Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:60 Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the Government's plans for privatising aspects of the criminal justice system, including prisons; and the reasons for same. [23467/03]
Ceisteanna – Questions (Resumed). Priority Questions. - Irish Prison Service.
Ciarán Cuffe
Question:62 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the plans in development by the Government for the privatisation of prisons outside of the current package of measures under negotiation with the Prison Officers' Association. [23468/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 60 and 62 together.
As the House will be aware, the Prison Service has, for some time, been in negotiation with the Prison Officers' Association on a new deal to enhance significantly the operational efficiency of our prisons and reduce costs, particularly overtime costs. The package of measures under negotiation does not refer to any proposal for privatised prisons. The present focus of the proposals is to enable publicly managed prisons to deliver an efficient and effective service, which is what the taxpayer and the people deserve. The Prison Officers' Association is due to ballot its members on the proposals very shortly.
The existing cost of the Prison Service is unsustainable. In the absence of agreement, the Government will decide urgently on measures which it has recently discussed to significantly reduce costs in the service. It would not be helpful or appropriate for me to outline at this time the measures that will be considered by Government if agreement cannot be reached with the Prison Officers' Association by the end of this month. I very much hope that agreement can be reached very soon and that the necessary progress can be made on the basis of consensus.
The Minister is being clever in his answer. In May, at the conference of the Prison Officers' Association, he said: "If I had to secure capital investment from outside Exchequer sources for the prison system, I would consider doing so." On 22 August the Evening Herald reported that a radical plan existed to privatise prisons. The following day, the director of the Prison Service, Seán Aylward, confirmed that there was a contingency plan to hand over prisons to private operators and to close at least four smaller jails if the talks proved unsuccessful. On 19 and 22 September, the director confirmed that he was considering the privatisation of some of the functions of the service, such as the escorting of prisoners, and that the privatisation of prisons had not been ruled out. On 24 September the Minister said in the Irish Independent that he would not privatise prisons except as a last resort.
More recently, on 3 October, in response to a direct question he only confirmed, cleverly, that the Government offer to the Prison Officers' Association does not refer to prison privatisation. Does a contingency plan exist in the Department to privatise prisons? Is the director of the Prison Service spoofing or lying? Has the Minister definitely ruled out prison privatisation? A straight answer is required.
I reject the imputation against the honesty and integrity of the director of the Prison Service, who is doing a wonderful job to bring about change that has been needed for so long and which is now about to occur. On the quotations the Deputy has strung together, if he examined carefully each link in his chain of evidence, he would find that each of them is flawed. For instance, what I said to the prison officers in Galway was that if I had to secure capital for the Prison Service from outside the Exchequer, I would do so. Capital expenditure on prisons does not involve running or maintaining prisons, which involve a current item of expenditure. The point I made to the prison officers was that the current pattern of cannibalising the State's budget for capital development in prisons to pay for massively excessive overtime is unsustainable and will not continue.
I can state categorically to the Deputy that there is no plan in my Department to privatise the Prison Service. I reiterate that our priority is to run a decent prison service as a State service and to do so within a containable budget. There may well be circumstances in which individual functions, which are now carried out by the State in respective prisons, could be carried out by others. One example would be a public private partnership to construct any new prison accommodation. Other examples include the escorting of prisoners to and from courts and maintenance and service facilities within prisons, such as stores. I will consider all these things, but it must be emphasised that it is my preference that the Prison Service be run, if possible, as a State service by officers employed by the State and subject to the control of the State.
The partial diversion of the capital budget of the Prison Service into paying for excessive overtime, which has been the case for some years, must not continue. The prison officers have been given a fair deal. They are now balloting on it and I hope they will accept it. It must be made clear to all concerned that the present circumstances are unsustainable and I will take action to prevent them from continuing.
It seems there is certainly an agenda at play on this issue. The prison at Shanganagh in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area has been closed. We are told that it will be sold to raise funds for the Prison Service. There are remarks on the public record about the possible sale of Mountjoy Prison and its moving to somewhere on the M50, no doubt adjacent to the proposed national stadium.
There is a serious concern that this is privatisation by stealth. When one talks about the possible privatisation of the transportation of prisoners, is this not the thin end of the wedge? Where will it end? If one privatises some of the services of the Prison Service, one will be implementing privatisation by stealth. This means that profit, rather than the welfare of prisoners, will be the guiding motive. We need look no further than across the water to the United Kingdom to see the dangerous precedent of even partial privatisation. When partial privatisation was introduced there ten or 15 years ago, it was regarded as impinging on only a small part of the prison service. The United Kingdom now has the most privatised prison system in Europe. Does the Minister perceive it to be a success, bearing in mind that prison officers in the privatised service have been charged, on many accounts, of not looking after the welfare of prisoners?
We need a clear answer regarding whether the Minister considers the tendering of transportation services to be partial privatisation. Does he regard the selling off of certain prison lands as simply being a way to improve the existing prisons or is it a move towards more complete privatisation?
I thought I made it very clear that I have no plans for privatisation of our prison institutions.
What about transport?
The optimal position, over which I stand, is that prisoners be accommodated in prisons governed by the State and staffed by the State through its own officers. However, there is room for improvement and more economical practices in respect of some areas of support services for the Prison Service or incidental services on the periphery of its core activities. It would be a dereliction of my duty to the taxpayer if I did not address these issues.
