Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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There are 64 allowances available in the Irish Prison Service. In the Defence Forces there are 63. One view the Department of Defence put to us was that the Defence Forces was in its own mini-world in that it had its own surgeons, engineers and so forth, meaning it had a high number of allowances to cover this. There are more people in the Irish Prison Service in receipt of more allowances than we have seen in other case studies. For example, 1,476 prison officers are in receipt of more than one allowance, 1,390 are in receipt of more than eight allowances and 1,000 are in receipt of 12 allowances. What the committee has seen so far is that even if there are many allowances, many may not be claiming them. This is different in the Irish Prison Service where there are many allowances and most prison officers claim them. Is this caused by the additional hours system?