The Prison Officers Association has presented a set of counter-proposals, which is very far removed from reality. It completely ignores the key issue which has been at the heart of the discussions to date, namely the elimination of overtime working. It also ignores the concept of annualised hours, which curiously both sides had already agreed was the best way forward. Essentially the POA proposal is a claim for an increase in pay in return for co-operation with selected elements of the management proposal. The POA knows, as does every other public service trade union, that an increase in pay is simply not on under the terms of Sustaining Progress and benchmarking, and cannot be negotiated by me.