Gardaí to come under time act

The Government is to introduce legislation removing the “blanket exclusion” of gardaí from a working hours’ directive, the High Court has heard.

Two gardaí had brought a challenge under the 1997 Working Time Act, from the EU Working Time Directive (WTD), which recognises the need for rest periods during working hours as a basic right of workers. Under the act, where a working day is more than six hours long, every worker is entitled to rest breaks.

The case by the two gardaí did not proceed after the court was told Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor had said in a letter she would bring a bill to Cabinet “in the next six weeks” applying the terms of the WTD to gardaí.