 2008. Tens of thousands of deportation orders were made over that entire period but a great many of them were frustrated by interlocutory injunctions.

Deputy Seán Fleming

There is a massive reduction in deportations. The Department was up at a figure of approximately 600 for several years and it is down now to 135. Is that due to the legal process?

Mr. Seán Aylward

That is largely through being frustrated through the legal system.

Deputy Seán Fleming

It is a policy area which the Secretary General cannot address but the Oireachtas will be addressing the issue of people being allowed make claims, but not while they remain in the State. There are such proposals.

Mr. Seán Aylward

There is substantive legislation before the House which will give Deputies and Senators an opportunity.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

I will be brief because I do not want to be responsible for creating overtime for anybody. We are dealing here with the 2006 figures. Between 1992 and 2006, sick leave or, in other words, overtime averaged 19 days in 1992 and 26 days in 2006. According to the graph on page 67, in 1994 there were 32,000 hours of sick leave and in 2006 there were 80,200, while at the same time the staff numbers increased by 1,000 - almost 50%. How does the Secretary General justify in the period with which we are dealing that almost 1,000 extra prison officers were employed and yet the overtime increased by an astronomical figure?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The capacity of the system was expanding and the number of staff in the system was expanding. The additional 1,000 individuals in the system were incurring illness and incurring sick leave as a result. Therefore, there was a statistical rise in the number of people who were eligible to take sick leave and in the number who took sick leave. I would concur with the Deputy that this still does not explain the jump shown in that graph of sick leave taken. From 1999 to 2005 was the period of the most bitter confrontation I have ever encountered as a public servant with any group of people.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

The Secretary General would want to be in politics for a while.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I would defer to the Deputy's experience. When one is in a situation where one is at daggers drawn with one's staff and they are battling to retain a system which is very remunerative for some individuals, one can see patterns of behaviour like that.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

I accept all that. Is it an admission of failure of the system in those years that the sick leave increased so much and yet the staff was increased by so much and the problem was not solved?

Mr. Seán Aylward

It would be inappropriate to pronounce the situation as a failure. We were locked into a bitter process. We lost a few battles. That graph shows the battles that we lost in each institution as people took sick leave out of all proportion to what they should, but the truth is the story was not ended and that graph does not show the end of the story. If a similar graph was produced in respect of the following two years, it would show that the level was flatlining and then decreasing.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

We are not dealing with those years.

Mr. Seán Aylward

It is similar to saying that Churchill lost the Second World War for the first four years but that he won in the end. I am of the view that we also won in the end and that the pernicious sick leave system chronicled in the graph has been brought to a close.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

On the next occasion Mr. Aylward comes before the committee we can deal with the success story. Unfortunately, we must deal now with the matters before us.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I acknowledge that.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

Mr. Brian Purcell indicated that there was no overcrowding and that there were beds available in all of the prisons at almost any time. He also indicated that there might be pressure in that regard on occasion. I am merely making a comment and do not intend this as a reflection upon our guests. However, it appears it is easier for prisoners or asylum seekers to get beds than it is for those waiting for operations or to be admitted to hospital. That is an indictment of our society.

Chairman

Mr. Aylward said he won the war but he did not state that the deal was struck at a high cost. I refer to the fact that people were given an 8% operational allowance, which is reflected in their pensions. We have not seen a balance struck in respect of that cost in any significant way as yet. Mr. Aylward may have won the war but it was at great expense to the taxpayer.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I should probably not use phrases relating to victory when discussing industrial relations. If it was a victory, it was bought at a high price. I wish to make the point, however, that the award was not made by us and that it was independently adjudicated upon. The award was evaluated, as appropriate, by independent adjudicators and we were obliged to accept their decision. It was not a case that I or Mr. Brian Purcell threw taxpayers' money across the table. The award was the product of an independent evaluation.

