Sir, - The recent outcry over the tragic death which occurred on Zoe Developments' site in Ringsend surprisingly failed to highlight some relevant points:
If you or I contact the Health and Safety Authority with a view to establishing if a contractor who is being considered for appointment on a project has a good or bad safety record, the HSA will refuse to divulge any information on the grounds that it is confidential. It has even claimed that this is covered by the Official Secrets Act. It is thus very difficult to establish with any confidence whether a contractor has a good or bad safety record.
Since 1996, the law requires that the promoter of a development makes two appointments in the Health and Safety area: (a) a project supervisor for the design stage, to ensure that health and safety matters are given proper consideration in design and to prepare a preliminary health and safety plan; and (b) a project supervisor for the construction stage, whose job is to develop, before commencement of work, the health and safety plan for the site and monitor and adjust the plan on an ongoing basis during construction.
There is also a duty to give notice to the HSA before work begins. Yet we find it stated in court that the HSA and Zoe Developments had agreed a health and safety plan for the Ringsend site only in the past few days. What was the HSA (whose head office is only a few hundred metres from the Ringsend site) doing up to that point?
The unions are justifiably outraged but are they also saying that up to that point they were unaware of Zoe Developments' record? Alternatively, if they were aware of Zoe's record (and it's difficult to accept that they could not have been if they were actively interested in safety matters) then what steps had they taken to try to improve matters prior to the latest accident?
As a construction consultant with over 40 years' involvement in the industry, it is my experience that even those contractors who make the most strenuous and conscientious efforts to have safe and healthy sites find it difficult, and at times impossible, to ensure that site personnel observe even the most basic safety rules, such as the wearing of safety helmets and proper footwear.
Contractors who make genuine efforts - which cost money - to have safe sites compete at a disadvantage against those who don't give a damn, and they deserve every support in their efforts to create safety conscious sites; they also deserve better support from the HSA and the unions than in my view they have received to date. Justice Kelly (no relation) has laid down a positive marker; let the HSA, the unions and the cowboys take note. - Yours, etc.,
From David P. Kelly
Killiney, Co Dublin.