New pay deal for gardaí agreed with Department of Justice

A new pay deal has been reached between the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Department of Justice.

The department confirmed the agreement with representatives of rank and file gardaí was reached late last Friday evening.

"As part of the agreement the rent allowance of over €4,000 will be restored for recent recruits and for anyone considering joining An Garda Síochána in the current recruitment campaign," the department said in a statement.

The executive of the GRA is now to meet to decide whether to put the deal to a ballot of members which is likely to happen.

The deal removes the immediate potential of the Government facing hugely damaging industrial action by gardaí at a time when it is already dealing with strikes and unrest elsewhere in the public sector, most notably in transport and education.

The deal also protects the integrity of the Lansdowne Road agreement — the cornerstone of the Government’s public service pay policy — while effectively isolating second level teachers in the ASTI union who are the only group continuing to fight the accord.

The agreement address the highly controversial issue of the two-tier pay structure in place in An Garda Síochána — and elsewhere in the public service — since the abolition of allowance for new entrants taken on after early 2012.

It effectively follows a formula which was put in place in May this year for firefighters and more recently for primary school teachers and those in second level represented by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI).

Under the new agreement, recently-recruited gardaí will receive the equivalent of the €4,000 previously paid in rent allowance in two phases.

Gardai who were due incremental pay rises since July, in some cases worth about €2,000, are also expected to have them restored under the new deal.

These increases had been frozen under financial emergency legislation invoked by the Government in July after it determined the GRA to have repudiated the Lansdowne Road agreement.

The two -tier system came about after the then Fine Gael/Labour coalition in 2012 decided that a planned cut to allowances would only effect those recruited in the public service after that point.

This meant that recently-recruited teachers lost out on qualifications allowances worth about €5,000 while non-consultant doctors and gardaí did not receive accommodation and rent allowances after that point.

For gardaí this move did not really matter at the time as there was no recruitment then taking place . However when young gardaí began to be taken on again in 2014, the two-tier pay issue quickly became a highly controversial matter.

As part of the new deal the rank and file gardai in the GRA will be obliged to back formally the Lansdowne Road agreement.

However while thenew deal addresses the new entrant pay question, gardaí will also be carefully waiting for development in an overall pay review which was promised under the previous Haddington Road deal but not finalised. This is now expected to be completed by Christmas.

The newdeal was reached with the GRA just a couple of days before it was scheduled to count a ballot of its 10,000 members on whether they were prepared to take industrial action — a move which could have caused huge legal and political problems for the Government.

The new deal also leaves the ASTI fighting alone against the Lansdowne Road accord.It is currently balloting its 17,000 members on industrial action which could result in school closures within the next month or so.