Doyle Shipping Group fined €850,000 following employee fatality

Wednesday 9th December 2020 

Today 9th December, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Pauline Codd imposed a fine of €850,000 on Doyle Shipping Group following an incident at their Dublin Port premises on 6th June 2018. 

The company pleaded guilty to Section 8(2)(a) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 contrary to Section 77(9)(a), in that it failed to manage and conduct its undertaking and, as a result, James Byrne, a Doyle Shipping Group employee, suffered personal injury and died. 

At the time of the incident, Mr Byrne was dismantling a steel hopper when a six-metre vertical stanchion toppled over and fell on him. 

An investigation by the Health & Safety Authority (HSA) concluded that all the appropriate safety measures were not in place at the time of the incident. 

Mark Cullen, Chief Inspector with the Health and Safety Authority, said:

“It is important to ensure that company employees can manage and conduct all their work activities in a safe manner. In particular, as can be seen by this tragic case, it is important that safe systems of work are in place to ensure that persons carrying out their work are not at risk from falling objects.” 

ENDS