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

9:30 am

Mr. Mark Cullen:

Advertising is not as common as it used to be, which was advertised as "injury free hours". It is not an area that we would look at per se. We would look at the contractors on that site and reporting there because there is a legislative remit to report an accident where an employee is out of work for longer than three days, so four plus days. We would focus on that legislative requirement. Once we go in for inspections, while we can look at any aspect within that workplace, we cover the reporting on a number of inspections, so if we believe there is an issue on a site or with a contractor, then we can bring that up and address it. As incidents must be reported to us, we do have records in the background from which we can get a profile on the level of reporting or otherwise. The practice of advertising the injury-free hours is not as common as it was five to ten years ago.