Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are all very welcome and I thank them for attending the committee. I thank them also for the amount of work they have prepared and the information that is available for this session.

I will begin with two points. All of the business cases for the allowances were shared with us. The business cases I have received so far from the Department of Justice and Equality are of the highest quality of any I have seen. That applies to the details and the quality of the rationale for why some things are needed. It certainly brought to light the role that some of the allowances play. The State Pathologist's call-out allowance is an example. In the business case, a point was made that in the last competition to recruit a forensic pathologist, which was run twice by the Department, in neither case was it successful in recruiting a single qualified pathologist. It certainly puts this issue in an interesting light. I will come in a moment to whether an allowance is the right way to deal with that, but I want to acknowledge that the quality of business case here is very strong.

The second, more general, point is that a week ago I spent a morning in St. Patrick's juvenile detention centre. I went in completely oblivious to the fact that a report was coming out the following week. I genuinely did not know, but it sharply illustrated the kind of work that people do in an environment like that. The work is really difficult, as are the challenges people face. I did not get a chance to say it in the Dáil, so I will take the opportunity to do so now. I met the new governor and deputy governor, as well as many staff who all said they wanted to rise to the challenge of the report that was coming out. They really impressed me. I found it a very informative and quite searing experience. When we are having this discussion about allowances it helps me to understand the kind of work that is going on. I wanted to record that.

Regarding Vote 21 for the Irish Prison Service, will Mr. Purcell explain how the annualised hours system arose and the subsequent savings delivered to the taxpayer? He stated in reply to a question from Deputy Shane Ross that there were 13 allowances under the annualised hours umbrella. Will he explain what they comprise?