THE majority of Limerick’s 500 Gardaí are understood to be in favour of a campaign of industrial action to back their demands for improved pay and conditions.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents 10,000 members nationally and more than 500 in Limerick, rejected the Lansdowne Road Agreement and have been subject to a pay increment freeze which affects those with less than 17 years’ service in the force, or 62 per cent of rank-and-file gardaí.
The GRA says its members are frustrated at increased working hours and the withdrawal of certain allowances during the economic crisis and say that morale in the force is at all time low.
In the recent ballot, members of the GRA were asked one question; “Are you so dissatisfied with your current pay and conditions that you are willing to take part in a day(s) industrial action?”
Frank Thornton, who is the GRA’s Central Executive Committee Representative for the Limerick Division said it was the Association policy to reverse the pay cuts implemented through the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) Act and to protect the allowances and pensions of members, all of whom have suffered financial hardship since 2008, when these cuts were first implemented.
Garda Thornton said that after Government failed to honour its part of the Haddington Road Agreement “members are no longer willing to work prime time hours for free. Gardaí have had an increment freeze imposed on them, which will affect a large portion of the members within the Limerick Division.
“Even through all the austerity and extra productivity measures imposed on Gardaí, the service provided by members of the Limerick Division never faltered. We keep turning up, and kept delivering, but we have had enough.
“We can no longer work for free, no longer absorb the cuts imposed and no longer operate under a dictatorship of vast additional productivity, without recognition.
“The Association made a submission to the Department of Justice on July 26 and is still awaiting a response. To me, that just about sums up their attitude towards members of An Garda Siochana. You can only poke a bear for so long before he will snap back,” Garda Thornton told the Limerick Post.
In a letter which accompanied the ballot paper, GRA general secretary Pat Ennis wrote of the “searing cuts” and the Association’s wish to reverse them as well as “protect pensions and ensure employment levels”.
Addressing Gardai on the ballot, Mr Ennis said it was of paramount importance that they took the opportunity to express their view on whether they were so dissatisfied with their pay and conditions that they were willing to take part in industrial action.
“The decision to take action is your individual choice. If you take action that involves a partial or complete withdrawal of services, you could be found in breach of discipline” he warned.
Members have until the close of business on Monday, September 26 to return their ballot papers.
