Gardai should be allowed to form a legally recognised trade union with a licence to negotiate their employment terms, said Mr Joe O'Toole (Ind). "Whatever constitutional, legal and regulatory impediments, obstacles or blocks which there are to granting them trade union rights should be repealed or removed immediately by government," he said.
"It is unacceptable that the Government should on the one hand be calling for involving gardai at the national negotiations while on the other blocking them through legal means."
Mr O'Toole, who is general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, claimed industrial relations here were on the brink of chaos. Because gardai were not covered by industrial relations legislation, the legal imperative regarding balloting and minimum notice on industrial action did not appear to apply to them. Neither did the sections dealing with cover for essential services.