Thousands of casual building workers may not be covered by the new construction safety plan. The workers are supplied through agencies, not all of which are members of the Construction Industry Federation, which signed up for the plan for the employers.
Building union activists expressed concern yesterday that agency workers, many of them recruited abroad, would be used to meet a growing demand from employers. Employment in the sector is expected to grow from 160,000 to 200,000 to meet the requirements of the National Development Plan.
The safety plan, which was launched by the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, at Government Buildings yesterday, has been broadly welcomed by employers and trade unionists. It is seen as a major breakthrough in an industry in which 18 people were killed and 2,300 injured last year.
The aim of the plan is to double the number of site inspections by the end of the year, provide mandatory basic training for all those employed in the sector, and have safety representatives appointed on all sites employing more than 20 people.
However, Mr Peter Conlon of the Dublin Alliance of Construction General Operatives said afterwards that on many building sites the majority of workers were supplied by agencies. He said that on the last site where he worked, only five of the 60 workers were direct employees of the main contractor.
The director general of the CIF, Mr Liam Kelleher, said that he believed only a small number of people might fall outside the scheme. "We have an agreement with SIPTU that, from the CIF point of view, we expect agency workers to get the same conditions as other workers on sites."
From the floor of the meeting, SIPTU member Mr Paul Hansard said the doubling of inspections on site came from a very low base. The office block site he has been working on since last March had only one initial inspection and none since.
"The safety man on site is a foreman. On Friday he was guiding a concrete slab 15 metres long from about 30 feet up with no protection. He was guiding the slab with his hand . . . That man could have been killed, or killed someone else."