A PROPOSAL from the Department of Just ice almost two years ago to set up a prisons board was blocked on cost grounds by the Department of Finance, it has been learned.
Remarks in the Dail on Wednesday by the Minister for Finance angered prison officials who made the proposal. Mr Quinn referred to their Department as "Victorian".
Justice sources said formal negotiations with Mr Quinn's Department on setting up a prisons board began at the start of 1995.
The proposals were turned down this summer, with Finance stating that a prisons board could not be justified on cost grounds.
There was no comment on the matter from either Department yesterday.
It was learned, however, that the Department of Justice has pushed for years for its prison responsibilities to be moved to an independent board.
The Government finally decided on such a board following last week's controversy over the release and rearrest of prisoners invalidly arraigned in court before Judge Dominic Lynch.
The welter of accusation against the Department has angered Justice officials.
Mr Quinn's remarks in the Dail on Wednesday, that the State's prisons bore "a remarkable resemblance to the Irish prison system that existed in Victorian times" particularly annoyed them.
It is understood that formal negotiations between Justice and Finance finally reached discussions between Department secretaries before the prisons board proposal was rejected.
Senior justice officials and the prison governors were sufficiently concerned about the need for a prison board to seek the support of their union, the Association of Higher Civil Servants.
Officials and governors put a motion before the AHCS's annual delegate conference, at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin last March.
The motion stated: "That this annual delegate conference instructs the executive committee to prepare, in consultation with the Department of Justice branch and prison governors, proposals for the establishment of a prisons board." Conference adopted the motion.
It is understood the Justice proposals mirror those set out in the Whitaker Report, published in 1985, on the prison system.
This report recommended that while the ultimate responsibility for the prison service should remain with the Minister for Justice, daily administration should be placed by statute in the hands of a prison service director who would be in charge of a board separate from the Department of Justice.
Whitaker recommended the board should include non executive members with experience and competence in psychology and psychiatry, education, care and social reintegration.
"The aim of the board should be to build up an efficient system combining a caring as well as a custodial role in which there would be a strong esprit de corps," the report stated.
The Department of Justice did not mention that it had made these proposals when it issued a public statement on Wednesday welcoming the Government's decision to implement the plan for a prisons board.
The statement indicated that the Department had formally supported the idea of a board but did not state that its proposals had, been rejected.