Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No. I cannot give the Deputy that date but I have already informed Deputy Martin that the Government has decided that gardaí should have access to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court as a matter of course. To make that happen, the work of Professor Horgan must be completed. The professor's report is due in December and will feed into the work of the public sector pay commission. I have asked the Attorney General to examine the question of making preparations in respect of the legal instruments or legislation that will have to be prepared in order to allow gardaí have access, as a matter of course, to the WRC and to the Labour Court. This is the first time this has ever happened and as I pointed out previously, on all other occasions gardaí have said that they were outside the room, they had no input or contribution and that their voices were not being heard. They are being heard now and I do not want to disrupt anything the Labour Court might say today.

The Government has approached these negotiations in a spirit of genuinely trying to resolve this issue. I recognise that the Garda Representative Association people have devoted themselves exhaustively in attempting to look after their members' interests but I want to put on the record that there is one issue from which we cannot escape. There are 280,000 other public servants who have signed up for a deal under the Lansdowne Road agreement. We have to treat everybody in the same way. We do not have the resources to pay all the demands relating to all of these claims, be they from gardaí, nurses, teachers or whatever. However, we have agreements with major unions in respect of the constraints that were imposed upon Government because of the Lansdowne Road agreement. The Deputy does not want to see a situation arise where Government was to go back to what applied in previous years, which caused all of these difficulties in the first instance. We value gardaí. We appreciate the work they have done. We appreciate the fact that they give time, over and above duty on many occasions, to serve the public, and I want to see that happen on Friday. I hope the discussions today between the GRA and the AGSI with the Labour Court will bring about that situation. It is not just a signal we are sending here; it is a firm commitment to make arrangements for gardaí to have access to the WRC and the Labour Court.

I cannot give the Deputy an exact date except to say that it is my intention to see that it happens as quickly as possible and if there is a requirement to bring it before the House, I am sure the members of the different parties will be supportive of that.

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