The High Court has awarded €15,000 in damages to a Garda dog-handler after finding that his deafness was caused by the "constant barking" from Garda dogs under his control.
The limited damages awarded related to only part of the period of service by the garda since the time when noise levels in Garda vehicles were checked under modern work safety regulations.
Mr Justice John Quirke found Garda dog-handler Thomas Donnelly (55), who is "profoundly deaf" and who has to wear hearing aids, had suffered a serious "permanent and irreversible injury" in the course of employment by the State.
Garda Donnelly had sued the Garda Commissioner and the State because he claimed he was exposed to constant high noise levels created by the dogs under his control in various Garda vans. The claims were denied.
In his judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Quirke said Garda Donnelly had suffered significant noise-related hearing damage between 1979 and November 2001. It was also likely, the judge found, that the garda sustained additional hearing damage between July 1990 and November 2001 as a result of negligence and breaches by the defendants of 1990 regulations concerning the exposure to noise in the workplace.
He was further satisfied 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 date, there was "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, he found.
The defendants' 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 constituted 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, the risk of injury to which the plaintiff was exposed would, as a matter of probability, have been recognised in late 1990 or early in 1991, the judge ruled.
He found Garda Donnelly was entitled to damages from the State to compensate him for that part of his injury and assessed those damages at €15,000. However, he said Garda Donnelly had failed to establish that the injury and damage caused between 1979 and July 1990 was the result of negligence or breach of statutory duty by the defendants.