|
|
|
|
Health & Safety News Brief
Occupational Health & Safety Information Service
Ireland's Work at Height Regulations now law
 The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Work at Heights) Regulations 2006 (SI 318/06) were signed into law on Wednesday, 21 June 2006.
The Regulations define “work at height”. Work at height means work in any place, including a place………..
a) in the course of obtaining access to or egress from any place, except by a staircase in a permanent place of work, or
b) at or below ground level,
from which, if measures required by these Regulations were not taken, an employee could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury, and any reference to carrying out work at height includes obtaining access to or egress from such a place while at work.
The Regulations deal with organisation and planning, weather conditions, avoidance of risks, selection of work equipment, requirements for particular work equipment, fragile surfaces, falling objects, danger areas, inspection of work equipment and checking of places of work at height.
The Regulations include schedules on the requirements for: existing places of work and means of access or egress at height; guard-rails; working platforms; collective safeguards for arresting falls; personal fall protection; and ladders. The final schedule deals with the particulars to be included in a report of inspection.
The Regulations revoke and replace regulations 25, 51 to 79, 83 to 87 of the Construction Regulations 2001 (SI 481/01) and the definitions of ladder, sloping roof, trestle scaffold, and working platform in the definitions article of the Construction Regulations 2001 (Reg 2.1). They also revoke regulation 23 (2) (a-e) of the Offshore Installations Regulations 1991 (SI 16/91) and regulation 5 of the Docks (Safety, Health and Welfare) Regulations 1960 (SI 279/60).
The Regulations re-transpose into Irish law Directives 89/655/EEC, concerning the minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment by workers, as amended by Directive 95/63/EC and transposed into Irish law Directive 2001/45/EC.
The Regulations are reviewed in the July/August 2006 issue of Health and Safety Review.
Herbert Mulligan
Editor
Health & Safety Review
www.healthandsafetyreview.ie
|
|