Mr. Jim Mitchell:

Unfortunately, the projected statistics show there will be 107 incidents of sick leave arising from assault of prison officers in the coming year. For us, this is two assaults per week in the workplace, which is far too many. With regard to supports available to staff, the serious physical assault scheme was introduced two years ago for prison officers. This extends the period of time in which officers who have been victims of serious physical assault receive full pay while out on certified sick leave. They have an additional six months at full pay as opposed to half pay, which was previously the case. We are coming across instances where, due to the sheer violence of the assaults on our members, the sick leave taken goes well beyond this time. We spoke to the Tánaiste before Christmas and part of our discussion centred on the fact prison officers are expected to have full operational capacity to be able to perform their duties across the board at all times. We sought the maintenance of the terms and conditions of employment of people who cannot perform their full operational duties arising from an assault by prisoners in custody. In other words, we sought the retention of their prison officer pay. People are forced out of employment and can no longer retain their jobs in the prison service because of being assaulted. While the supports available for prison staff have been extended, we do not feel they go far enough. We believe it should go further.

The Deputy is absolutely correct with regard to mental health issues. We are prison officers and prisoners who present with mental health issues should not be in prison. We are not trained to deal with such people. They should be in a mental health facility. It is a practical issue for us because it is very hard to communicate with some of these individuals for whatever reason. It has become even worse in recent times because of the growth in distribution of new psychotropic drugs. This has become a massive issue for our colleagues in England. These new drugs are largely undetectable because they are synthetic. They are getting into prisons and are causing individuals severe psychological damage. These people are very unpredictable. Generally, they present with violence. When the drugs began to come into the British prison system they were seen as cheap, but the drug trade is very practical and it is definitely user led. The issue of price will have altered as time has gone on.

We were absolutely clear about the training unit in our submission. The reality for a number of people who come into our custody is their background is not in employment. Many of them come from families with generations of people who did not work. We all probably take for granted the idea of getting up in the morning, going to work and coming home in the evening, having a wage and paying our bills. This basic stuff that every single person and every citizen in the State does must become a learned concept. We believe the training unit provided that. It has been flagged to us as a short-term measure. We believe it is damaging because the people who were in the training unit had been progressing. They were going out to work in the community in the morning and coming back in the evening. They were learning a particular methodology of going to work, which is something we would all take for granted. It would appear these people will have to go into the main prison system. As we outlined in our statement, this will bring attendant pressures because of people looking for them or their families to courier drugs because they are going in and out. A certain amount of pressure can be brought to bear on them.