On the face of it, IBEC's recent summary report Ireland's Personal In- jury Compensation Culture appears to have backfired.

First, there was that trenchant debate on RTE Radio 1's Morning Ireland where the Law Society hotly contested IBEC's claims.

Then Mr Sylvester Cronin, head of SIPTU's health and safety unit and member of the board of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), joined the Law Society in criticising assertions by IBEC that the Republic had abnormally high levels of "spurious" claims.

The glossy summary report certainly succeeded in grabbing attention. Its masthead said in an extra-large all-capital tabloid print: CALL TO TACKLE COMPO CULTURE, leaving the reader momentarily uncertain if this was the title of IBEC's publication. Only at the bottom of the page, in much smaller type, was the much quieter Ire- land's Personal Injury Compensation Culture - Fact or Fiction? Summary Report. (Interestingly, the main report does not have "culture" as part of its title at all.)

Other less dramatic newspaper cuttings are also used on the front cover, including the unfortunate "Law Society in favour of ban on compo ads". If the reader were to deduce from this that the Law Society in any sense approved of IBEC's report, that lively debate on RTE would immediately have disabused them of that idea. The summary report contains provocative, ill-judged panels with the capacity to offend - under the dubious heading "FACT" - and sweeping assertions such as "Irish workers are more litigious then their EU counterparts". Substitute "Blacks" for "Irish workers" and its self-defeating prejudicial tone becomes fully apparent.

Other highlighted boxes read like black-and-white motions that might be given to a student debating society to ensure a lively debate, such as: "Ireland has a claims culture of significant proportions". You can almost see "discuss" after that if it appeared on an examination paper. Except the IBEC report presents this, too, under the uncompromising and provocative heading: "FACT".

Perhaps that was IBEC's intention: to provoke debate. However, given the tabloid style of its summary report, its effect to date would appear to have been to disrobe IBEC of a certain gravitas and to give more attention to those who contest its assertions.

For instance, SIPTU has rejected IBEC's claim that the Republic has the lowest occupational accident rate in Europe. SIPTU says there is no unified system for occupational accident statistics in the EU, with some member-states including work-related car accidents as occupational accidents. "Whereas here, in Ireland, no road traffic accidents are counted as occupational accidents, even where it involves someone whose work is driving," said Mr Cronin.

In contrast to what the current issue of Health & Safety Review says are the "very vigorous terms" of IBEC's summary report in which the frustrations of the Irish business community with the State's personal injuries compensation system are expressed, SIPTU's rejection of IBEC's claims has been calm and more measured.

"What we can compare effectively is Ireland's injury rates from 1992 to 1997, as published in the HSA's 1997 annual report. Over this six-year period, serious occupational injury rates increased by 29 per cent, that is, from 961 to 1,240 per 100,000 at work in 1992 to 1997 respectively," says SIPTU, adding that there was an increase of approximately 40 per cent in fatal accidents in 1998 over 1997.

SIPTU also argues that employers have it "directly within their own control" to reduce employers' compensation bills, given that "where there are no accidents there can be no compensation". SIPTU also contends that employers in Ireland are "generally" lackadaisical and do not consult their workforce very much on safety and health matters - somewhat provocative but less so than IBEC's absolutist claim.

SIPTU added: "Preliminary results of a SIPTU survey indicates that over two-thirds of safety representatives were not consulted by their employer about risk assessments in the workplace."

In contrast, IBEC's main report upon which its injudicious summary report is based is essential reading, although its data relies heavily on material already in the public domain. Seemingly, the one point upon which IBEC and SIPTU do agree is the need to consider the establishment of a compensation board.