Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 1 May 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Role and Operation of the Health and Safety Authority: Discussion

Mr. Conor O'Brien:

Sure. I will start and give some general information and then Mr. Cullen might come in. In 2023, we issued 290 prohibition notices in respect of to findings we had while carrying out inspections. They were across the sectors, including agriculture, construction, healthcare and manufacturing. We also issued over 400 improvement notices in that period. They are for lesser breaches but nevertheless they stem from things the inspectors found that might have been a concern. They would have issued an improvement notice and then followed up on it. We also issued over 7,000 pieces of written advice across those 10,000 inspections, so at the end of every inspection if there are things that are of note that do not necessarily require a prohibition notice or an improvement notice they will issue some advice. That advice is not only on a sanction but also on where inspectors see areas of improvement or where they have seen best practice on another site.