Senior Garda and Defence Forces personnel are to continue a series of visits to the State's prisons this week to prepare for a possible takeover of the running of the institutions. Joe Humphreys reports.
A team of Army officers is to travel to Clover Hill, Cork and Limerick Prisons in the coming days to advance a Government contingency plan which will come into effect if prison officers go on strike over new working arrangements.
The executive of the Prison Officers Association (POA) is to meet later this week to consider whether to take any retaliatory action following the Government's decision to implement the new regime without its consent.
POA general secretary, Mr John Clinton, described as "complete provocation" the decision to close two of the State's prisons, and introduce new working rosters, when talks were still ongoing at the Labour Relations Commission between the union and the Prison Service over cutting the prison officers' €60 million-plus annual overtime bill.
"We are the only group so far not to have mentioned industrial action," Mr Clinton remarked. "The only instructions we have from our executive is to remain at the negotiating table. How long they will hold that line considering this provocation, however, I cannot say."
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said that, while it was preparing contingency arrangements, it was not - contrary to a newspaper report yesterday - "moving in the Army now".
A Defence Forces spokesman concurred, saying its main work in the area to date had been in "reconnaissance". He remarked: "It is not accurate to say we are deploying troops. But we will continue to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
"We would have enough troops to assist in the event of a large-scale prison strike. If the guards request 300 troops we would be in a position to provide that."
He noted troops would be billeted at local Army barracks, rather than the prisons themselves.
Several hundred troops in the eastern and southern brigades have already been trained for the operation at army barracks in the Curragh and in Cork.
The Department spokesman stressed: "Our preferred solution is that a resolution can be found in the talks process and that we can continue to have the prison service manned by prison officers."
But Mr Clinton said that if management had a negotiating stance it would not have embarked on the course it had taken. "If the talks have collapsed it is the official side which has collapsed them. We were asked by the (LRC) chairman to come back on January 12th having considered certain matters, and that is what we were going to do. One has to ask is the agenda privatisation and closure of prisons, or to find a sustainable solution?"
He noted prison officers had yet to be told whether or not they would be compensated for working in excess of core hours under the new regime. "We are not going to accept what goes on in the UK where prison officers build up lots of hours of over time and never get anything for them. That is unacceptable in this day and age."
The Curragh detention centre is to close on January 19th, and Spike Island on January 31st.