The prospect that gardai could be represented in future national pay talks was raised by the Minister for Justice last night. "The whole question of gardai entering into national pay talks could be ad dressed in a more meaningful way," Mr O'Donoghue said. "If they want to come in and talk to me about that I'll talk about it." Asked if this offer was on the negotiating table, he said the offer of involvement in future talks was "something which I would be willing to discuss with them".
Mr O'Donoghue met the deputy Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy, yesterday and discussed the emergency plans for today's protest. "We're obviously going to deploy the resources we have to the optimum advantage. Naturally it's not as complete as it might have been."
The idea of a separate Garda pay review body, called for by the GRA, was "not on the table because it can't be on the table," he said, and a third-party mediator would only be useful in bringing the GRA back to the official talks, chaired by Mr Declan Brennan. Asked about opposition calls for the Minister to take a more handson approach to the dispute, he said the door was still open to the GRA to return to talks. "When I arrived in office I was faced with a situation where the GRA was entirely split. Ultimately that split was healed."
The Government had put in a mechanism for gardai to pursue their pay claim, Mr O'Donoghue said, "and I reopened the PCW for them 16 months after it was closed". The opposition had been "trawling" for evidence of promises made by him before Fianna Fail came to power, he said, and they had found nothing.
"I believe that the GRA should recognise that there are parameters. They should accept our bona fides, that we are willing to discuss within these parameters, but they left the talks at a time when the talks were beginning."
Mr O'Donoghue rejected GRA claims that informal talks ended last month. "There have been contacts in the last six weeks." The Department of Justice secretary, Mr Tim Dalton, had telephoned GRA general secretary Mr P.J. Stone, yesterday morning. "He [Mr Dalton] was told in passing that the position was that they were going off tomorrow."
Asked if he was concerned about today's security situation, he said: "Very definitely. No Minister for Justice likes to see a situation like this arise. I don't believe this kind of stand-off is our fault. We have stated continuously that we are available and we want to resolve it. We're asking them to come back and they have nothing to lose by taking up that offer."
