More meetings today in bid to avert national policing crisis

Further crunch meetings are being held today in a bid to avert a national policing crisis in seven days time — after a lack of progress so far this week.

Anxiety is mounting in Garda Headquarters, where police chiefs have been holding off finalising a contingency plan in the expectation that the status of the talks would be clear by today — either to indicate a breakthrough or that they had broken down.

As it stands, Garda HQ has less than a week to negotiate emergency cover with the two associations.