than to hire more prison staff, but he's not about to make promises he can't keep.

Reacting to a statement read last week by Michael Tuzo of the Prison Officers Association, Mr. Soares last night told The Royal Gazette : "It's too easy to say, `okay we'll do this or that', but I'm not like that. The answer is not always to say let's have more staff.'' Mr. Soares pointed out that Government revenues, like the number of visitors coming to the Island, had been dropping and few people were ready to pay more for services.

"There are always people who need help and want Government to expand significantly. On the other side I also hear every day that Government is too big. It's very difficult to be the one in the middle,'' said Mr. Soares.

The Prison Officers Association last week slammed a report by Management Services which proposed, among other things, to hold the line on staffing at Bermuda's four prison facilities by halving the number of officers on night shift and reallocating the manpower elsewhere.

It also recommended the Co-ed facility and the Prison Farm be run together to eliminate management duplication and suggested the use of teleconferencing -- where prisoners stood in front of a camera at the prison and appeared on a monitor in the courtroom -- as an alternative to taking inmates to court for a two minute mention.

The report also said the department should examine ways of using Westgate's infirmary to reduce the number of times prisoners were taken to hospital.

Mr. Tuzo charged last week the report "flies in the face of a dire need for more officers and was based on hypothetical scenarios''.

Officers have been claiming -- and staging "sick-out'' protests since last year -- over inconsistent decision making, understaffing, and a decrease in educational programmes for inmates.

"It is the firm belief of the Prison Officers Association that the Department of Management and Personnel Services were clearly given a mandate by Government to manoeuvre manpower to justify their ends rather than truly assess the staffing situation,'' claimed Mr. Tuzo. Mr. Soares however, denies the charge: "I have no input into scheduling; the Minister doesn't get into that kind of detail. But if we can improve our management through better scheduling then we should look at it.

"Take inmate mentions. How much time is spent taking a person to court for a two-minute mention. Management Services has said: `Hey, let's re-think this.

Let's consider teleconferencing. Let's re-examine everything we do.' '' The Prison Officers Association also contends the report fails to address management's own inefficiency.

But the report, says Mr. Soares, is just a starting point.

"We will look at it in general and see what we are prepared to do. Our task is to review in detail and then implement. "It's just common business sense for every organisation to review its deployment of staff; to see what decisions can be made in light of these economic times,'' said Mr. Soares.

"This is a fact of the '90s.''