Garda anger over plan to cut sick pay

Gardaí are angry they are being treated the same as pen-pushing civil servants under new legislation which will lead to sick pay entitlements being cut.

Garda Representative Association (GRA) deputy general secretary John Healy said, by the nature of their jobs, frontline gardaí were far more likely to get injured than a desk-bound civil servants.

He told the GRA’s annual conference in Killarney, that under the new Public Service Bill, gardaí will see significant reductions in sick pay unless they are successful in getting an injunction in the High Court against Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin.

Mr Healy said gardaí on the receiving end of increasingly vicious assaults could currently rely on six months full pay and a further six months half pay if they were out sick.

However, under the new bill they would only be entitled 92 days full pay over a four-year period and then 91 days on half-pay.

Mr Healy said the new payment scheme was agreed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions at the Labour Court and gardaí were included in the deal even though the GRA was excluded from the talks.

“You simply can’t compare what gardaí face every day to somebody working 9-5 behind a desk,” Mr Healy said. “Gardaí [under the new legislation] are now deemed to be public servants but our TDs aren’t. Now isn’t that ironic.”

GRA president John Parker thanked senior gardaí, including Assistant Commissioner Fintan Fanning, who is the human resources head of the force, for fully supporting the campaign for derogation for all gardaí from the new sickness regulations.

“This is currently before the courts but as our members face many occupational hazards, we also have different illnesses and injury risks than other professions,” Garda Parker said.

Meanwhile, the GRA also called for the introduction of a “charter of fairness” between the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), the Garda Commission and the GRA.

Relations between the GRA and GSOC have seriously deteriorated in recent years. The GRA has accused the watchdog of carrying out sloppy investigations and unfairly picking on members of the force.

Garda Damien McCarthy, a member of the GRA’s central executive committee, said a garda was wrongly accused of assaulting and robbing a man who made a complaint about him to GSOC.

Fortunately, the garda had two reliable witnesses and video footage which proved he didn’t do anything wrong.

Garda McCarthy said the garda later asked GSOC if the person who made the false allegation was to be prosecuted.

“He was told they (GSOC) they didn’t prosecute members of the public, just gardaí.”