INCREASED fines, a new code of practice and linking the award of public contracts to safety standards are all included in a new scaffolding safety programme.
The code, launched yesterday by Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, follows seven serious accidents in the last year. The fine for an individual breach of health and safety regulations will he raised from £1,000 to £1,500.
The new programme has been agreed between the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
Ms Fitzgerald has written to all Government Ministers requesting that public contracts should only go to companies which have safety certificates. There are plans to publish the names of companies which have not met safety standards.
She said the new programme would form "a co-ordinated strategy to enforce the minimum standards required by law, increase the level of competence in the industry and help public bodies and other clients to identify competent contractors".
The HSA intends to set up special scaffolding inspection teams to operate in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford to "ensure that defective scaffolding is taken out of service immediately".
Speaking yesterday, Mr Kevin Kelly, president of the CIF, said accident figures in the construction industry "were not out of line with other sectors", adding that the building industry had been involved for many years promoting safety on construction sites.
As part of the programme, the CIF will establish a standing committee on safety and health, run a new management course on the control and inspection of scaffolding and issue a new "scaffolding checklist" to CIF members.
FAS, the training agency, is to be involved in running courses for scaffolders in all regions and a safety video will also be shown at sites.
A recent HSA survey of safety standards found that almost half of all sites inspected had inadequate scaffolding. The authority is known to be in favour of further increases in fines.
Ms Fitzgerald said construction safety was something to "concern the public", although she said it was not possible to have an inspector "on every one of the 15,000 sites" around the State and responsibility for safety rested "primarily with employers and employees".
Ms Patricia O'Donovan from ICTU said the programme was welcome and people had to realise there couldn't "be jobs at any cost".