New regulations to protect the safety of people working at heights, such as construction workers, painters and window cleaners, have been implemented by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
Last year, 10 people died in the State in workplace accidents in falls from a height. Six of those worked in the construction sector.
The new law includes requirements that where work at height is necessary, the employer should ensure safe working conditions and fall protection measures.
The regulations bring in requirements for existing places of work and means of ascending or descending, guard rails, tow boards, working platforms, collective safeguards for arresting falls and personal fall protection systems.
Additional requirements have been introduced, including for scaffolding, work positioning systems and rope access, fall arrest, work restraint systems and ladders.
The HSA said that a key feature of the new regulations was that the various provisions set out were dictated by level of risk.
They direct that: "An employer shall ensure that work at height is properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a manner that is, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risk to health."
The regulations also indicate that work should not be carried out at a height if it was possible to practicably carry out the work elsewhere or by other means.
Collective fall protection measures are restated, for example in relation to nets and safety decks.
The rule that a handrail should be erected where work is being carried out above two metres has been revoked.
From now on, all work at height will be covered, and employers will have to decide, should a worker fall and be injured, whether adequate safety measures were taken.
Employers are also required to protect employees from falling objects and to restrict unauthorised entry to sites.