The fundamental question the Deputy raises about the future of individual prison campuses is different. If I have to relocate the Mountjoy Prison – I emphasise that no decision has been taken in this regard – it will be entirely without prejudice as to whether such an institution would be built on a public private partnership basis. My preference, of which prison officers should be aware, is that the Prison Service should continue to be staffed by officers of the State. If this is made impossible, I will confront the matter. In the meantime, I urge everybody to attempt to arrive at consensus to allow prisoners to be cared for in State-controlled, run and owned prison facilities in which the officers who look after prisoners are public servants.
Does the Minister recognise that if he were to introduce a public private partnership, it would give rise to the danger that profit would be tied to the number of prisoners incarcerated? Does he perceive a risk that an increase in prison numbers would work to the advantage of any company involved in a public private partnership?
I cannot imagine entering into an agreement for the construction of any facility in which the provider of the facility would be remunerated by reference to whether the courts sent people to the institution in question for punishment or on remand. There is no such danger and the suggestion is fanciful. I have clearly set out my policy preference. I ask other people, particularly the members of the Prison Officers' Association, to make it possible for me to provide for the taxpayer and community at large a Prison Service within reasonable economic cost boundaries. This is not currently the case, but it will be, in one way or another. I ask that it be achieved by way of agreement and consensus, rather than confrontation.
John Deasy
Question:61 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the steps he plans to take to redress the high level of sick leave as identified by the Comptroller and Auditor General among prison officers. [23503/03]
I welcome the publication of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the management of sick leave in prisons. While the rostered nature of Prison Service employment poses difficulties in comparing sick absence levels of prison staff with those of other civil servants and high levels of sick absence are also a feature of prison service employment in other countries, notably the United Kingdom, I am determined to take decisive steps to address the problem of high sick leave absence levels in the Prison Service.
There is evidence that a small number of prison officers – I make no slur against the body of prison officers – contribute disproportionately to the overall level of sick leave. Where the actual number of absences is low, this derives, in some cases, from the serious nature of an officer's illness. Where high sick leave levels derive from a high number of absences, however, there are more grounds to suspect that an officer is abusing sick leave arrangements.
As indicated in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, the Prison Service adopts a systematic approach to reviewing sick leave absence records of staff. During 2001 and 2002 this approach had to be put on hold while an officer sought a judicial review in the High Court of the decision of the Prison Service to withdraw the privilege of sick leave with pay in his case. The outcome of this review, in December 2002, upheld the approach of the Prison Service and has enabled it to reinstate its systematic approach. Already this effort is bearing fruit in terms of reduced sick absence levels in a number of prisons where staff absence records have been reviewed.
Even with this systematic review of staff absences, however, I acknowledge that further steps must be taken to address this issue and ensure that absence levels do not begin to drift back up to the levels of recent years, as highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his report. The guaranteed hours procedure, which I have proposed to introduce in place of overtime, will have the effect, on an annual hours basis, of offering less of an incentive for the minority of prison officers who are seriously abusing the current system to attempt to continue to do so. The package on the table will address, in large measure, the temptation for a small minority of prison officers in the past to greatly abuse the current sick leave arrangements.
Members will agree that the figures on sick leave in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General are staggering. The report found that €55 million was spent on prison officers' overtime in 2002, while officers took more than 60,000 days sick leave, an average of around 19 days each in 2002. Cork Prison recorded double the national average while the figure for Arbour Hill was well below average. The Comptroller and Auditor General asked whether specific institutional or management factors at work in Arbour Hill contributed to the prison's relatively low rate of sick leave. He also noted that the system employed to record sick leave was deficient.
The cost of sick leave in 2001 was €8.6 million, twice the Civil Service average. This massive sum, €16 million or €17 million over four years, is a terrible waste of money. I reiterate my earlier calculation that €20 million would cover the cost of recruiting and training 300 to 400 gardaí.
Given that the Government squandered the resources available for the area of criminal justice during the past six or seven years and the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats parties allowed the current position to develop, responsibility for this matter must lie with the Minister. He talks a great deal inside and outside the Chamber and twice today stated he would take decisive action with regard to prison officers. We will see what this entails given that the Government is responsible for the current mess in which resources are not available to invest in criminal justice.
I welcome the support of the Deputy for the steps I am taking. I am glad at least one party is nailing its colours firmly to the mast and agreeing that I must tackle this matter. If it comes to a crunch, I will expect his party to follow through with its support.
With regard to the €55 million spent on prison officers' overtime, it should be borne in mind that the figure is distributed among 3,300 staff, whereas a comparable figure is distributed among 11,900 gardaí. This begs the question as to the reason such a culture arose and has been tolerated.
Deputy Deasy has the great luxury of being a late entrant to the House which allows him to castigate one Government only for the current position. The blame runs much further back. If the Deputy examines the record carefully, he will find that no effective action was ever taken by his party on the odd occasion it had responsibility for this matter.
It has taken the Minister seven years to figure that out.
I am taking responsibility for this matter. Following my appointment, I attended the annual conference of the Prison Officers' Association where I informed those present that I would address the matter of sick leave within a short timeframe, which has since elapsed.
The Minister stated he would have the matter sorted out by September.
The ballot process is now under way. The matter should be dealt with on the basis of consensus, but if that is not possible I will deal with it unilaterally. That is not my wish, as my preference is always to agree with State servants on the manner in which matters of this nature should be addressed. If, however, agreement is not available on realistic terms, I will take unilateral action and I expect the House to back me in taking reasonable steps to end the situation the Deputy correctly categorises as scandalous.