Conor Lally
The transfer of 90 prisoners, and staff, from the Curragh place of detention, Kildare, to the Midlands prison, Portlaoise, will begin on Monday as part of the Government's plan to reduce spending within the prison service.
The transfers are expected to be complete by Tuesday, when the facility will close. Spike Island prison in Cork is to close on January 31st, when prisoners and staff will be transferred to other prisons.
The closures are to go ahead following the failure of talks between prison officers and the Irish Prison Service to reach agreement on the ongoing overtime row. Both facilities will reopen when an agreement is reached.
The running of Shelton Abbey in Wicklow and Loughan House in Cavan - both open prisons - will be placed outside the remit of the prison service from next month.
Plans to privatise prison escorts are advanced. Advertisements seeking tenders for the service have already been published.
Talks between the Irish Prison Officers' Association and the Irish Prison Service are due to resume at the Labour Relations Commission on Monday.
The move follows almost a week of bilateral discussions between the parties on the non-pay issues involved in the ongoing overtime dispute.
Both sides said considerable progress needs to be made before the impasse is broken. The officers are still unhappy at the annualised hours package on offer.
They will receive a pay increase of around €10,300 if they agree to work up to 360 hours overtime every year. That offer forms the basis of a plan by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to cut the annual €65 million prison overtime bill by half.
At present prison officers make an average of €19,000 in annual overtime. They are concerned that under Mr McDowell's plan they will face the prospect of being forced to work overtime at short notice.
"It will effectively mean we will be on call virtually all the time," said one source.
A spokesman for Mr McDowell said talks on overtime have been going on for seven years.
"The officers have had ample notice about the Minister's contingency plan," he said.
Sinn Fein's spokesman on justice, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, said Mr McDowell's plans do not tackle the real sources of overspending in the prison service. He called for a transparent review process of the system before reforms are implemented.