The resolution shown by the Minister for Justice, Ms Owen, as she moves to resolve the debilitating dispute among the Garda representative bodies is welcome. She has signalled in very direct terms that she will move to abolish the Garda Representative Association (GRA) if it does not accept the legislative proposals published this week.
Few fair minded people will quibble with this approach. The GRA dispute, which in turn led to the formation of the breakaway Garda Federation, has been a festering sore on the public image of the Garda. The strong name and the proud reputation of the force has been diminished a bewildered public has had to endure the unedifying spectacle of private security men guarding delegates at one GRA conference and a noisy walk out at another. And the manner in which the representative bodies have consistently refused to accept any compromise over the past two years, is baffling. No fewer than six separate attempts have been made by some of the most astute figures in Irish industrial relations to broker a resolution. All have failed.
Ostensibly, the issue at the heart of the dispute is straightforward the split in the GRA came about because Dublin gardai believed that the make up of the association's executive was weighted against their members and did not represent their interests. But this is a dispute as much about personality as policy, about personal freedoms and bitter rivalries. The strong sense of public duty which should form the lifeblood of any Garda organisation has not always been evident.
Ms Owen's proposals appear to represent a sensible way of breaking the deadlock since they provide much needed reforms in the GRA voting systems which will make them more truly representative. The proposal for an independent body to review disciplinary decisions within the GRA is also timely.
At this writing, there appears to be little confidence, in public at least, that the new proposals will be endorsed by the Garda bodies. A motion welcoming the proposals from the leadership of the Garda Federation failed to muster support at the association's first annual conference in Dublin yesterday, while the GRA has already signalled its concerns about several key proposals. There are thinly veiled threats of legal challenges in Dublin and even in the European courts if the Government seeks to enforce its will on the representative bodies.
The hope must be that there will be compromise in the face of the Minister's determination. Some of the concerns raised by both the GRA and the Federation are essentially minor and could be easily assuaged and it is still just possible that there could be enough common ground to assemble a negotiated settlement. It is time for both the GRA and Federation members to take the wider view, to realise that the memory of those who fought so hard to win the Garda proper representation in the first place, is ill served by this episode.
It is also past time to recognise the wider public interest. With crime rising and the State facing a renewed security threat, the public is looking to the Garda for reassurance. It should no longer be confronted by the sorry spectacle of a rank and file Garda force preoccupied with its own internal war.