§ MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN (Kilkenny)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state to the House how many hours 1635 per day are prison warders in convict establishments kept on duty; whether it is a fact that in many cases warders are kept on duty 16 hours per day; and, whether it is a fact that in other Government establishments the hours of labour are limited to eight hours per day; and, if so, whether he will take steps to reduce the hours of duty for prison warders?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYThe hours of actual duty average, on the whole year, nine hours and five minutes a day. No case of an officer being kept on duty for 16 hours a day is known to the Directors. The question of the hours of duty received most careful consideration from a Departmental Committee appointed for the purpose, who reported that the existing hours were not excessive, and that none of the schemes submitted to them for carrying out an "eight hours system" appeared either practicable or desirable. This report was accepted by my predecessors, and I am unable to discover any analogy between the conditions of work and service in the prisons and in the industrial establishments of the Government which would justify the expenditure that an eight hours day would involve.