The overwhelming majority of Garda Representative Association and Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors intend to ignore an order by Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan to make themselves available to work tomorrow.
The commissioner’s blunt instruction that officers should turn up for work appears to have crystallised the anger felt by the two associations’ membership over pay and conditions.
Senior officers admitted that only negligible numbers across the country were likely to comply with the Commissioner order, where she had warned that the day of action threatened to “irreparably compromise our authority to police the state”.
In some Garda districts, “only a handful” of gardaí, sergeants and inspectors in areas covered by six or seven large Garda stations have agreed that they will be available for shifts between 7am Friday and 7am Saturday.
Meanwhile, many personnel were ignoring phone calls from senior officers checking their availability, while others were taking the calls and explaining they were withdrawing their service for the day.
Officers
Many Garda stations will remain open, if the strike goes ahead, manned by officers at the rank of superintendent and higher and recruit and probationer gardaí who are not yet attested. This number comes to 1,300 personnel.
“The plan is to keep stations open with the students working under the senior people,” said one informed source, “There will definitely be a service there to take phone calls from the public and we feel a service at the public counter.”
The withdrawal of service, a Garda strike in all but name, involves just over 2,000 sergeants and inspectors and almost 10,500 rank and file Garda in force of 12,871. There 300 officers at the rank of superintendent, and above. There are 529 probationer gardaí and 450 students.
Contingency plans
A formal statement about contingency plans – if last-minute settlement efforts fail – will emerge from Garda Headquarters in the Phoenix Park later today, though the details offered will be carefully worded not to disclose information advantageous to criminals.
Probationers have completed much of their Templemore training and have been deployed to stations, but they have not yet graduated as fully attested gardaí. Students, meanwhile, have no operational experience.
The Garda Emergency Response Unit and the five Regional Support Units, with a total strength of 200 armed officers, will patrol in two 12-hours shifts tomorrow. Including these units, there will be 1,500 officers on duty.
Some members of the Garda said they felt Ms O’Sullivan’s decision to issue the order was understandable given the responsibility she faces to ensure the State is adequately policed.
However, others saw it as an attempt to put pressure on gardaí to abandon their action: “The minute I heard a directive was going out I thought it was a bad move,” said one Garda inspector.
“Maybe she had to do it, but it was seen by a lot of people as fuel on the fire. And I think if some people had doubts about going through with this, ultimately the order would have made them dig in.”
Saying the initial reaction to her order was worry, a Garda sergeant declared: “There was a lot of huffing and puffing. I think it was the first time a lot of people realised this was serious stuff and it was just around the corner.”
Significant
The commissioner’s decision to cancel all rest days and leave for every member of the force, rather than simply ordering those rostered on for tomorrow to turn up for duty was significant, this officer believed.
“It meant everybody was affected by it, not just the people rostered to work Friday; everyone now has to make a decision. But in legal terms the commissioner probably had to do it. I’m not sure I’d hold it against her.”
However, another member of the force was more critical; saying anger about pay has run too deep: “I suppose Garda headquarters will claim they got loads of members of come in and we’ll never know the true numbers across the country, but I couldn’t see many coming in.”
“You will get people who are nervous, who don’t believe we should be doing this or people who want to climb the career ladder and not annoy anyone. But if all your colleagues are going out, I think that brings pressure,” the officer went on.
Some interpreted the order as a sign of panic: “She probably had no choice. But everyone knows there are far too many people to discipline and I think it annoyed an awful lot of people. I don’t think anyone is genuinely afraid something will happen to them if they just ignore this,” said one.
