John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Members who contributed to this debate.

In November in 2016, agreement was reached at the Labour Court to resolve a potentially serious industrial relations dispute in the Garda Síochána. As part of the resolution, the Government committed to provide the Garda representative associations with access to services of the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court as a mechanism to resolve industrial relations disputes future. In decision S180/20/10 2018, the Government approved the drafting of the heads of the Bill to provide the Garda representative associations with access to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court.

In addition to agreeing that legislation to amend the Industrial Relations Act 1990 should be put in place to provide access to the Garda representative associations to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court, the Government in its decision noted other significant issues to be considered. These included issues such as to the status of the Garda representative associations, whether they should become trade unions, the right to members of An Garda Síochána to take industrial action and the process of determining Garda pay.

The amendment also puts the Garda representative associations on a par with trade unions only insofar as it is required to provide access to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court. However, it remains the case that the Trade Union Acts will not apply to the Garda representative associations or the sections of the Industrial Relations Act which confer protections on registered trade unions which engage in legitimate trade union action.

Gardaí are not just simply workers. They protect the State. One can imagine that the right to strike in this context could have broad consequences.

On the Sinn Fein concerns, the Defence Forces have a range of parallel complaint and adjudication mechanisms in law to compensate for the limitations on their access to normal industrial relations machinery which applies to wider society.

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