Prison officers will begin industrial action today in a last ditch effort to resolve a longstanding problem over manpower shortages at Westgate.

And Labour and Public Safety Minister Paula Cox is believed to have cancelled an overseas trip to hold emergency talks with prison staff this afternoon.

Although the Island's 150 prison officers will be at their posts today, as of this morning they are refusing to escort inmates who have to leave the confines of the prison walls to attend courts or on medical grounds.

And the action is bound to bring chaos to the Island's legal system. The Court of Appeal begins this morning while this month's arraignments session, which normally sees a stack of prisoners awaiting trial in court for preliminary hearings, is due to take place tomorrow.

The decision to take action was reached on Thursday evening when more than 60 Prison Association workers met to decide how to proceed with the long standing dispute. Apart from two abstentions, the vote to begin the action was unanimous.

Prisons Commissioner Ed Dyer was informed of the action on Friday afternoon and immediately contacted officers at the Department of Labour.

Yesterday Prison Officers Association chairman Lynn Hall insisted that prison staff had been reluctant to take action but felt that it was their last weapon after five years of "lip service'' from Government.

Although the action will affect prisoners at Westgate, Mr. Hall said officers at the Island's other two correctional facilities were equally concerned about working conditions.

At the top of the officers' wish list is the need for more staff. Although a 1996 independent inquiry recommended that 120 officers be employed at Westgate, less than 100 have been working at the facility at any one time since it first opened five years ago.

Mr. Hall said the staff shortage was creating other problems including: Prison officer having fears for their own safety; Recreational workshops and other rehabilitation programmes shutting down because they cannot be supervised, leading to discontent amongst inmates spending more of their time "idle''; A lack of positive staff development both locally and overseas; Low staff morale and a negative perception of the service on the part of the public; and A lack of security training.

Mr. Hall said that although officers had been trained in how to use certain equipment, basic essentials such as handcuffs were not available for officers doing their rounds.

And although each officer carried a personal alarm, Mr. Hall said there was no emergency response team so distress calls often went unanswered.

Prison officers Asked what would be needed to call the action off, Mr. Hall said: "It would take some sort of assistance from Government so that we are given an opportunity to speak with the Minister of Finance with regard to the misappropriation of funds and to make sure there was enough money being put into manpower.'' Mr. Hall said he had received a call from Labour officer Glen Fubler on Friday evening asking his members to call off the action.

But association officials were adamant that drastic measures were necessary.

"We keep on hearing the same thing but they have to understand that we can't put up with this any longer,'' Mr. Hall said. "We have been given training in using certain equipment, well now I think it's about time that we were provided with that equipment.'' The chairman added the recent suspension of three officers over an alleged rape at had nothing to do with the dispute, although he said that members had concerns over the way the matter was being handled.

The dispute is the latest in a series of actions to rock the new Government.

Earlier this year both Fire Service personnel and Police officers staged unofficial sick-outs in protest at working conditions.

But Mr. Hall insisted that the latest move was not political.

"We have had a series of Ministers,'' he said. "Clarence Terceira was the last minister to really take up the prison officers' cause and through him we got temporary officers.

"But since then all we have got is lip service. We now have a new Minister and we're a little bit wary that we are going to get the same thing.''