Address by Minister for Labour Affairs, Mr. Billy Kelleher T.D. at the launch of the Health and Safety Authority Annual Report 2006

Wednesday 18^th July 2007 in the Mont Clare Hotel, Dublin

I welcome the opportunity to be here today with you Chairman, with your Board members and senior representatives of the Health and Safety Authority to launch the Authority’s Annual Report for 2006 as well as the Statistics Report for 2005 - 2006. The Annual Report and the accompanying statistics report detail a year of considerable achievement for the Authority. They illustrate the breadth of work carried out by the Authority as well as providing a vital breakdown of the facts and figures that underpin much of that work.

In order to make the Authority’s vision Working to create a National Culture of Excellence in Workplace Safety, Health and Welfare for Ireland a reality, the Authority’s strategy is focused on two principal objectives – firstly, to persuade society, employers and employees of the need to put workplace safety at the core of everything they do and secondly, to enforce the 2005 Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act through an inspection and investigation system which provides confidence for all stakeholders in their capacity to intervene with workplaces which are not safe.

Supporting the latter objective, the Authority increased its inspection number to 15,365 in 2006. This represents an increase of over 13% on inspections for 2005 - a commendable achievement given the year on year increases which the Authority has been achieving over the past few years.

The Authority carries out its work in an increasingly diverse and complex environment and new challenges are continuing to emerge. The changing Irish workplace is bringing with it a new array of problems and pressures. For example, the level of non-Irish nationals in the workplace continues to increase and this brings with it an onus to provide guidance in a format understandable by all. This is an area in which the Authority has been proactive, through initiatives such as the Safe System of Work Plan (SSWP) for Construction, which has been published in 8 languages including Polish, Turkish and Lithuanian.

Non-Irish national workers have a higher rate of fatal accidents than Irish workers. (3.2 per 100,000 workers in 2006 compared to 2.0 per 100,000 for Irish workers) (In 2005 it was 5.6 per 100,000 workers compared to 3.0 per 100,000 for Irish workers) In 2005, most non-Irish national fatalities occurred in the construction sector, but in 2006, they occurred across a range of economic sectors - a concerning development and one which the Authority is actively addressing.

A number of major initiatives were undertaken by the Authority during 2006. New Codes of Practice and Guidance documents were produced and widely disseminated, including detailed guidance to accompany the new Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations and the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Work at Height) Regulations into which the Authority had a major input, came into effect last year.

The Authority has put a great deal of effort into presenting and distributing these guides through seminars and joint initiatives with others throughout the country and this work will lead to greater awareness, knowledge and accessibility, which are the cornerstones of the establishment of a culture of workplace safety.

In the agriculture sector, a sector with which I have an understanding, coming from a farming background, a new Code of Practice for the Prevention of Accidents and Occupational Ill Health in Agriculture was developed and launched in close co-operation with Teagasc and the farming community.

The Code was accompanied by a national awareness raising campaign. Indeed this campaign continues and just last week I opened a national conference on farm safety which was organised by the Farm Safety Partnership, an advisory committee to the Board of the Authority. I was encouraged by the large attendance at this seminar and equally encouraged by how seriously the issue health and safety was being taken by those attending.

As I said then, Agriculture sector has a safety and ill health record disproportionate to its size. In all, about one third of workplace deaths take place on farms despite the fact that only around one seventeenth of the total workforce are employed in the sector so the production of the Code is very timely indeed. Initiatives such as the Code of Practice and the massive contribution of a Farm Safety Village at last year’s Ploughing Championships will no doubt contribute to a long-term reduction in accidents and fatalities in this sector.

Substantial progress was made towards the setting up and implementation of REACH, the new EU-wide chemical safety regulation. This is a complex regulation and the work of the Authority in collaboration with employers and their representatives to raise awareness and help Irish industry to understand the implications is working well.

Throughout 2006 a particular emphasis was placed on the needs of small and micro businesses including the development of a “Simple Safety” initiative designed to help micro businesses in particular to come to terms in a “common sense” way with their health and safety duties. With over 250,000 small businesses operating across the country employing over 800,000 people, it is vital that we keep them in mind when targeting workplaces with information and guidance on health and safety.

One of the key objectives outlined in our Programme for Government is to safeguard the current economic prosperity this country is enjoying. I am personally committed to ensuring that continued economic prosperity does not come at the expense of worker health and safety. Last years Indecon report on safety and health at work, commissioned by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, estimated the cost to the economy of work-related accidents and ill-health to be approximately €3.6 billion. A figure of this size is in obvious conflict with an objective to safeguard economic prosperity and has to be reduced.

However, the report also shows that firms can clearly identify where good health and safety practice is making a difference to their business. I am very encouraged by this as it shows that business is taking the big picture into account by having worker safety strategies. Reducing accident and insurance costs has the potential for significant savings and can help maintain economic competitiveness. I have no doubt that the work of the Authority over this period will contribute significantly towards achieving this aim.

Of course, the reason why we are here is brought into stark reality when we review the statistics. There were 50 work-related deaths reported to the Authority in 2006. This represents a decrease of over 35% on the fatality rate in 2005 (3.3 per 100,000 workers in 2005 compared to 2.1 per 100,000 in 2006) and is the lowest fatality rate in the period 2000 to 2006. This reduction is welcome and a tribute to the work of the Authority and to all of those, employers and workers who are striving to make workplaces safer. But this must only be a start.

A striking feature is that the reduction in the overall rate is partly driven by the lower number of deaths in construction in 2006. (down from 23 in 2005 to 12 in 2006) Despite these positive developments, the fatality rate in the agriculture sector is very disturbing. The rate has gradually been increasing and in 2006 there were 18 deaths in agriculture, the highest number of all economic sectors. Elderly workers in this sector are at particular risk – 9 of those who died were aged over 65.

Of the 50 workplace fatalities in 2006 the most common fatal incident type was ‘falls from height’ (10 fatalities) and ‘fall, collapse, breakage of material’ (9 fatalities). 4 of the fatalities in the construction sector were ‘falls from height’ and 4 were due to ‘fall, collapse, breakage of material’. The most common fatal accidents in the agriculture sector were triggered by ‘loss of control of animal’ (4 fatalities), ‘loss of control of machinery’ (4 fatalities) and ‘falls from height’ (3 fatalities).

So the actions that are killing people are not obscure or highly technical. They are what many workers would call “everyday” things. This tragic and needless loss of life could be avoided if there was more thought given to safety and an inherent aversion to risk taking among people. This is one of the central messages the Authority is advocating. Everybody needs to think “safety first”

However, the work of the Authority is not just about reducing and preventing workplace fatalities. The reduction and prevention of non-fatal injuries and accidents is also a key priority. Data from the Health and Safety Authority indicates that manual handling incidents continue to cause most workplace injuries. I welcome initiatives in this area such as the development of a new guidance document on ergonomics which was published last year.

With the introduction of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005, the Authority is now armed with the most modern workplace health and safety legislation in Europe. I commend what they have achieved in 2006 as evidenced by this annual report.

I would also like to take this opportunity to give my best wishes to Mr Martin O’Halloran, the new Chief Executive of the Authority. I look forward to working with both Martin and the Authority.

Together, I hope we will ensure that the economic success we have enjoyed as a nation is matched by our success in building the safe and healthy workplaces of the future.

ENDS/LA 244