Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste is very welcome. I will deal with the impending Garda strike. Week after week, public sector workers are making the difficult and, in certain instances, unprecedented decision to take industrial action. We have had the Luas drivers and the Dublin Bus drivers. Now it is gardaí and soon it will be the teachers and nurses.We are seeing a mass movement across the public sector demanding fair pay and proper working conditions. These workers have endured austerity budget after austerity budget in which this State took rights from them year on year and now they are telling the State: "Pay us what we are worth, or else we'll down tools and leave you to it”. It has got so bad that today we are debating the unprecedented move by gardaí to vote to take industrial action. We need to recognise this anger and frustration over public sector pay will not go away any time soon but is gathering momentum. The Tánaiste needs to get to grips with this soon because this vote by gardaí for industrial action is serious. It is a reality check for those among her civil servants or her ministerial colleagues who seem to be playing hard ball on these issues.

We are currently seeing recently recruited members of An Garda Síochána on starting salaries of €23,500. To put that in context, that is about one third of what we earn before we get our expenses and they have a much tougher job than we have. They sleep in cars because they are unable to afford spiralling rent costs. They drive all the way from places like Tipperary to Dublin every day, from their parents' homes, just to turn up for work because they cannot afford to live in Dublin. On the broader morale front, given the continuous issues regarding whistleblowers, gardaí do not feel safe to make protected disclosures. When new gardaí starting on a salary of €23,500 read the Comptroller and Auditor's General's report about a €150,000 slush fund to buy presents for senior gardaí in Templemore, how does the Tánaiste think that will affect the morale in the workforce? Yesterday the Government gave Deputies a very generous €5,000 annual pay increase but still has not restored the rent allowance for gardaí. We begin to get a clearer picture of the choices we make and the choices the Tánaiste's Government has decided to make.

To be clear, Sinn Féin supports the right of any worker to engage in industrial action for better terms and conditions and we support the right of gardaí to do so. We believe the Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O'Sullivan, and her senior team must now put in place a contingency plan for policing on those dates. If the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI, join the action of the Garda Representative Association, GRA, it will leave 160 superintendents, 42 chief superintendents and eight commissioners, including the chief, Nóirín O'Sullivan, manning the force, according to the Garda figures we have. The Garda Reserve, a force of 1,100 unpaid civilian volunteers, would most likely need to be deployed as well.

There is a scandal of low pay and poor working conditions in our public sector and this domino effect we are seeing is no surprise. The only surprise is it has not happened sooner. The Government needs to act with urgency and enter further negotiations with the GRA. Yesterday, we heard about the political centre. The problem, as I alluded to in another debate today, is that the Government does not occupy the political centre. Unfortunately, it occupies quite a position on the hard right and that is why so many public sector workers are voting with their feet.