Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 11: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on whether his failure to ensure the reinvestment of savings in spending on prison officers' overtime directly into rehabilitation measures demonstrates his lack of commitment to rehabilitation programmes for prisoners. [3530/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I reject the Deputy's implication that there is any lack of commitment on my part to rehabilitation programmes for prisoners.

The thrust of the Deputy's question displays a complete lack of understanding of the change process which has been ongoing for some time now. I remind the House that, following protracted negotiations and an arbitration process, prison staff voted, by a substantial majority, to accept a revised Proposal for Organisational Change in the Irish Prison Service last August having rejected a similar proposal in April 2005. The agreement provides for implementation of the new working arrangements and the elimination of overtime working across the service within six months of the date of acceptance of the agreement, that is, by 18 February 2006. Savings in the order of €25 million per annum will be made as a result. Already my determination to tackle this unsustainable dependence on overtime to run our prisons has resulted in a reduction in the overtime bill of some €13.4 million in 2004 compared to 2003.

Despite the enormity of the challenge that implementation of such radical change presents for both management and staff, the implementation of the new system is on target. It has been rolled out in ten institutions to date and will be rolled out in the remaining institutions on 12 February 2006. The new Prison Service escorts corps has been established on a country wide basis and is already making a major contribution in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the service. The functional restructuring of the stores and maintenance functions provided for in the agreement is also progressing and the recruitment of the new recruit prison officer provided for in the agreement is imminent.

As regards the rehabilitation of offenders, I can assure the Deputy that the new arrangements being put in place in the Prison Service are already producing resources for investment in prison programmes and services.

For many years the Prison Service had been constrained to direct investment expenditure to the overtime-pay area in order to stay within budget. Now that the change programme has begun to roll out, resources for the first time in decades are coming available to restore prisoner programmes and services and indeed to substantially enhance them.

A wide programme of education, training, health care and other prisoner focused measures are now being more fully resourced. The Prison Service has also begun to select staff for the enhanced training required to deliver such programmes and to expand the range of programmes available across prisons. In a number of prisons modern up to date workshops and other facilities are being commissioned. For example, in Limerick prison, new educational, medical and recreational facilities are under construction and will be completed later this year; in Wheatfield prison new workshops and a new laundry are completed and in operation; in Portlaoise, construction of new accommodation including educational and recreational facilities is under way; in St. Patrick's Institution, new workshops are nearing completion and will be in use in the coming weeks. In addition, plans are also well advanced for the introduction of a much needed professional clinical management structure which will greatly improve health care provision for prisoners across the prison system.

The Deputy will appreciate that the effective delivery of these welcome prisoner programme enhancements must follow the adoption of the revised working arrangements and the necessary preparatory measures to skill up staff etc. Notwithstanding that the roll-out of the new arrangements will not be finalised until late next week, staff have already begun to be selected to support these programmes.

I have made the point before that down the years all other expenditure priorities in the Prison Service budget were dwarfed by this overtime issue. Resources needed for training, capital programmes, rehabilitation programmes, education and modernisation were continuously being cannibalised to meet an insatiable demand for resources for overtime. Since we have started to achieve savings, we have been in a position to use the capital programme for the purpose for which it was intended. I have already outlined some of the initiatives in that regard. In addition to that, I am proceeding with the major programme to modernise prison facilities by replacing outdated prison estate at Mountjoy and Cork prisons. This programme will represent the single biggest investment commitment in improved prisoner facilities since the foundation of the State and will also greatly benefit from the savings being generated from the savings in spending on prison officers' overtime.

I would suggest that the level of change being undertaken in the Prison Service is unprecedented in the public service. It is a credit to the staff and management involved that the process has been nurtured successfully to this point and I am optimistic that it will be brought to successful completion over the coming months.