High-risk work: Gardaí in the firing line

THERE is growing and entirely justified pressure to end the inequity imposed on recent recruits to the public service, especially gardaí, nurses and teachers.

No society that values fairness or hopes to attract able and committed people to these services — and to build a career in them — can tolerate a two-tier pay scheme where younger workers are paid far less than their predecessors.

New figures showing that gardaí must endure, in the line of their work, injury rates 10-times higher than any other cohort of workers will add to that pressure. Our gardaí suffer an injury rate of 39.7 per 1,000, compared to a national injury rate of 3.4 per 1,000 employees.