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(Speaker Continuing)
[Mr. John Clinton:] Under the Croke Park agreement, specific to the Irish Prison Service, there is an ongoing in-depth transformation review, examining in detail all current structural and operational arrangements which will allow for prisons to operate in the most effective and efficient manner by the introduction of, among other things, enhanced regimes which will allow, where feasible, reduced staffing levels, freeing up staff to open new areas.
Rent allowance has long been accepted as part of basic pay. Therefore, given this position, it was agreed as part of the terms of Agreed Report 5/97, Programme for Competitiveness and Work, that this allowance would be pensionable for members of the Irish Prison Service serving on or after 1 January 1994.
Industrial area allowances are paid to prison grades who work in the various work and training areas of the prisons, where constructive accredited training is provided to prisoners. All staff appointed to these grades are appointed following national merit-based competitions and staff require specific skill sets to carry out these enhanced roles and functions on which work and training programmes are dependent.
Class 2 allowances are paid in the Irish Prison Service on the basis that the officeholder is performing duties deemed to be over and above those expected from a basic grade prison officer. For example, the officer in charge of the school is responsible for all aspects of security within his or her area. He or she is required to maintain attendance records and ensure prisoners get access to the school when required, and is responsible for arranging interviews for new committals who want to engage in and have access to educational facilities.
Acting-up allowances are paid in respect of officers taking up additional duties or a higher duty. These include the acting-up allowance, the substitution allowance and the in-charge-of-court allowance. The acting-up allowance is paid to a person who carries out the duties of a higher officeholder. For example, the assistant chief officer acting up to the grade of chief officer, normally for a period longer than 30 days. This normally only happens when it is essential for the maintenance of the chain of command, essential for the care and management of prisoners or essential to the security of the prison. Some posts may also be required by statute.
With regard to the environmental allowance in Portlaoise Prison, the basis for this allowance related to the presence of subversive prisoners in Portlaoise and Limerick prisons, which created a particularly tense environment in these prisons for prison officers and for their families in their private lives. While the security status of Limerick Prison changed in recent years, Portlaoise Prison remains the country's only committal prison for the Special Criminal Court and, as such, remains the State's high security prison. The purpose of the Army presence at Portlaoise Prison is to protect the security of the State. To this end, military posts are situated throughout the prison and manned on a 24-7 basis by armed soldiers. The environmental allowance is under review as a result of a claim brought by the official side to the departmental council conciliation and arbitration scheme in January 2010 prior to the commencement of the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014.
Allowances in the medical area include the hospital or medical orderly allowance, which was paid for the role of carrying out specific specialist medical duties relating to the delivery of medical support to prisoners and specialist providers. The terms of Agreed Report 5/97, Programme for Competitiveness and Work, provided for the introduction of a nursing service in the Irish Prison Service to discharge professional health care duties, and on entering the Irish Prison Service nurse officers were awarded the medical allowance. This allowance was increased for the nurse officer grade by the public service benchmarking body in June 2002.
The plain clothes allowance is payable to prison officers who are obliged to wear civilian attire on certain duties, for example, inpatient or outpatient hospital escorts, temporary release escorts, certain court escorts, and those working in open or semi-open centres.
Historically, the above allowances evolved to restrict knock-on pay claims, for example, the rent allowance and the operational allowance, or the allowance was granted to a specific individual grade or for a specific role that was carried out. The aforementioned payments were clearly paid in the form of an allowance to control the escalation of payments, particularly during the periods of national wage agreements. As stated, all allowances payable in the Irish Prison Service first had to go through the agreed procedures set down in the Civil Service conciliation and arbitration scheme before sanction for payment was granted.
The allowance system in the Irish Prison Service is largely driven by a necessity to reward members of the Irish Prison Service for working long and unsocial hours, as the Irish Prison Service operates on a 24-7 basis, or for utilising specific skill sets over and above those required of the basic grade prison officer which are essential for the running and successful outcome of work and training programs. These allowances form part of the basic pay of prison grades and are something that our members cannot do without given the difficult financial circumstances many now find themselves in.
I thank the committee for giving the Prison Officers Association the opportunity to put forward the position of its members in respect of their pay and allowances. I hope this statement was helpful to the committee. I thank the Chairman and members.
Chairman:   We will publish that statement.
Deputy John Deasy: In England and Wales, the average salary of a prison officer is approximately £28,000. What is the average salary of a prison officer here?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: We have two prison officer grades. We have the recruit prison officer grade which starts at a low salary of €25,600, with a maximum salary of €26,620. The prison officer midpoint is €35,568 and the maximum salary is €41,439.
Deputy John Deasy: Does that include pensionable allowances?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: There are a number of other allowances on top of that, which are pensionable.
Deputy John Deasy: It is approximately 35% on top of that.
Mr. Michael Donnellan: Correct. On top of that, there would be 35%. The only non-pensionable allowances are the plain clothes and additional working allowances, which are contractual hours.
Deputy John Deasy: The average would be quite a bit above that in England or Wales if one adds that in.
Mr. Michael Donnellan: Yes.
Deputy John Deasy: Why is that?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: The prison system in England has had a different history.
Deputy John Deasy: We are not comparing like with like. I understand that. That is fair enough.
Mr. Michael Donnellan: The private sector operates in the system there. The Irish Prison Service has 14 separate prisons. Over recent years, we have been trying to drive efficiencies out of them by pulling our prisons together. For instance, eight of our prisons are amalgamated under three prison governors. Over the next few years, significant savings can be made in regard to how we manage our prisons and how we deliver the services.
Deputy John Deasy: Would Mr. Donnellan say the bulk of the difference in pay is in the area of allowances?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: Certainly our prison officers have allowances, the majority of which are pensionable. There is no doubt that up to 35% of our pay budget is allowances.
Deputy John Deasy: I would like to ask about the rent allowance. The figure is €4,017, but not for new entrants. Will Mr. Donnellan explain the origins of that and how it developed over the years? When was the decision made not to give the allowance to new entrants into the Irish Prison Service?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: Rent allowance is one of the allowances that has been part of prison pay for decades, and it has always been seen as part of core pay, which is pensionable. All of the agreements and departmental council documentation going back to 1961 and 1980 talk about this allowance as part of core pay, which is pensionable. In common with the other sectors which have rent allowance, there is a broader issue in regard to how that allowance can be managed. It is clear that maybe that allowance could be brought into core pay in the future.
Deputy John Deasy: Going through this material is quite interesting. The one word that pops up every now and then is "relativities". Is that one of the allowances that has been borrowed from other services?
Mr. Michael Donnellan: We can track the discussion on rent allowance for prison officers back to 1961. Prison officers had rent allowance at a time when many of them lived in, or lived adjacent to, the prisons and they were part of that environment. As the Deputy knows, over time most of those practices have been eliminated but the allowance became part of core pay.
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