Mr. Brian Purcell:

Yes. The difficulty prior to 2005 was that the Irish Prison Service was unlike many other areas of the public service. If someone is absent, for whatever reason, in other areas of the public service, the work is either done by someone else or left undone.

For whatever reason, in other areas of the public service thw wo

In the Irish Prison Service, however, there are certain manning levels that must be maintained. Staffing shortfalls must be met and, prior to the putting in place of the current system, the only mechanism for doing so was by way of overtime. By 2005 the overtime bill, based on prevailing rates, had grown to more than €65 million annually. The agreement reached with the Prison Officers Association facilitated the operation of prisons within the required manning levels for safety at an ongoing saving of €30 million a year. The agreement introduced four bands for prison officers - Mr. Clinton may have covered this in his opening address - each allowing for a range of additional hours, from zero to a maximum of 360. The additional hours allowance which, as Mr. Clinton pointed out, is not pensionable covers extra attendance over and above the core hours. This arrangement effectively delivered savings in excess of €30 million on an ongoing yearly basis.