A third of rank-and-file gardai took home more pay last year than their superior officers, including superintendents, according to figures supplied by the Department of Justice.
The reduction in pay differentials between officers of garda and sergeant rank and senior officers in managerial posts is causing serious friction between senior staff and Government pay negotiators, according to gardai.
Negotiations between the staff associations of the superintendents and chief superintendents are still deadlocked two months after the Government granted significant increases to the associations representing officers from garda to inspector rank.
The low-ranking officers' pay has increased significantly - in some cases up to 13.75 per cent - and at the end of last month they received two years' back-pay increases in their wage packets.
The increases wrested from Government by the Blue Flu industrial action by the 8,000 Garda Representative Association (GRA) members supported by the 2,500 members of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has exacerbated the annoyance over pay levels for senior officers, according to senior sources.
The Association of Garda Superintendents was recently supplied with pay figures for 1997 which showed that 3,503 officers of garda and sergeant rank received more pay during the year than officers on superintendents' basic pay.
The figures showed that 580 officers of garda rank were paid more than superintendents on their maximum scales. Some 1,700 gardai were paid more than superintendents on the minimum scale.
Ninety-two inspectors were paid more than officers on the top superintendents' scale. And 900 sergeants received more pay than superintendents on the minimum scale. A further 311 sergeants received more than superintendents on the maximum scale.
The fact that officers up to inspector rank are paid more than superintendents - and in some cases chief superintendents and assistant commissioners - is due to overtime and other allowances. Overtime is paid to officers up to inspector rank but not beyond. Senior officers say this results in many capable officers not going for promotion beyond inspector because their pay would drop. The relatively high levels of pay among low-rank officers is largely due to the fact that in 1997 the State paid £44 million in overtime to gardai, the highest amount ever. About a quarter of the overtime paid last year was for Border guard duty during the BSE scare. i insist the pay figures underline a serious discrepancy between the garda management structure and pay levels. One senior officer warned that the anomaly of pay apparently reducing as officers win promotion to the management ranks will result in the Force suffering from a dearth of good managers.