Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I move amendment No. 48:

In page 75, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following:

"(9) Where the affairs or activities of an undertaking are managed or organised in a way that fails to ensure that the health and safety of persons liable to be affected (including employees) is not thereby threatened, and where such failure amounts to conduct falling far below the standard of care and attention it is reasonable in the circumstances to expect would be paid to ensuring that the health and safety of such persons is not so threatened, and where such failure is the cause or one of the causes of the death of a person (notwithstanding that the immediate cause of the person's death is the act or omission of another person), the undertaking (and any director or manager of the undertaking whose recklessness or gross negligence contributed to or caused the failure) shall be guilty of manslaughter.".

This is an important amendment and I have raised this issue throughout the debate on this legislation. My intent in this new subsection is to create an offence of corporate manslaughter. This was encompassed in a Private Members' Bill published by Deputy Rabbitte in 2001. There is a strong case for express statutory provision for the offence of corporate manslaughter. It is being examined by the Law Reform Commission and has been trenchantly supported by the trade union movement over the years. Despite reasonably good legislation, which we have before the enactment of this provision, we will have better legislation after the enactment of this provision.

However, there has still been an extraordinary rise in the number of fatalities. There has been a 40% increase in the number of workplace deaths in the first four months of this year. County Wexford was one of the four black spots in the country. There were three deaths in Wexford, three deaths in a number of other counties and four deaths in Cork. It really is very worrying.

The two biggest black spots for death in the work place are still in construction and in agriculture. It behoves us to do two things. First, we must enact the strongest legislation possible, consistent with practicalities. We must make it clearly known that negligence that puts people in mortal peril is a grievous offence. Where someone loses his or her life through employer negligence, the offence of corporate manslaughter will be committed. The other responsibility is to ensure that when we enact the legislation, we have adequate resources in place to ensure that it is enforced. While I welcome the Minister's announcement of the increase of labour inspectors, their numbers are woefully inadequate to provide the safety checks that a workforce of more than 2 million requires.

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