Rank and file gardaí vote to brief Minister for Justice over ‘grave concerns’ with changes to rostering

Rank and file gardaí say they are so concerned about the “attitude” of Garda Commissioner Drew Harris in negotiations about new rosters they want a meeting with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee (FG) to appraise her of the situation.

Members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) now say proposed changes to their working arrangements, if the new rosters are introduced, would both reduce their remuneration and expose them to higher costs associated with working.

At a special delegate conference in Portlaoise, Co Laois, on Tuesday, GRA members unanimously passed a motion calling for the association’s leadership to approach Ms McEntee and outline their “grave concerns” relating to “the current Garda commissioner’s attitude towards rostering arrangements”.

The row centres on so-called emergency Covid-19 rosters - 12-hour shifts in four-day blocks - and plans to move to new rosters. Those new plans would involve some shifts being reduced to eight hours. This would mean gardaí would need to work more shifts, albeit shorter ones, to make up their full hours each month.

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The GRA says that arrangement would reduce their members’ remuneration, due to the loss of unsocial hours allowances, while also exposing them to higher fuel bills as they would need to commute to work more often each month.

Its conference on Tuesday also agreed to reject the “imposition” of eight-hour shifts “other than those currently worked by members predisposed to them”.

Damien McCarthy, a member of the GRA national executive based in Pearse Street, said Mr Harris’s new plans would significantly undermine his members’ financial position.

The proposed changes would “wipe out” gains made by gardaí in the most recent pay deal they had signed up to, he said.

“There is a huge level of anger on the ground over these rosters.”

The unanimous support for a motion that so publicly criticised Mr Harris, and effectively seeks to brief Ms McEntee about him, is the latest development in increasingly protracted negotiations over new rosters to replace the emergency plans put in place for the pandemic.

The emergency rosters - of 12-hour shifts in four-day blocks - were introduced at the start of the pandemic in March, 2020, to ensure the maximum number of gardaí on duty at any one time. Before that, the Garda rosters were based mainly on 10-hour shifts, in a pattern of six days on, and four off.

The new proposed rosters are intended to replace the emergency Covid-19 arrangements and, Garda management says, would also better-position the force to respond to the daily demands of policing. Under the new plans, many uniform gardaí would work four days on and four off in 10-hour shifts. However, others would work eight-hour shifts for seven days, followed by two days off. Those eight-hour arrangements are viewed as very unattractive as they would result in a loss of allowances and result in more shifts needing to be worked each month.

The GRA, which represents about 12,000 gardaí in a near 14,500-strong force, has now set down its roster policy going forward. It is in favour of 12-hour shifts being worked in a pattern of four days on and four days off or 10-hour shifts worked for six days in a row, followed by four days off. The association also says none of its members’ “earnings, terms and conditions and rest patterns” could be “negatively affected” by any roster changes.