Twenty-three people have been killed in workplace accidents in the first four months of this year, figures from the Health and Safety Authority showed today.
Tom Beegan, Health and Safety Authority chief executive
The death toll is one of the worst in the past decade and a rise of 40 per cent on last year's figure.
Nine of those who died worked in the construction industry; seven were involved in agriculture.
Tom Beegan of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) said he was deeply worried by the high number of fatalities in the workplace so far this year.
"I am very concerned that the lessons have not been learned and that people are dying needlessly simply because proper measures have not been taken to ensure workplace safety," he said.
"It is simply not acceptable that any worker could lose their life by just turning up for work and carrying out their job," the HSA chief executive said. "It is time to accept that a proper health and safety management system will in the medium term make the workplace safer and reduce overall costs."
A Co Clare farmer was convicted this month of safety breaches after failing to comply with enforcement notices from a HSA inspector. Mr Beegan said the authority was taking any non-compliance with enforcement notices to tackle safety problems very seriously.
"When an organisation receives an improvement notice, we mean business, and we will follow up to ensure it's acted upon," he added.
The HSA highlighted Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Louth and Wexford as the country's safety blackspots.