The planned garda strike is set to go ahead tomorrow as efforts to solve the pay dispute have failed.
As of 7am tomorrow (Friday) up to 10,500 rank and file gardai are staging a 24 hour walkout as part of their industrial action against pay restoration.
As these members of the Garda Representative Association refuse to report to duty tomorrow, the ramifications are set to be huge.
In a last-minute request by the GRA, officers in emergency response and regional support units have been asked to report for duty to protect the State.
Emergency Response units, airport police and 999 centres are set to continue to operate. Court sittings are also expected to run as normal, and people are asked to take note of local arrangements if the matter should change.
The country is going to have a “skeletal service” tomorrow, after it was revealed that 18 units will continue to operate.
The GRA presented its case for improved pay and conditions to the Labour Court yesterday and agreed to ballot members on the outcome. While that ballot is still pending, the government made calls for the strike to be cancelled.
Talks between the Garda Representative Association and the Department of Justice have now been adjourned until 8pm this evening, and there is still a possibility of an eleventh-hour deal.
Despite the scaling back of the all-out strike, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald has appealed to the Garda representative groups not to go ahead the action tomorrow.
“Let’s be clear that if 12,800 gardaí go on striker there is no contingency plan that can replace that number,” the Minister for Justice said.
GRA General Secretary Pat Ennis said, “the ongoing security of the State, protection of life and the gathering of evidence is paramount and must not be compromised, despite the sense of anger, betrayal and disillusionment that resulted in 95% of the GRA membership democratically expressed their preference for industrial action.”
The GRA is suggesting the following units do not take part in any industrial action:
- Emergency Response Unit (ERU) – an armed unit of An Garda Síochána
- Regional Support Units – also armed units
- Garda Technical Bureau – mapping, fingerprints, ballistics, photographic sections
- Critical incident/major emergency response capabilities
- Communication Roomsres
- Protection & Escort Personnel
- National Surveillance
- Static Protection Posts
- Special Detectives
- Intelligence Sections
- Witness Security Programme
- VIP Protection
- Garda Drugs Organised Crime Bureau
- Special Dedicated Embassy Patrols
- Immigration
- Forensic Collision Investigators
- Those attending prosecutions in court
- Students and Probationers
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