Chairman

UCD's institute of criminology examined the records of 19,955 prisoners released during the period 1 January to 30 November 2004. Its most recent research indicates that under 49% of these individuals were back in prison within four years. Is that a reflection on the effectiveness of the probation and welfare service? The relevant subhead indicates that the Parole Board spent just over 50% of its allocation -€454,000 - for the year under consideration. In addition, there were underspends under the various subheads relating to the probation and welfare service. For example, under H1 there was an estimate of €10.429 million and an actual spend of €9.808 million. Under H2, the estimate was €2.144 million and there was an outturn of €3.346 million. Under H3, there was an estimate of €12.107 million and a spend of €7.307 million. Under H4, the estimate was €1.387 million and the spend was €265,000. In the context of the UCD report, how is it that there were such major underspends?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I have read the UCD report and I co-operated with its authors. An article relating to the report indicates that recidivism and reimprisonment rates here are well in line with international precedents. It also indicates that the rates are far lower than figures, which suggested recidivism rates of 70%, that have been used anecdotally in the past. The rate is actually substantially lower than previously suggested.

Chairman

The raw figures indicate a rate of almost 50%.

Mr. Seán Aylward

That is well in line with the rates that obtain in some of the most advanced countries in the world, such as Canada. The figure is actually in the mid to lower end. I make the point that by the time people are imprisoned, in general, they have run the gamut of corrections and alternatives. They will have been cautioned, placed under Garda supervision or on JLO schemes, given the benefit of the Probation Act or suspended sentences. These are people who have not been prevented from offending by their families, schools, social workers, etc. Asking the State to turn the lives of repeat offenders around is almost similar to asking it to produce a miracle.

Chairman

I am not stating that the Secretary General should be smug or happy about this matter. However, the figures speak for themselves and there were major underspends in respect of the subheads to which I refer.

Mr. Seán Aylward

Historically, the probation and welfare service suffered as a result of extremely high staff turnover rates and underspends. Unlike the Irish Prison Service, which people join for life - staff do not take career breaks or tend to move on - the turnover rate for the probation and welfare service is high. I am pleased that in recent years we have made substantial investments in the probation and welfare service - particularly in the youth probation service. Recidivism rates in the youth custody sector, which did not come under our control until quite recently, were extremely high. We assumed responsibility for this area from the Department of Education and Science and we have established a new service aimed at reducing those rates and removing people from the track of offending.

The underspends are regrettable. We are working to get a bigger bang for our buck and employ more people in the probation and welfare service. In December 2006, I assisted the then Minister in bringing proposals to Government to considerably increase the staff numbers of the probation service. That increase has taken place. The underspends are regrettable in the context of recidivism or recommittal rates of 49% or 50% within a four-year period. However, we are beginning to bring our services in the alternative areas in line. We are far from being out of line with international comparators. This is amply demonstrated in the independent report to which the Chairman referred.

Chairman

In the year we are examining, there was an estimate of €1.387 million in respect of the juvenile offending initiatives but only €265,000 was spent. That is a disgrace, particularly in the context of so much comment regarding anti-social behaviour on the part of and the commission of urban crime by young people. However, the service designed to deal with young offenders only spent 25% of its budget. Would it be possible to provide up-to-date figures in respect of this matter?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I would be happy to supply those figures. In the year to which the Chairman refers, the Children Act provisions relating to community sanctions involved referrals by the courts. We projected for a higher level of referral for family conferences in that year than were actually called by the courts. It is at the instigation of a judge that a family conference is called. There was a lower referral rate by the courts and this may have resulted in an underspend. This meant that consequent spending on family mentoring was not at the level for which we had projected. We projected optimistically because we wanted to make ample provision for the courts to use that instrument, which was not used to the level anticipated. That may have been a factor. I do not want to be unfair to anyone. It was a new legal instrument and the courts were slower to use it than we had hoped.

Chairman

How does Mr. Aylward account for the probation and welfare service's underspend of almost 50% under subhead H3? There was an estimate of €12.107 million and only €7.307 million was spent.

