70 incidents of spitting or coughing at gardai have occurred in a five week period during the pandemic.
Gardai have invoked new temporary Covid-19 regulations 241 times between April 8th and May 16th.
Gardai say they've interacted with hundreds of thousands of people while on patrol or at checkpoints.
They say the vast majority were adhering to the public health guidelines, however in a small minority of cases some people were still not willing to comply and the new Covid-19 regulations were used 241 times.
Pre-existing enforcement powers were used in 1,621 incidents where other offences were disclosed in the course of COVID-19 operations including drink driving or disqualified drivers detected at checkpoints, as well as drugs and weapons seizures, and public order offences.
These include both arrests, and incidents without arrest where names and addresses were taken for consultation with the DPP.
Gardai used anti-spit guards 57 times between April 8th and May 16th.
