Railway Safety Act 2005

Obligation to provide blood or urine specimen while in hospital.

101.—(1) Where a railway incident occurs in consequence of which a safety critical worker is injured, or claims or appears to have been injured, and is admitted to, or attends at, a hospital and a member of the Garda Síochána is of opinion that, at the time of the incident—

(a) the worker was working on the railway infrastructure or on a train involved in the incident, and

(b) the worker had consumed an intoxicant,

then the member may, in the hospital, require the worker either—

(i) to permit a designated medical practitioner to take from the worker a specimen of his or her blood, or

(ii) at the option of the worker, to provide for the designated medical practitioner a specimen of his or her urine.

(2) If the medical practitioner referred to in subsection (1) states in writing that he or she is unwilling, on medical grounds, to take from the safety critical worker a specimen of the worker's blood under subsection (1)(i) or be provided by the worker with the specimen of the worker's urine under subsection (1)(ii), the member may make a requirement of the worker under subsection (1) in relation to the specimen other than that to which the first requirement related.

(3) Subject to section 108 , a person who, following a requirement under subsection (1)

(a) refuses or fails to comply with the requirement, or

(b) refuses or fails to comply with a requirement of a designated medical practitioner in relation to the taking under that subsection of a specimen of blood or the provision under that subsection of a specimen of urine,

is guilty of an offence.

(4) Notwithstanding subsection (2), it is not an offence for a person to refuse or fail to comply with a requirement under subsection (1) where, following his or her admission to, or attendance at, a hospital, the person comes under the care of a medical practitioner and the medical practitioner refuses, on medical grounds, to permit the taking or provision of the specimen concerned.