Address by Mr. Billy Kelleher, T.D. Minister for Labour Affairs At the National Irish Safety Organisation (NISO) Annual Conference Dinner and Safety Awards Presentation

Friday 12^th October 2007 Malton Hotel Killarney

I am very glad to be here to present NISO’s All Ireland Safety Awards and to have the opportunity to address your conference dinner guests this evening.

NISO’s Annual Conference is one of the most prestigious occupational health and safety events and I wish to commend it in putting together such an impressive programme of speakers and topics which reflects the diversity of occupational health and safety. Beginning with the safety leadership workshop at yesterday afternoon’s seminar through to today’s extensive programme the list could not fail to attract the attention of anyone interested in worker safety.

The Conference is truly representative in its nature because of NISO’s reach as an organisation directly to the shop floor. Its authenticity is enhanced by the voluntary not-for-profit nature of the organisation and by its regional structure.

The courage of NISO in taking on major change by restructuring to keep up with wider developments in industry is to be commended. It is a long way from the days in the 1960s when the organisation existed in one room in the former Department of Labour to today with your own premises, a professional directorate and an impressive range of courses. That is what has to be done to respond to changes in the workplace and we have to thank those who led this move.

In wishing George Brett well in his role as he starts out as President, I also want to acknowledge the work of former Presidents and in particular John O’Shaughnessy who was in the hot seat during the preparation for the change process – he had major challenges to meet and he met them well. George will have the job of fully implementing the change process. I look forward to seeing the organisation grow and I also want to fully recognise the role of the Irish Insurance Federation in its encouragement in both the financial and at the Executive levels.

However, NISO would not exist without its member companies and their workers and the more members and the wider the range of sectors in which they work, the better representation there is. This also feeds through to the training given, the wider base providing the basis for a wider range of service from NISO.

NISO’s range of courses is expanding continually and I commend your being in the process of having courses accredited by FETAC and HETAC. In so doing you are further strengthening the training on offer, which now has the added advantage of being recognised by these bodies and provides the participants with a recognised qualification. This of course adds to the building of competence in this very important sector.

I know that NISO is actively encouraging membership and I wish to add my voice to this by encouraging all companies to consider joining. Safety is paramount in all employments and one can never have enough of information on the topic. You can show that you are serious about providing a safe and healthy workplace by joining NISO and although I know that I am talking to the converted today, I would ask you in turn to talk to companies who are not members and sell the advantages of joining for relatively low cost.

This years major theme “Is your business at risk? Protecting your assets” is timely given that maintaining Ireland’s economic competitiveness is one of the greatest challenges facing us today and proper occupational health and safety management is one of the keys of achieving that goal.

The theme is also provocative and makes us all think of the seriousness with which we should take all working environments from the apparently most benign to the most dangerous and we should recognise that there are risks of all kinds everywhere. The theme covers the range of assets and of course in the occupational safety area we think of the workers. But risking worker’s health and safety can also lead to other assets being put at risk going as far as the business itself.

It has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but in terms of occupational health and safety the most dangerous thing is a lack of knowledge. Knowledge, education and awareness are the cornerstones on which health and safety is built. Most accidents are preventable; most involve simple incidents which could be avoided. Yet the human and economic costs are high. Training is a key to prevention and NISO is offering it both by way of off–the-shelf courses and increasingly by way of tailored training solutions for individual companies.

The 2005 Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act places a strong emphasis on the shared responsibilities and rights of employers and their staff in the area of health and safety, however, the protection of the safety, health and welfare of employees remains the statutory responsibility of employers in the first instance.

In Ireland we made a huge leap forward by the signing into law of the 2005 Act. By consolidating safety, health and welfare primary legislation in one statute, Ireland now has the most modern and progressive piece of health and safety legislation in Europe. Since then we have enacted two major sets of Regulations, the Construction Regulations 2006 and the General Application Regulations 2007 as well as many other regulations transposing EU Directives. Quarries Regulations are almost ready in the Department for my signature to bring them into law.

While on this subject of legislation may I take the opportunity here tonight to pay tribute to the Health and Safety Authority and the Members of its Board for their work in submitting proposals for legislative change and the updating of the many statutory Regulations. The Board, in their own quiet way, are very supportive of the work of NISO, which is evidenced by the fact that they held one of their regular Board meetings in this town yesterday, which was planned to coincide with this conference.

In addition to placing an emphasis on shared responsibility, the 2005 Act also focuses on prevention and provides for significant fines and penalties to deter the minority who flout health and safety laws as well as providing that directors and managers can be held liable if complicit in deaths and accidents.

Our job now is to work hard to get the message out – outlining the changes which the 2005 Act has brought and developing a safety consciousness culture, at every level of our workforce and in every sector. The theme of the current Health and Safety Authority’s Strategy is to develop a culture of safety.

I understand that so far this year 54 people in this country have lost their lives at work, tragedy visited on families and communities - lives needlessly cut short.

The Construction and Agriculture sectors continue to top the league of fatal accident figures, 23 of those who died here this year were involved in Construction and Agriculture, that is 43% of the total figure for workplace fatalities.

These figures are unacceptable.

Basic health and safety best practice across the board by all employers and employees can further drive down accident levels. Huge effort has gone into promoting safety in the workplace and more is required. The message has to be got to the small companies, to the workers who work on their own, like small builders.

I mentioned earlier those chilling statistics that govern the work we do across almost all sectors. But the one statistic that we can never really know or rather the one at which we can only guess at is the number of workers who will be safely home with their families each evening exactly because of the work done day in and day out by each one of you. We can all improve on the statistic by getting the safety message out and advocating a culture of safety and by leading by example.

ENDS/LA252