UP to five officers in Limerick prison are being disciplined for abuses in work practices, the Minister for Justice has said.
Prison service staff had been allowed to exchange shifts for many years for reasons of domestic or personal commitments Mrs Owen told the Dail yesterday.
"People who were abusing this facility were paying somebody else to do their roster including, I assume, all the relevant allowances and continuing to be paid as prison officers. At least one or two people did not appear at their jobs for long periods," she said.
Responding to questions from the Progressive Democrats' spokeswoman, Ms Liz O'Donnell who wrote to the Minister about the abuses on September 6th, Mrs Owen said that when they came to her attention in September, "I said I wanted it stopped immediately. These people were then informed that they could no longer do what they were doing".
There seemed to be two to five people involved, Mrs Owen added. "I have to be careful because the disciplinary code is being implemented. Clearly they were getting somebody else to do their work and running some kind of business or other outside activities outside of the prison."
When told they could not continue to do that, one if not two prison officers went on sick leave. At least one had returned.
The Minister said the specific circumstances of this abuse of facility were not covered by the Governor's Order of 1993.
While the prison service had incurred no extra cost arising from this practice, abuse of the spirit of the intended exchange arrangement could not be tolerated.
In the absence of a circular outlining standard procedures on exchanges of duties for the prison service, the Governor felt he had no basis for withdrawing the privilege from the officers concerned. He recommended that the Department issue a circular.
This proved difficult from an industrial relations point of view, Mrs Owen said, and even industrial action was threatened in 1994.
Once she became aware of the matter last September, at about the same time as Ms O'Donnell's letter, she directed that this matter be dealt with immediately. A revised Governor's Order was issued in Limerick prison.
The Prison Officers' Association "griped, held meetings, threatened votes and so on. It did not want the facility to be knocked be cause of its abuse by three, four, or five officers", she said.
Her Department, as a precaution, continued to address potential abuse in other prisons by drafting an appropriate circular to all governors on the process of exchanging duties.
She was determined, she added, that a handful could not and would not manipulate a positive staff facility so that they could, run businesses or engage in other employment during normal rostered times.
