‘Days’ to agree plan to avert garda strike

The Department of Justice may have only days to formulate offers to avert garda strikes — with both staff associations set to hold their executive meetings towards the end of the week.

These meetings — by the Garda Representative Association on Thursday, and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors on Friday — are to inform executive committee members of the result of talks with the department and finalise plans for strike action, beginning on Friday, November 4.

It is thought that little progress has made to date on the substantive issues of pay and association negotiation rights and that talks will intensify in the coming days.

The GRA, representing 10,500 members, is due to meet Department of Justice officials today. The AGSI, with 2,000 members, is likely to meet officials on Tuesday, or possibly, later today.

The Central Executive Committee of the GRA meets this Thursday, while the National Executive of the AGSI meets on Friday.

Sources said the leadership will have to inform committee members as to the outcome of the talks and enable a discussion regarding strike action.

“Members will need to be told where we stand,” said one source. “It can’t be held over to the following week.”

It is thought that progress between the Department and the AGSI could be more likely, but that the Department has not yet given specifics on legislation or timeframes for association access to pay and industrial relations mechanisms.

Meanwhile, talks between the associations and garda management on contingency cover continue this week.

Garda management is particularly concerned at providing security at airports, ports and prisons — as well as arsenals of weapons.

Garda management has asked the AGSI what they will provide in terms of cover, while the AGSI is first seeking a request from management about what it needs.

Meanwhile, Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald refused to state what the Government contingency plan will be if strike action goes ahead — stating the plan is “to avoid that situation”.

“If gardaí withdraw their services we are facing a most serious situation,” she told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics. “All you have to do is think of the range of work the 12,800 gardaí do at the moment: they do cash escorts, they prevent burglaries, they go to traffic accidents.

“The precise point is that we do not want to get to that place because in terms of what you might substitute on any given day, in terms of emergency cover, that is an extraordinary undertaking.”

Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan said it was “simply unacceptable for the government to let the gardaí to drift into a strike”.