16th August 2017
The Health and Safety Authority today published its 2016 Annual Report outlining major activities, achievements and outcomes over the course of the year. Key highlights include:
- 10,477 inspections and investigations undertaken
- 6,497 inspections carried out in the high-risk farming, construction and fishing sectors
- Written advice provided in over 4,301 inspections
- 369 improvement notices and 413 prohibition notices issued
- 17 prosecutions taken leading to fines of €614,000
- 779 market surveillance checks of chemical products on the Irish market
- Over 8,000 new users of the Authority’s BeSMART tool for small business managers
- Over 13,000 courses taken on our e-learning portal
- Participation of over 26,000 students on the ‘Choose Safety’ programme
- Publication of 27 new guideline documents
- Implementation of major awareness raising campaigns aimed at general workers, new workers, construction workers and farmers
- Approximately 20,000 contacts to our customer call centre
The Minister for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen TD said: “I welcome the progress made by the Health and Safety Authority in the pursuit of its goal of making workplace safety, health and welfare an integral part of doing business in modern Ireland. Tragically, 46 people were killed in work related activities in 2016. Although this is a welcome decline of almost 20% on the 2015 figure, there is clearly still much to be done. I urge all employers, large and small, to ensure that the safety and health of their employees, and anyone affected by their work activity, is at the core of their business pursuits. Anything less is unacceptable”.
Martin O’Halloran, Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority said: “Last year was a successful year for the Authority although there are certain industry sectors, for example farming, that remain an area of concern. As well as undertaking a wide range of enforcement activity across a variety of industry sectors, we also continued to focus on our prevention activity with the development of several important educational and awareness raising initiatives. It is this combination of prevention and enforcement activities that I believe will deliver the best outcomes”.
Tom Coughlan, Chairman of the Health and Safety Authority said: “The remit of the HSA is exceptionally broad and includes an important role in relation to the risks to people arising from chemicals used at work and at home. We continued a take a lead role nationally on chemicals and their health impacts, both in relation to workers and consumers. Over 1,200 inspections under chemicals legislation were undertaken with a view to providing advice and support and, where appropriate, to take enforcement action”.
To download a copy of the 2016 Annual Report and Statistics Summary visit www.hsa.ie.
Annual Report:
http://www.hsa.ie/!XF1JMV
Stats Summary:
http://www.hsa.ie/!FNNOX6
ENDS
For further information contact Mark Ryan, HSA Press Officer, 01 6147068 / 0868036141.
Editors Notes
The HSA also published its ‘Summary of Workplace, Injury, Illness and Fatality Statistics 2015 – 2016’. Some key highlights are:
- There were 46[1] work-related fatalities reported to the HSA in 2016 compared to 56 in 2015.
- Of the fatalities in 2016, 44 involved workers, with the remaining two involving members of the public, giving a worker fatality rate of 2.1[2] workers per 100,000
- The highest number of fatalities occurred in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector, where 24 worker deaths were recorded in 2016, with one additional non-worker death
- There were nine worker fatalities in the construction sector during 2016 making this the sector with the second highest number of fatalities since 2012
- Self-employed workers were once again over-represented in fatal work accidents: a total of 23 such accidents in 2016 (just over one half of all fatalities) involved self-employed persons, including 18 farmers, three in the Construction sector, with the remaining two self-employed workers from the Fishing sector and the Forestry sector
- Non-Irish nationals accounted for 22% or 10 of 46 worker fatalities in 2016
- There were 8,381 non-fatal injuries reported to the HSA in 2016, of these injuries, 7,957 (95%) involved workers.
- There was a small increase in the number of injuries reported to the HSA in 2016 8,381 compared to 7,775 in 2015
- The largest number of non-fatal injury reports to the HSA came from the Health and Social Work sector (19%)
- Manufacturing sector accounted for 17% of non-fatal accidents reported
- Manual handling-related injuries continue to account for about one-third of all non-fatal injuries reported to the HSA (33%),
- 16,905 people experienced work injuries requiring an absence from work of four or more days in 2015, a 10% decrease from the 18,796 reported in 2014
[1] After the Statistics report was produced an extra fatality was added. This was due to an ongoing investigation determining that a fatality was work related when previously it was not deemed to be so.
[2] Fatality rate based on a total of 45 for 2016.
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