Gardaí facing financial penalties as talks on pay deal collapse

Thousands of rank and file gardaí are facing an increased prospect of having financial penalties imposed on them by the Government within the coming days following the collapse of talks on a new pay deal.

Members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) rejected last year the Lansdowne Road accord on public service pay.

The GRA had backed the previous Haddington Road agreement but its protections expire on Thursday.

The Government considers the Lansdowne Road deal an extension of the Haddington Road accord and that additional productivity provided for under it should continue.

Financial emergency legislation, known as Fempi, introduced last year by the Fine Gael /Labour coalition allows the Government to impose financial penalties such as forfeiture of incremental pay rises on members of unions or representative bodies which are considered to have repudiated an agreement.

Under the Haddington Road deal gardaí were obliged to work 30 unpaid hours per year until December 2015.

The Government also agreed to a pay review for gardaí which was supposed to have been concluded in 2014. However, this process has not been finalised and several weeks ago its chairman, Ray McGee,formerly of the Labour Court, resigned.

Last December, having rejected the new Lansdowne Road deal, the GRA ceased working the additional hours.

Talks between the GRA and the Department of Justice and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, aimed at breaking the deadlock, had been underway for some weeks.

On Monday evening, the GRA, following a meeting of its executive, announced that this process had broken down.

The GRA said it had sought “the finalisation of the Haddington Road agreement without the imposition of a pay freeze which is due this Friday July 1st under Fempi legislation”.

“This will have a disproportionate effect on the newest members of An Garda Síochána who have already suffered drastic pay cuts and will remain on €23,171 till 2018. This is not a living wage.”

The GRA said that as the Haddington Road agreement was due to end on June 30th, it “had been trying continuously for some months to get the Government to honour their commitments to the review of Garda pay”.

It said that one key issue was the Government’s insistence that gardaí work the extra hours without payment. It argued that this was “unacceptable in the current economic climate”.

GRA president Ciarán O’Neill said: “GRA members chose not to sign up to the Lansdowne Road agreement as it doesn’t reflect the uniqueness of the work we do and doesn’t address many issues we are concerned about, including full pay restoration and the removal of the two tier pay system”.

He said: “From an industrial relations standpoint, the GRA has committed to this negotiation process and the government have failed even to complete the review which was due to finish two years ago. Our members have done everything that was asked of them. We tightened our belts and pulled together for the good of the country.

“One major sticking point is that the Government wants gardaí to work for free, which the GRA believes is unacceptable in the current economic climate. For the government to deny our members their due, especially with the recent improvements in the economy, is scandalous.”

He said it was unfair for the Government to impose the Fempi measures which would freeze Garda increments, on July 1st before the Haddington Road agreement had been fully implemented.