Mr. Michael Donnellan:

In the case of the nurse officer, it must be borne in mind that there are 12 types of allowances for night duty alone. The range of allowances means each prison officer receives an average of approximately 14 allowances. As the Deputy said, the documentation shows that the maximum number of allowances received is 18. The majority of allowances - all but €6 million - are paid in respect of different types of attendance. Everything else relates to attendance during contractual hours. Members will be aware that the basic working week for a prison officer is 39 hours, but they are contracted to come in to work for an additional eight hours on top of this. Many of these payments fall into that category.