Mr. Seán Aylward

That is the capital spend and I can provide a precise answer in respect of it. The estimate included a large sum in respect of the renovation and fit-out of a newly-leased premises in Tallaght. There were legal delays in taking it into ownership and the work did not commence until 2007. There were negotiating difficulties with the landlord for the premises. We had put money aside in order that they could fit out that very large new operation in Tallaght but they were not able to get hold of the property. Therefore, the expenditure did not roll until the following year.

Chairman

Does Mr. Aylward have the figures for last year?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I will get them to the Chairman. I do not have them with me because most of my data relate to 2006. The saving was €4.8 million, the bulk of which was going to go to the Tallaght premises but, as can happen, the negotiations with the company dragged out.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I agree that the number on probation relative to the number in prison is exceptionally low by European standards and that the probation and welfare service continues to be a poor relation. Research was conducted by Dr. Eoin O'Sullivan of Trinity College into the length of sentence prisoners were serving. Almost 40% were serving sentences of less than three months, while a further 20% were serving sentences of between three and six months. Given the cost of keeping a prisoner, it would make sense to make wider use of community sanctions and work projects for persons who commit offences and are sentenced to less than six months in prison. Why is almost 60% of the prison population at the lower end of the offending scale? Are there not much more creative and effective responses?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The most important aspect is that it is the courts which decide whether a penal or community sanction should be imposed. Historically many judges said, "I have no recourse. There is nothing available to me." That is no longer true. One will see in the years to come increasing recourse by the courts to the instruments available in the form of community sanctions. In April 2007 the Department made a proposal to the Department of Finance and the Government for a juvenile justice and child protection package to divert people from being sent to prison for minor property or public order offences.

Through dialogue with the Department of Finance and the Minister's Government colleagues, we secured 71 additional staff for the probation and welfare service. That allowed for the subsequent recruitment of 53 professional and 18 administrative staff. Between 2006 and 2007 we put a new structure in place for the service which involved the recruitment of three deputy directors and two assistant deputy directors. We have tried to move probation and other alternatives from being the orphan of policy to a product champion. Increasingly, the Judiciary is aware of the scope for it. At the suggestion of Deputy O'Keeffe, a member of the previous Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, we also moved forward on another restorative justice initiative, which Judge Mary Martin is heading up, and hope to have a product from it shortly.

It is remarked in the article cited by the Chairman that we have a propensity in Ireland to imprison which is lower than that in most countries, but Professor O'Donnell also remarks that the sentences tend to be of a shorter character. I have noticed, walking around other prison systems, that we give people shorter sentences for the same crimes than would be handed down, say, in Scotland. I am a little wary of condemning short sentences and would not like to encourage excessive sentences. On scrutinising people who were in custody for short terms, it turned out that they were serial offenders. It is an issue for the courts when people decline the opportunities given to impose a sanction.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

How many are in prison for the non-payment of fines?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The figure is minute. I welcome the opportunity to nail the canard that hundreds are in prison.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Does Mr. Aylward have a figure?

Mr. Seán Aylward

Less than 1% on a daily basis. Although thousands are committed to prison every year for the non-payment of fines, invariably they pay. It sometimes take the shadow of the prison gate to make them pay. That must be in place to ensure compliance.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

Does Mr. Aylward accept it is time to introduce a proper system of attachment of earnings to recover fines?

Mr. Seán Aylward

The fines Bill will do all that and I support it.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

We will wait and see.

Mr. Seán Aylward

It is a complete myth that prisons are full of fine defaulters.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It would be interesting to see the numbers.

Mr. Seán Aylward

I would be happy to give them. We have given the figures to the committee many times.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

What is the approach to prisoner access to the Internet? I ask this because of recent media reports on a criminal figure who had a Bebo page and frequently uploaded photographs from his mobile phone to the page.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I am not sure whether the Deputy was present but this brings us back to the earlier discussion about mobile phones.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I was here.

