Garda industrial action: Having been denied any leverage, GRA is breaking new ground

Strike action may be problematic for gardaí but it is easy to have sympathy for them and they will change the industrial relations landscape, writes Eddie Keane

ON Wednesday afternoon the Garda Representative Association took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement declaring that its members must take industrial action up to and including a unilateral withdrawal of services.

Except for the famed “Blue Flu” day in 1998, when more than 5,000 members of the force missed work claiming to be sick, a mass withdrawal of services by gardaí has never occurred in Ireland.