Police and prison officers get €67.8m sick pay in two years
Police and prison officers’ sick leave in the North cost almost £47m (€67.8m) in the last two years, it was revealed today.
The mammoth sum has prompted calls for tough measures to reduce the drain on the public purse.
The figures include £40.4m (€58.3m) for police absence and £6.3m (€9.1m) for prisons staff.
They have been linked by prison officers’ and policing representatives to high levels of stress over paramilitary intimidation in jail and rioting on the streets.
SDLP East Derry MLA John Dallat, former Assembly Public Accounts Committee member, said the services needed to meet normal standards of attendance.
“A decade into the peace process it is high time that the police and prison service were coming up to an acceptable standard of attendance,” he said.
“While there does need to be some compassion and to offer help where it is needed but they are in a situation where they can be measured against other sections of the civil service.
“If they don’t come up to the standard then there has to be harsh penalties including dismissal.”
Northern Ireland Office figures for 2004/2005, the most recent available, show £1m (€1.4m) spent on sick leave.
Police officers’ sick leave has been linked by the Police Federation to stress caused by public disorder like that in September last year when 60 officers were injured.
Police absence levels have dropped from £22.4m (€32.3m) in 2004/2005 to £18m (€26m) last year.
A spokeswoman for the force said: “Attendance levels are a key organisational issue. We have managing Attendance Policies, which we have plans to revise to ensure they are fit for purpose and to further deliver increased attendance.”
Mr Dallat claimed high absence levels were a sign of poor management in the Prison Service.
“This is an indication that there is low morale among the staff and it is a reflection of poor management and it probably indicates that the Prison Service is radically in need of reform,” he said.
“When people don’t want to go to work or are not able to do that then serious questions have to be asked.
“The Prison Service today is not the one that it was 10 years ago.”
A Prison Service spokeswoman said she was unable to comment at present.
There have been a series of controversies over paramilitary demands for segregated wings at Maghaberry as well as the leaking of the security details of staff which the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) says is contributing to low morale.
Finlay Spratt, chairman of the POA, said: “You cannot compare the job which Northern Ireland Office civil servants do to that done by the prison officers elsewhere.
“If you look at the number of attacks which there have been on prison officers through the years the Prison Service figures are actually much better than they appear.
“We have to take into account the environment in which prison officers work and the pressure which they come under.”
Industrial action was threatened in October 2003 following attacks on five members of staff at the high security Maghaberry prison outside Lisburn, Co Antrim.
Homes of serving and former prison officers have also been attacked. These were linked to a prisoners’ dispute at the jail.
In September, a review of safety at Maghaberry recommended separating republican and loyalist prisoners.
The move was introduced in the wake of violent clashes between rival groups in the jail and in the face of a “dirty protest” by a group of dissident republican prisoners.
