Police officers picket Irish parliament

Garda union stages demonstration outside Dáil for first time in protest at perceived unfairness of public sector pay cuts
The Garda Representative Association represents more than 13,000 Irish rank-and-file officers. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Rank-and-file police officers in Ireland have taken the unprecedented step of picketing their own parliament, accusing the coalition government in Dublin of excluding them from a public sector pay deal.

Members of the Garda Representative Association's (GRA) central executive committee are staging a protest outside the Dáil at lunchtime on Wednesday against what the police union calls "the unfairness of proposed public sector pay cuts".

It is the first time the body representing most gardaí have demonstrated outside Ireland's parliament since the state was founded. The GRA represents more than 13,000 Irish rank-and-file officers.

In a sign of deepening tension between the GRA and the government, off-duty gardaí held up placards stating "Taoiseach says it's fair. Senators lose €600. Garda loses €2,000. Fair?", referring to a cost-saving deal between the coalition and the trade union movement from which the GRA was excluded.

The GRA's general secretary, PJ Stone, said his members were not offered a seat at recent national wage negotiations between public sector unions and the Fine Gael-Labour government.

He said gardaí had been "sidelined" in an updated deal, first hammered out in Croke park stadium several years ago, that would save billions in public sector pay and pensions in return for no redundancies.

Stone said: "It is a disappointment to the GRA to learn that the government were now intent on extending the Croke park deal to facilitate savings to the magnitude of €60m over three years from the pension and pay of members of An Garda Síochána.

"If we are to look at the deal now being voted upon by the trade union movement, we see that it is blatantly unfair. How our taoiseach can see this as fair is simply baffling. Any public servant working nine to five and earning €65,000 per year will not have their pay reduced; while a garda earning €38,000 per year will suffer a pay cut."

In February, the GRA passed a vote of no confidence in Ireland's justice minister, Alan Shatter, after he and the cabinet pressed forward with plans to cut Garda pay.

The row over pay cuts in Ireland's police force has reached the point where some branches of the GRA across the republic have already voted for a national "blue flu" day – a de facto police strike when officers would fail to turn up for duty claiming they were ill.

The last "blue flu" strike in Ireland took place in May 1998 when large numbers of gardaí took sick leave in protest over pay and conditions.

The then Garda commissioner, Pat Byrne, described it as a "black day" for the force, but within weeks a pay increase had been negotiated with the unions.

Today's best video

Today in pictures