In business any new concept is tested before being implemented: a compromise proposal based on this approach could be the way to resolve the dispute over the Garda Reserve, writes Feargal Quinn.
If the current row over the proposed Garda Reserve between the Minister for Justice and the Garda representative associations follows its natural course, the outcome will be highly detrimental to the future policing of the country. Worse, it may also deal a lasting blow to the respect felt by members of the public towards their national police force.
Rather than continuing towards a winner-take-all confrontation that is likely to have this impact, I believe we should work towards a reasonable compromise that allows both parties to emerge from the situation with their honour intact.
First, though, let me state my position on the basic principles involved. As far as principle is concerned, I believe the Minister has all the right on his side. The duly elected legislature has enshrined the formation of a Garda Reserve into law; the gardaí - as servants of the State - have no option at all but to respect this law and work diligently to put it into effect.
There is no wriggle room at all on this issue: the Garda's role is to enforce the law, not to make it. It would be a total abdication of the role of the legislature if we were to allow members of the Garda to decide for their own reasons whether or not to implement a particular law.
If members of the Garda were indeed to carry out their threat not to co-operate in the working of the new Reserve, this would immediately provoke a constitutional crisis. No Government could tolerate such blatant defiance of its law. This would be a battle in which there could eventually be only one winner, if the State as we know it is to survive at all.
The Minister is emboldened by the fact that he has right on his side, as well as public opinion if we are to judge from recent surveys. But with the stakes so high, it surely behoves us to avoid at all costs the doomsday situation. Though the Government must inevitably win any showdown, such a victory would be at a massive cost. It is hard to see how public trust in the force could quickly be rebuilt after an all-out confrontation.
But it is a basic principle of industrial relations that when one side paints itself into a corner, it is in the interest of everyone to find a face-saving way out. Nobody gains in the long run from humiliating any party to a conflict.
How could we create a win-win situation from this dispute?
I think the answer comes from the nature of the proposal to set up the Reserve. It is, everybody would agree, a massive change that will radically affect the way policing is carried out in this country in the decades ahead. Both those who are in favour of it and those who oppose it are agreed that this will be a major change in the way the country is policed.
The immensity of the change leads me to question the wisdom of introducing it nationwide in one fell swoop. I know that in business, whenever something major is proposed, we always look for a way of first testing the idea on the ground. A limited test offers an opportunity to see how the theory works in practice, and to discover how an untested idea might be greatly improved by making the modifications that only putting the idea to work can identify. The end result is a better idea, one that has been strengthened by the testing process.
An honourable settlement in the present dispute could be based on this approach. To make it work, both sides would have to make important concessions. However, the basic principles that underlie the dispute would not be compromised.
The Minister would have to agree to call off his plan to bring the Garda Reserve into being on a nationwide basis by the end of this year. Instead, he would announce its introduction on a phased basis - starting in only one of the six Garda regions, and extending to the others only after a period of testing. As a result of the testing, he must be prepared to make any changes in the scheme that practical experience on the ground suggests.
The gardaí, for their part, would have to respond to the Minister's concession by agreeing to co-operate fully and whole-heartedly with the test of the Reserve, on the understanding that if the idea is proved to work effectively it will be rolled out nationwide in due course.
This way, without yielding at all on the fundamental issue of principle, the Minister would get his Reserve force - eventually. He should be prepared to tolerate the delay, since at no stage has he argued that the setting up of the force was so urgent a necessity that it must be done this year.
But more important, the members of the Garda would be given an opportunity to withdraw in an honourable manner from a confrontation they can never hope to win. By doing so, they would make a valuable contribution to the future of effective policing in this country - and go some way to rebuild the public's respect for the force, which has received such a battering in recent years.
Feargal Quinn is an independent member of Seanad Éireann.