If the State’s law enforcers break the law by taking strike action, they are not just acting illegally, they are failing the public they have sworn to serve and protect. Such a bleak scenario will unfold on Friday if thousands of gardaí proceed with a one-day walk-out in pursuit of their pay claims.
Both the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) have threatened similar action in three further one-day strikes this month. A withdrawal of labour by the associations' members would be illegal, ill-advised and wholly unjustified. The stance of both the GRA and the AGSI risks not just undermining the State's security but, as the Garda Commissioner correctly said yesterday, may irreparably compromise the force's authority to police the State.
The Government’s flexibility in negotiating a settlement to the dispute is necessarily limited. It is bound by the terms of the Lansdowne Road Agreement which virtually all public sector unions have accepted. That deal involves a phased partial reversal of pay cuts imposed during the economic crisis, costing some €300 million per annum over three years. The agreement achieved a difficult balance: it met trade union demands for progress on pay restoration but without damaging the public finances, while seeking to foster a peaceful industrial relations climate. Neither the GRA nor the AGSI were parties to the deal and both are demanding better terms than those accepted by most public sector workers.
The Government has rightly insisted the Lansdowne terms cannot be breached. In negotiations with the GRA and the AGSI it has offered concessions worth an estimated €30 million, involving rent allowances and special parading payments. But the executives of the GRA and the AGSI rejected the proposals without putting them to ballots of their memberships.
In making concessions, the Government has stretched the terms of the Lansdowne accord to its limits in a manner that may yet have knock-on consequences. When Minster for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe argued that the deal was “the only agreement that the Government will be honouring, and can afford to honour”, he was stating the obvious. A settlement with the GRA and the AGSI that breached Lansdowne would reward a militant minority and could provoke other public service unions to repudiate the agreement. Such an outcome would serve to undermine economic recovery, damage the public finances and destabilise an already weak minority government. All of which must be avoided.
With further intervention by the Government and the Labour Court, garda representatives have an opportunity to reconsider the consequences of leaving the State – and a fearful community – without protection. They are being offered a way out; they must take it.