Gardai have defied a warning from the Garda Commissioner and an appeal from the Government by voting to disrupt the Tour de France in July.
At the end of the two-day Garda Representative Association (GRA) conference in Cork, delegates voted for a new series of protests in support of their pay claim, including disruption of the first stage of the race in Dublin on July 11th.
Other protest measures, including refusal by some gardai to drive official Garda cars, are to begin next Wednesday.
The vote at the conference came despite last Tuesday's warning from the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, that protesting gardai would be disciplined.
Mr Byrne said confrontation between Garda management and rank-and-file gardai was "inevitable" in the event of further "blue flu" protests.
However delegates voted yesterday to step up industrial action, including a day of national protest on the prologue stage of the Tour de France on July 11th.
Yesterday Mr Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director general of the Tour de France company, reacted calmly to the news. "There are still two months to go before the competition," Mr Leblanc said.
"The Irish government has always wanted the Tour de France to begin there. It is a national affair and I have a hard time believing that several ministers who have wanted this event so badly will not do everything in their power for it to take place as it should." Mr Leblanc denied he was trying to put pressure on the Government to give in to the dissatisfied gardai, but he said he could not believe a solution would not be reached in the next two months. "I am not dismissing these threats," he added, "but we have the same sort of threats almost every year in France".
In 1992, striking French lorry drivers lifted their blockades only two days before the annual bicycle race started. "I think they understood that if they interrupted the Tour de France, their strike would be very unpopular," Mr Leblanc said.
Twice, the technical company responsible for television broadcasting also threatened to strike but "both times they backed down," he said.
"You mustn't interfere with it, on pain of making yourself unpopular. I think the same rationale must apply to the Irish police - but I'm not interfering in the domestic affairs of Ireland."
Mr Pat McQuaid, managing director of Irish Tour de France organisers, L'Evenements, said the planned GRA action would not affect the race.
"Whatever happens, the Tour de France will go ahead," he said.
The Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Dr McDaid, had earlier appealed to the GRA not to disrupt the start of the race.
Dr McDaid said it would broadcast positive images of Ireland to 950 million people worldwide, instead of the usual negative broadcasts associated with the 12th of July.