Fines totalling €250,000 have been imposed on two companies and suspended prison sentences on two men arising out of a man's death on a Bray building site.
Darren Kelly (27), a father of one, died when a crane came into contact with a 10,000-volt overhead wire at Diamond Valley Developments, Dargle Road, Bray, Co Wicklow, on February 19th, 2003.
Cormac Building Contractors Ltd was fined €150,000 by Judge Thomas Teevan who imposed a €100,000 fine on Kildownet Utilities Ltd. They pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment at the site on which Cormac Building Contractors was the main operator in the construction of 98 apartments at Diamond Valley and Kildownet Utilities was a specialist concrete subcontractor.
Joseph Byrne, Esker Park, and Brian Molloy, Foster Lawns, both Lucan, Co Dublin, who were found guilty at Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court of intentionally or recklessly engaging in conduct which created a substantial risk of death or harm to Mr Kelly were each given suspended sentences.
Judge Teevan imposed a three-year sentence on Byrne (52), site foreman for Cormac Building Contractors, and a two-year term on Molloy (35), a director of Kildownet Utilities.
He said a wrong decision had been made to continue the work and even if a jury had not convicted Byrne and Molloy, they had to live with the fact of Mr Kelly's death. The balance in these matters had to come down always on the side of the safety of the workers "and in this case it didn't".
Judge Teevan said while the penalties had "to reflect the outrage felt by right-thinking people" at these crimes, the monetary penalties "don't reflect in any way a value being put on Mr Kelly's life".
Tom Murphy, Health and Safety Authority, told Paul Murray, prosecuting, that Mr Kelly was on the site for just his second time when killed, having worked there for the first time two days previously. He said there were two sets of 10,000-volt overhead power lines at the site but no safety measures such as bunting and "goalposts" as laid down in the ESB guidelines seemed to have been put in place, despite warnings by advisers retained by the companies, by an off-duty ESB employee and by a HSA inspector.
Mr Murphy agreed with Anthony Sammon SC, for Molloy, that he had recognised there was a danger but made the mistake of not making sure the work stopped entirely until the correct measures had been put in place.
When Hugo Hynes SC, for Byrne, told Seán Kelly, a brother of the deceased who was working with him when he was killed, that he had been instructed to offer his sincere sympathies, Mr Kelly replied: "This is after three years down the line."
Mr Kelly said: "When all this happened, only Brian and Tom Molloy came to me to help me." He said he was a shareholder and director with the Molloys of a company which did most of its work under contract for Kildownet and that a trust fund had been set up for the benefit of his dead brother's daughter.
Mr Hynes said Byrne offered €10,000 compensation to the deceased man's family and the judge directed that it be paid to the trust fund.