Garda leave and days off 'will be cancelled' with resources stretched

James Morrisroe, GRA Deputy General Secretary, said: "With the extraordinary events coming up in the EU presidency, we certainly feel that our members will be stretched to the pin of their collar." Picture: Conor Ó Mearáin

Gardaí may have to give up 71 rest days to police the EU presidency.

Gardaí will be “stretched to the pin of their collar” with insufficient numbers to police the country, James Morrisroe, deputy general secretary of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) said.

Some €125m is to be allocated to the gardaí in overtime during Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union from July to December.

This “in itself just shows that we're papering over the cracks", he said. 

“To allocate such a large sum for probably overtime payments, our members would be expected to come in probably seven days a week.” 

And gardaí are already suffering from burnout, he said.

“We have 14,500 members; we would feel we need 17,000 or 18,000 members in the normal course of events for normal policing."

The recent fuel protests showed how major events can be organised through social media “at a moment’s notice” and gardaí have to respond rapidly, he said.

“We just don’t have the numbers to police normal circumstances.

“So with the extraordinary events coming up in the presidency, we certainly feel that our members will be stretched to the pin of their collar,” Mr Morrisroe said.

“Leave will be cancelled. Rest days will be cancelled."

The EU presidency may entail 71 extraordinary events, which require gardaí to drop rest days to police.

And gardaí will likely have to be deployed "from Dublin to Cork, to Mayo" to respond to events.

But Mr Morrisroe said that a definitive plan for policing the EU presidency has not been shared with the GRA yet.

A visit from US president Donald Trump would be a “huge security concern” and would require additional policing, Mr Morrisroe said.

“We would be expected to police that again at a moment’s notice," he said.

The potential for international attacks or incursions, like when drones were detected in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s flight path into Dublin, is another fear for gardaí during the upcoming EU presidency, he said.