Safety agencies in bid to reduce building site accidents

HEALTH and safety enforcement agencies have warned that work will be halted on building sites with poor safety standards.

In a 10-year period up to 2002, a total of 220 construction workers died in accidents on both sides of the Border.

As part of an effort to reduce the deaths, the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland and the Republic's Health and Safety Authority (HSA) are planning a summertime blitz on sites. Already this year, nine people have died in work-related accidents in the industry.

The health and safety agencies plan a series of initiatives, beginning with an effort to stem the number of accidents involving workers falling from heights.

HSA senior inspector Jim Heffernan said: "We will be intensifying our inspection rate in the first two weeks of June and where we see poor safety standards, we will not turn a blind eye. Contractors should be in no doubt that where we see breaches, we will use our statutory powers to ensure they are addressed, and if that entails requiring an immediate stoppage of work, then that is what we will do."

His Northern counterpart Ken Logan said: "We will serve prohibition notices and stop work activity that is dangerous, rather than waiting until the tragic accident occurs."

Both agencies said that by sharing expertise and developing joint initiatives, accidents can be reduced this year.

The number of fatalities in the Republic between 1993 and 2002 totalled 173, while 47 were killed in the North.

However, a total of 98 almost half the tragedies related to falls from heights. The worrying figures were revealed yesterday by a new cross-Border working group drawn from both enforcement agencies whose primary role is accident prevention.