The Workers’ Party has said that the alteration of the terms of the Landsdowne Road Agreement by the government to facilitate a settlement with the Garda unions shows that the agreement is effectively dead in the water.
Workers’ Party spokesperson Jimmy Dignam said that the government had been engaged in brinkmanship, first with the ASTI and subsequently with the Gardai but had been forced to a climbdown because a garda strike would have created a precedent which scared Enda Kenny and his colleagues.
Dignam said that the government had only baulked at the prospect of a full confrontation with the gardaí because it would have damaged Fine Gael’s traditional “law & order” image but they had been fully determined to go to war with the teachers and drive them into the ground in the knowledge that Landsdowne Road was no longer tenable.
“The government’s message was that Landsdowne Road was set in stone and that any union who stood against it would be crushed. Their bluff was called and they have no choice now but to scrap the Landsdowne Road Agreement and to negotiate full public pay restoration. This must be done quickly and must include pay equalisation for new civil and public servants. If the government fails this then they must expect further battles with public sector workers who deserve the support of the entire trade union movement”.