RANK and file gardaí will receive a questionnaire early in the new year to gauge their support for industrial action. However the Garda Representative Association (GRA) insisted the survey is not an embarrassing rowback on its original ballot plan.

Two weeks ago, the GRA announced that a ballot for industrial action would be held before Christmas.

It said it would be prepared to take the conseq­uences if any action resulted in criminal or disciplinary charges.

But the GRA has now changed its strategy following warnings about the legal implications of a ballot from garda commissioner Fachtna Murphy and justice minister Dermot Ahern.

It had initially been planned that the ballot would pose just one question to its 12,000 members: "Would you prepared to withdraw your labour?"

But now up to four questions will be asked about what course of action members would support.

"There has been no climbdown, embarrassing or otherwise, in our stance and we still plan to ballot our members," GRA president Michael O'Boyce told the Sunday Tribune.

Garda commissioner Fachtna Murphy and assistant commissioner Fintan Fanning, who is in charge of human resources, made it clear to GRA general secretary PJ Stone and president Michael O'Boyce that industrial action would compromise their moral authority to police the nation.

It is illegal for gardaí to strike. Ahern also warned that no democracy could countenance its police force breaking the law.