Plea over corporate manslaughter liability

The British government was today urged to make companies liable for corporate manslaughter if one of their employees or subcontractors is killed while working for them in the North.

Assembly members unanimously backed calls for legislation creating a corporate manslaughter offence in the North.

However a Sinn Féin amendment calling for government agencies to also face the full rigour of the law was rejected after a tied vote.

During an emotional debate Francie Brolly (Sinn Féin, East Derry) recalled his father’s death in February 1970 in a workplace accident on a building site in Lettershandoney.

The Sinn Féin MLA told the Assembly his 57-year-old father Joe, a foreman on the site of a housing development, had gone down into a 15-foot onshore trench to organise pipe laying but it collapsed, burying him alive.

His mother received £7,000 (€10,400) in compensation.

Mr Brolly called for a cross-border health, welfare and safety commission to ensure employers met proper standards to take account of the mobility of labour on both sides of the border.

He also added he had a difficulty with company directors not being held personally accountable and being able to hide behind the concept of corporate culpability.

“As long as company directors are not made personally amenable to the law but can shelter under the umbrella of corporate culpability, then we will not have the issue tackled with the urgency and the thorough commitment that would be the desired outcome of this motion,” he warned.

“A few months in jail would concentrate the mind of a company director.”