Claims by a senior executive of the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation that stress is not an illness "and therefore not a compensatable condition" have been rejected by trade union, health and safety experts.
IBEC's assistant director for social policy, Mr Tony Briscoe, said at the weekend that though stress was a complex issue to be approached with care, a recent IBEC survey suggested it was far less widespread than expected. The survey covered 525 companies employing over 80,000.
Confirmed stress-related illness occurred in only 36, or seven per cent, of companies surveyed, and in a survey of 2,269 personal-injury claims, there were stress-based claims against only three per cent of the companies involved.
SIPTU's health and safety expert, Mr Sylvester Cronin, said IBEC's survey was at odds with those conducted by independent agencies such as the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the British Health and Safety Authority. "These suggest work has intensified across the EU and this has had an impact on stress," he said.
ICTU official Mr Fergus Whelan said he was surprised at IBEC's approach. Stress was definitely a workplace hazard, and for IBEC to suggest otherwise was to mislead its members.
EU Foundation surveys of 22,500 workplaces suggest stress levels are rising. The latest survey, released in February, shows 28 per cent of workers find their jobs stressful. However, only 12 per cent of Irish respondents felt their jobs were stressful - the lowest figure in the EU.