Donohoe signals movement on Garda pay against backdrop of fear

There is no doubt but that the Government is extremely worried about the prospect of Friday’s threatened Garda strike going ahead.

While in public the words of Ministers are measured and conciliatory, in private they speak of the worries of the public, the danger to An Garda Síochána’s relationship with the community it serves, the precedent such a strike would set and the damage it would do to Ireland’s international reputation.

A clearly worried and agitated Minister in recent days characterised it as a “threat to democracy” but such phrases will never be aired before a microphone, lest they inflame an extremely delicate situation.

While the lead in attempting to settle the dispute has been taken by Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been privately impressing on those involved the need to avoid a strike while protecting the Lansdowne Road public-sector pay agreement.

Labour Court talks

That tightrope has not yet been crossed and the Government's latest hope is that Labour Court talks will provide a pretext for the strike to be postponed, pending further negotiations and a possible ballot of members of the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors .

Mr Donohoe yesterday said any deal must remain within the confines of the Lansdowne Road agreement, which is due to expire in September 2018.

Yet the seriousness of the situation led Mr Donohoe to publicly raise the prospect of a successor agreement being implemented before that date, a prospect that had previously been discussed only in private.

While Mr Donohoe reiterated his commitment to the process of establishing the public-sector pay commission to prepare the ground for future negotiations, he said the “duration” of a new deal would be a matter for those negotiations .

He effectively acknowledged that the demand for pay restoration will not be held back and could come months earlier than planned, but still be within the calendar year of 2018.

Signal

While the fact of accelerated pay restoration is not really surprising, Mr Donohoe’s raising of it in public is also a signal to other public sector unions to stay on board with the current arrangement.

Keeping the 20 or so other public-sector unions within Lansdowne Road is priority for the Government, and is shared by Fine Gael and Independents.

There was a united view at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that the path outlined by Fitzgerald and Donohoe is the correct one.

“A lot of us are really annoyed with the guards,” said one Minister. “There already is a good offer on the table but it seems they just want a day to get it out of their system. We have to stand by Lansdowne Road to protect all the other unions who are in it.”

The nature of this dispute is not like dealing with teachers or nurses, however, and adds the apprehension across Government.

“Therefore it is very unpredictable,” said one source. “There is a very strong awareness that the situation is very serious.”