Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House. I commend them on the drafting of the Bill and I wish it a speedy passage through the House. There is an urgency in this area and the longer legislation is delayed, the more people are not protected by it.

The Bill provides the legal basis to ensure Ireland has the most up-to-date approach to health and safety at work in Europe. It will introduce new liabilities for directors and senior managers, resulting in the considerable tightening of health and safety at work environment. It strikes a balance between imposing duties, encouraging better consultation, providing better prevention and increasing fines and penalties. Up to 85% of employers have fewer than ten employees. Regrettably, high levels of workplace accidents happen in these microenterprises.

The Bill provides some relief for smaller organisations that may have experienced difficulties putting together a safety statement due to lack of resources or expertise. The Health and Safety Authority will provide special codes of practice for specific industries. An organisation with three or less employees will now meet the safety statement requirement by adhering to the code relevant to their industry.

There are over 200,000 workplaces in the State. To date in 2005, 23 people have been killed in work-related accidents, making it the worst start to a year in this decade. While agriculture accounts for 9% of total gainful employment, 33% of workplace fatalities occur in the sector. I am concerned that lessons have not been learnt and people are dying needlessly, simply because proper measures have not been taken to ensure safety in the workplace. It is not acceptable that a worker could lose his or her life by simply doing a job. The Bill ensures the necessary steps are taken to make workplace accidents a thing of the past.

Safety statements and risk assessments, however, only add value if they become working documents for all employees and management. Breaches of the legislation will incur on-the-spot fines, the provision of maximum fines of up to €3 million and terms of imprisonment of up to two years. Company directors and managers may be held liable in circumstances where they are found to have contributed to any offence and may be prosecuted. Employees will be guilty of an offence if they report for work in an intoxicated condition or under the influence of drugs. They may be subject to testing by their employers to ensure compliance. While it does give rise to concerns regarding individual privacy, it must be remembered that lives may be at stake.

The farm is one of the most dangerous workplace environments. Coming from County Clare, the Minister of State will have considerable knowledge of farming. For example, two Members of the Lower House have experienced accidents on their farms. Even when people act responsibly, there are great dangers. Everyone must be particularly careful when dealing with animals. As a result of modern farming methods, there is less handling of animals than in the past. Single suckler cows which have never been handled or fed directly by an individual are a much wilder breed than in the past and must be handled with great care. Even when domesticated, they are basically wild animals, and very powerful. The farming community must be very careful with regard to farm safety.

Many farmers know that when calving, a cow can be particularly dangerous and can turn on people. People have died needlessly because they felt they were safe in such an environment. I commend the farming organisations, which have worked closely with the Minister of State, along with the Health and Safety Authority, in this regard. Compliance with the safety statement prepared and circulated is not great. A reminder is better than a prosecution. Persuasion and encouragement are important through the national organisations, the Department and the health and safety organisations.

Such persuasion would be more effective at this stage in getting people to review their farm working arrangements, particularly with regard to slurry tanks. Thankfully, people are now more conscious of the toxins and gases the tanks emit. Many more people died as a result of those than do now. People are becoming more careful. Open slurry tanks are less prevalent than they were, yet they claim many lives, with young children in particular dying needlessly. There are also safety issues involving tractors and other farm equipment. The situation of children coming up behind farm machinery occurs far too regularly. The fact that the Minister of State is promoting this Bill and highlighting the safety issue will save lives.

It is extraordinary to think that an estimated 117,800 people suffered injury at work or occupational illnesses arising from work activities, resulting in the loss of 3.1 million work days. That is an extraordinary figure. We currently have 2 million employed, which is also a staggering figure. This Bill is particularly important now because of the number of people at work, compared with 1.2 million in 1989. That is a phenomenal increase in employment and is a credit to this Government, whose work resulted in the increase of more than 1,000 people per week at work over the past ten years. Since Fianna Fáil came back into Government, there has been a phenomenal increase in the numbers employed.

It is important that we couple the legislation before the House today with the fact that this Government has created jobs. The Minister of State is promoting this Bill in order to give protection to those employed to ensure they are safe at work.

A building site is probably one of the most dangerous places for employees. More stringent precautions than heretofore have been taken in the area. I was involved with the building industry before being elected to this House and used to visit building sites. If a building site is not well controlled and managed, there is nowhere more dangerous. Over the years, I commended contractors for their neatness on a job. In the past, a serious problem involved workers walking on rusty six-inch nails sticking out of planks. The footwear used by workers was not adequate to protect them from this danger. Greater precautions are now taken in this regard. Young builders are much more conscious of safety. They all wear hard hats on site and do not allow anyone on site without proper equipment. Appropriate signs are now erected on most building sites, and protective railings surround those sites. All this helps to reduce the number of fatalities in the building industry.

All industries have risks and they must all comply with this legislation. A great deal of consultation has rightly taken place because one must have the goodwill of all the organisations representing workers, unions and employers to ensure this Bill works well. Those consultations are now complete. The survey conducted by the Health and Safety Authority in 2003 revealed that while 90% of companies which employed 50 or more people had a safety statement, this fell to 50% in companies employing up to 50 people. The safety statement is the management tool for managing safety and health at work.

The Minister of State may clarify this on Second Stage but I understand this document has been circulated to all Irish farms. There nevertheless remains the issue of managing this issue, or even locating the document on a farm and complying with it. Teagasc and the farming organisations could become more active in this regard. The documents were issued possibly a year ago and going by my experience, people read them and then lay them aside to be completed on a rainy day, which in many cases never comes, so the safety statements are not complied with. I ask the Minister of State to ensure that a reminder is sent to all to comply with the safety statement on farms.

This Bill has been flagged for some time. Many Ministers and Ministers of State in this Government have been involved in the drafting of the legislation, including the Taoiseach and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Deputy Fahey was also involved at one stage. It is now the responsibility of the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, to see this Bill through the Oireachtas and he has the capacity to ensure it becomes law very quickly.

Since 1989 onwards, many Ministers and Ministers of State have brought forward legislation in this area. They include the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, Senator O'Rourke and Deputies Fitzgerald, Kitt and Fahey. All had an input in this regard. I compliment all the Ministers and Ministers of State involved. They have all taken their roles seriously. This Bill is the culmination of their work and that of the various organisations. I thank the Minister of State for bringing the Bill before us and I thank his senior officials for being present to guide us in bringing the Bill through the House.