Garda used extra hours for issues ‘not envisaged’ in pay deal

Garda management used the additional hours worked by gardaí under the Haddington Road agreement for all types of things never originally envisaged, the Garda Representative Association has said.

The GRA executive decided last week that its members would no longer work an extra 30 hours of overtime for free from next January, following the a vote to reject the new Lansdowne Road accord on public service pay.

GRA general secretary PJ Stone saidon Sunday the association had originally urged that the additional 30 hours per year, provided for under the previous Haddington Road agreement, would be used for purposes such as training and upskilling.

But Garda management had used those hours for things that were never envisaged, including for policing protests.

Gardaí may be ordered to work compulsory overtime but they can insist that they be paid for it. It was agreed under Haddington Road, however, that 30 hours of free overtime would be worked in each of the three calendar years 2013, 2014 and 2015. The extra hours were worth an estimated €15 million a year.

Mr Stone also cautioned the Government on bringing in a legislative framework to "punish" garda members further.

Speaking on RTÉ's This Week programme, Mr Stone said he had recently advised Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald that Garda members did not feel they had been given a hearing in respect of the problems and difficulties the extra hours had created.

Mr Stone said members would honour their commitments under the Haddington Road agreement.

But the question of working the extra hours would come to an end on December 31st.

There were other issues covered by Haddington Road that members would continue to comply with until the end of July.

Mr Stone said the force had embraced a lot of different changes and were now operating on a “whole different level”. The were really productivity measures, he said.

"I don't think those issues are being taken into account when people are looking at our pay and conditions of employment and the official side were a little bit avaricious to expect that An Garda Síochána was going to continue to work 30 additional hours. Because we are actually the only public servants in the State that are actually working a 40-hour week," he said.

Mr Stone said that in one sense the official side had also been in breach of Haddington Road because a promised review of An Garda Síochána under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission had not happened.

That review should now be established and should be completed by the end of February.

Mr Stone said more investment was needed to bring the force up to a strength of about 15,500.

Some 52 per cent of senior gardaí who are members of AGSI rejected the Lansdowne Road deal last month.