Workplace fatalities fall - HSA report
20% reduction in workplace fatalities in 2016 attributed to focus on prevention, education and safety enforcement
by Martina O’Leary
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| HSA Annual Report 2016 |
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A continued Health and Safety Authority (HSA) focus on prevention, including educational and awareness raising initiatives, together with a wide range of enforcement activity, contributed to a decrease in workplace fatalities last year.
The authority’s latest annual report records 46 work-related deaths in 2016, compared to 56 in 2015. That’s a 20% reduction. Just over half the fatalities involved a self-employed person. Eighteen were farmers, while three worked in construction. There was a single fatality in each of the fishing and forestry sectors. Over a fifth of the victims were non-Irish nationals.
Almost 6,500 HSA inspections were carried out in the high-risk farming, construction and fishing sectors last year.
There were over 8,300 non-fatal workplace injuries in 2016, a slight increase from 2015. Almost a fifth of non-fatal injuries were reported in the health and social work sector, which was followed closely by manufacturing. Manual handling injuries continue to account for almost a third of all non-fatal injuries.
IMPACT official Dessie Robinson commended the work of the HSA, but said one work-related death was one too many. “The figures on non-fatal injuries are of concern, particularly the numbers involved in the health and social work sector, where many IMPACT members work. The very high number of manual handling injuries could all be avoided,” he said.
You can download the full HSA report here.
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