Construction firm fined €100,000 after worker's death

The South Midland Construction Company Ltd has been fined €100,000 for breach of health and safety regulations which led to the death of an employee in Blanchardstown in November 2001.

The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Michael Murphy, employed by the company as a grab lorry driver since 1998, died from severe brain trauma after the grab bucket of the lorry crane swung around and crushed his head.

The South Midland Construction Company Ltd. (SMC), pleaded guilty in March this year to failing to ensure the health and safety of its employees on November 23, 2002 while the company was doing contract work on Church Avenue, Blanchardstown.

Health and Safety Inspector Mr Martin O’Dea told prosecuting counsel, Mr Patrick McGrath BL, that investigations into Mr Murphy’s death reavealed that sensors in the lorry that would have stopped the bucket from coming into the vicinity of Mr Murphy were not present on the machine.

Mr O’Dea said that location of the wacker-compactor which he was going to unload using the lorry crane also contributed to the accident as it had been too near the lorry from which Mr Murphy was operating the crane.

Mr O’Dea’s investigations further revealed that there were features in the Epsilon Palfinger E93 itself which contributed to the accident, including a lack of proper instruction manual relating to the sensors and the guards protecting the operation area not being high enough.

Were those guards higher, Mr O’Dea told Judge Michael White it might have prevented Mr Murphy from inadvertently operating the levers which caused the grab bucket to swing into operation.

The safety hooks on the chain to the grab bucket had also been removed deliberately for use in other operations and had accelerated the movement which caused the grab bucket to hit Mr Murphy. In addition, the grab bucket itself was not a certified lifting device.

Mr O’Dea also reported that there had not been an adequate review system within the company that would have identified the missing sensor or the removal of the safety hooks.

Judge Michael White noted that SMC had a good record on health and safety measures which showed that it took the safety of their employees seriously. "This is not a company that has disregarded safety and was in no way an operator which the health and safety authorities would have concerns about", he said.

He also noted that since the accident which resulted in Mr Murphy’s tragic death, SMC has taken substantial matters to modify the faulty system that was in operation on the day of his accident.

Despite being impressed with the general steps that SMC has taken to safe guard the health and safety of their employess before and since the accident, Judge White said, the court has a duty to ensure that the level of fine he imposes on the company acts as a general deterrent to those who disregard their employee’s health and safety.

Mr Fergal Kavannagh SC, defending, had earlier told the court that SMC spends 1.53% on health and safety while the average spend on the issue in the construction industry is .03%. Even before the accident the company was spending 0.4% on health and safety.

SMC is also curerntly in the process of building a state of the art hi-tech health and safety training school for the company’s employees as well as for other companies in the industry, the court heard.