Recruit Prison Officers

Role Profile

Prison Officers conduct the majority of the face to face interactions with people committed to prison throughout their sentence including transportation from court; committal; safety; security; accommodation; supporting access to healthcare, psychology, in reach services, work training, education and visits by family friends and legal representatives; maintaining good order and discipline; and supporting their care, progression, desistence and rehabilitation in order that they can safely reintegrate back into their communities on completion of their sentence. Given that prisoners spend the majority of their sentence in the presence of Prison Officers, building appropriate relationships with prisoners and actively role modelling positive behaviours in general appearance, demeanour and in daily interactions with colleagues and prisoners are fundamental aspects of the role. Prison Officers must secure and account for every prisoner in their care at all times, whether inside the prison or when on prisoner escorts.

An overview of the wide variety of accountabilities associated with the role of Prison Officer, both within a prison context and across the wider organisation are outlined below.

a) Ensure the safe and secure custody of prisoners by

• Accounting for and securing all prisoners, prisoner information, keys and radios in your custody at all times.

• Setting clear expectations of behaviour for prisoners, utilising the Incentivised Regime Scheme to reflect the consequences of their behaviour and initiating disciplinary proceedings when the Prison Rules are breached by prisoners.

• Vigilantly monitoring prison cells and infrastructure for damage, tampering, breakage, or for potential risk of injury on a daily basis and report any potential threats to security or safety to the ACO and Trades Officer immediately.

• Monitoring yards, visits, gates, nets, external perimeters and overhead airspace utilising CCTV and other measures and reporting any suspect activity to the Assistant Chief Officer.

• Quickly identifying and interpreting warning signs, indicators, changes in prisoner behaviour, routines and habits, regarding potential threats to the good order and safe and secure custody of prisoners and promptly acting to resolve or prevent incidents and communicating to other staff if there are any unresolved issues.

• Identifying and reporting evidence of possession or use of prohibited articles, drugs or substances within the prison.

• Preventing non-compliant and violent conduct and the unlawful escape of prisoners in a manner consistent with the Prison Rules.

• Maintaining familiarity with and rehearsing or implementing contingency plans in order to effectively respond to a prison emergency or critical incident.

b) Contribute to the care, progression, desistence and rehabilitation of prisoners by

• Actively role modelling positive behaviours in your general appearance, demeanour, in your daily interactions with colleagues and prisoners and by ensuring that decisions relating to prisoner requests are responded to quickly and the prisoner understands the justification for the decision.

• Monitoring and recording indicators regarding the physical and mental health of prisoners in accordance with policies and SOPs and when concerns are identified alert the appropriate healthcare staff.

• Engaging and communicating effectively with line managers, Integrated Sentence Managers (ISMs), healthcare staff, psychologists, Work Training staff, teachers, in reach services, etc., regarding prisoners in your care.

• Supporting and promoting, in-reach prison community initiatives such as the Red run, etc.

• Cultivating appropriate relationships (right relationships rather than good relationships) with prisoners by setting out and maintaining clear security and personal boundaries and managing tensions between security, care and rehabilitative objectives.

• Providing evidence to investigation teams, inspection and monitoring bodies, courts, etc when requested.

• Respecting, protecting and explaining to prisoners their statutory entitlements and human rights.

• Implementing safe work practices in accordance with the safety statement, ensuring that the standard of cleanliness and hygiene control in your work area is maintained at a high level in accordance with IPS policy and identifying, reporting and recording health and safety hazards and work-related injuries and take any necessary action to eliminate, isolate or minimise hazards.

• Maintaining familiarity and complying with relevant legislation, policies, SOPs and orders.

• Monitoring your own mental health and the mental health of your colleagues, particularly in times of stress and following involvement in or observation of critical incidents and recognising when support is required.

c) Be prepared to conduct a broad range of additional tasks including:

• Operating IPS vehicles.

• Escorting prisoners to courts, hospitals, funerals, etc.

• Screening and searching prisoners, their property, visitors into prison, cells, vehicles, visiting areas and other locations.

• Supervising visits to prisoners by families, friends and legal representatives.

• Safely escorting psychologists, maintenance teams, probations service staff, inreach service staff in the performance of their roles.

• Monitoring prisoner written correspondence.

• Assisting in the committal of prisoners and the management of prisoner property.

• Verifying the identity and confirming the authorisation of prisoners and visitors to enter and exit the prison and recording these movements.

• Supporting education and work training activities.

• Implementing IPS drug testing procedures.

• Night duty.

• Operating the prison control room.

• Any other tasks as directed by the Prison Governor or a line manager

Eligibility Requirements

In order to be eligible for selection as a Recruit Prison Officer, an applicant must, on the closing date of the September 26th, 2024, satisfy all of the following requirements:

(a) Age

Be at least 18 years of age i.e., must have been born on or before the 26th September 2006.

(b) Educational Qualifications

Applicants must:

(i) have obtained in the Established Leaving Certificate a minimum of grade D3 (O6 post 2017) at Ordinary level, or C3 (F5 from 2017) at Foundation Level, in at least 5 subjects*; or

(ii) hold a minimum of a Level 5 Major award** (120 credits) on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ); or

(iii) hold a recognised qualification (at Level 5 or greater), deemed comparable to the above in terms of both level and volume of learning as determined by Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI)

In certain cases, a Pass in the Leaving Certificate Applied may be deemed equivalent to a Leaving Certificate.

*A Pass or above in the Links Modules subject may be counted as one subject.

** A Fetac Level 5 or 6 major award will have 120 Credits (Please note any certificate which has a lower number is only a Minor Award and is not sufficient to determine eligibility).

Note: A combination of two or more exam sittings may be permitted in determining eligibility.

