Pat Rabbitte: No ad hoc pay deals made under duress

Fine Gael, of all parties, has given the impression that it has acquiesced in gardaí being entitled to strike

Who would have forecast that, in government, the party of law and order would face one of its most serious challenges from the Garda Siochána? It might reasonably have been expected that Fine Gael would, for example, have baulked at legislating for the X case or for marriage equality. Yet these hurdles were overcome, if not entirely without some internal trauma.

However, second only to the economic collapse, it is the industrial relations ...