Leo Varadkar said Drew Harris told the Government there will be sufficient numbers of gardai on duty for Halloween and Budget day.
This is despite rank-and-file officers pulling out of voluntary overtime due to the ongoing rota dispute. The Garda Representative Association confirmed earlier this week that its members will refuse voluntary overtime on any Tuesday next month.
Commissioner Harris wants the force to return to the pre-Covid roster of six days on and four off. Gardai want to stay on the four-day on, four-day off system.
Read more: Gardai vote no confidence in Commissioner Drew Harris with 99 per cent landslide
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Speaking in Leixlip at the opening of a new Intel production facility, the Taoiseach said: “What GRA has decided to do is not to accept voluntary overtime on those particular days. It’s not that gardai won’t be present.
“I spoke with the Justice Minister about this. She’s spoken to the Garda Commissioner and he has given us assurance that there will be adequate policing both on Budget day and also on Halloween.”
The Government has repeatedly stressed it is backing Mr Harris, despite a ballot of no confidence by the GRA passing by 98%. When asked how bad the situation had to get before the Government stepped in, Mr Varadkar said “industrial relations disputes are always solved in the end”.
Elsewhere, the Taoiseach stood by his reference to the TV series “Benefits Street” during a discussion on
disability allowances in the Dail on Wednesday. People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy asked him if he had seen the film I, Daniel Blake. The 2016 movie shows a man being denied social welfare despite being declared unfit for work.
Mr Murphy accused the Government of “copying the Tory policy of the work capability assessment” as he called for reform of the disability assessment process. In response to the query, the Taoiseach said he had seen the movie but branded it “one sided”.
He added: “There are other programmes, like Benefits Street and so on which show a very different picture. Of course, as is always the case, the truth lies somewhere in between.”
When asked about backlash, including the comments being branded “vile”, the Taoiseach said he wondered if people “heard what I said or care”.
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