The Government has been warned that it will face a public service pay revolt if there is any special deal with the Garda which breaches national agreements.
The Garda was not named at yesterday's annual conference of the Public Service Executive Union in Waterford, but everyone understood whom the PSEU general secretary, Mr Dan Murphy, was referring to. He laid down a marker for the Government in a speech on the local bargaining elements of Partnership 2000 and its predecessor, the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
Mr Murphy left his script "to refer to the general current atmosphere on local bargaining and pay issues". He said his union had no problem with Partnership 2000, or living up to commitments under it, provided "there were no opt-outs for any groups in that overall policy".
That policy applied to all groups. "And if any group, or any groups, succeed in driving a coach and four through an agreed national policy, then I am afraid there is no national policy. And if that is the case then, of course, the whole position is changed.
"And I have personally said to both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, in a meeting between them and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recently: `In those circumstances, all bets are off.' I used those words advisedly then and I use them advisedly again today."
Mr Murphy represents the public service unions on the ICTU's general purposes committee. While the public service unions accept that the Garda Representative Association negotiated a poor deal for itself initially under the PCW, the general feeling is that it cannot go back for a second bite that will secure increases above the rest of the public service, especially as it has not conceded the type of restructuring other unions have given.
The general secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland, Mr Charlie Lennon, has also warned that teachers will be monitoring the Garda pay negotiations closely.