Gardai Milking it ...

[Sam Lord]

Compensation (including legal fees) paid to Gardai in 2011 for "psychological distress and other injuries" was up 25% on the previous year to €10 million.

According to the Irish Times

A significant number of cases relate to claims for psychological harm suffered by gardaí over the risk of contracting disease from drug addicts.

Hello! It is part of the job, boys and girls in blue. You sign up to become a cop and there is every possibility that you will come into contact with drug addicts. You knew that. Hello! Like, you join an army and there is the possibility that someone may shoot at you in some conflict somewhere. This is what you sign up for. This is why you get paid your wages.

And as for the "psychological harm suffered over the risk of contracting a disease" I'd like to know how many Gardai have ever contracted a "disease" from a drug addict. My guess is .. a big fat zero.

Now, what about the hundreds of people working in treatment services and coming into contact with addicts all day long? Should they also be geting compensation for doing their job.

Gardai, it appears can also be compensated for being spat at or threatened! Whatever next .... compensation for the psychological distress of having to get out of the scratcher in the morning? But there is probably an allowance for that already.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...316131459.html

[fluffybiscuits]

Well every workplace should have a risk assessment and a safety statement in place to deal with such eventualities and these measures put in to prevent risks such as HIV, violence, stress etc. Your guess would be correct about the disease being contracted through spitting or something like that but the risk from hypodermic needles is a big risk to take. A high court judge a few years ago was told (in defence of someone charged) that getting a disease via spitting was a minimal risk (http://www.herald.ie/news/courts/gar...s-2222278.html) . Prison officers are another crowd who seem to suffer like this as well.