Firm fined €200,000 after pleading guilty to safety breach

A boy playing on a building site lost his life after a barrel of dangerous material caught fire and exploded and today a firm pleaded guilty to health and safety breaches and was fined €200,000.

Judge Patrick J. Moran convicted and fined O’Flynn Construction Company Ltd at Cork Circuit Criminal Court arising out of an incident on September 9, 2001, when a barrel of wood preservative caught fire and exploded, leaving nine-year-old Stephen Long with extensive burns which resulted in his death.

The incident happened at Clarke’s Hill, Rochestown, Cork, at the Mount Oval village construction site.

A number of boys were playing there and a fire was lit on that Sunday evening resulting in the tragedy.

Afterwards the parents of the deceased boy, Sean and Geraldine Long, said through their solicitor, Dan Murphy, “Nothing that was said or done in court can bring back our son, Stephen, Nevertheless we are happy with the way in which the court dealt with the matter.”

The two counts to which managing director, Michael O’Flynn, pleaded guilty as a representative of the company, both related to failing to provide adequate protection on the site for the health and safety of people not employed by the company.

Judge Moran referred to evidence of Health and Safety inspector, Alan Costello that the area of land was not properly fenced and the barrel should not have been left out in the open.

The judge cited further points made by the inspector that there was no one cause for the tragedy but that a number of acts contributed to it.

The judge rejected evidence by Michael Kelleher, one of the directors of O’Flynn Construction Co. Ltd. that they were not aware before the tragedy that children were going on to the site.

“If they did not know they should have known. Children are always curious,” Judge Moran said.

The judge said the cause of the accident was not that someone lit a fire and the barrel exploded. He said that was the last act that led to it and that the first was the inadequate fencing, the second was the absence of security at the time and the third was that the barrel was left out in the open.

Defence barrister, James O’Mahony, said the company had a system in place that required the barrel to be under lock and key.

“Unfortunately one of our employees did not adhere to the system. We have to accept the legal consequences that flowed from that. The barrel should not have been where it was.

“If young people want to get on to a building site to play it is next to impossible to keep them out. But some persons interfered with a 45 gallon drum, lighting a fire, putting it in the fire. It was inappropriate

behaviour. My clients cannot have foreseen this,” Mr O’Mahony BL said.