Gardai have lost nearly 134,000 days of duty over the past two years after officers suffered injuries while on duty.
That included more than 33,000 days of illness where a member suffered a malicious injury while at work and 266 days of sick leave for officers being attacked off-duty. In total, An Garda Siochana reported more than 204,000 days of illness last year with around 35% of that due to injuries suffered by members.
There was a total of 71,761 days of sick leave attributed to occupational injury last year including 41,281 days where an accidental injury was suffered. A further 5,747 illness days were caused by road traffic accidents with just over 17,500 days resulting from malicious injuries, either on or off duty.
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There were also 455 sick days marked as a work-related musculoskeletal injury and 6,098 attributed to an occupational injury from duty. For 2020, there were a total of 189,248 working days lost to illness, of which just less than a third, or 62,147 days, were caused by occupational injury.
For that year, An Garda Siochana logged 33,338 days off for accidental injury on duty and another 6,155 days of leave for injuries suffered in a road accident. There were also 16,244 days lost to illness where a garda member had been maliciously attacked and suffered an injury either on or off duty.
Another 1,064 days were classified as musculoskeletal injuries, 4,210 days as occupational injuries on duty, and 272 days to surgery or post-
operative care arising from an injury that was caused while the member was on duty.
A Garda spokesperson said: “The figures highlight a significant level of absence due to occupational injury/injury on duty reflecting the frontline and unpredictable/dangerous duties carried out, in particular by frontline gardai. In terms of ‘ordinary sickness’ levels the figures suggest an absence level of on average seven days per annum.”
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