Mr. Brian Purcell:

As I said, the requirement for specific manning levels meant that staffing shortfalls had be covered by having staff do overtime. A fairly common scenario would have been where there was tension in a particular section of a prison which would have required the deployment of additional staff. The only way in which a governor could have provided for that increased deployment, outside the normal core attendance hours, was by way of having staff do overtime. The system encouraged that arrangement. As Mr. Clinton pointed out, in any front-line service where staff are working a seven day week, 24 hour system, there tend to be gaps in attendance which must be filled in some way. The annualised hours system enabled the prison service to manage that need for flexibility and ensure every eventuality was covered.

As I said, the overtime bill, after growing incrementally over a period, had reached €65 million by 2005. The new system enabled the delivery of services within a much reduced budget. One could say any reform one seeks to introduce in the public sector, particularly in more recent years, must have as a condition that it will not impact on the delivery of services. In fact, under the Croke Park agreement, there is a requirement to deliver improved services with reduced cost levels. The proposal for organisational change was a very good example of how, with co-operation and pragmatic engagement, it was possible to deliver significant savings. By any standard, knocking €30 million per annum off a bill of €65 million is a very significant achievement. This was not achieved easily but only after a long, drawn-out process of negotiation and its implementation, as with any new system, brought its own difficulties.