The gardai of all ranks up to and including chief superintendent are limbering up to make a sizeable pay claim. In some part they have probably been influenced by the success of the nurses campaign and the Government's willingness, when it came down to the wire, to breach its own declared cash limits in order to avoid unprecedented industrial action.
But the guards should not assume that they can easily follow where the nurses have led. There was a widespread conviction among the public that the nurses case was unique, that they were significantly underpaid and that the long term consequences of a bitter strike in the hospitals would be catastrophic.
For all that the guards would wish themselves to be perceived as a vocational group, committed to the highest ideals of public service, they have accumulated something of a credibility deficit over recent years. Much of this is no fault of the members themselves. The guards tend to be blamed for the many failures of the criminal justice system simply because they are the visible representatives of that system.
Some of it, however, they have brought upon their own heads. The damage done to the force's image by indiscipline and by the dog fighting among some of its elected representatives, is enormous. And in spite of the commitment of so many gardai, there is a widespread perception that other members of the force are engaged in double jobbing, that too many are living far away from their districts and that in many cases the general approach to work is indolent. The guards have work to do in restoring the degree of public support they would want.
What is the case for a commission on garda pay? In truth, the force's pay is not over generous, especially where overtime payments do not apply. Pay for supervisory ranks, in particular, seems poor when the levels of responsibility are taken into consideration and when it is borne in mind that it takes a decade's service to get to the rank of sergeant. Inspectors and superintendents carry extremely heavy workloads which are hardly reflected in the salary figures.
Poor morale, expressed as discontent over pay and conditions appears to be endemic in the Garda Siochana. Human resources specialists will recognise the phenomenon of demotivation which can characterise large, tightly structured organisations, regardless of how well their members are provided for in the material sense. Twenty seven years ago, the Conroy Commission recognised that the "serious and longstanding discontent" within the Garda would not be alleviated "merely by paying its members fairly and looking after their physical conditions of employment".
"The objective is an effective police force with high morale, fully accepted by and integrated with the community it serves", Conroy observed. If the Government believes that objective is still worthwhile pursuing, it should accede to the guards request for a commission but one with a much wider remit than pay. It should examine the entire role, organisation and ethos of the force, as Conroy asked more than a quarter century ago. The guards - and the public they serve - should have a whole new deal. Both the police force and the community could do better for each other.