New Construction Safety Action Plan for Ireland

The latest Construction Safety Action Plan for 2022-2024 has been published for Ireland.

The Construction Safety Partnership (CSPAC), an advisory committee to the Board of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), made up of representatives, workers and experts from a variety of construction organisations and tasked with improving occupational health and safety in the sector, published the plan.

The construction sector is one of the highest risk sectors, with 95 fatalities in the past 10 years from 2012 to 2021. 49% of fatalities between 2016 and 2020 came from fall from height, highlighting reoccurring safety issues.

The sector is predicted to grow in the near future, meaning emphasis on reducing injuries and fatalities is even more important than ever. Focus should be given to new entrants, returning workers, and small and self-employed contractors.

The Construction Safety Action Plan hopes to build on previous committees, such as the Construction Safety Partnership Advisory Committee Action Plan 2017-2019, and sets out goals for the period 2022 to 2024.

The primary aims of the plan are to reduce the level of fatalities, serious injuries and ill health in the construction sector.

Five important objectives have also been pinpointed for focus:

• standardised approach to health and safety management;
• improved awareness and compliance of clients on small but high risk projects;
• improvement of safety consultation and engagement with workers and encourage facilitation of safety representatives;
• a review of current CSCS courses in the hope of finding new courses that may be required and finding new ways to deliver current courses;
• Addressing occupational health in construction which could include manual handling, exposure to hazardous chemicals and the risk around sun exposure.

Each individual objective has a number of associated goals all of which are outlined in the plan.

Frank Kelly, CSPAC Co-Chair, commented:

"The CSPAC has made considerable progress in raising awareness of safety in the construction industry. There is also recognition that safety standards across the sector have improved. However, reducing the overall rate of fatal and serious injuries in the sector remains a key objective of our latest action plan. The CSPAC Action Plan has set out key objectives and initiatives that our members will continue to deliver on with our core aim being to improve on the safety and health within the construction sector across both large and small scale enterprises."

For more information, see the:

• Construction Safety Action Plan.