Garda strike next Friday

€23,000 starting salary for a Garda who puts his/ her life on the line walking down the street in uniform is appalling.
Particularly in light of the €5000 increase to politicians.
How can they justify it?

I'm 100% behind the gardai, it's shocking how the new recruits are treated.

A bit worried now. I didn't think it would happen. I am fully behind the guards too. A friend of ours just got a pretty senior promotion. He got €10/month onto his monthly pay. I was looking at the pay scales after he was telling us. They are miserable. All the seriously unsocialsble hours and the pay is awful.

I was thinking about this earlier....what happens if I am out at work and someone breaks in to my home? OR breaks in that evening?

I imagine there must be some contingency that provides emergency cover (as nurses do at strike time).
But then, a huge amount of what they do is dealing with crises/emergencies.

I think we are really lucky in this country to have a force that is mainly honest and reliable and hard working.
For what they earn, the risks they take are ridiculous.
I'd prefer to see them have a pay raise before our politicians.

But, if the Govt cave on this one, surely there is a queue of other "worthy" groups behind them- I suspect that is why the Govt is going so close to the wire with them.

Phew!

I don't understand the hate that people have for the gardai. This has been fuelled by the media casting them as greedy with fat state pensions. What they don't realise is they do loads of unpaid overtime, pay huge taxes and also contribute substantially to their pension. There aren't many in the private sector that would put up with these conditions and the abuse for what they take home. Lots of begrudery as usual.

Great post from a Dublin guard
theliberal.ie/must-read-a-garda-from-dublin-just-wrote-this-very-powerful-message-on-facebook-which-is-now-going-viral/