By the time you read this we should be well into the second "blue flu" day. This mysterious illness has been developing undiagnosed for some time. With the benefit of hindsight we can now identify its first appearance on May 3rd, 1994, at the Corrib Great Southern Hotel in Galway, where the Garda Representative Association (GRA) held its annual conference.
Both the Garda Commissioner and I, as Minister for Justice, had to brave placard-carrying members of the organisation on picket duty outside. Ugly scenes from the conference were televised to a shocked nation - the forces of law and order were themselves, it seemed to many, out of control. It was the first malignant growth within the garda ranks of the force that developed into a fully-fledged cancer despite varied treatments. At that conference the then president of the association referred to "the central need for co-operation, understanding and support in our ongoing endeavours to seek solutions in the many areas of common interest that we share". A sensible sentiment that has been totally abandoned by the GRA's current leadership.
At that time the GRA negotiated a pay deal with a strong emphasis on the pensionability of Garda allowances. While that suited members with reasonable lengthy service who would soon benefit from the deal, the younger gardai felt betrayed by the leadership. Many of them formed the Garda Federation in an attempt to get their case heard.
The dispute at that time was essentially between what one side called supremacy and the other called fair representation within the association. Despite many efforts it refused to go away, and by the end of that summer was reaching crisis point.
As Minister, I was seriously concerned and was about to put a number of recommendations to the association during the week of August 29th when a very strange thing happened. I was returning from a function in the Garda College in Templemore when the carphone rang. A senior executive member of the GRA wanted to meet me privately (on my own without civil servants). He would not even arrange a meeting place on the mobile phone lest the conversation be overheard.
I called into a hotel and returned his call. We arranged to meet in a well-known Dublin hotel. It was obvious that he was deeply concerned about the dispute and accepted that the association was not without blame for the events of the time. He suggested that if I were to nominate a facilitator who would meet both sides and make recommendations for settlement, he would see to it that the executive would go along with my suggestion. On Saturday morning, September 3rd, I met both the GRA and the federation in my departmental office (in order to keep the meeting secret I had to dispatch my Garda driver and the security detail). My recommendation of Kieran Mulvey, head of the Labour Relations Commission, as the facilitator was accepted. He produced a report, which was rejected by the GRA executive, and shortly thereafter the government changed.
I include that story as an illustration of the kinds of divisions that existed within the leadership of the GRA - divisions that I believe are at the heart of the current conflict and the source of the cancer that remains within the organisation. As Jim Cusack pointed out in these columns yesterday, the GRA doesn't actually have a fullyfledged general secretary. But one will have to be elected before long. Consequently, both of the men assumed to be in contention for this role are effectively electioneering at the moment. They are trying to outbid each other in the "unbending champion of the members' rights" stakes.
As a consequence, neither is much interested in negotiating a settlement that might involve concessions which could weaken his position. It must seem to any independent observer that internal politics is at work - and to hell with collateral damage.
What they have also done is to make a mistake politicians often make around election time - assume they know what the voters want without making absolutely sure. They claim that they have been "carrying out soundings at a series of nationwide divisional meetings at the weekend". What this actually means and precisely how extensive those soundings were is unclear. What is clear is that the decision to expand the "blue flu" campaign has been made without balloting the entire membership.
My doubts about the members' eagerness to get involved in this form of industrial action were confirmed by conversations I have had with serving gardai. One of them told me about an interrogation he was carrying out recently.
AS OFTEN happens, he knew the person he was questioning was lying and the suspect knew he knew that. Finally, the garda said, "look I know you're lying, and you know you're lying, so why don't you stop wasting everyone's time and tell me the truth?" The response: ["]well, you'd know all about it. You lot were doing it last week when you pretended to be sick."
While a relatively contemptuous attitude would be expected from criminals towards the gardai, the continuation of the "blue flu" campaign can only lead to a similar attitude developing among the law-abiding majority. The Garda is supposed to be a guardian of honesty and integrity. How can the public have any confidence in their ability to carry out this responsibility when they tell a collective lie and expect to get paid for it?
Considering how important the assistance of the public is to the Garda in maintaining public order and solving crimes, the risk of alienating the public is one that many gardai, I believe, don't want to take. But the GRA leadership is doing its best to give the impression that it is the only route open to them. It isn't.
The Government wants to solve this problem and recognises that Garda pay needs to be increased and that conditions need to be improved. But even the offer to use an independent mediator has been rejected. The GRA keeps trying to compare the situation with that facing the nurses. But the nurses only took industrial action after two pay agreements had been negotiated, balloted on and rejected. No package has been negotiated or put to the GRA membership.
The continuation of this campaign leaves questions unanswered and raises possibilities the GRA leadership hasn't had the vision to consider. For example, every other group of public servants has negotiated pay deals based on productivity. The GRA seemed to be running scared of this option. One is entitled to ask why. Also, their ongoing intransigence and their attempted blackmail of a Government would leave any administration sorely tempted to consider restructuring the force, as has been done in many other countries. For instance, the force could be fully regionalised rather than have a single force for the State, and some functions could be transferred to other agencies able to carry them out more effectively and cheaply. What we are now faced with is the prospect that the nation's security and the rule of law and order will end up in the hands of soldiers and Garda probationers. It is truly an appalling vista.