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. |