Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said she is not prepared to intervene directly in the garda roster dispute, saying it was not the role of the minister to direct gardaí on where, when, or how they work.
The minister had been asked by the Garda Representative Association to intervene in the dispute, which centres on reverting back to the old pre-pandemic roster from 6 November.
On Tuesday members of the GRA will withdraw voluntary overtime. They want Commissioner Drew Harris to defer the 6 November date.
As a result of their dispute rank and file gardaí say they will refuse to work overtime on each of the five Tuesdays in October, including on budget day, and on Halloween.
They are also planning to withdraw all labour entirely on 10 November if the dispute is not resolved.
"What I'm being asked to do there specifically and directly is to direct not just the Garda Commissioner, but in fact all members of An Garda Síochána as to where and when and how they should work," she said.
She added: "That is not the role, nor should it be the role of the Minister, and we've moved away for very good reasons for that type of policing with any type of political interference."
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week programme, she said she had full confidence in Commissioner Harris, adding that the decision to revert back to the old roster was made in July and not just in the last few weeks.
There was a three-month notice given as required, she said, because when it comes to someone’s roster, it is important to give them time to be able to make changes.
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What was proposed by the GRA, Ms McEntee said, was that certain members would not take up voluntary overtime on Tuesdays over the coming month and she said this was very different to members downing tools.
Giving her full confidence to the Garda Commissioner, Ms McEntee said she believed he had handled this dispute in the appropriate way and there were structures there to resolve the dispute.
"Rosters mean a lot to garda members, its their life, its how they organise their life, its their families, its their work life balance, so this is not just about process, this is a really important issue that needs to be resolved."
She said the personalisation of the dispute with Mr Harris being named in a GRA ballot was "not the right thing to do", and the issue at hand was what needed to be dealt with, rather than the individual.
"I think any organisation will have a head, will have a chief who has to deliver reform, deliver change..." including rosters, investment and technology, she added.
Ms McEntee said everyone wanted a new roster, including Commissioner Harris and senior management, as well as all four of the representative associations.
She said she had met the various garda unions in the past few weeks and had made it clear that whatever is needed in terms of the process to get this to an endpoint was being made available.
Asked about protests on Budget Day and the policing of Halloween and whether there would be enough gardaí to cope with this, without overtime, she said she had been assured that there will be.
She said this was voluntary overtime where people could put themselves forward and she said she had been assured that numbers would be the same on Halloween night as they had been in previous years.
She said this was a complex issue but at the end of the day gardaí take on the job to protect people.
Asked if she would bring in the army if there was a withdrawal of labour next month, Ms McEntee said that the dispute was not at that stage and she would not speculate on this as there were a lot of steps between now and then.
She also said it was not for her as Minister to comment on whether gardaí would be breaking the law if they withdrew their services on 10 November.
"We have a long way to go before it gets to that point," she said.
