Thank you for inviting me here this morning to address your Conference. On Monday evening last we marked the tenth anniversary of the Health and Safety Authority with a small gathering in the National Gallery and as I said then, it has been ten years of solid hard work by the various Boards, Executive and staff of the Health and Safety Authority in bringing the health and safety message to workplaces all over Ireland. But the tenth anniversary of the Authority and of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989, is actually being marked by something far more fundamental, that is, a full Review of both the Authority and the Act are presently being carried out. This Conference will therefore serve a dual purpose, it will acknowledge the first ten years of the 1989 Act while at the same time feeding into, and informing, the debate on the future direction of the Act.

The past decade has seen enormous change in the fortunes of the Irish economy and also in the size and structure of the national workforce, and the demands and expectations of that workforce. Behind the increased productivity, the advance of new technologies and the constantly changing work patterns, the need for proper health and safety management systems has remained constant. It is a tribute to all, both employers, employees and to past visionary policies, that we have a current economic boom, but this welcome boom must not be accompanied by unnecessary risk to the safety, health or welfare of employees either now or in the future. For many employers the by-product of a strong economy is the difficulty in attracting, and retaining, skilled staff and it is therefore counter-productive not to invest heavily in ensuring our workplaces are safe and healthy.

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989, as it stands, provides for consultation between employers and employees to help ensure co-operation in the prevention of accidents and ill health. This is one of the key provisions of the Act and is a central part of the preventive system of promoting safety and health at work. The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations, 1993 set out the range of issues on which consultation must take place.

But the existence of this legislative provision may not in itself be enough to ensure proper representation and consultation on the ground. Workplace health and safety cannot be autocratically imposed. All employees have an entitlement to be actively involved in the arrangements for their health and safety and the main challenge is how to give valid and appropriate expression to that entitlement, both in legislation and in practice. Not only do individual workers need to be actively encouraged to avail of the representative and consultative provisions in the Act, but, more importantly, they need to be facilitated in a pro-active and practical manner by their employer.

In many cases this may mean developing a stronger sense of trust and dual purpose between employers and employees. Workplace health and safety has moved beyond simply providing safe equipment, it is also a state of mind and an attitude - a state of mind which means that an employer is not afraid to entrust responsibility to his employees and does not feel threatened or undermined by an employee who is critical of health and safety practices or demanding of improvements.

But, employees, too, can develop and change their attitudes to health and safety. Any worker should always, in the first instance, ensure that their own individual work practices do not endanger either themselves or others, but, in addition, they should not be reluctant to take a broader more critical look at the overall work practices in their place of employment and suggest or demand change when necessary.

Companies who have successfully invested in a consultative approach to workplace safety know that safe work places can operate more efficiently, to higher quality standards, and more profitably, as a result of this investment. This is good for everyone. Good for the economy, good for the employer and good for workers.

When I launched the review of the 1989 Act it was not because I questioned or disputed the fundamental soundness of that Act, it was because I believed that we, as a legislature, must also be open to change and progress, and ten years down the road we must show a willingness to critically review and assess our legislation so as to be certain that it will continue to provide a proper framework for effective and workable health and safety practices. I would ask you here to-day to also critically examine the 1989 Act and to feed your deliberations into the Review process. I can assure you that all suggestions will be received with an open mind.

There is a considerable amount of work being done on workplace safety at a national level by many employers, unions and the Health and Safety Authority. In many ways this is the development that can give us most grounds for optimism. It is a sign of maturity in a society when its members acknowledge their moral and legal obligations, not as a result of fear of punishment but because they themselves feel it is the reasonable thing to do. More specifically, it is a sign of maturity when the relevant parties work together to meet these responsibilities in order to achieve a common end.

