Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. On Garda pay, I am very disappointed by the decision taken by gardaí to have four days of action for four Fridays in November. There is a strong possibility that the AGSI will join them. It will be a very sad day for the country and the gardaí.

It is regrettable and disappointing that this situation has been allowed to develop to this point. I fully appreciate that the Minister has only been in office a short period of time. We have to be aware that pride and morale in the Garda is probably at an all-time low. It is important to send out a message as a country that we need to protect the people who protect us. We need to protect those people who, when they go out to work in the morning or the evening, may not come back home alive. There are very few workers in the country who have those sort of working conditions in their daily lives. We need to accept and appreciate that, and acknowledge that gardaí are different for the reasons I have outlined. They are also very reasonable people. We all know them from our everyday lives. I call on the Minister to fully engage with the gardaí and use all her resources to adequately address the outstanding issues that are there to be addressed. I welcome the tone of the Minister's comments and I have no doubt that if she fully engages a resolution can be found to this problem so we can move on and remove the threat that currently hangs over the gardaí and communities.