Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have made it clear that both I and the Department want to re-engage. After many hours of discussions we concluded the negotiations late last Friday evening with an agreement, as we understood it.

That was with the leadership but it was not accepted by the broader group, as has been obvious through media reports and interviews in the past number of days. We have not heard anything formally from the GRA and we await hearing about the particular issues it wants to see considered. There will certainly be no grandstanding about who approaches who first. The important point is to get back into discussions and see how we can negotiate.

Of course, this must be put in the context of the overall public pay situation, as the Deputy rightly says, where 280,000 public servants have an agreement that is in operation and that has been worked through with the Government. A total of 20 unions have voted their acceptance of it. A number of unions, including the GRA, have not accepted it and the deal has not been concluded. It is my intention and that of the Government to do everything possible to ensure that the negotiations can start again, that the items on the table can be worked through and that we can find a pathway forward. This is what is important.

No one person or country is going to recover overnight from the kind of economic meltdown seen in this country where recruitment and investment stopped and where we saw lower numbers of gardaí around the country. Why was that? It was because there was no investment for a number of years. What has this Government done and what did the previous one do? They started re-investing in people in Templemore, in vehicles, in the tools the gardaí needed and in ICT. The Government has shown its commitment to An Garda Síochána. Look at the recent budgets in terms of the initiatives we have taken. Clearly, we want to deal with the issue of pay in so far as we can under the constraints that are there at present and that are well understood by everyone in this House.

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