Prison governors had decided to seek to avoid managerial responsibility for their own actions in the prison service to date, the Prison Officers' Association said yesterday.
The union issued a statement in response to an Irish Times report yesterday revealing the contents of a report submitted in 1996 to the Government by prison governors. The report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that governors believed the prison officers' union had absolute control over the running of the prison system, with governors unable to introduce disciplinary measures, restrict overtime or deal with excessive absenteeism. Mr Tom Hoare, deputy general secretary, in the statement yesterday said the POA rejected the allegation by prison governors. Negotiated practices for overtime entitlements while on sick leave were agreed by local prison governors. No union head office or Department of Justice staff were involved in these local agreements.
Overtime was authorised and sanctioned by local prison management. A legal code of discipline existed for prison staff in which the prison governor played a major role, he said.
The POA was unaware of any ending of the policy of targeting officers with bad sick leave records; the reverse was the case. The nature of prison work and appalling working conditions in some prisons were major factors in sick leave, he added.
Earlier, speaking on RTE's News at One, Mr Hoare said: "When you take into account that a prison governor is paid £900 a week, the admission that they are not in control of their own institutions is the matter for a separate inquiry."
Mr Dan Scannell, governor of Castlerea prison, and chairman of the governors' group of the Association of Higher Civil Servants said on the same programme that the observations of the prison governors on this were nothing new. They had nothing to hide and what was in the report in The Irish Times was what they had been saying for years.
"We are not POA bashing as such, we are merely highlighting the ineffectiveness of the central management system," he said.
It was not the case, he added, that a person on sick leave could earn enormous amounts of overtime.