Mr. Brian Purcell

Access to mobile phones is a problem in prison systems throughout the world. We are doing whatever we can--

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I referred specifically to use of the Internet and a prisoner having a Bebo page, for example, with which he or she could communicate with the outside world.

Mr. Brian Purcell

The prisoner does this via his mobile phone. He does not have a laptop in his cell. We seized the telephone from him and have put in place a number of stringent measures to deal with the increasing problem of mobile phones in the prison.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

The searches were only carried out after the exposure on the Joe Duffy programme. Are searches conducted regularly?

Mr. Brian Purcell

Of course. I absolutely reject that assertion. We conduct searches on a regular basis. The incident highlighted on the Joe Duffy programme raised the profile and led to the sanctioning of resources which we were, coincidentally, seeking to deal with what we had flagged as an ever increasing problem. I want to make that crystal clear.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

I cannot understand how there could be resource implications for the seizure of mobile phones.

Mr. Brian Purcell

We need additional staff for searches. Mobile phones are one element of contraband smuggled into prisons, with drugs, weapons and so on. Prisoners are ingenious in the way they bring in contraband. Because our system encourages maintenance of family contact and it is not as restrictive as in many other jurisdictions, it is a constant battle to deal with the trafficking of contraband into prison, but we are doing everything possible. We flagged a danger that was developing in the smuggling of contraband and put together a package. The Minister obtained sanction to recruit additional staff and we are rolling out the new security package throughout the prisons. There are few certainties in this business. It is very difficult to say with absolute certainty that nothing will get into a prison. It is impossible.

Deputy Róisín Shortall

It is a coincidence that so many turned up after the Joe Duffy programme.

Mr. Brian Purcell

I do not accept that; hundreds were seized beforehand.

Chairman

Mr. Purcell might supply the committee with the figure for the number seized beforehand. We will leave it at that.

I refer to subhead G9, compensation for personal injuries criminally inflicted. I hope it is a myth that prominent gangland figures from Dublin are claiming under this subhead in respect of injuries they received from their colleagues. Is that so?

Mr. Seán Aylward

I would have to scrutinise the figures but I think it is a myth. The expenses one can claim for criminal injuries are a source of criticism. One only claims for strictly audited and vouched expenditure. Therefore, one cannot claim in respect of pain and suffering and other issues under this subhead. I have no reason to believe this is a revenue source for gangland criminals. To be candid, the awards are so modest under the scheme that I do not think the major crime figures in question would be bothered. I will make an inquiry and report back to the Chairman. However, I think it is another urban myth.

Chairman

I thank members and witnesses for their attendance. Does the spokesperson for the Department of Finance have any comments to make?

Mr. Jim O’Farrell

By and large, what the two Accounting Officers have said reflects a value for money ethos and an industrial relations process that we have supported.

Chairman

The committee has expressed dissatisfaction today at some of the responses we have received. We asked about the use of consultants across Departments, but the response was inadequate. We will write again seeking more detail.

Mr. Jim O’Farrell

I was speaking to a colleague yesterday who was preparing a report on the issue, subsequent to it being raised at a previous meeting of the committee.

Chairman

We received a response, but it only provided information we already had received. Perhaps Mr. O'Farrell can pass on that information.

Mr. Jim O’Farrell

I shall pass on the message.

Chairman

I thank Mr. O'Farrell. Is it agreed that the committee note Votes 19 and 21 and dispose of chapter 5 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's annual report of 2006 and chapter 17 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report No. 56? Agreed. On a technical point, Vote 19 of the 2005 accounts was not noted. It is also now formally noted. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We have agreed the agenda for Thursday, 1 May: 2006 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and appropriation accounts - chapter 6.1, contract termination costs (resumed) - the Limerick contract. We will deal with that issue at 12.30 p.m. We will also look at special report No. 61 on the Ballymun regeneration programme at 10.30 a.m.

The witnesses withdrew.

The committee adjourned at 1.25 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Thursday, 1 May 2008.