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THE Government last night warned gardai it would not tolerate them breaking the law by organising a ballot on strike action.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern faced down the unprecedented threat from the rank-and-file members of the force.

“The people who uphold the law can’t be lawbreakers. No society can countenance that; no democracy can countenance that,” he said.


The hardline stance has left the Government and rank-and-file gardai on a dramatic collision course over the right to strike.

Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy is also expected to issue a similarly clear message to his force later today.

Leaders of the rank-and-file Garda Representative Association (GRA) threw down a gauntlet to the Government by declaring it was going to ballot almost 12,000 members on taking industrial action.

It is illegal for gardai to go on strike. The Government has also been advised they are breaking the law by organising a strike ballot.

The confrontation is the biggest showdown between the association and the authorities since the notorious “blue flu” action in 1998 and it is the first time that the gardai have threatened to officially go on strike.

Following consultation with Attorney General Paul Gallagher and Cmsr Murphy, the minister avoided the potential for escalating the crisis created by the shock announcement of the ballot yesterday morning by five association leaders. He appealed to the gardai to reflect on their decision and its likely consequences. But he also told them the Government would not cave in to the threat.

Cmsr Murphy returned to his headquarters last night after attending a conference on 50 years of women in policing at the Garda College in Templemore. He immediately summoned a meeting of his senior officers to discuss their reaction to the threat.

If the ballot papers are distributed, the association’s leadership face the possibility of a criminal investigation into their behaviour under a section of the Garda Siochana Act which states it is an offence to induce or do any act calculated to induce any garda to withhold his or her services or commit a breach of discipline.

Mr Ahern also spelled out the possibility of civil action if gardai went on strike.

The Industrial Relations Act provides protection for trade unions against being sued for damages if they hold valid ballots of their members. But the Garda Representative Association is exempt from that legislative protection.

This means the ballot organisers could be sued by the State or by an individual victim of a crime committed during industrial action and could be penalised by a court through seizure of their assets.

Association general secretary P J Stone yesterday admitted the GRA had not sought legal advice before embarking on the unprecedented course of action following an emergency meeting of their national executive on Saturday.

He also said they had not consulted any of the other garda associations, who were in the dark about the announcement until yesterday morning.

Mr Stone said it put them in a position where they could be regarded as breaking the law.

“I will have to accept the consequences of whatever flows from this,” he added.

He said they were not making a recommendation to the members, who would be given an opportunity “in the privacy of their homes” in the next two weeks, to decide if they wanted to take the ultimate step of industrial action.

The current arrangements equated to a denial of basic rights to gardai. Gardai, like other frontline workers, had been “denigrated and defiled” and they felt “valueless and worthless”.

Blunt

However, figures from the Central Statistics Office show that a garda, with an average weekly pay packet of €1,208.50, was the second highest paid public servant, after a prison officer.

Mr Stone accused the Government of using the blunt tool of the Garda Siochana Act to deny them the right to take a certain course of action.

He said it was up to the courts to decide if they were breaking the law by asking the membership if they were prepared to withdraw their labour in the event of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions engaging in any further days of protest.

A ban on balloting amounted to “a ban on rights for gardai”, he claimed.

But Mr Ahern last night warned the GRA they risked damaging their reputation with the public and sending out the wrong message.

“It will be an indelibly bad mark in the psyche of the Irish people against the guards, who for 90 years have had a special place in the eyes of the public,” he said.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors last night said they understood the feelings within the GRA and also shared their anger and frustration at the collapse of the pay talks. Its national executive meets tomorrow to review its stance.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said the GRA move was a gravely worrying development in the run-up to Christmas and would mark a significant change in approach on behalf of the gardai.

- Tom Brady Security Editor

Irish Independent