Gardaí ‘sleeping in cars due to pay cuts’

Gardaí have suffered so much from pay cuts some are sleeping in cars because they cannot afford to drive home, the annual conference for rank-and-file members has heard.

Recruits fresh out of Templemore may face the same fate as they have been denied a customary rent allowance, the warning continued.

The claims were made by the Garda Representative Association (GRA), representing 10,400 frontline members. The GRA wants a reversal of the 19% pay cuts imposed on its members during the recession.

The GRA’s 37th annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow — which has the central theme of ‘Pay Back Now’ — heard deputy general secretary John Healy say he knew a number of gardaí stationed in Dublin who cannot afford to drive to their homes in outlying counties and regularly sleep overnight in their cars.

His claim mirrors that of PDForra (Permanent Defence Forces Other Ranks Representative Association), which said soldiers were sleeping in their cars due to pay cuts and relocations forced by barracks closures.

GRA president Dermot O’Brien said new recruits were already in “a poverty trap” because they had been denied rent allowances, that had been traditionally given to members of the force.

He said those being posted to Dublin could not afford to put a roof over their heads.

In London, he said, the authorities recognised the high cost of rents and supplied subsidised housing units for key personnel such as nurses, firemen, and police.

Mr O’Brien said this was something the Government should examine but, in the meantime, delegates castigated the Coalition for, on one hand, promoting equality through the same-sex marriage referendum but, on the other, denying new recruits the same rights as their peers.

Garda Damien McCarthy, a GRA central executive committee member based in Pearse Street Garda Station, Dublin said recruits would have to face the same risks policing modern Ireland as other gardaí and it was totally unacceptable that they should be treated differently.

Ray Wims, from the Sligo /Leitrim garda division, said that was a system of apartheid and added that some members of the force had endured such financial hardship during the recession they had delayed starting families.

Garda Wims said he was concerned if garda pay and conditions were further eroded, the day could come when new entrants were given zero-hours contracts.

GRA vice-president Ciaran O’Neill said gardaí had endured major cuts to pay and allowances since 2008 and new recruits were losing out on €4,000 a year due to being denied rent allowance.

Referring to the Haddington Road/Croke Park deals, he said: “We held up our side of the bargain. It’s now the Government’s turn.”

DISCOVER MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS