Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 1151: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the areas in which prison officers are being compelled to do overtime; the number who are being so compelled; the number of same who have not done overtime before; the number of same there are in Portlaoise Prison and the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise. [1523/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Deputy will be aware that in August last year prisons staff voted by a substantial majority to accept the revised proposal for organisational change in the Irish Prison Service, which, when implemented, will see the elimination of overtime working in the Prison Service and its replacement with a new additional hours system. The new additional hours system, which is based on the concept of annualised hours, has been rolled out in ten institutions to date, including the Midlands and Portlaoise prisons. Accordingly, overtime is no longer being worked in those institutions. The new system will be rolled out in the remaining institutions on 12 February 2006, bringing about the total elimination of overtime working in prisons across the service.

Under the new system, staff contract to work a fixed number of additional hours in the year and they are paid for those hours whether they are required to be worked, thereby encouraging smart working and generating benefits for both staff and management. Management will have staff available when they are needed most, while staff will have predictable attendance patterns and earnings. The net effect of the new system will be to reduce by more than half the level of hours required to be worked by staff over and above the normal working week.