Justice Minister Helen McEntee says that she “regrets” the “personalisation” of the ongoing row between the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and Commissioner Drew Harris, as the latter has not been invited to attend the GRA annual conference this year.
In a statement, McEntee said that she has been invited to the conference, but that she has not yet said whether or not she will attend.
She said she “regrets the repeated personalisation” of the ongoing row between rank and file Gardaí and the Commissioner, adding that she believes talks are the only way to resolve such problems.
The Minister’s statement comes after the GRA’s Central Executive Committee voted by two-thirds to not offer an invitation to Drew Harris to attend the group’s conference in April to make an address – the first time this has happened in the GRA’s history.
Tensions between Garda top brass and the rank and file have been running high in a long-running, ongoing dispute regarding Garda rosters, which Harris has sought to return to pre-Covid arrangements. The GRA argues that this will have a wide variety of harmful impacts, such as seeing 20% less officers working at any given moment, and negatively impacting officers’ work-life balance.
Last September, members of the GRA held an unprecedented vote of confidence in the Commissioner, which resulted in a vote of no confidence by a landslide. The vote was unprecedented, being the first of its kind in the 100 years of An Garda Síochana existing, resulted in 98.7% of respondents voting “no confidence” in Harris.
Speaking to the media following the results’ release, Harris said it was a “kick in the teeth” and a “heavy blow,” but that he would not resign regardless – a position he had taken longer before the vote. He said that he felt the vote was a personal attack.
At the time, Justice Minister Helen McEntee expressed her support for the Commissioner.
“I think this was a hugely personable [sic] vote,” she said.
“I think that it is regrettable that this happened today. I think that the only way that this can be resolved is by people sitting around the table…The Commissioner has my full confidence, and that of the government.”