A good example of such a partnership approach is the recently launched Construction Safety Partnership. This body, which is made up, primarily of representatives from the Construction Industry Federation, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Health and Safety Authority, represents the true spirit of partnership by virtue of the fact that it has been negotiated and will be developed by those most directly concerned. The construction sector is a sector which has experienced its own particular problems and difficulties, and the initiation of a partnership agreement in this sector, which by its very nature may not have lent itself easily to such an agreement, is a commendable achievement. I look forward eagerly to the plan for the sector which the Partnership has committed itself to agree. I also warmly welcome the Construction Site Safety Representatives Pilot Programme, which was also launched recently. This Pilot Programme will benefit directly the projects chosen to participate in the Pilot, and will also generate an awareness of health and safety amongst all employers and employees, and by presenting a united front the message will go out that a Safety Representative System can work if there is a willingness on both sides to make it work. I see this is a very positive development which I fully encourage and support. My only disappointment is that it has taken so long to get to this point.

It is also a development which is in keeping with the tri-partite approach at national level to all workplace health and safety issues. The Health and Safety Authority, as I am sure everyone here knows, is directed by a tri-partite Board and while the worker representatives on the Board are nominated by ICTU, your own union, SIPTU, is strongly represented by the presence of Sylvester Cronin on the Board. This tri-partite approach permeates all levels of the Authority’s decision-making and policy development work, not just at Board level, but through its various sub-committees and advisory committees as well. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and applaud the dedicated and valuable contribution of Sylvester and all his colleagues to the work of the Authority over the past ten years.

It is easy, indeed fashionable at the moment, to be critical of politicians. I have no difficulty with criticism as long as it is constructive and well intentioned - in fact, I believe such criticism is healthy in any democracy. Since taking up my current brief (which extends across all labour affairs as well as trade and consumer affairs) by my own reckoning I have probably devoted a disproportionate amount of my time to the health and safety part of the brief compared with the other areas for which I am responsible. I have been happy to do so and I can assure you that I will continue to support, promote, facilitate and, as necessary, initiate any actions which will help to make workplaces safe and healthy for those who work in them or do business with them. I will do so by whatever means I can whether it be:

• initiating a review of legislation as I did last year to see where improvements can be made.
• providing extra resources, where they can be justified, for the Authority which I have done in each of the years I have been responsible for this area, and I am currently negotiating with the Government for additional support - both human and financial - for the Authority.
• addressing seminars such as this to get the health and safety message across to as wide an audience as possible, and, visiting workplaces and meeting organisations throughout the country in recognition of those who have furthered the cause of safety by their actions and activities.
• bringing together representatives of both sides of industry to deal with specific issues such as in the case of the Construction Safety Partnership which I referred to earlier.
• launching other initiatives such as the Taskforce on Workplace Bullying which I did earlier this year.

These are some of the things I have done and will continue to do. I have also told the Authority that it has my full support in using all means and legal measures available to it in carrying out its twin-track remit of encouraging and enforcing safer work practices. I am open and receptive to all serious suggestions as to how we can do things better. The only criterion is that they have to be workable in the partnership environment in which we operate. However, it is my firm belief that at the end of the day the most effective way of ensuring safer workplaces is by workers and employers co-operating with each other at the level of the individual workplaces because what works in one workplace may be impractical or ineffective in another. Essentially we need to cultivate a culture and a mind-set which automatically factors safety into all our work activities.

Over the next ten years, I believe that an increasingly confident and well-educated workforce will demand workplace safety as a right and will be fully prepared to take on their own responsibilities to ensure that this happens. I believe that workplace health and safety will go beyond being a workplace practice to becoming a workplace policy. There must be constant communication, co-operation and consultation between employers and employees, both formally and informally, on matters relating to both the immediate and long-term safety, health and welfare of workers. Workplace safety is a team effort and team involvement cannot and should not be avoided. The safety of each individual in the workplace is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain.

May I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all safety representatives for the sterling work they have done in the past ten years. I am confident that through continued consultation and partnership, we can bring about the highest possible safety, health and welfare standards in the workplace.

It just remains for me to wish you well for the remainder of the Conference.