The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has launched a new three-year strategy, which highlights its key goals in tackling current and emerging challenges and opportunities in workplaces across Ireland.
Strategy Statement 2022-2024 was published today (Tuesday, January 11) in tandem with the association’s Programme of Work for 2022, which – separately – details its key priorities for 2022.
While a statement from the HSA regarding the strategy launch does not explicitly refer to farm safety or the farming sector, a closer look at the document reveals that “existing challenges which were identified in the 2019-2021 strategy remain, including safety in agriculture“.
While new advancements in technology and innovation within the wider industry may pose certain challenges not encountered before.
The document states in relation to this:
“Examples of such advancements with implications for occupational safety and health include artificial intelligence (AI); the shift to the green economy in terms of new hazards from additional wind farms and solar panel farms; and the safety considerations arising from the use of new fuels such as hydrogen and biomethane.”
Elsewhere in the document, in terms of general regulation, the HSA states that it will increase its focus on regulations and inspections on compliance with occupational health hazards and risks; it will increase and broaden the inspection programme focussing on sectors with higher risks of incidents and fatalities; and will increase focus on the reporting of incidents, dangerous occurrences and fatalities.
The HSA has a wide and varied mandate. It is the national body with responsibility for protecting all workers from work-related incidents, injuries and ill health. It also acts as the market surveillance authority for chemicals and industrial products and protects all citizens from the risks arising from the use of chemicals. And, it provides the national accreditation service through the Irish National Accreditation Body (INAB).
In the coming three years, the HSA says it will also undertake awareness-raising campaigns and initiatives to promote a greater understanding of workplace risks, particularly “emerging and long-latency health risks”.
This is the sixth strategy document undertaken and published by the HSA, which is developed following an extensive programme of external stakeholder feedback and public consultation.
For the 2022-2024 strategy, stakeholders identified a range of activities, carried out by the HSA, as being important:
“In general, the authority’s focus on specific high-risk areas, such as construction, agriculture, transport and quarries through enforcement and awareness campaigns was seen as appropriate.”
Strategy 2019-2021 review
In reviewing the previous two-year strategy from 2019-2020, with specific focus on occupational fatalities, the HSA noted “that in recent years the number of occupational fatalities, which had steadily declined to the lowest level recorded since the authority was established, increased from 39 in 2018 to 47 in 2019, and to 53 in 2020.
“Measured in relation to the number of workers, fatalities have increased from 1.5 per 100,000 workers in 2018 to 1.8 and 1.7 per 100,000 workers in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
“Fatalities remain unacceptably high in agriculture, with 19.5 and 17.5 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2019 and 2020, respectively,” according to the strategy.
The strategy document also outlined the ways in which the HSA engaged with employers, employees and its users: through its Farm Safety Village at the National Ploughing Championships (pre-Covid-19), it could directly reach farmers and agricultural contractors on activities relating to safety; through knowledge transfer groups (KTGs) its inspectors could engage with farmers on site, providing them with the knowledge to manage health and safety on their farms.
The number of farmsafely.com – a farm risk-assessment platform – users increased from 10,600 in 2018 to 13,700 at the end of March 2021; and codes of practice were also produced or updated for agriculture.
Strategy launch
In launching Strategy Statement 2022-2024 today (January 11), Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail, Damien English, said:
“This new strategy clearly sets out the HSA’s priorities and goals while taking into account the ongoing challenges that workers and organisations, including the authority, will face over the next three years.
“These include emerging from the Covid-19 public health pandemic, dealing with the continued fallout from the UK exit from the EU and addressing new ways of working.
“The strategy is also responding to the increasing use of technology in the workplace and the challenges and opportunities this can present in keeping our workplaces safe.”
In presenting this new strategy and Programme of Work for 2022, chief executive of the HSA, Dr. Sharon McGuinness, said:
“The authority remains focussed on the challenges facing today’s workplaces and enterprises, but is also looking ahead to the future where we see the introduction of new technology and the increased focus on climate action and chemicals sustainability, bringing benefits to occupational safety and health.”