€15,000 awarded to Garda dog handler who lost his hearing

The High Court has awarded €15,000 in damages to a garda dog handler after finding that his deafness as a result of "constant barking" from garda dogs under his control.

Today Mr Justice John Quirke found that Garda dog handler Thomas Donnelly (aged 55), who is 'profoundly deaf' and has to wear hearing aids, had suffered a serious "permanent and irreversible injury in the course of the employment by the State."

Garda Donnelly, who has hearing problems in both ears, had sued the Garda Commissioner and the State because he claimed he was exposed to constant high noise levels by the dogs under his control in various garda vans.

In what was a five day hearing in the High Court the Garda had further claimed the noise levels were excessive, dangerous to his health, and greater than the levels permitted in the workplace by law.

The state had denied the claims of negligence and breach of contract.

In his judgment delivered at the High Court today Mr Justice Quirke said that Garda Donnelly had suffered significant noise related hearing damage between 1979 and November 2001.

The Judge added that it is likely that Garda Donnelly sustained additional damage to his hearing between July 1990 and November 2001 as a result of negligence and breaches of regulations, concerning the exposure to noise in the workplace introduced by the State in 1990, by the defendants.

He was further satisfied that the risk to Garda Donnelly's hearing became "readily foreseeable" to the defendants in 1999 after a Garda attached to the Health and Safety Unit carried out an assessment of noise levels within the Garda vehicles.

After that was carried out the judge said that there was certainly "a clear duty" upon the defendants "to take certain steps to protect Garda Donnelly from the risk of injury resulting from the noise level to which he was exposed from the barking dogs."

The Judge said that the defendant's failure to take the necessary mandatory legal measures to acquaint themselves with the appropriate health and safety standards as soon as possible after regulations over noise levels were enacted "compromised a breach of their duty" to take "reasonable steps to protect Garda Donnelly from "the risk of a foreseeable injury."

"Had the defendants taken such mandatory steps then the risk of injury to which Garda Donnelly was exposed would, as a matter of probability, have been recognised in late 1990 or early in 1991."

"In accordance with the law Garda Donnelly is entitled to to recover damages from the State to compensate him for that part of his injury, I would assess those damages at €15,000," the Judge said.

However the Judge added that Garda Donnelly "had failed to establish" that the injury and the damage caused between 1979 and July 1990 was the result of negligence or breach of any statutory duty by the defendants.

Mr Justice Quirke reserved the issue of costs to allow both sides could study his judgment.

Garda Donnelly joined the force in 1974, and the dog handling unit some five years later.

His main duty was to patrol Dublin in a Garda van with German shepherd dogs to deal with serious disorder problems.