Armed Robberies and how staff are treated.

[Tintagel]

There is an article in today's paper about a garda who was awarded €250k because of an incident where a shotgun was pointed at him while tackling an armed criminal.

[broken link removed]

Back in the day when I worked in a Financial Institution I was regularly robbed at gunpoint. Over a period of a number of years it happened about 9 times. (Sometimes it was a knife rather than a gun used).

I remember the last time it happened I complained to the CEO of the company about the number and frequency of robberies that I had to endure. He response to me was "it goes with the territory".

I still get nightmares about these robberies.

Is there a difference between what the guard went through and what I went through?

 

[odyssey06]

I don't understand it, there was no accusation of liability or failure of AGS to provide proper training for the scenario \ counselling etc.
I don't know what the grounds are to justify what appears to be an 'automatic' payout...

 

[TheBigShort]

I would say you would have strong grounds for compensation as a consequence of PTS.
The level of compensation would probably be dependent on what medical treatment you have paid for, a medical assessment of your mental health and proving negligence on the part of your employer.
Any one, some, or all of these factors may entitle you to pursue a claim.

I know someone in a similar situation having faced an armed robbery (they got punched in the face and head several times), the long-term effects were devastating.

 

[Vanessa]

There is an article in today's paper about a garda who was awarded €250k because of an incident where a shotgun was pointed at him while tackling an armed criminal.

[broken link removed]

Back in the day when I worked in a Financial Institution I was regularly robbed at gunpoint. Over a period of a number of years it happened about 9 times. (Sometimes it was a knife rather than a gun used).

I remember the last time it happened I complained to the CEO of the company about the number and frequency of robberies that I had to endure. He response to me was "it goes with the territory".

I still get nightmares about these robberies.

Is there a difference between what the guard went through and what I went through?

"It goes with the territory"

A typical employer response.
There is one difference beteeen what you went through and the guard went through. The Guard has a process where he can claim for ccompensation. Your employer just washed his hands of any responsibility for you. What has your union being doing about this? Surely repeated robberies indicate security failings on behalf of your employer.
A barman friend of mine had the same experience as the guard. Two masked men burst in after closing time, discharged a sawn off shotgun and forced him to hand over the takings.
It was about two months later when the enormity of the experience hit him and he suffered a lot of mental problems. Judges dont seem to pay any heed to the experiences of post office staff, bank staff shop staff when sentencing armed robbers

 

[Laramie]

It happened to me also. Robbed four months in a row by the same individual, with a gun. My employer obviously knew about the robberies but did nothing about it. Not even a security man on the door. No contact from the local garda station either to offer us support or advice.

I contacted the local garda station and had a conversation with them. I even predicted the day when the last robbery would take place. It didn't happen on the day, it happened the next day.

The next thing I knew was the local garda station had contacted my employer to complain about my "tone" on the phone to them.

My employer asked me to apologise to the gardai and forced me to sign a letter of apology to them.

It is all still in my head.

 

[Purple]

A typical employer response.

Wow, what a bigoted thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself.
People from all walks of life are employers. There are good and bad employers, just as there are good and bad employees. They are just people.

 

[DirectDevil]

A possible explanation of apparent difference of treatment is that Gardaí injured in the course of duties are entitled to seek compensation under the Garda Siochana Acts.

Link to show how it works [broken link removed]

 

[Vanessa]

Wow, what a bigoted thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself.
People from all walks of life are employers. There are good and bad employers, just as there are good and bad employees. They are just people.

The trouble is that the bad employers are calling the shots. Zero hour contracts, employ part time if possible, minimum wage, recognition of unions. Totally supported by the Government

 

[Purple]

The trouble is that the bad employers are calling the shots. Zero hour contracts, employ part time if possible, minimum wage, recognition of unions. Totally supported by the Government

Who are the bad employers (sector, not name) and how are they calling the shots?

The same government that is banning Zero Hour contracts in Ireland?

We don't really have zero hour contracts anyway, we have "if and when" and low hour contracts. Deliveroo and other such "gig economy" jobs are effectively the same thing but the person working them is self employed so they have no protection.
Of the less than 2% of the workforce which are subject to the sort of contracts you are talking about 20,000 or so of them work in the Healthcare and Education sectors, which are both heavily Unionised. Recognition of Unions doesn't help them much, does it?

If you want to be well paid then be skilled. If you have no skills then expect low wages. That's the crux of this issue.

In most sectors employers are trying to keep good employees; it is expensive to train them and disruptive to lose them.

 

[cremeegg]

Zero hour contracts,

While there certainly are difficult employment contracts in Ireland I have never seen an example of Zero hours contracts in Ireland.

Dunnes Stores attracted a lot of publicity around the issue last year, but as far as I know this was just journalistic make believe (fake news even), they have never operated zero hours contracts.