The State's 200 probation officers are considering industrial action after being excluded from an "expert" working party on the probation and welfare service, apparently by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.
The 200 IMPACT members are being balloted by their union to see if they should take industrial action. The votes will be counted on Friday and depending on the result the branch executive will decide what action to take.
The officers have described the decision to exclude their union from the group as "manifestly wrong". The probation branch has not engaged in industrial action since 1987 when it held a half-day strike over a job-sharing dispute.
The current dispute arose after the IMPACT probation and welfare branch wrote to the Minister in the middle of last month after he announced the setting up of the group to examine the service.
IMPACT pointed out in the letter that its members had initiated many of the reforms and developments in the probation and welfare service, including drug treatment programmes for prisoners, sex offender programmes and the "drug-free" zones initiative in prisons.
A spokesman said after seeking representation on the expert group they received notification of its membership last week. The group includes the Principal of the Service but no IMPACT representative. There is an ICTU representative but it is possible that if industrial action is initiated over the affair, the ICTU representative might withdraw.
The IMPACT spokesman said: "This is unacceptable in a service where the core activity depends on the professional relationship between the probation officer and the client. This branch has published more on probation research and practice than any other group in Ireland - including the Department of Justice." Industrial action by the probation officers could lead to disruption in the courts where they are called to give reports on offenders. It could also lead to parolees being unsupervised in the community.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the appointments to the expert group followed the same procedure as other such working groups in the criminal justice system.