Concrete industry responds to increased safety concerns

The construction industry has come under scrutiny in recent months for rising fatalities, the lack of a formal apprenticeship system, the practice of main contractors passing labour law issues to subcontractors, the paucity of PAYE employees left in the industry and questions about the quality of work carried out.

As one insider told The Irish Times: "If there are serious problems in health and safety in the industry, it's not unreasonable to assume that there may be serious quality issues too. Are there not shortcuts being taken here as well?"

But at least one section of the construction industry would appear to be leading the field in taking on board its health and safety responsibilities in a systematic and comprehensive fashion.

In the first venture of its kind in the Republic - or Europe - the Irish Concrete Federation (ICF), which represents some 100 aggregate (that is, crushed stone for roads etc.) and concrete companies which employ 8,500, has started a £200,000 (€253,948) campaign which includes a new comprehensive health and safety manual.

Mr John Maguire, chief executive of the ICF, says the federa tion felt it "needed to make health and safety a senior management requirement and indeed obligation - give it the same priority as quality, as finance, as planning and environmental matters or as any other aspect of senior management".

To this end, the ICF developed the manual which is specifically tailored for the management of health and safety in the aggregate and concrete products industry.

"It's more than a handbook. It's a very substantial manual in four sections with roughly 250 pages in it. It has been drafted and developed on the basis of our 10 years of practical experience in working with the industry in the management of health and safety," he says.

The ICF's loss adjusters investigate any accident along with the federation's health and safety officer. "If you accept that there was serious work practice problems or inadequate training, that [the report] is designed to get to the heart of why the accident occurred in the first place and where the safety system broke down or wasn't there," Mr Maguire says.

So the manual is based on practical experience in accident analysis and investigation and was developed by involving senior and middle management and health and safety experts with a keen grasp of the industry. It deals with the health and safety aspect of every phase of the industry, from stripping the quarry face, blasting the rock, crushing the rock, the manufacture of products, storage and transport to placing or pouring the product on site.

It is envisaged that the manual, which is supported by the Health and Safety Authority will be used in third-level colleges, by the HSA and in the ICF's own training schemes.

Mr Maguire admits that 10 years ago when the federation was set up, the aggregate and concrete products industry had a poor health and safety record in line with most other sections of the construction industry. But now "we can demonstrate that we have reduced both the frequency and the severity of accidents and indeed fatalities".

This is reflected in the lower cost of liability insurance in the industry, which has reduced from roughly 2.5 per cent of turnover 10 years ago to around 0.5 per cent of turnover today, he says.

One of the first things Mr Maguire did when appointed as chief executive was to look at the accident record of the industry over the past 10 years. This identified key risks such as falls from heights, maintenance in plant and quarry, electrocution, collapsing equipment and the use of forklifts.

"We had an average 100 accidents per year with maybe two to three fatalities. And within that 100 accidents and in addition to the fatalities we had maybe a half dozen very serious accidents where people were maimed or disabled to the extent that they probably would never work again. And the cost of that was quite enormous in terms of human suffering as well as financial cost."

Following previous health and safety initiatives, ICF member companies over the last three years have been "fatality-free and I think we have had about two serious accidents per year. So there is progress".