The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has today published its ‘Programme of Work’ for 2018 detailing key priorities, themes and inspection targets for the year.

There will be 2,000 inspections carried out in the agriculture sector and the authority will participate in 50 ‘Farm Knowledge Transfer Groups’.

This is out of an overall target of 11,435 workplace inspections and investigations which the HSA has for 2018, which also includes 4,000 inspections planned for the construction sector.

In conjunction with inspection and enforcement, a number of occupational safety and health initiatives will be adopted.

Accidents involving vehicles are consistently the most common cause of fatal injury in all workplaces. This year the authority says it will raise awareness of vehicle safety through joint initiatives with the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and An Garda Siochana.

The authority has also announced its continued commitment to deliver free and easy-to-use services through online programmes.

Minister of State for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen, said: “The work of the HSA is vital to a workforce that is increasing in size and approaching full employment. All workers, regardless of the sector, have the right to a safe and healthy workplace.

This can be achieved by making sure that day-to-day knowledge of safety is high, particularly in the agriculture sector where we have seen unacceptable levels of death and injury.

The HSA approach of combining inspections and enforcement with prevention and awareness-raising measures is one I fully support.”

Martin O’Halloran chief executive of the HSA said: “We see our overall role as protecting the workforce while at the same time supporting business and enterprise.”

The ‘HSA Programme of Work for 2018’ is available to download from the HSA website.