Sir, - Our capacity for self deception continues to astound me. You recently reported Minister Eithne Fitzgerald as stating that Ireland had one of the lowest accident-at-work levels in Europe. This amazing conclusion was deduced from figures reported to the Department of Labour for days lost through injury. Social Welfare figures paint a much bleaker picture with much higher numbers off work due to injury. To use our accident statistics to judge our position is misleading: we don't properly report accidents in this country. I haven't Sweden's figures, to which we were runners up, but our ratio of non-fatal to fatal accidents reported compared with the Netherlands is about one twentieth and about one tenth for France; fatal accidents can't be left unreported but the many minor accidents can be ignored.
It's the same for road accidents. We have almost the same rate of fatal or serious road accidents per million vehicles in the 26 Counties as they have in the Six Counties but the overall rate for all accidents in the South is less than half that North of the border. Again, more than half are never reported making these statistics meaningless.
We need good statistics to understand our true position. Fooling ourselves only means that the problem remains understated, under-resourced and unresolved. - Yours, etc.,
Newgarden,
Castleconnell,
Limerick.