Safety Health & Welfare at Work Act 2005

Employers obigations - Safety Statement, Risk Accessment, Control Measures, PPE, Manual Handling training, Signs & information

Introduction of new ‘Safety Health & Welfare at Work Act’ (SHWW) 2005:
Effective from Sep 2005 with a commencement order, this is the newest, most prominent piece of occupational safety legislation since the 89 Act. The following is a broad outline of changes in the Act.

Contents of the new Act:
Most of the new Act incorporates what was contained in the older ‘SHWW Act 89’ and ‘General Application Regulations of 1993/2003’, but very significant changes and additions have occurred.

Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 
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Main Thrust:

The main thrust of this legislation is directed towards more ‘Responsibilities on Managers and Workers’, more prevention and more bite in the law when it comes to breaches. This new Act leans more towards that of claimants. The main changes are as follows:

a)      Safety of All Persons on Site: Employers must now look after everyone’s safety on their site, including workers, contractors, the general public etc..

b)      Intoxication: Prohibition of an employee from being intoxicated where they might be a danger to themselves or others in the workplace. Remember ‘intoxication’ doesn’t mean ‘drunk’ or ‘drunk-like’ it means ‘under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Staff will be obliged to submit to reasonable requests for testing by a qualified person.* 

c)      Claims: The onus of proof in now significantly on the Employer’s shoulders and not the Claimant’s. This is a significant change from before.

d)      Safety Statement: This document which all organisations/contractors etc should have had completed in the past, is now a mandatory requirement. It comprises of a list of all ‘identifiable hazards’ to health at work, with a ‘risk analysis’ of just how dangerous a hazard may be, and a set of appropriate ways that an employer has put in place to eliminate or control these hazards (control measures). In addition the Statement must include ‘how the safety is managed’ that means ‘who is responsible for what; when are inspections, training and testing to be done and by whom’ etc.. This Safety Management Document (Safety Statement) must be reviewed annually. In the new Act the Minister has moved to reduce the onus on small business and the farming sector and small businesses by providing that an employer with three or less employees can meet the Safety Statement requirement by adhering to a special Code of Practice to be developed by the Health and Safety Authority for a particular industry or sector

If an employer commissions contractors to do work for them on their site, then they must check that they (contractors) have an up-to-date ‘Safety Statement’. The statement or relevant extracts must be brought to the attention of employees in a form likely to be understood. (Allow for foreign workers).

e)      Safety Reps: More protection to the Safety Representatives,  free'r access to appropriate safety related information. Safety Inspectors will be able to provide a copy of an action against an employer (Improvement Plan, Prohibition Notice etc.) to the Rep concerned. Sec 18-24

f)        Failure to Comply: Breaches of this Act can attract, through the District Court a fine of up to  €3000 and or Prison sentence of up to 6 months, while in the Circuit Court a fine of €3 million and or Prison for 2 years is possible. ‘On the spot’ fines of  €1000 will also be affective. A list of offenders may be published by the HSA that can be checked when tendering for contracts commences.

g)      Health Surveillance: Employers must monitor work situations were, for example peoples ‘eyesight’ or ‘hearing’ or ‘lungs’ might be gradually damaged by work conditions. This means ‘tests’ should be available were necessary paid for by the company. This doesn’t mean mandatory tests; it is up to the employee to attend these types of tests. But an employer must be alert to possible patterns of sickness, possibly through sickness or absentee records, were reasonably practicable. Secondly, where an employee is working in a safety critical situation, he or she may be required to undergo a periodic medical assessment of fitness to work

h)      Protective Clothing: The employer now carry’s the full responsibility of paying for proper protective clothing (PPE) for employees. In the past some workers had to pay for some PPE. (Sec 8)

i)        Safety Rep or Officer: Employers are now obliged to dedicate someone to the role of Safety. (Sec 8 & 18)

j)        Bullying and Harassment: Duty of Employees not to engage in improper conduct that is likely to endanger his/her own safety, health or welfare at work or that of any other person. Sec 13 (this Section is interpreted as covering bullying / harassment etc).

k)      Definition of ‘Reasonably Practicable’: Section 2 states that ‘reasonably practicable' means the following:

“An employer has exercised all due care by putting in place the necessary protective and preventative measures, having identified the hazards and assessed the risks to safety and health likely to result in accidents or injury to health at the place of work concerned, and where the putting in place of any further measures is grossly disproportionate, having regard to the unusual, unforeseeable an exceptional nature of any circumstance of occurrence that may result in an accident at work or injury to health at the place of work”

l)        Disputes over Safety issues: A dispute about a safety issue may be brought to a ‘Rights Commissioner’ in the Labour Relations Commission.

For more clarification of the Bill you can inspect it at SHWW Bill 2004 or a more detailed review of the changes the new Act brings check out : http://www.hsa.ie/publisher/index.jsp?&1nID=93&nID=96&aID=1289