Warning on prison officers' sick leave

The Minister for Justice warned he would deal with the high level of sick leave among prison officers in the absence of an agreement with his Department.

Mr McDowell recalled he had, on his appointment, told the annual conference of the Prison Officers' Association (POA) he would address the matter within a short timeframe, which had since elapsed.

"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."

The Minister was replying to the Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr John Deasy, who said the figures on sick leave in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General were 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."

Insisting that responsibility for the matter rested with the Minister, he added that Mr McDowell "talks a great deal inside and outside the Chamber" stating that he would take decisive action regarding 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."

Mr McDowell said he welcomed Mr Deasy's support for the steps he was taking. "If it comes to the crunch I will expect his party to follow through with its support."

He said that Mr Deasy had the great luxury of being a late entrant to the House, which allowed him to castigate one government only for the current position. "The blame runs further back. If the deputy examines the record carefully, he will find that no effective action was ever taken by his party during the odd occasion when it had responsibility for this matter."