Further one-day actions by gardai to disrupt the Irish Derby and opening day of the Tour de France will be discussed by members of the force next week following the failure of a Government attempt to restart pay negotiations.
Garda Representative Association (GRA) negotiators left a one-hour meeting with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, at tea time yesterday without having made any apparent progress.
It is understood there has been no change in the Government's position that the pay offer to the gardai has to be within the confines of the national wage agreements. The GRA has rejected this.
The Minister will next week have the delicate task of addressing about 400 GRA delegates at their annual conference in Cork.
At the last conference the then Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen, had to face a silent protest by delegates holding "against" ballot papers above their heads throughout her speech.
GRA members in several areas have begun imposing an effective work-to-rule by not giving on-the-spot tickets to traffic offenders but proceeding in each case by way of summons. If this continues it could clog up both policing administration and the courts.
The Derby takes place on June 26th and the Tour de France starts on July 10th. If the Garda action receives the same level of support as last week's one-day "blue flu" action, when about 90 per cent of members called in sick, there could be serious disruption.
The GRA leadership believes the Government will not want the embarrassment of a Garda strike when so many members of the international media are in the country for the tour.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said yesterday that the meeting had been "a frank exchange of views" but there had been no progress on agreeing a settlement.
He would not comment on reports from GRA sources that the Minister had offered to try to have the Labour Relations Commission, or even the Labour Court, intervene on the pay issue.
The general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), which has about 2,000 members, yesterday confirmed that he was still negotiating with the Government on the basis of a 7 per cent offer. Mr George Maybury would not comment on reports that the Government had offered an 8 per cent rise with 3 per cent of this tied to productivity agreements.
After yesterday's meeting with the Minister, the acting GRA general secretary, Mr P.J. Stone, said there had been "no conclusive outcome."
"We advised him in respect of his stand and the Government's stand on public pay. We believe that anything that would come within those confines would be rejected absolutely by the membership."
He said the GRA conference next week would decide what further action the membership would take.
Asked by RTE radio if GRA members had stopped issuing speeding tickets, Mr Stone said: "You mustn't forget that the enforcement of law will continue but we believe there is a discretionary power within every member of the Force as to whether or not they write a parking ticket or a speeding ticket.
"Obviously if people are speeding they can still be pursued by way of summons. The speeding ticket is a very good way for the Government to collect revenue and has been quite successful but, at the same time, there is the option there for every member of the Force to summons people in respect of those type of offences.
"We have taken an awful lot of flak and heat about what some people would call a dishonest approach. We might now take the ultimate decision and that is in relation to taking a tentative approach to strike.
"We can't do that but that is the very reason why we have to present all of these options to conference. Likewise we can't be seen as leaders of an association to be asking people to withdraw their labour because that is against the law.
"We will be setting out a plan of action to our members at conference. They will decide whether or not that is acceptable and then we will send it out to the membership to ballot on it. If we get that kind of imprimatur it will be full steam ahead."