Reform and protection has defied critics

The Croke Park Agreement comes under regular attack from private sector employer’s groups, the privately owned media and a rake of entrepreneurs, self-appointed financial experts and parties with leveraged or unearned income. Their interests benefit from the creation of industrial unrest to further denigrate the wages of working people. Clearly uncomfortable with the industrial peace that Croke Park afforded Ireland, it has been unfairly criticised and, at best, damned with faint praise.

The Croke Park Agreement is in its infancy - just two years old – yet progress has been made, with sacrifices, across health, education and indeed justice. History will record due recognition to the efforts made by public servants to assist the rebuilding of an economy in ruins, and financial mismanagement overseen by politicians and business leaders empowered by editorial restraint during the boom years. The economists see the wages of workers in the public sector only as a burden upon the State – yet economists’ incomes derived from academic analysis far outweigh those of the public servant tasked with the practicality of split-second decisions that may make the difference between life and death. We hear little criticism of Croke Park from the ordinary worker within the private sector – for they appreciate the value of our work and how our achievements positively affect their quality of life.

The critics and analysts prefer to talk in generalisations and statistics rather than the individual and anecdotal. It is easy to attack garda allowances but not the pay for the garda in an anti-stab vest who, at two o’clock in the morning, ventures into the unknown – into the darkness where the critic fears to tread.

The reforms accomplished under Croke Park are significant. The public should indeed benefit from the new pilot garda roster by having more gardaí on duty at times of greatest demand. But this modernisation is a step that members on the frontline will welcome because more of their colleagues will be available on duty to support their hour of greatest need. While the new pilot roster will no doubt reveal flaws that only operational policing can shed light upon, there is the greater potential to reduce the damage to members’ welfare associated with the three-relief system. 

European working time legislation is to protect the worker from exploitation by employers who will always want to eat into the employees work-life balance. Compliance is to the benefit of workers, but employees get used to the rhythm of a roster and can fear change. To provide a continual policing service that matches demands with resources is not going to be without difficulty at a time of a recruitment embargo and when retirements have been incentivised by aversion, rather than rewarding those who stayed on the Force. There will be a culture change, but if change is managed correctly it gives the opportunity to enhance the lives of those needed to provide around-the-clock cover.

To fulfil our obligations under the terms of Croke Park, the Garda Representative Association (alongside the other staff associations) has invested time, expertise and resources into reform; to satisfy the Implementation Body that real reform was being achieved. This has not always been easy; our employers were not always willing to share the information and research material. They retained data of policing demands and legal advices of their own Legal Section for the construction towards a roster fully compliant with the European Working Time Directive.

The future is yet unwritten, but Croke Park may turn out to be the jewel in the crown for Ireland; as always it’s the worker rather than the critic that counts.