The pay offer to gardai cleared its first hurdle when Garda Representative Association (GRA) leaders decided yesterday to recommend it to members. More than 8,600 rank-and-file gardai will be asked to vote during the next two weeks on the offer involving pay rises ranging from 5.5 to 13.3 per cent.
"It's early days and we have to get out to give members all the details," the GRA vice-president, Mr Michael Kirby, said last night. The 28-member GRA executive committee did not back the deal unanimously, after two days of discussion. However, a source said those who voted to recommend the deal had been in a "substantial majority."
The GRA has set a deadline of August 4th for completion of the ballot, although the result is expected to be known within two weeks. In a statement the GRA leaders said they were "recommending that members accept the present interim offer as the best possible option at this time.
"Other issues which include the establishment of a special mechanism for dealing with Garda pay, raised by the GRA and referred to by the Taoiseach during the process, will remain on the agenda."
Details of the offer have not been published by the GRA. However, figures seen by The Irish Times show that new gardai with less than a year's service are being offered 5.5 per cent. The highest increase, of 13.3 per cent, is being offered to gardai with six years' service, taking their basic pay from £17,374 to £19,684 a year.
This will be seen as a move to encourage support among younger members, who were angered by the 1994 pay deal and the benefits it gave to long-serving gardai. Those with 20 years or more service will be offered 11 per cent, bringing their pay to £21,266, or £349 over the existing pay of a sergeant with two years' service.
Over a third of rank-and-file gardai have 20 years or more service and will qualify for the 11 per cent increase.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) is expected to enter into negotiations on its own pay deal when the result of the GRA ballot is known.
The back-pay on offer ranges from £1,752 before tax for a newly-attested garda to £2,786 for long-serving gardai of 20 years or more. Those amounts do not include back-pay for unsocial hours and overtime payments.
The overall figures are broadly similar to the prison officers' pay deal agreed last year, which gave increases of between 5.5 and 12.9 per cent. However, the Garda deal has been tailored to give the highest percentage increase to younger members.
The GRA negotiating team - president Mr John Healy, Mr Kirby, acting general secretary Mr P.J. Stone, acting deputy general secretary Mr Tony Hand, treasurer Mr Martin Shanahan and former Garda Federation member Mr Frank Gunn - completed protracted negotiations with Government officials on Tuesday.
Mr Kirby said negotiations on a phase-two deal would begin with the GRA demand for a special pay mechanism. "We don't want to have to go through this again in a few years' time," he said. The threat to disrupt the Tour de France could have been implemented up until yesterday's decision by the executive to accept the deal, he said.
"But we're not out of the woods yet," he added.
