Health and Safety Authority Launches first REACH enforcement project

Wednesday July 1st

The Health and Safety Authority has announced today (Wednesday, July 1st) that, as part of an EU wide REACH enforcement project, the Authority will be carrying out focused REACH inspections across a range of enterprises over the next few months, beginning in July 2009. 

REACH is a European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use. It deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances, which entered into force on 1 June 2007.

As part of this project, specialist chemical enforcement inspectors will be checking pre-registrations, registrations and the provisions for Safety Data Sheets in companies who have pre-registered their substances with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki.

ECHA has received approximately 92 000 Pre-registration notifications from some 300 companies based in Ireland, 40% of which are categorised as small/micro type companies.

Blaithin Tarpey Senior Inspector with the Authority said, “Premises selected for these inspections will be notified in advance to ensure that appropriate personnel and relevant documents will be available for the inspector.  This project is part of the ongoing work of the EU FORUM on REACH Enforcement which aims to ensure harmonisation of REACH enforcement across the EU.”

The enforcement project of the Forum enforces the core principle of REACH: no data, no market. Inspectors in the participating countries will check whether companies as required by REACH, have submitted a pre-registration or a registration and, where necessary, whether a Safety Data Sheet has been supplied.

The project will thus give a first impression of the level of compliance by manufacturers and importers (including only representatives) with REACH in the EU.  At the same time, the capacity of the enforcement authorities to enforce REACH will be enhanced.

The results of the project will be collected by the end of 2009 and the Forum Working Group will analyse the results and produce a report in early 2010.

For further information on the ECHA Forum seehttp://www.exha.europa.eu/about/organisation/forum en.asp