Summary of Health & Safety Services
- Undertake Health & Safety Risk Assessment
- Produce Health & Safety Statement
- Annual Health & Safety Compliance Maintenance & Administration Service
- Health & Safety Training e.g. Bullying & Harassment, Fire Safety Course Training, Health & Safety Compliance SME, Manual Handling, Occupational First Aid – Refer to section on Training for detail on these and other programs.
For further information on these services see below or please contact us directly at cmcglynn@cmgconsultants.ie or +353 1 8770842
Safety, Health & Welfare and Work ACT 2005
The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 sets out the main provisions for ensuring the safety, health and welfare of people at work. The 2005 Act repeals the Safety, Health, and Welfare at Work Act 1989.
The 2005 Act sets out:
- The requirements for the control of safety and health at work.
- The management, organisation and the systems of work necessary to achieve those goals.
- The responsibilities and roles of employers, the self-employed, employees and others.
- The enforcement procedures needed to ensure that the goals are met.
Employers (including self-employed persons) are primarily responsible for creating and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. An employer’s duties include:
- Managing and conducting all work activities so as to ensure the safety, health and welfare of people at work (including the prevention of improper conduct or behaviour likely to put employees at risk e.g. horseplay and bullying).
- Designing, providing and maintaining a safe place of work that has safe access and egress, and uses plant and equipment that is safe and without risk to health.
- Prevention of risks from the use of any article or substance, or from exposure to physical agents, noise, vibration and ionising or other radiations.
- Planning, organising, performing, maintaining and, where appropriate, revising systems of work that are safe and without risk to health.
- Providing and maintaining welfare facilities for employees at the workplace.
- Providing information, instruction, training and supervision regarding safety and health to employees, which must be in a form, manner and language that they are likely to be understood
- Cooperating with other employers who share the workplace so as to ensure that safety and health measures apply to all employees (including fixed-term and temporary workers) and providing employees with all relevant safety and health information.
- Providing appropriate protective equipment and clothing to the employees (and at no cost to the employees).
- Appointing one or more competent persons to specifically advise the employer on compliance with the H&S laws.
- Preventing risks to other people at the place of work.
- Ensuring that reportable accidents and dangerous occurrences are reported to the Health and Safety Authority.
What is clear under the legislation is the following:
- Every place of work must undertake a site specific risk assessment of all hazards present in that work place.
- Every company must have a safety statement
- An annual risk assessment must be conducted or when the work environment goes through significant change e.g. new machinery.
- It is an employer’s duty of care to provide relevant training with regards to the specific tasks that they will be required to do, it is now a legal requirement to provide safety health training before a new employee begins work.
The Act emphasises the need for employers (including the self-employed) to manage safety and health in order to prevent workplace injuries and ill health. The basis for the management of safety and health is the written safety statement. The documents that are put in place will provide the platform to facilitate compliance with H&S legislation. The safety statement forms the basis of a health and safety management system. It should be prepared after identification of the hazards and assessment of the risks that may be present in the workplace.
Enforcement / Fines
The Health and Safety Authority is responsible for enforcing and promoting safety and health at work. For the most part, HSA Inspectors give advice and information during the course of an inspection. However, they have a wide range of enforcement powers that are used in appropriate circumstances.
An inspector may serve a direction for an improvement plan requiring the submission, within one month, of an improvement plan setting out the proposed remedial action for dealing with a specified risk.
Enforcement notices may be served to deal with a failure to comply with the law. An Improvement Notice gives a period of time for the matter to be remedied, while a Prohibition Notice requires the immediate cessation of the activity that has created the risk. The Authority may also apply to the High Court for an order prohibiting or restricting the use of a place of work.
Following prosecution, the Courts may impose fines or prison sentences (or both), depending on the seriousness of the offence. Most offences, including any breaches of Regulations under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 may be tried either in the District Court, where the maximum penalty is €3,000 per charge and/or up to six months imprisonment, or on indictment in the Circuit Court where the maximum penalty is €3,000,000 and/or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years The Authority also has the right to publish the names and addresses of those subjected to a prohibition notice, High Court order or a penalty following a court conviction.
The 2005 Act provides for the specification in Regulations of “On-the Spot” fines of up to €1,000 for certain offences to be prescribed in the Regulations.
Director Responsibility
Directors, Partners, Business Owners and senior managers carry particular responsibilities under the 2005 Act if it can be shown that an offence committed by their undertaking was attributable to neglect, connivance, consent or authorisation on their part.
Every place of work must undertake a site specific risk assessment of all hazards present in that work place. Having identified the hazards, you now have to assess any risks (the likelihood of the harm occurring, and the severity of the consequences if it does) arising from those hazards. Categorising the risks (for example, a high risk of injury from manual handling, a medium risk of exposure to chemicals or a low risk of contact with moving parts of machinery) allows you to prioritise the measures necessary to ensure safety, health and welfare at your workplace .
Service Offering
CMG Consultants are in position to offer a safety support service to ensure Health & Safety compliance to all Small business. This service will ensure that the organisation is compliant with all Health & Safety Legislation and more importantly will assist in ensuring the safety, health and welfare of their employees and visitors.
CMG will provide a compliant H&S solution in the organisation and then review and maintain this service year on year afterwards.
A. Undertake Health & Safety Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment: Every place of work must undertake a site specific risk assessment of all hazards present in that work place. Having identified the hazards, we assess any risks (the likelihood of the harm occurring, and the severity of the consequences if it does) arising from those hazards. Categorising the risks (for example, a high risk of injury from manual handling, a medium risk of exposure to chemicals or a low risk of contact with moving parts of machinery) allows you to prioritise the measures necessary to ensure safety, health and welfare at workplace .
The risk assessment will:
- Address any significant hazards
- Apply to all aspects of the work
- Cover non-routine as well as routine operations (e.g. occasional maintenance tasks).
B. Produce Health & Safety Statement
The Safety Statement will have the following:
- Be based on a written identification of hazards and an assessment of risks
- Specify how the health and safety of all employees will be ensured
- Specify the systems/procedures that are in place for identifying hazards, assessing risks and their control and review
- Give details of management’s commitment to comply with the legal obligations, the resources available and the arrangements being implemented in order to manage staff’s health and safety
- Specify the responsibilities of employees to co-operate with health and safety matters in order to ensure their safety and health and that of others
- Include the names and responsibilities of those appointed for certain health and safety activities in the workplace
- Set out the means by which information and advice on health and safety is communicated to all employees
- Set out the arrangements to ensure regular consultation with employees on health and safety matters
- Include all relevant legislation applying to the workplace
- Include a review mechanism
C. Health & Safety Compliance Maintenance & Administration Service
This service includes the following:
- CMG commit to undertaking 1 Risk Assessment during the year This is required under the legislation
- Following the annual Risk Assessment CMG will provide electronic updates to statement, manual Annual review also required
- CMG will review new or changes to existing H&S legislation
- As required by law CMG will undertake an annual H&S Audit and will update all H&S systems as required.
- CMG Consultants can provide an H&S contact advisory service, available Monday to Friday between the office hours of 9am and 6pm. This service operates a maximum 24-hour turnaround policy, where all queries will be replied to in under 24 hours. In simple terms this service provides you with access to a qualified H&S consultant who will provide advice on H&S queries, questions or problems in your organisation.
D. Health & Safety Training e.g. Bullying & Harassment, Fire Safety Course Training, Health & Safety Compliance SME, Manual Handling, Occupational First Aid – Refer to section on Training for detail on these and other programs.