Companies ‘tipped off’ about safety inspections

THE country’s largest trade union has claimed companies are being tipped off about Health and Safety Authority inspections allowing them to correct unsafe or illegal practices before detection.

SIPTU also said that given the Health and Safety Authority’s rate of inspections of approximately 14,000 per year — out of a total of 200,000 workplaces — each location could on average only expect a visit every 14.5 years.

The union’s safety and health adviser, Sylvester Cronin, also accused the Government of under-reporting workplace deaths by only counting those workers killed as a result of an accident inside the workplace and omitting count deaths caused by work-related illnesses and diseases.

Mr Cronin told a Health and Safety Authority conference in Dublin yesterday that when those deaths were included, the figure rose from the current figure of 60 per year to 1,400 per year, according to the International Labour Organisation.

“They also exclude work-related deaths caused by road traffic accidents,” he said.

He cited research by Professor Ray Fuller of Trinity College Dublin that up to a third of road traffic accidents were work-related and his own research indicated that at least 500 deaths a year from accidents and disease were work-related.

Mr Cronin said his union had carried out a survey of safety representatives and 65% said their employer was aware in advance that the HSA was going to carry out a workplace inspection.

“We want to know why so many employers are getting prior notification of workplace inspections and whose interest is being served by such prior alerts?

“SIPTU calls on the Government to bring forward the necessary regulations to make it mandatory to report all work-related illnesses and diseases that cause more than three-day absences from work, so that their steady increase over the past decade can be halted and reversed.

Labour Affairs Minister Billy Kelleher agreed the level of occupational illness had steadily increased over the past number of years.

He said: “The health and well-being of workers is just as important as their physical safety and I urge all employers to give this the attention it deserves.”

He said an expert group, commissioned by the HSA, had developed a new national strategy on workplace health and well-being to address the growth of occupational illnesses.