Up to 750,000 working days are lost in Northern Ireland each year due to work-related ill-health and injury, a staggering loss costing the Northern Ireland economy some £700 million sterling (€1.078 billion) each year, according to Mr John Fall, Northern Ireland Economy Minister.

Speaking recently at the launch of the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland's (HSENI) first corporate plan, he said businesses that put health and safety high on their priorities make a major contribution to the social and economic well being of Northern Ireland.

The plan outlines HSENI's four key objectives, to:

promote key occupational health and safety messages and themes to targeted sectors and groups;

communicate appropriate, timely and practical occupational health and safety information and advice;

carry out workplace inspection, investigation and enforcement on a risk-related basis;

ensure that an effective and up-to-date health and safety at work regulatory framework is maintained.

Under the first objective, the key target is for representatives of 1,000 companies or employing bodies to participate in HSENI promotional events, leading to 30 per cent of these employers improving their health and safety standards.

The key target under the second objective is that half of all requests for practical advice from employers result in improvements to workplace health and safety standards.

The executive has set itself the target of increasing from 40 per cent to 80 per cent the number of employers of five or more people who are known to have completed a risk assessment in accordance with the management of health and safety at work regulations.

Under its fourth objective, its key target is to ensure that "due account is taken of relevant EU directives and the desirability of maintaining legislative parity with Great Britain".

Mr Liam McBrinn, chairman of the HSENI said the aim was to develop an inclusive health and safety regime that benefits the whole community. The targets set out in the corporate plan were designed to ensure that only the best levels of health and safety provision and performance would be acceptable.

A construction company was convicted last week of breaches of sections of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989 and sections of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Construction) regulations, 1995.

The prosecution arose from the investigation of an accident in which a construction worker was operating an electrically driven portable hoist on the flat roof of a four-storey building.

He was standing inside the hoist frame at the parapet wall surrounding the roof, hoisting buckets of mortar up from the footpath below. The hoist frame became unstable because the counterweight designed to be used with the hoist had not been attached. The worker was catapulted over the parapet wall and fell a distance of 40 feet to the road below, sustaining serious injuries. Commenting on the case, Mr Michael Henry, chief inspector of the Health and Safety Authority, said: "Hazardous working conditions should not be tolerated by employers, who have a duty to provide a safe and secure workplace for their staff.

"Site management must provide for safe equipment and safe systems of work. Failure to do so is totally unacceptable, and the Health and Safety Authority will not hesitate to take action where we encounter unsafe working conditions on site."

Fines of £7,000 were imposed on the company.

Following the death of a laboratory technician seemingly from oxygen deprivation while filling flasks of liquid nitrogen, Britain's Health and Safety Executive recently issued a reminder to laboratory operators of safety measures needing to be in place while using liquid nitrogen.

Mr John Blackburn, principal inspector at the HSE's Edinburgh-based services group, said that whenever a laboratory operator is using liquid nitrogen, adequate extract ventilation should be provided.

Moreover, "equipment and systems of work should be designed, operated and maintained to reduce the risk of an accidental spillage and in the event of a spillage, the quantity of nitrogen that might be spilt."

There should be suitable and properly maintained warning systems so operators know of any potentially dangerous oxygen deficiency. Appropriate emergency procedures should be devised, while suitable training should be provided to everyone who might have a part to play in any emergency.

Finally, he said, adequate instruction, training and supervision should be provided on the correct use of equipment used to transport and transfer liquid nitrogen within laboratories.

The Health and Safety Authority website: http://www.has.ie/osh

The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland: http://www.hse-ni.org.uk

The (British) Health and Safety Executive website: http://www.open.gov.uk/hse/ jmarms@irish-times.ie