I thank Deputy Costello for raising this matter on the Adjournment. I am replying on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell. I welcome the fact that Deputy Costello shares the objective of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in this matter, to reduce, in general terms, the overall overtime bill, although he has expressed his disagreement with some of the steps being taken to implement that objective.
The Minister sees merit in the idea of discussions under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission, but it is important to understand the context of the current impasse between the Prison Officers' Association and the Irish Prison Service to appreciate the basis on which any such discussions can take place.
Discussions between the Prison Service and the Prison Officers' Association going back some considerable time produced a consensus that the concept of annual hours offered the best prospect of achieving a set of arrangements which would meet the needs of both sides. Management eventually tabled a comprehensive set of proposals for change based on the annual hours concept and on the detailed operations of an expert group, the staffing and operations review team, known as SORT, which produced, over a two-year period, a detailed report in respect of each and every prison and place of detention.
Those proposals were the subject of discussions over the summer months. When little or no progress was made, it was agreed to continue the discussions with the assistance of two facilitators, Mr. Bill Attley, a former general secretary of SIPTU and Mr. Joe McGovern, a retired assistant secretary at the Department of Finance. Among the demands tabled by the Prison Officers' Association in the course of those facilitated discussions, was a claim for an increase in basic pay. The management side made clear that an increase in basic pay was not on under the terms of Sustaining Progress and benchmarking, and eventually the Prison Officers' Association agreed to withdraw the pay claim.
The management side, in good faith, responded to the withdrawal of the pay claim by offering a number of improvements to its original package of proposals for change. However, despite intensive efforts to get some measure of agreement on the package offered, no progress has been made. The range of demands tabled by the Prison Officers' Association in the course of discussions, if conceded, would have resulted in an even more expensive system than the current overtime system.
The facilitated discussions ended when the facilitators concluded that the gap between the sides was too great to be bridged. Subsequently, management issued its revised proposals for change and the Prison Officers' Association then put those proposals to the membership with a recommendation that they be rejected. The outcome of the ballot was a clear rejection of the management proposals.
It is important to note that, subsequently, the possibility of inviting the Labour Relations Commission to intervene was mooted by the Irish Prison Service management. The Prison Officers' Association insisted that it would not go to the Labour Relations Commission solely on the basis of the management proposals but would be willing to go that route if it could submit its own set of proposals.
The Minister's and the Government's assessment of the proposals ultimately put forward by the Prison Officers' Association is already on the record of the House. The Minister has addressed them at length in the course of a number of Adjournment debates in recent days. In a nutshell, the Prison Officers' Association is so far removed from reality that there is simply no point in going to the Labour Relations Commission to seek a compromise solution on the basis of the proposals submitted by it.
The pay claim, which the Prison Officers' Association had agreed to drop in the course of the facilitated discussions, was reintroduced as the central element of its proposals. Given that such an increase in basic pay could not be contemplated under the terms of Sustaining Progress and benchmarking, there was simply no way that the Minister could agree to authorise the Irish Prison Service to enter talks, either in the Labour Relations Commission or any other forum, where a proposal involving an increase in basic pay would form part of the discussions.
Apart from the basic pay claim, the proposals put forward by the Prison Officers' Association make no attempt to address the core problem of escalating overtime costs in the Prison Service and the concept of annual hours, which both sides had agreed offered the best way forward, is ignored. It was against this background that the Minister was left with no option but to bring to Government a set of proposals which, in the absence of agreement, would achieve the level of efficiencies that are required to ensure a reasonable and sustainable cost structure for the Prison Service.
An industrial dispute in the Prison Service is the last thing the Minister or his Cabinet colleagues want. He has no desire to close or even mothball prisons or to turn over management control of our open centres at Loughan House and Shelton Abbey to another organisation.
His clear preference is for an agreed solution which would be good for both management and staff and for the persons entrusted to the care of the Prison Service. However, if a solution cannot be reached by consensus, the Minister will have no choice but to proceed in the new year with the alternative cost reduction measures approved by the Government on 11 November 2003.
Deputies will also be aware of recent media reports concerning the payment of benchmarking awards to prison officers and other groups. I take this opportunity to make it clear that there has been no decision to refuse the 1 January benchmarking payments to prison officers. What is at issue is the temporary deferral by the justice performance verification group of consideration of whether to recommend payment of the increases in question in light of the fluid nature of the current situation.
There is still a window of opportunity between now and the end of the year to reach agreement on the way forward. The Minister met representatives of the Prison Officers' Association last Thursday to discuss the impasse and I understand that it was generally a positive meeting. The Minister very much hopes that the short time left will be used by the Prison Officers' Association to enter meaningful discussions and conclude agreement on the way forward.
