Threat of garda strikes needs to be removed, says Fitzgerald

A mechanism is required to make sure the State is not brought to the eve of a strike by gardaí again, according to Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

She was speaking on Tuesday in relation to recommendations put forward by former Labour Court chairman John Horgan in a report on pay and industrial relations in An Garda Síochána.

Ms Fitzgerald said from “the point of view of An Garda Síochána I do not want to see strikes happening. I think as a Government we need to have a clear mechanism to ensure this is not the situation and that is what I’ll working towards in the coming months.”

“At the end of the day we are dependent on An Garda Síochána to protect the public and to quote John Horgan, ‘strikes should not happen in the police force’, especially if this is a monopoly service and a national security service is part of the police service,” she said.

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Mr Horgan, who said industrial relations in An Garda Síochána were “effectively broken, also proposed any garda who engaged in strike action should lose their right to build up their pension entitlements for five years.

Ms Fitzgerald said this was an unusual recommendation that may be “problematic in terms of the legal consequences”.

It is understood that as part of forthcoming negotiations on allowing members of An Garda Síochána access to the industrial relations mechanisms of the State, the Government will seek to introduce constraints on what form of industrial action gardaí will be able to take.

"What I would like to see is the Garda organisations and the department getting involved in the Public Pay Commission, examining the whole issue of strike and industrial action as it effects a police force and what we would expect of An Garda Síochána," Ms Fitzgerald told the Sean O'Rourke Show on RTÉ Radio One