Apr 23, 2015 - engagement by Minister Ged Nash with us which is in marked contrast to Minister ... of deaths and injurie
NISO Annual General Meeting, 23 April 2015 Honorary Secretary’s Report
This is my 7th report as Honorary Secretary and I am pleased to report that in our 52nd year our Organisation is still following the aspirations of our founders in seeking to promote safety health and welfare in all areas of work in Ireland. NISO currently employs 4 full time members of staff and one part time employee. While they have all worked hard over the years it has not been without operational challenges. We are currently looking to see if an extra member of staff can be employed either on a part or fulltime basis and we are also looking at the current roles undertaken by our staff. With the support, hard work and dedication of all the staff, Directors and Executive Committee members, NISO now has a very promising future. As you will see from our financial report which Des Brandon, our Honorary Treasurer, will present we are in a very stable financial position underlined by having paid off our Mortgage last year. We continue to develop co-‐operation with IOSH and this relationship has been helped by their leasing office space in our head office. We are very thankful to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation for their continued support and very much appreciate the engagement by Minister Ged Nash with us which is in marked contrast to Minister Richard Bruton. I wish to record our appreciation to the HSA, Martin O’Halloran and his colleagues for their support to NISO. By their words and actions in attending, supporting and participating in NISO events, they and their staff have shown a commitment above and beyond their daily tasks. IBEC, Insurance Ireland and ICTU have also continued their support of NISO and this is also very much appreciated. 1
The 42nd All-‐Ireland Occupational Safety Quiz finals run jointly by the National Irish Safety Organisation (NISO) and the Northern Ireland Safety Group (NISG) were held in Westport in April 2014 with Abbott Ireland Sligo winning the Novice Category and winning Bord na Mona Littleton Previous Entrants Category. This years All Ireland Safety Quiz Final, was held in Belfast on Saturday, 18 April, with Bord na Mona Littleton retaining their All Ireland title in the Previous Entrants Category and Phoenix Energy Services from Antrim winning the Novice Category. The 23rd Annual All Ireland Safety Awards took place on 3 October 2014 at a special ceremony in Mullingar at which the Supreme Safety Award winner for 2014, sponsored by Phillips 66, was Cold Chon (Galway) Ltd. The Supreme Safety Award is presented to the organization, which has shown consistently good or continuously improving health and safety performance over a number of years and an outstanding contribution to occupational safety, health and welfare during the previous year. Montupet (UK) Ltd. and The Lisheen Mine tied for the inaugural Occupational Safety Award, which was sponsored by the Health and Safety Authority and the Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland. Helsinn Birex Pharmaceuticals from Dublin won the Gold Award, Abbott Ireland Diagnostics Division based in Longford and Sligo won the Silver Award while the Bronze Award was won by Sierra Support Services Group. The presentations were made by Pauric Corrigan, NISO president, James Fenton, NISG chair, and Mairead McGuinness, M.E.P.. This year’s Conference and Awards Dinner, will be hosted by the Western Region in Galway on 2nd October. We have had 8 Executive Committee meetings during the Calendar year and 7 Management Committee meetings. 2
My special thanks and appreciation to the Regional Committees and all our volunteers, who freely give of their time in promoting safety and health awareness and NISO. I wish to thank the executive committee, the regional committees, past presidents, the office staff and the many members of NISO who assisted me in my role as Honorary Secretary during the year. NISO was established in 1963 and both NISO and Safety standards have come a long way in the intervening years. Despite our work and the best efforts of the HSA, we still have workers been injured and killed in our workplaces every year. According to the official figures for 2014, 55 individuals lost their lives during the year an increase from 47 in 2013. This means more than one person lost their lives every week by going to work. This includes 30 deaths on our farms. In addition to the above, deaths on our roads were 196 up from 190 in 2013 and 160 in 2012. Both the HSA and the Gardai have suffered severe financial cutbacks in the last few years and in my view it is no coincidence that as these cutbacks in resources have been applied we have seen an increase in fatalities both on our roads and in our workplaces. The, increase in injuries and fatalities, in addition to the pain and suffering to the victims leads to increased costs and demands on an already overstretched Health System. This short sighted view of reducing the resources available to prevent accidents has as I forecasted last year led to an increase in the number of deaths and injuries with an overall result for Ireland Inc. of increased costs in terms of human suffering, insurance, compensation, legal and lost time from the workplace. This reduction in the resources for the HSA must be reversed as soon as possible. I think everyone in the work place be it employers, unions
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management and staff agree that the operations by the HSA has been very successful and a major contribution to safety in Ireland.. NISO would like to see a co-‐ordinated approach from Government to the whole area of safety with the focus on prevention, which would lead to a major saving to the economy as well as a healthier society. March 24th 2015 was the eleventh anniversary of the smoking ban in Irish workplaces and despite the reported 20% drop in smoking in the intervening years 5,200 people still die each year from smoking related issues. I welcome the Governments action to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products in a further attempt to promote an anti-‐smoking environment. We have seen what resources, awareness and high profile campaigns have achieved for road safety before the cutback in the Gardai, and the same reductions can be achieved if the government commits to a similar programme of workplace safety. On the matter of road safety, I fully support the efforts to get drivers to reduce their speed, to avoid drinking and driving, wearing of seat belts and no handheld mobile phones. However why are cyclists not targeted just like drivers to improve road safety? We see advertisement campaigns aimed at drivers watching out for cyclists, however why is their no enforcement of basic rules for cyclists. Routinely cyclists do not wear helmets, or hi-‐vis vests, they fail to use lights front and back, have I pods plugged in their ears preventing them from hearing other road traffic. They cross between traffic lanes in a manner that if attempted by drivers would bring the blue flashing lights and penalty points for the driver. Then there is their almost complete disregard for red traffic lights. If we want to be serious about road safety all those using the roads must be subject to the same requirements and held to account.
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I call on our farming colleagues and the farming organisations to take a very detailed look at the terrible safety record that has developed over the last few years. We in NISO have run a number of well attended, farming safety seminars recently and we will continue to promote safety on our farms as we will in all workplaces. It is long past the time when economists and their views on everything were accepted as the definitive opinion on what should be done. A lot of their forecasts are based on assuming certain things and when their forecasts do not work out they explain them away by saying that based on what they assumed their forecasts were right. They are never wrong even when they are not right. Likewise the great case put forward when making decisions is often backed up by politicians stating that their decision is based on legal advice. Remember only half the legal advice turns out to be correct. I will conclude by calling on all our members to renew our efforts by the promotion of safety and health awareness, education and most of all by example and leadership to improving safety and health in Ireland and calling on the politicians of all parties to commit themselves to the same objectives. Thank you Harry Galvin NISO Honorary Secretary
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