Cork motion on garda roster passed at GRA conference

A MOTION from the Cork City division of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) that the association endorse a recently-negotiated garda roster has been unanimously passed at the GRA annual conference.

Garda rostering has been at the centre of recent conflicts between the GRA, which represents some 11,000 rank and file gardaí, and garda management, with relations reaching their nadir when 99% of GRA members last September voted no confidence in Garda Commissioner Drew Harris.

Mr Harris was not invited to this week’s GRA annual conference in Westport, becoming the first sitting commissioner to not be invited, and Justice Minister Helen McEntee then declined an invitation as she believed it would be inappropriate for her to attend in the absence of the commissioner.

Garda dissatisfaction centred around the reintroduction of the “Westmanstown” roster established in 2012. A roster of 12-hour shifts, with four units of gardaí working in a pattern of four days on/four days off was introduced during the COVID pandemic and proved very popular with gardaí.

Returning to the old roster would have seen a resumption of five garda units working 10-hour shifts in a pattern of six days on/four days off, and would have necessitated the redeployment of staff to make up that fifth unit.

Under the new proposals, “core” policing function units would remain on a four days on/four days off 12-hour shift rotation. They would have a reduced annual leave of 29.5 days but earnings would be preserved. Non-core units, such as detectives, road policing units, and community policing, would work a 10-hour shift duration across a rostering platform of six days on/four days off, four days on/six days off, and six days on/four days off. Non-core teams will have 35 days annual leave.

Pádraig Harrington, a Cork member of the GRA central executive committee, said:

“I just don’t know where we would go if this is rejected”.

“I think we would serve the membership badly if we don’t endorse this proposal,” Mr Harington said, to loud applause. The outgoing GRA president Brendan O’Connor added that he “firmly” seconded the motion, which was then unanimously passed.