Aer Lingus pleads guilty to safety breach over driver’s death

Aer Lingus will be sentenced next month for breaches of health and safety law in connection with the death of a driver at Dublin Airport more than two years ago.

John Murray, from Skerries, Co Dublin, who worked for transport and logistics firm DB Shenker Ireland, died after falling from a loading bay in a cargo warehouse at the airport and suffering head injuries on November 5th, 2014.

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Monday, Laurence Gourley, a representative for Aer Lingus, pleaded guilty on its behalf that it failed to ensure that individuals who were not its employees were not exposed to risks to their safety, health or welfare.

The charge specifies that at or near Gate Seven at the Aer Lingus cargo warehouse on November 5th, 2014, there was a failure to ensure that adequate measures were in place to protect people from the risk of a fall from height and that there was a failure to implement the company’s written procedures for dealing with driver access to loading bays.

The offence states that Aer Lingus “regularly permitted or required drivers to access and egress the building [cargo warehouse] via the loading bay itself”.

Sentence hearing

The court heard that the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted the plea on the condition that "full facts" will be heard at the sentence hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on March 20th.

A victim impact report was ordered for that date.