Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The HSA has been given extra resources in the past couple of years, mainly in response to Covid and Brexit. It has taken a leading role in that work. In 2021, 54 additional posts were sanctioned in the Health and Safety Authority as part of a phased recruitment process. Of those 54 posts, 42 were inspector grade posts. In 2020, the authority had 174 members of staff, of whom 105 were full-time inspectors. In conjunction with the other public health systems, it has taken a leading role in trying to manage inspections across a range of workplaces, some of which the Deputy will be very familiar with.

While the Health and Safety Authority leads on them, its own inspectors do not carry out every inspection. They are done in conjunction with all the others such as HSE staff, the public health team of the Department etc. They carry out inspections on a list of areas whenever they make a call. I am sure that includes the ventilation. I do not have the detail of the focus of that work to hand. I can request that from the HSA and I have no problem with sharing it with the Deputy. Inspectors home in on a range of issues. For example, part of the work during a farm inspection will take in farm safety as part of that inspection. It depends on the sector being visited, but naturally ventilation would be part of that where appropriate. Generally, adherence to the back-to-work protocol and all the safety measures put in place has been quite good. The last time I checked, there was more than 90% compliance with the requirements. I would be happy to get an update for the Deputy on this specific area he mentioned.