Rank and file gardaí reject Lansdowne Road pay deal

GRA joins AGSI in voting against deal providing most public service workers with pay rise

Gardaí have voted overwhlemingly to reject the new Lansdowne Road agreement on public service pay.

Members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) rejected the accord by amargin of about 87 per cent to 11 per cent.

The GRA said that its central executive committee would meet during the forthcoming week “to discuss the implications of this outcome”.

The central executive of the GRA had made no recommendation to the 10,000 members of the association in relation to the ballot.

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The turnout in the ballot on the agreement was 60 per cent.

Last week the association representing garda sergeants and inspectors, the AGSI, narrowly rejected the Lansdowne Road deal in a ballot.

The garda organisations are not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions so the issue of whether they would accept, or otherwise, the majority decision of the public service trade unions on the accord does not arise.

Members of two teaching unions, ASTI and TUI, have also voted to reject the agreement.

The ASTI leadership has also voted not to accept the majority decision of the public service committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to accept the deal.

The TUI has also said it will not be bound by the decision of the public service union movement ot ratify the accord.

The Government in recent weeks published new financial emergency legislation would alllow to take punitive measures against trade unions that repudiated collective agreement such as the Lansdowne Road deal.

This could, in theory, see gardai as well as second level teachers face freezes to their increments until 2018.

However this would more than likely be a matter for the next Government to determine after the general election.

The Lansdowne Road deal provides for most public service staff to receive €2,000 in increased earnings between January 2016 and September 2017.

Martin Wall

Martin Wall

Martin Wall is the former Washington Correspondent of The Irish Times. He was previously industry correspondent