THE RISK of eye injury is five times greater for workers from the new accession EU states than those born in Ireland, a new study carried out by the Health Service Executive (HSE) has found.
The study also found that the Health and Safety Act, which was introduced in 2005, has yet to lead to a reduction in eye injuries, but the introduction of penalty points for not wearing a safety belt has led to a 60 per cent reduction in eye-injury admissions from road-traffic accidents.
The study was conducted at Waterford Regional Hospital by registrar Dr Ayman Saeed under supervision by consultant ophthalmic surgeon Mr Stephen Beatty. It entailed examining 517 admissions for eye injuries between 2001 and 2007.
The HSE study found that the workplace was the most common location where eye injuries were sustained, accounting for almost one third (31.8 per cent) of the 517 people admitted to Waterford Regional Hospital with eye injuries.
Dr Saeed said that according to the CSO, some 98,218 workers from the 10 accession states were working in Ireland in 2006 with some 39 per cent of all workers from these states working in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
These sectors account for around 20 per cent of the Irish workforce but extrapolating from the eye injury admission details, the study suggested safety measures may need to be used in a more targeted manner to reach those whose first language may not be English, he said.
The study also found that since 2003 when the offence of not wearing a seat belt was added to the traffic penalty point system, there had been a 60 per cent reduction in admissions because of eye injuries, attributable to road traffic accidents.
According to the study, the beneficial effects of wearing seat belts has been well recognised for a long time.
However, the impact of adding the offence of not wearing a seat belt to the traffic penalty system on reducing eye injuries has been reported for first time in this study.
Mr Beatty observed: "This study has shown that migrant workers from the new EU accession states are at increased risk of severe work-related eye injury when compared with their Irish counterparts and that implementation of the new Health and Safety Act has not yet succeeded in reducing the number of work-related eye injuries.
"However, it is encouraging to see that the new traffic penalty point system has reduced the number of eye injuries sustained in road traffic accidents.
"Visual impairment as a result of severe ocular injury can have significant social, psychological and economic implications for the individual, not to mention the financial implications to employers and healthcare providers," explained Mr Beatty.