A NUMBER OF senior Garda officers have decided to challenge the retirement policies governing the force by lodging complaints with the Equality Authority over having to retire at 60.
The matter was the subject of a specially-convened meeting of the Garda Conciliation and Arbitration Council last Thursday, at which members of the Association of Chief Superintendents met Department of Justice officials.
At least six officers of chief superintendent and superintendent rank have formally lodged claims with the Equality Authority. Others are planning to join the campaign with claims of their own in coming weeks.
The campaign challenging the Government's policy comes as a surprise because the officers would not usually be regarded as militant. Their ranks lead specialist Garda units and represent senior management in Garda districts across the country.
Some of those involved are saying privately that they intend to pursue their cases to the European Commission if the retirement age is not increased or they are not granted a dispensation to stay working into their 60s.
The officers are unhappy that they are being forced to retire at 60 at a time when senior police officers in other EU and common law countries have seen their retirement aged increased to at least 65 years.
Members of the Garda Reserve are permitted to act in frontline or on-the-beat roles until they are 65.
None of the officers challenging the retirement rules fill frontline roles.
They are working as desk-bound Garda managers either in Garda headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin, the force's Dublin metropolitan region headquarters at Harcourt Square, or as heads of specialist units and divisional officers managing frontline members.
At least 15 officers of assistant commissioner, chief superintendent and superintendent rank are due to retire this year on age grounds.
The large numbers of retirements follow warnings 17 months ago from a Government-appointed group on Garda leadership and management that action needed to be taken quickly to address the cluster of retirements.
The advisory group, chaired by former senator Maurice Hayes, was so concerned by the "brain drain" crisis that it published an interim report on the matter in November 2006, just four months after its establishment.
The Government addressed the issue at the very top of the force in June 2006 when it granted the current Garda commissioner Fachtna Murphy a dispensation to stay on until he is at least 62.
It meant he could be appointed to succeed his predecessor, Noel Conroy, last November. Had Mr Murphy not been granted the extension he would have been forced to retire on age grounds last June.
Mr Murphy will remain in the top job until June 2009, with many expecting the Government to grant him another extension of at least one or two years.
Associations representing chief superintendents and superintendents lodged a claim in mid-2006 for the retirement age of their members to be increased to 63.
Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has said the proposal is still to be considered at the arbitration council.
However, with the first cluster of retirements due immediately, and with officers deciding to take their cases to the Equality Authority, the matter is now reaching a critical stage.
If the officers' claims are successful at the Equality Authority they would be entitled to compensation. If the European Commission were also to rule in their favour the Government would face an embarrassing rebuke from Brussels.