Minister recognises construction industry's good safety progress but cautions against complacency
Tuesday 15th September
The Minster for Labour Affairs, Mr Dara Calleary TD, today (Tuesday 15th September) congratulated the Construction Safety Partnership (CSP) on their achievements at mid point in their three year plan and called on the industry to give its continued support to their work. The Minister warned against complacency when it comes to the safety and health of workers while acknowledging the severe impact of the economic downturn on the construction sector.
According to Minister Calleary, “In these very difficult times, it is even more important that we do whatever we can to make sure that health and safety does not lose priority in mistaken attempts to achieve savings.” The Minister also pointed out that the EU framework on occupational health and safety was an example of “the debt that Irish workers owe to the EU for the way that it has helped improve in a very real and very immediate way their general working conditions.”
The CSP, which was established in 1999, is a major driving force behind many of the improvements in site safety over the last 10 years. Today, this partnership of employee, employer and state bodies, together with professional associations, reported encouraging progress on their three year goals. Today’s industry forum heard of new initiatives including a system to enable firms to benchmark their safety against others and a much needed support tool to assist small firms.
Chairman of the CSP, Kevin Kelly, welcomed the Minister’s message of support and thanked the existing members for their work. “The lessons of the past tell us that we must sustain our safety actions in a downturn in our industry. The essential infrastructure to do this is in place in the CSP, works well and must be maintained so that we never again see the industry with the safety record that prevailed in the late nineties before the CSP was set up. I will be working with the partners to ensure that the relatively small amount of funding to continue our progress will continue,” he said.
While the overall rate of construction activity is down there are still a significant number of people directly employed in construction. Evidence suggests that there is a large amount of repair, maintenance and improvement work being carried out in the sector.
Martin O’Halloran, Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority, is particularly concerned at a recent increase in the number of deaths resulting in from falls from height. “So far this year there have been 7 workers killed in construction as a result of a fall, many of these were small contractors involved in low-level repair work. We’re also still getting a lot of manual handling related injuries reported to us. So while overall safety is significantly improved, there is much work to be done.”
The CSP action plan set a number of goals to be achieved over a three year timeframe. Today’s forum heard that all partners have delivered on their goals and that the course is now set to achieve the targets described in the plan.