05 Jul HSA 2015 Annual Report published
Majority of inspections carried out in high risk agriculture and construction sectors.
The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has published its Annual Report for 2015 and Statistic Summary for 2014–2015. Here are some of the main points:
• 10,880 workplace inspections and investigations were carried out in 2015
• over half of these inspections targeted the agriculture (3,056) and construction (3,932) sectors
• The manufacturing sector received the third highest number of inspections with 1,108 carried out
Key enforcement statistics from the report include:
• 11% of all inspections and investigations were due to a fatality, serious accident, complaint or dangerous occurrence
• 13% of inspections and investigations were carried out under chemicals legislation
• 5% were return inspections due to low compliance
• 9% of all inspections and investigations resulted in formal enforcement action (489 improvement notices and 488 prohibition notices issued)
• There were 16 successful prosecutions concluded for health and safety breaches and fines of €541,750 were imposed
In 2015, almost 7,000 additional businesses signed up to BeSMART.ie, the HSA’s online safety management tool. There are now over 30,000 businesses using the resource. E-learning also increased last year with over 13,000 new courses taken on hsalearning.ie.
There were major legislative developments in chemicals safety with the introduction of the new “Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations”. After a formal public consultation process, the new regulations were introduced with accompanying guidance and information for stakeholders.
Across all sectors there was a strong focus on issues such as occupational hygiene (690 inspections), work-related vehicle safety (358 inspections) and slips, trips and falls (569 inspections) during 2015.
Key injury, illness and fatality statistics include:
• There were 56 work-related fatalities reported to the HSA in 2015, compared to 55 in 2014, 47 fatalities in 2013 and 48 in 2012
• Of the fatalities in 2015, 50 involved workers, giving a worker fatality rate of 2.5 workers per 100,000
• The highest number of fatalities (18) occurred in the agriculture sector
• Self-employed workers were once again over-represented in fatal work accidents: 21 of the fatalities in 2015 involved self-employed persons
• There were 7,775 non-fatal injuries reported to the HSA in 2015. Of these injuries, 7,443 (96%) involved workers, while the remaining 332 involved members of the public, including family members
• The largest number of non-fatal injury reports to the HSA came from the health and social work sector (1,490)
• Manual handling-related injuries continue to account for about one-third of all non-fatal injuries reported to the HSA
Copies of both reports are available at www.hsa.ie