Imposing a fine of €20,000 on a construction company, a judge said companies needed to take safety seriously and not just generate documents which may never be read.

The case was taken as a prosecution after a worker was killed by a swinging excavator bucket. Apart from issues relating to workers being within the slewing radius of an excavator bucket, there was evidence concerning training and the misuse of a Safe Pass card and an “illegitimate” CSCS card.

Earlier HSA inspector Tom Murphy told the court that the worker was killed when he was struck by the bucket of an excavator. The accident occurred in November 2009 at Barnhill Bridge, Lucan, Co. Dublin, where the deceased worker’s employer, a sub-contractor, was carrying out work on a commuter rail link extension. Inspector Murphy told the court that the worker only started work with his employer a day before the accident.

The inspector explained that the accident happened while workers were trying to level a manhole box placed in an excavation. The operator of the excavating machine was asked to rest the bucket (which weighted one tonne) on the box to level it. As the operator was swinging the bucket, the worker and his supervisor were in the radius of its slew.

It was, the inspector said, a significant breach of health and safety regulations that the men were allowed to work in close proximity to the bucket’s slewing radius. “Workers should be kept out of the radius”. If they had been, it is unlikely the accident would have happened.

The supervisor was struck a glancing blow and the worker was struck on the head. His helmet was split in half and he suffered a fracture to his skull.

There were some tentative suggestions about the excavator being mechanically defective and that the driver may have knocked a hydraulic lever when engaging a safety lever. However Inspector Murphy told the court the machine had been examined mechanically and electrically by three experts engaged by the HSA and no defects were found.

TABLE

TRAINING AND CARDS
The court heard that the company had a safety statement and a risk assessment, but that it did not deal with work at the location of the accident. Inspector Murphy said a separate task-specific risk assessment for the particular activity should have been prepared.

The court was told that when the worker started work on the site two days before the accident, he was given 20 minutes induction training by the main contractor. On the Monday following the fatal accident, workers were given two and a half hours training.

Responding to questions from defence counsel, Inspector Murphy said that the Safe Pass card which the worker produced when he started work was his brother’s. The CSCS card produced by the worker “was not legitimate”, the inspector told the court.

MITIGATION PLEA
The employer, having pleaded guilty to a charge of failing, at a place of work under its control, to manage and conduct its activities, in particular the use of a Doosan excavator, so as to ensure, in so far as reasonably practicable, the safety of workers (contrary to the SHWW Act 2005, section 8(2)(a)), so that a worker died, counsel for the defence offered a plea in mitigation.

He told the court that the director of the defendant company had paid for the repatriation of the deceased’s body to Romania and had gone to the funeral. The director is, he said, a 36 year old civil engineer who had come back to Ireland and set up the company. He was also involved in an unsuccessful development in Westport. Arising out of the accident there were, counsel said, personal injury proceedings and the employer was one of the defendants.

Dealing with what has now become a standard part of pleas in mitigation, the company’s finances, counsel said the company was losing money and staff numbers had been reduced. Management account figures were handed into the court.

SENTENCE
Imposing sentence, Judge Patrick McCartan noted that the company had safety documentation, but the “documents were not brought to the worker’s attention”. He said that companies need to take safety seriously and not just generate safety documents which may never be read. He also noted that the Safe Pass and CSCS cards presented by the worker when he started work were never checked by the employer.

He was he said impressed by the fact that the director had paid for the repatriation of the body and had gone to the funeral in Romania and met the family of the deceased worker.

Referring to the accounts which were handed in to the court, Judge McCartan said while the firm’s books expressed a loss, the company had a turnover of €2m and made a gross profit of €1m. In 2011 the company employed 23 people, though it employed fewer now. While the books may reflect a loss, it is still operating.

Imposing a fine of €20,000, Judge McCartan, who gave the company 12 months to pay, said safety needs to be taken seriously. He also ordered the company to pay the prosecution’s costs of €17,342. The HSA’s costs were €12,202 and the DPP’s €5,140. (DPP for HSA v Gibbons Civil Engineering Limited: Dublin Circuit Court, July 2013)

(Source: Health & Safety Review)