Garda bodies withhold judgment on Owen Bill

THE GARDA Representative Association said last night that it had "no great difficulty" with the Garda Siochana Bill, which the Government approved for publication yesterday.

The Garda Federation said it was reluctant to "prejudge" the Bill before a meeting of its national council on Friday. However, its spokesman, Mr Chris Finnegan, noted that the Bill did "not contain the all important element of weighted voting" which he said the Minister had originally suggested.

He added that it was "nothing new for the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, to depart from her original proposals.

The Bill was introduced to address the intractable and long running dispute between the two organisations.

The Garda Federation will hold an open meeting of its membership in Dublin to consider the Bill, once it has been discussed by the national council.

Mr P.J. Stone, deputy general secretary of the GRA, said the association had only just got sight of the Bill, "but I don't think we have any great difficulty with it.

He claimed that the Bill was an acknowledgment of the GRA and he did not take seriously the section dealing with a "power to disestablish" the representative association if it did not conform to any requirements imposed by Garda Siochana Acts, including the new one.

Mrs Owen has said that she proposed the Bill with "the greatest reluctance" in an effort to resolve the dispute.

Praising the GRA for its invaluable service to its members and to the State since 1978, she regretted being forced to publish legislation which could "as a last resort, result in the disestablishment of the GRA as a representative association".

Mr Stone claimed the GRA had dealt with the problems without the need for legislation.

The Bill confirms that only one association can represent gardai at garda level and it gives that one association the right to represent those members in discussions on pay, pensions and conditions of service.

One of the main provisions in the Bill is that the association must have the support of a sufficient majority of the rank to satisfy the Minister that "in matters which concern the rank as a whole, it can speak on behalf of the rank and make agreements on behalf of the rank as a whole".

There are just under 8,300 gardai and the GRA says it represents more than 6,000.

The dispute emerged in May 1994 when the annual delegate conference of the GRA collapsed in a row about voting on pensions. Subsequently the Garda Commissioner intervened, and then the Labour Relations Commission.

There was a further division within the GRA, and the Minister met the two GRA groups and the Garda Federation separately. She issued a discussion document but said that the responses to it were not realistic.

A proposal for arbitration was accepted, but abandoned on the first day. Finally the Minister opted for legislation.