Garda bodies leave Minister scrambling for solution

Clinging to some hope that they may have Garda sergeants and inspectors to call on when rank-and-file gardaí “strike” next month, the life raft shared by Government and senior Garda management has just sprang a serious leak.

The Army has been mooted as an option to be drafted on to the streets, but with no power of arrest it cannot help.

Having tried for years to achieve pay restoration and access to mechanisms such as the Labour Court to negotiate their pay, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has decided to face the absence of progress square in the face.

Its members will now join rank-and-file gardaí on four days of strike action next month, meaning Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan must police the Republic with a tiny number of staff.

In an organisation numbering just over 13,000 at present, the absence of 10,500 rank- and-file gardaí and 2,000 Garda sergeants and inspectors from work during four 24-hour periods next month is devastating.

There will be between 300 and 400 officers from the rank of superintendent and higher who must now shoulder the burden of keeping the country safe.

These will have trainee gardaí and part-time unpaid reservists to call upon as well as members of armed response units including the Regional Support Unit and Emergency Response Unit.

The only other comparable situation in the history of the State came with the so-called blue flu on May 1st in 1998 when gardaí rang in sick in a protest over pay. However, only about 5,500 Garda members took part . And the nature of organised crime, in particular, has changed enormously since then.

Higher numbers

The much higher number of members now planning to stay at home coupled with more complex policing challenges represent a nightmare for the Government and the Garda Commissioner.

Privately, members of the AGSI said over the weekend that it was unclear whether delegates at yesterday’s special conference in Athlone would opt to join the GRA’s four days of action next month.

In the end though support for taking the unprecedented step was overwhelming and both staff associations have now crossed the Rubicon.

It is a crime for Garda members to induce others to strike and that deterrent has always been important in calming militancy in the past. When some leaders in the AGSI and the GRA previously suggested taking action, including the GRA's threat 10 years ago to vote against Government candidates in a general election and induce others to do the same, they have been pressured out of it by the government of the day.

Back in 1996 when the GRA said its members and their friends and families would be "waiting in the long grass" come the general election, the then minister for justice Michael McDowell reacted angrily and prompted an embarrassing climbdown from GRA officials. McDowell reminded the GRA that its members took an oath on joining the Garda Síochána to remain apolitical and that they could be disciplined and even fired; suggestions put to them behind closed doors.

This time, however, the GRA and AGSI have played a clever game. The days of industrial action have very clearly been presented as a decision taken by each individual member of the associations to withdraw their service. And the leadership of both organisations have been quick to point out nobody has been induced by anyone to take a collective action.

GRA meeting

AGSI president Antoinette Cunningham tackled that very issue when speaking to the media yesterday, saying the suggestion that she or any other senior person in the organisation induced anyone else to withdraw their service simply did not arise. And, because of that, she believed nobody was breaking the law.

“To induce people to break the law you’d have to have ballots, advocating striking, advocate positions,” she said. “We actually didn’t have to do any of that because our membership came here today so disillusioned with the negotiations and the failed processes that we have been engaging in that we don’t even have to advocate.”

The fact that the AGSI's meeting yesterday and the GRA's recent meeting in Tullamore were both held behind closed doors also means no ringleaders could be identified for prosecution.

Individual members of both the AGSI and the GRA are still open to be disciplined for withdrawing their service, but that would seem the road to nowhere for all involved.

It means the Garda bodies have outwitted the Government and the scramble is on to find a solution in less than three weeks. This is a huge test for the Minister for Justice.