Company fined €50,000 for fatal stairway collapse

A leading construction company has been fined €50,000 for negligence which led to a father-of-two being killed when a concrete…

A leading construction company has been fined €50,000 for negligence which led to a father-of-two being killed when a concrete staircase collapsed on him at a building site.

Thomas O'Neill, a 31-year-old construction worker from Lucan, died from crush injuries when three flights of stairs, weighing two tonnes each, collapsed due to a design flaw in the bolts holding the staircase to the walls.

G&T Crampton Ltd, of Ballin-taggart Road, Clonskeagh, the main site contractor, pleaded guilty through its solicitor, Peter Mullen, to directing people to work in the vicinity of the stair well at South Lotts Office Development, South Lotts Road, Ringsend on December 12th, 2002.

Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court also heard that two other men suffered cuts and broken bones.

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She imposed a €50,000 fine on G & T Crampton Ltd and said it was "human error" which had allowed workers to return to the building before safety concerns had been properly investigated.

Niall O'Donovan, an engineer who investigated the accident for the Health and Safety Authority, told Shane Murphy SC, prosecuting, there were a number of subcontractors on the site.

A subcontractor installing landings and stairs on the second floor heard a loud bang at noon and shouted at workers on floors below him to get out of the staircase area. But, before the fault was fully appreciated and corrected, workers were allowed to re-enter the stairwell's basement area in what defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC described as "a judgment call which simply turned out to be wrong".

The remaining flights of stairs collapsed at about 4.30pm, killing Mr O'Neill and injuring two others.

Mr O'Donovan said the collapse was caused by the failure of the supporting bolts which he said were "grossly under-designed and poorly detailed".

He said G&T Crampton was aware of the failure of bolts at noon and should not have allowed the men to work.

A director, Colm McKenna, expressed the company's "deepest sympathy" to Mr O'Neill's family. "We regret the part we played in this tragedy . . . The memory of what happened is still living with us all," he said.

Mr Gageby said the case was not one which was "the fruit of deliberate carelessness" but was rather "a call, badly made by two people".