Recognition of other qualifications publicjobs may verify the validity of qualifications other than the Leaving Certificate with Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI). Candidates may refer to the National Academic Recognition Information Centre which offers advice on the academic recognition of foreign qualifications in Ireland.

Additional Eligibility Criteria - Citizenship Requirements

Eligible candidates must be:

a) a citizen of the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA consists of the Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway; or

b) A citizen of the United Kingdom (UK); or

c) A citizen of Switzerland pursuant to the agreement between the EU and Switzerland on the free movement of persons; or

d) A non-EEA citizen who has a stamp 4 visa; or a stamp 5 visa

To qualify, candidates must satisfy the Citizenship Requirements eligibility by the date of any job offer.

Collective Agreement: Redundancy Payments to Public Servants

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform letter dated 28th June 2012 to Personnel Officers introduced, with effect from 1st June 2012, a Collective Agreement which had been reached between the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Public Services Committee of the ICTU in relation to ex-gratia Redundancy Payments to Public Servants. It is a condition of the Collective Agreement that persons availing of the agreement will not be eligible for re-employment in the Public Service by any Public Service body (as defined by the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts 2009 2011) for a period of 2 years from termination of the employment. People who availed of this scheme and who may be successful in this competition will have to prove their eligibility (expiry of period of non eligibility).

Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement (ISER)

It is a condition of the Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement (ISER) as set out in Department of Finance Circular 12/09 that retirees, under that Scheme, are not eligible to apply for another position in the same employment or the same sector. Therefore, such

retirees may not apply for this position. Department of Health and Children Circular (7/2010) The Department of Health Circular 7/2010 dated 1 November 2010 introduced a Targeted Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) Scheme and Voluntary Redundancy Schemes (VRS). It is a condition of the VER scheme that persons availing of the scheme will not be eligible for reemployment in the public health sector or in the wider Public Service or in a body wholly or mainly funded from public moneys. The same prohibition on re-employment applies under the VRS, except that the prohibition is for a period of 7 years. People who availed of the VER scheme are not eligible to compete in this competition. People who availed of the VRS scheme and who may be successful in this competition will have to prove their eligibility (expiry of period of non-eligibility).

Hours of Attendance

Hours of attendance will be fixed from time to time, but basic attendance will be 2,035 hours per year on an average 39-hour week (on a 12-hour shift pattern). A Recruit Prison Officer will have a 7-day week liability including night duties, every second weekend and some public holidays and over festive seasons. Recruit Prison Officers will also be required to work Additional Hours (to a maximum of 360 per annum) which will attract additional payment.

Assignment

Following Phase 1 of Training, Recruit Prison Officers will be assigned to vacancies in the major prisons. Recruit Prison Officers will be liable to be assigned to other areas of the Irish Prison Service from time to time according to the exigencies of the Service. Recruit Prison Officers may seek to transfer to other locations in the service - see Appendix 1. Transfer list priority is based on seniority. Based on existing transfer waiting lists, Prison Officers may expect to wait a minimum of 5 years before progressing to the top of a transfer list for particular prisons and in some cases more than 10 years. The length of time is dependent on the number of staff seeking a transfer and the number of retirees in a particular location. The Irish Prison Service cannot predict the duration of the wait for any location, given the factors involved.

Outside Employment

The position will be whole time and appointees may not engage in private practice or be connected with any outside business which would interfere with the performance of official duties.

Uniform

The Irish Prison Service is a uniformed organisation. Staff are obliged to comply with standards relating to dress, appearance and deportment, which are a critical element of prosocial modelling.

Social Media and Mobile Phones

Prisons are secure environments and as such Prison Officers are legally prevented from bringing certain personal possessions into their workplace on a daily basis including mobile phones and other electronic forms of communications

Appendix 1 Information Regarding Prison Estate

The following gives information regarding the Prison Estate.

Mountjoy Prison: A closed, medium security prison for adult males. It is the main committal prison for Dublin city and county.

Dochas Centre: A closed, medium security prison for females aged 18 years and over. It is the committal prison for females committed on remand or sentenced from all Courts outside the Munster area.

Training Unit: Previously a semi-open, low security institution for males aged 18 years and over. In 2017 it was temporarily closed to be repurposed as a centre to accommodate older prisoners.

Wheatfield Place of Detention: A closed, medium security place of detention for adult males.

Cloverhill Prison: A closed, medium security prison for adult males, which primarily caters for remand prisoners committed from the Leinster area.

Portlaoise Prison: A closed high security prison for adult males. It is the committal prison for those sent to custody from the Special Criminal Court and prisoners accommodated here include those linked with subversive crime.

Midlands Prison: A closed, medium security prison for adult males. It is the committal prison for counties Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly and Westmeath.

Shelton Abbey: An open, low security prison for males aged 19 years and over who are regarded as requiring lower levels of security.

Cork: A closed, medium security prison for adult males. It is the committal prison for counties

Cork, Kerry and Waterford.

Limerick Prison: A closed, medium security prison for adult males and females. It is the committal prison for males for counties Clare, Limerick and Tipperary and for females for all six Munster counties.

Loughan House: An open, low security prison for males aged 18 years and over who are regarded as requiring lower levels of security.

Castlerea: A closed, medium security prison for adult males. It is the committal prison for remand and sentenced prisoners in Connaught and also takes committals from counties Cavan, Donegal and Longford.

Arbour Hill: A closed, medium security prison for adult males. The prisoner profile is largely made up of long term sentenced prisoners.

Stack House: The Irish Prison Service Training College

Prison Service Headquarters: The main administrative centre for the Irish Prison Service located in Longford.

Salary: €35,661 - €39,950 per year