A CONSTRUCTION company has been fined €75,000 under the Health and Safety Act after a man was killed on a building site when a steel bar fell on him.
Edmund Meridith (23), a carpet fitter, was killed when he was struck by a steel L-shaped angle that fell like “a spear or javelin” from the sixth storey of an apartment block off Dublin’s Pearse Street.
Damien Fulton, Ridgewood Close, Swords, Co Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on behalf of Pierse Contracting Ltd to three breaches of section seven of the Health and Safety Act at Gallery Quay, Pearse Street, on March 14th, 2005.
Pierse Contracting Ltd, based at Birmayne House, Mulhuddart, Dublin, admitted to failing to ensure that people not in its employment were not exposed to risk by failing to take appropriate procedures in relation to stacking materials at a height and the provision of edge protection at a height.
The company also pleaded guilty to failing to provide protection from falling materials by failing to provide covered passageways and also that it failed to take into account a health and safety plan.
Judge Katherine Delahunt fined it €25,000 on each of the three counts and expressed her condolences to Mr Meridith’s family.