Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him and his officials on their Trojan work in putting this legislation together. While I have some reservations, I consider the Bill to be an impressive piece of legislation. There is nothing more important than for Irish workers to feel they are operating in a safe workplace and the Bill will achieve that.

From an early stage, reservations were expressed about aspects of the Bill, including the entitlement of employers to check that workers were not under the influence of any intoxicant. While there were some concerns that the provision might be abused, no one could object to an employer satisfying himself or herself that an employee was not under the influence of any intoxicant. That makes reasonable sense and as long as it can be implemented in a manner that is agreed and supported both by employers and employees, I do not see any difficulty with it.

The matching requirements of employers and employees are important. In his speech, the Minister of State said that employees also have an important role to play in ensuring health and safety in the workplace. As a trade union official, I often had to discuss with union members the fact that everybody has a responsibility in this regard. If there is some problem it should be pointed out and if the case is a reasonable one it should be dealt with. All health and safety legislation must be infused with large doses of common sense and pragmatism. That is the only way it will ever work because one cannot foresee every possible minor event that might arise. In this respect, people must be properly trained.

Section 10 provides that the training of employees will encompass the issues of health and safety and risk assessment, which is very important. It is only reasonable that employees must also undergo health and safety training and assessment. Nowadays, given the developments that have occurred in the workplace, the health and safety issue is everybody's shared responsibility.

As a trade union official for many years, I criticised employers for not having made this a serious issue. Now that we have moved to deal with it, we should make it clear that there is an equality of responsibility on people to ensure the workplace is safe. There is a requirement on employees to point out to employers what they think is dangerous. In addition, there is a responsibility on employers to act on such advice. The fact that people must prove that they have undergone health and safety training in certain areas is also important.

The legislation has changed in many ways since it was first published and it is so long since I first read it that I had forgotten certain aspects. While it may appear to be a minor point, the Minister should consider section 10(2) which states: "Training under this section shall be adapted to take account of new or changed risks to safety, health and welfare at work and shall, as appropriate, be repeated periodically".

This section refers to the need to adapt training periodically to respond to new or changed risks to safety. To put that in context, I am a member of the audit committee of Leinster House. Currently, that committee is undergoing an intense assessment of risks of all sorts — including financial and health and safety risks — attaching to the operation of the Houses of the Oireachtas. We are required to undertake such an assessment.

When the legislation was introduced, I understood there would be a requirement for an annual review of risk assessment, but it seems to have changed. Any audit should be required to deal with risk assessment. I hope that under the provisions of section 19, risk assessment will be reviewed by employers, at least annually. That would reflect the content of section 10(2), which should be formalised so that such an assessment would be made in the course of any year.

Section 20 should oblige employers to take action in this regard, taking into account what the risk assessment has thrown up. I will go into detail on this point on Committee Stage.

Regulation consultations are required between employers and employees because, while their responsibilities may not be equal, they are shared. If the Bill is going to work, there should be a requirement for consultation. In that way, an employee would be required to tell an employer about, for example, a risky fuse box or a potentially dangerous electric wire.