Garda strike: ‘Gravity of situation lost on politicians’

Over the past three weeks, the looming garda strikes crisis has escalated from being manageable to bordering on full-blown, writes Cormac O’Keeffe

Mid-rank gardaí, numbering some 2,000, are joining frontline gardaí, numbering 10,500, in withdrawing their labour on four Fridays next month.

“The debate so far has been around the rights and wrongs of strike action,” said one senior garda. “That’s fine, but the reality is we will have, effectively, no gardaí on those Fridays. I don’t think the public have grasped that and politicians don’t realise the gravity of it.”