Perhaps the saddest aspect of yesterday's action by rank-and-file gardai must be the lack of self-regard displayed by the members of the force who abandoned their duty. And it is paradoxical that while these members were unavailable for work, others were stepping into the gap of danger against armed criminals at Ashford, Co Wicklow, in the best traditions of the force. It was, notwithstanding the confrontation at Ashford, a black day for the Garda Siochana, relieved in some instances by the courage of a few principled members. In other instances too, members displayed a praiseworthy adherence to duty, as in Cork where the team investigating last week's vicious child-rape stayed with their inquiries. Gardai do not sign up for a job like ordinary employees. They swear an oath and they take on an office which is governed by special conditions, one of which is an undertaking not to strike. Yesterday, thousands of them - men and women whose watchwords should be honesty, duty and integrity - vitiated that oath collectively. They have let themselves down. A senior officer likened it to "a death in the family".
The gardai live and work among the community in conditions which are not quite unique in the world but which place them in a privileged role vis-a-vis members of most other police services. They are modelled on the British tradition which accords good pay, good career opportunities and good conditions of service to police officers. In this, they are different from most continental forces where two-tier entry systems apply and where the rank and file status is often equivalent to that of lowly-skilled workers, with pay to match. They are unionised and they have the right to strike. If this is the equivalence which the gardai seek they are going the right way about it.
In the long term, the burden on the Irish taxpayer might even be lighter. But that is not what the community wants for the Garda Siochana. It wants a police service which is efficient and effective, which discharges its duties with integrity and honour and which is content with the reward it receives for doing so. It is clear that the reality of the Garda Siochana today is far removed from this ideal. What has gone wrong and how is it best to be remedied?
There are deep-seated issues of morale in the force which pay alone cannot remedy. And there are problems of some proportion in regard to double-jobbing, lack of commitment and indiscipline among a minority of members. Too many gardai - including those at senior ranks - live away from the area in which they work. There are serious anomalies on pay, with members of lower ranks sometimes earning more than their superiors. The fact that guards' pay has lost its relativity to that of nurses and prison officers is just one manifestation of this amalgam of problems.
Successive Governments, in fairness, have endeavoured to get to grips with these, and other, corporate infirmities. It might indeed have been better had the members' calls for a full and new commission on the Garda been agreed. But the review process within the framework of the Strategic Management Initiative, chaired by Mr Tony Barry, is not a wholly inadequate substitute for a commission. It is a forum within which the gardai can progress their case and in which issues such as productivity and performance-related pay can be examined. The Garda Representative Association has walked away from the negotiating table which is there for them, choosing instead to employ methods which are disruptive and improper. But the Government cannot afford to yield to such tactics either politically or financially and it has been made clear that it will not do so. The gardai, having made their point, should take the course which would be both honourable and in their own best interests and go back into negotiations.