They are paid for what they decided to do, and well compensated when things go wrong, unlike yer average taxi driver who frequently has his back turned to the same scumbag, while driving a car, and with no weapons, powers of restraint, or call for backup. One doesn't see the average garda tackling danger alone very often. I confess, again, to a somewhat juvenile chip on my shoulder when it comes to the gardai, however they are no better or worse that the average person, but are conferred with much greater powers, and therefore must be called to even great account than the rest of us.
I recall a garda, who always had it in for me, nearly 50 years ago, taking me infront of a judge for "excessive noise from a motorcyle" when I had simply removed the baffle for a few days, as a lot of us kids did back then. The same garda, along with 2 other gardai in our community, was publicly accused of horrendous sexual crimes in that same community around the same time. He, and one of the other gardai ar now dead, but none sued for libel, and only one went on radio to deny the allegations.