Mr. John Clinton:

Yes, but the problem with regard to staffing is quite simple. When we agreed annualised hours, the number of hours per year it would take to run the prison service was capped. At the time of the introduction of annualised hours, the number of additional hours required to run the system was set at 960 after every task was analysed.

If 20 people retire in March, 20 other people should come in immediately to fill the backspace because no additional resources come into the system after this. Every hour must be spent within the ordinary wages employees are paid, or the 960 additional hours that match every task that took place in the prison system. This was further redefined as part of the terms of the Croke Park agreement, where every task in the system was revisited to see if it could be done in a more efficient manner. During the Croke Park agreement negotiations, everybody else was told their numbers were to be reduced by 10%. We were told our numbers had to reduce but we still had to do the same amount of work. We had already done this task in 2005 and we had to refine it. Our chairperson at the time of the Croke Park agreement said the methodology we used was probably the best in the public service because we maintained the service.