Financial penalties to be imposed on gardaí and teachers

Thousands of rank and file gardaí and second level teachers will have financial penalties imposed on them by the Government from Friday.

Among the first to be affected by the move will be hundreds of teachers who are scheduled to receive incremental pay rises in July and August.

The sanctions are being imposed on members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) as both organisations have rejected the Lansdowne Road agreement, which is the cornerstone of the Government's public service pay policy.

The two organisations had signed up to the previous Haddington Road agreement, but it – and the protections it afforded to public servants – expired on Thursday night.

Financial emergency legislation, known as Fempi, introduced last year allows the Government to impose sanctions on members of organisations deemed to have repudiated a collective agreement.

The GRA has warned that if financial penalties are imposed it will be in dispute with the Government, although it has not detailed any action it would take in response.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald said that she did not want to be imposing penalties on public service staff and that her door and that of the Government remained open to both organisations.

A spokeswoman on behalf of Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe said measures set out in the financial emergency legislation would apply from July 1st.

Members of the GRA protested outside the gates of Leinster House on Thursday and urged the Government to postpone the implementation of the financial penalties. The organisation argued that the Government had failed to deliver on its promise of a review of Garda pay which formed part of the Haddington Road accord. This pay review was supposed to have been completed in 2014 but is still not finalised.

The Department of Education confirmed that it would apply penalties contained in financial emergency legislation to members of the ASTI from Friday.

It follows a formal directive from the union to its members to cease working an additional hour a week – 33 hours per year agreed originally under the Croke Park public service agreement in 2010.

About 900 teachers are due to receive pay increments during July and August, according to the department.

Redundancy

ASTI members – who account for the majority of this group – will now have these pay rises frozen until 2018.

A much larger group of ASTI members – about 16,500 – are set to lose out on supervision and substitution payments from next September worth almost €800.

Other penalties include reduced access to permanency for teachers on short-term contacts and the loss of protections against redundancy.

The ASTI’s standing committee – which plans to stage a protest outside the Dáil over these penalties – says it intends to seek to challenge the “oppressive legislation” in the courts.

The union has pledged to ballot members over industrial action if members face financial penalties, with a vote likely to take place in September.

There were angry scenes in the Dáil yesterday as Sinn Féin and Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit TDs demanded a debate and a vote on the Fempi measures.

Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl adjourned the Dáil because of disorder, as some TDs tore up copies of the Fempi legislation.

AAA TD Mick Barry warned the Government that it would not be strong enough "to face down organised workers, organised trade unionists, sections of the organised working class movement in this country".

Minister for Education Richard Bruton insisted that the Lansdowne Road Agreement was the only means through which public servants would see pay restoration. He said the vast majority of public servants had endorsed the agreement.