Workplaces had no Covid checks for EIGHT weeks
Health and Safety Authority and HSE said they could not enforce public health guidelines
THE Health and Safety Authority (HSA) did not inspect any workplaces for Covid-19 breaches for eight weeks until this Monday, saying that it didn’t have the authority to do so.
Over a period of weeks, the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the HSA both denied responsibility for inspections to make sure workplaces were not putting workers at risk, despite ministers giving conflicting answers on who should carry them out.
In the meantime hundreds of cases of coronavirus emerged in meat plants and other workplaces around the country, where there were no inspections to ensure employers were complying with guidelines on personal protective equipment, distancing, hand hygiene and other measures.
‘Challenge is that Covid is a public health matter’
On Monday the HSA started carrying out inspections.
The Irish Mail on Sunday understands PPE was couriered out to inspectors, who carried out 80 inspections of workplaces on Monday, and have now carried out 400 this week.
The HSA told the MoS that finding breaches of the Covid-19 rules was not within its power until the Return to Work Protocols set out by the State were issued on May 9.
It said until this point it didn’t have the authority to carry out such inspections.
‘The protocol was required to provide the Authority with the means to enforce the public health recommendations under occupational health and safety legislation as it is mandatory in nature and gives clear requirements to employers and workers on the measures they need to implement in the workplace,’ a spokesperson said.
When asked what changed in order for the HSA to gain powers to follow up on workplace Covid-19 complaints that it didn’t have before, the HSA maintained it still ‘doesn’t have a role in enforcing public health policy or guidelines, and this has not changed or evolved in any way. This was the position at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and is still the position’.
On Tuesday, the HSA chief executive Dr Sharon McGuinness appeared at the Oireachtas Covid-19 committee and said 67 of its 109 inspectors had been assigned to make sure the coronavirus rules in workplaces were being adhered to.
When asked if any complaints had been received concerning work practices in meat factories, she acknowledged that there had been.
But when asked if they had been inspected, she said: ‘Not at present, but because there is a national outbreak control team, which takes from public health, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and ourselves.’
Dr McGuinness added: ‘The challenge here is that Covid is a public health matter. The issue in meat plants has been very much directed by the public health element to get that under control and a range of guidance and advice has been involved there.
‘We are being included in those discussions and arrangements are being made for inspections, as we speak. However, the primary responsibility was first and foremost to get those outbreaks under control in those workplaces so that it did not spread into the community and that is where we come in. We are now moving forward with those inspections.’
There appears to have been significant confusion in government since the coronavirus restrictions came into force over which State body had responsibility for inspections.
On May 13 in response to a Dáil query, Jobs Minister Heather Hum
phreys said the HSA had received 200 workplace complaints related to Covid-19, which it deemed ‘unnecessary’ to inspect.
But she added: ‘In relation to public health measures in the workplace the Health and Safety Authority will examine incidences and take enforcement action where necessary.’
In a response to a query from Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith on April 7 asking who was in charge of overseeing or enforcing protocols in relation to Covid-19, the HSA said: ‘While the Health and Safety Authority does not have the powers to enforce the public health guidelines, we are supporting our colleagues across Government in advising and encouraging employers and employees to take the necessary precautions.
‘Your query about enforcement of the public health guidelines may be best addressed to the Department of Health or Department of the
Taoiseach. Where matters are raised that are related to occupational health and safety, the Authority continues to address these.’
Solidarity-PBP TD Paul Murphy, sought clarity in April after the HSA and the HSE said they were not responsible for following up on Covid-19 workplace complaints.
In a press statement on April 27, he said he had been passed ‘from Billy to Jack’ on the issue.
Meanwhile the union Siptu has expressed concern at the lack of inspections at meat factories – where there have been 850 cases.
It said that the failure on behalf of employers to provide proper health and safety measures exposed workers to the virus.
Greg Ennis of Siptu told the MoS that what has been going in some of the meat factories was ‘borderline exploitation’.
Asked yesterday whether it was acceptable that no coronavirus inspections had taken place over the past eight weeks, Health Minister Simon Harris said his own department was now providing 200 environmental health officers who help the HSA.
‘I do believe physical inspections are very important,’ he said. ‘And I’m not sure in relation to the schedule of inspections the HSA has carried out, but I am satisfied that the back-to-work protocol is pretty robust and that there are enforcement powers that the agency has under workplace legislation.’