Justice: Spending on the Garda and particularly on Garda overtime is set to go up while the prison officers' overtime bill will be cut, the Estimates for the Department of Justice show.
The Garda Síochána will see an increase in its budget of €91 million, up 9.5 per cent on last year, bringing the total Garda budget to €1,054,927 million. The force accounts for almost 60 per cent of the total Departmental budget of €1.836 billion.
The salary allocation for gardaí has increased by 9.3 per cent, to allow for the increase in the size of the force and benchmarking. The allowance for Garda overtime is up 13.3 per cent. There is also a special allocation of €7.5 million in Garda overtime during the EU presidency, to ensure that policing resources would not be diverted during this six months, according to the Minister.
The dramatic increase in Garda overtime means that there can be more gardaí on the ground without increasing the total numbers and incurring long-term costs. Commenting on the increased overtime allocation, Mr McDowell said overtime resources would continue to be deployed in targeted operations against criminal activity.
In contrast with the gardaí, allocation for prison officers' pay is cut by three per cent. Given that inflation is running at about 2.5 per cent, this amounts to a real cut of over 5 per cent, despite the benchmarking awards that must be paid. The overall prisons' budget is increased by 2 per cent. This includes an increase in expenditure on consultancy services of €1 million, more than doubled since last year.
The Minister stressed his determination to cut prison officers' overtime costs. "I have made it clear to the management of the Prison Service and the POA that this is the pay budget for 2004. This includes a figure of €30 million for the proposed new annualised hours system. If agreement is not reached with the POA on the annualised hours proposal, the urgent cost saving actions approved by the Government will be implemented from 1st January 2004."
Mr McDowell repeated the proposals agreed at the Cabinet meeting earlier this month. However, he added that this may not be necessary. "I am perfectly content for all our prisons, including our open centres, to continue to be operated and staffed by prison officers, provided that it is only done on a sensible, reasonable and cost-effective basis."
The probation and welfare service is also cut, for the second year running. While there is an increase of 5 per cent in the allocation for wages, all other elements in its budget are cut, including a cut of 8 per cent in services to offenders, which will be over 10 per cent when inflation is allowed for. Educational services are cut by 4 per cent, or 6.5 per cent in real terms.
Despite these cuts, the Minister said that an additional 25 professional grade posts were recently sanctioned in the service in relation to the implementation of the 2001 Children Act. This envisages young people being committed to prison only as a last resort, where community-based options have failed.