Engineering group to pay out after worker crushed by stairs

An engineering company has been fined €15,000 arising out of a fatal accident five years ago at a south Dublin site in which a construction worker was crushed to death after three flights of stairs collapsed.

Thomas O’Neill (aged 31), died from crush injuries when three flights of stairs, weighing two tonnes each, collapsed due to a design flaw in the "anchors" or bolts holding the staircase to the walls of the building at South Lotts Office Development, South Lotts Road, Ringsend on December 12, 2002.

Reade Engineering Limited admitted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that it breached the Health and Safety at Work Act through its use of stairs support anchors of a smaller dimension than advised for the site.

Michael Reade, managing director, pleaded guilty on behalf of Reade Engineering, of North Richmond Street, Dublin 1 that the company failed "to ensure that persons not in its employment were not exposed to risk of their health and safety" between March 14 and December 12, 2002 at the Ringsend site in that "16/10 anchors for the purpose of securing stairs support system rather than 16/30 anchors as advised" were used.

G&T Crampton Ltd, of Ballintaggart Road, Clonskeagh, the main site contractor, was fined €50,000 for negligence last May, after pleading guilty to directing persons to work in the vicinity of the stairwell in circumstances where it ought to have known that it was unsafe to do so on December 12, 2002.

Judge Katherine Delahunt said this was a "somewhat unusual case" in that Reade Engineering was employing a bolt that was not specified in a design carried out by another engineering company but noted "the authorities maintain that this design was not a good design in the first instance".

She added that employees of Reade were allowed vary specifications given to the company without supervision and this is a very dangerous situation which she said seemed to represent "a caviller attitude".

Judge Delahunt accepted that the staff member involved was working with Reade Engineering for a number of years and was trusted by the company.

She also acknowledged that Michael Reade has made provision in an updated health and safety statement that will ensure that accidents of this nature cannot happen again and she said she was satisfied that Reade Engineering’s responsibility for the death of Mr O’Neill was in another category to G&T Crampton Ltd.

Inspector Tim Dowling told Mr Remy Farrell BL (with Mr Shane Murphy SC), prosecuting, that there were a number of subcontractors on the site along with Reade Engineering and G&T Crampton.

He said that Reade Engineering were responsible for manufacturing and installing "angles" and "anchors" or bolts, that were connected to the wall and supported a landing on which the concrete stairs sat.

Insp Dowling said a senior Reade Engineering staff member was to carry out the work in accordance with a design from another engineering company which had yet to come before the courts, but he used "anchors" that were shorter than those specified.

A subcontractor installing landings and stairs on the second floor heard a loud bang at noon on the day of the accident and shouted at workers on floors below him to get out of the staircase area. It was noticed that an angle had come away from the wall and the flights of stairs had had dropped 12 to 15 millimetres as a result.

Insp Dowling said the landing was still in place but it was hanging there rather than being structurally sound. The landing was removed and work was resumed after an inspection had been carried out by G&T Crampton.

The remaining flights of stairs collapsed at around 4.30 p.m, killing Mr O’Neill and injuring the two others who were employees of another subcontractor working on the site. The deceased was a father of two from Lucan.

Insp Dowling said the design of the anchors were "seriously deficient" but added it was the job of Reade Engineering to install the anchors as specified and they didn’t do that.

The senior staff member at Reade who was responsible for the installation of the anchors and angles later admitted that nobody was checking on his work. He said he would often use shorter bolts rather than the long ones specified if he hit steel while drilling into the wall.

Insp Dowling told Mr Farrell that that the primary root cause for the death of Mr O’Neill lay with G&T Crampton. There was no evidence that the longer bolts, as specified in the design, were used at all on the site.

"The angle coming away from the wall was a warning that something was wrong. G&T Crampton instructed that work could resume when it was not (NOT) safe to do so. They hadn’t carried out an adequate inspection," Insp Dowling said.

He agreed with defence counsel, Mr Robert Barron SC, that a subsequent report indicated that it was probable that the anchors specified in the design by this other company might also have failed.

He further agreed that Reade Engineering had no previous convictions and had never come to the attention of the Health and Safety Authority.

Mr Reade told Mr Barron that he couldn’t believe that short bolts were used on the site and he couldn’t offer any explanation for how they were.

He described the work at South Lotts as "a straight forward job" and he had deemed the staff member as entirely suitable to carry out the work.

Mr Reade said there were now new provisions in place at the company to ensure this would never happen again. This policy has been outlined in an updated Health and Safety report which he said was read and signed by all staff at Reade Engineering.

Mr Barron asked Judge Delahunt to accept that his client’s behaviour was not "a criminal act that led to the death of Mr O’Neill" and again pointed out that experts had indicated that it was possible that the same accident could have happened if the longer bolts had been used as specified.

He said that Reade Engineering made a six figure annual profit and was a successful small to medium family business that had shown obvious remorse for the mistakes made that day.