The Garda Representative Association (GRA) has predicted a "huge public display of anger by gardai" for today's march to the Dail. However, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has voted to suspend its industrial action and return to pay talks on Thursday.
Today's march follows a weekend pay offer of 7 per cent, an increase of 1.5 per cent on the original offer made to gardai. The GRA president, Mr John Healy, said he expected more than 2,500 members of garda rank to take part in the march, ail, due to start from Parnell Square at 2 p.m.
"Judging alone by the number of buses, the group will be sizeably up on the march last year," he said.
The GRA will picket the Dail tomorrow and Thursday, Mr Healy said, and is planning a national day of protest on May 1st. "We're prohibited from striking but everything else within the law will be considered on the day."
The AGSI president, Mr George Maybury, said the association's national executive decided yesterday to re-enter the talks on Thursday. All industrial action was being suspended "and we're back talking".
At the association's conference in Cavan earlier this month, the association voted to pull out of the Garda information technology programme and the SMI review of efficiency. The association also voted to suspend co-operation with a bottom-up review of the force.
Mr Maybury said individual sergeants may take part in today's march but the association would not be participating.
Mr Healy said gardai were furious with the first pay offer and the follow-up 7 per cent. Asked if a protest might alienate public support by taking large number of gardai off duty, he said: "For 75 years, we've been a loyal and patient force. I don't believe any government, least of all this one, would contemplate industrial unrest among its police force."
Both representative associations have compared the latest offer to the 12 per cent and 12.5 per cent pay deals with nurses and prison officers last year. Mr Healy would not be drawn on how much garda negotiators were demanding at the pay talks. "We are in a two-strand process. There is a pay review taking account of past productivity and we are discussing change for the future."
