Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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That is a fair question. It is probably the case across the public service that the concentration on Covid sometimes meant that other work did not get the attention that it would have had there not been Covid. The HSA would tell us that when it carries out an inspection, it does so in a way that is wide and comprehensive. It does not simply narrow in on one thing that might be Covid compliance. If it sees other health and safety issues or other health and safety issues are brought to its attention, it also deals with those.

On complaints,the HSA handled 5,000 complaints, 47% of which related to Covid. There were 11,000 requests for information and more than 56,000 courses were done online with hsalearning.ie. One very crude measure of health and safety in the workplace is the number of work-related fatalities. That fell last year, thankfully. One death in the workplace is one too many but there was a 38% decline in 2021 relative to 2020. That is only a very crude measure of health and safety but it is good that it went in the right direction and we did not see a deterioration.