THE USE OF extraordinary event status for events like the upcoming EU Presidency, is causing gardaí to burn out, a senior garda workplace representative has said. 

Gardaí may be forced to lose dozens of rostered rest days each to police major events during the EU Presidency as the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has warned that the force does not have enough officers.

James Morrisroe, deputy general secretary of the GRA, said that the use of extraordinary event status to police the largescale security operations means An Garda Síochána will have to cancel rostered days off.

As revealed previously by The Journal gardaí have classified more than 40 events during Ireland’s presidency of the EU as needing major security operations – with six of those requiring the highest possible level of military and police coverage.

The recent fuel protests were policed at the highest level of policing contingency planning with an extraordinary event declared by the Garda Commissioner.

Jim O’Callaghan, the Justice Minister, has allocated an additional budget of €125m for six months of the Presidency to pay for overtime. The usual annual budget for garda overtime is in the region of €100m.

The GRA decided at its conference to refuse to cooperate with planning meetings for the presidency, in a dispute over workplace conditions. 

EU summit

Many of the events for the EU Presidency will either need to be declared as exceptional or the more significant “extraordinary events”, the GRA has said. 

Those classifications mean that leave and rostered rest days for gardaí will be cancelled and that they will have to work on their days off. Most gardaí work four days on, on twelve hour shifts. By law they are entitled to four days in return. This six month period will halt that roster rotation for them.

One of the biggest events to take place will be an EU leaders summit, and it is understood this will be held at the National Convention Centre in Dublin. Currently Cyprus, which is hosting the presidency at present, is hosting a similar summit.

Morrisroe, speaking to The Journal, said the garda organisation is struggling to do basic policing with the number of members it has as it stands.

“The concerns are that we don’t have resources, the amount of numbers.

“We’re languishing at about 14,500 gardaí and as we saw in the exceptional event over the past week, a week and a half ago, we just don’t have the numbers to police normal circumstances.

“So with the extraordinary events coming up in the presidency, we certainly feel that our members will be stretched to the pin of their collar.”

James Morrisroe. Conor Ó Mearáin. Conor Ó Mearáin.

Morrisroe explained that annual leave and rest days will have to be cancelled for the EU Presidency. These are statutory protected days for workers.

The cancelling of rest days and time off for the events means gardaí will not be able to apply to rest up – the overtime payments are merely to cover the cost of the extra days.

“There will be a lot. We haven’t been given the full plan, but there could be potentially dozens of days of extraordinary events.

“A three or four day event maybe in Dublin, another three or four day event in Mayo, another three or four day event in Cork.

“It would be three days here, three days there and follow on from Dublin to Cork, to Mayo. You would have a lot of movement of Garda members throughout the country,” he added.

The impact of cancelling of rest days and annual leave, Morrisroe believes, is already obvious. 

“Our members are suffering from burnout as we speak. There were 11 extraordinary events last year in the DMR alone,” he said, referring to the Garda Dublin Metropolitan Region. 

“So members will be working, we’ll say 13 or 14 days in a row. It’s the welfare of our members I’m concerned about,” he added.

Morrisroe said that the sporting events like the Irish Open in Clare and high profile matches will add to the challenge. There is also a mooted visit by US President Donald Trump to Doonbeg, as his Co Clare resort is playing host to the golf tournament.

“We would be expected to police that again at a moment’s notice. Donald Trump might decide this evening to come tomorrow morning, so it’s just drop everything and go to where he is,” he added.

Morrisroe said the €125m in overtime allotted for the six months just shows how the State is “just papering over the cracks”.

“We have 14,500 members, we would feel we need 17 or 18,000 members in the normal course of events for normal day to day policing.”