Sir, - As a building worker for 20 years or so I fully support the concerns voiced by Eric Fleming (January 30th). It is an indictment of the will to enforce Health and Safety legislation that a site which was closed because of breaches of the Safety Act re opened in much the same state a week later.
There is an urgent and obvious need for meaningful penalties for breaching legislation meant to safeguard lives of building workers. Yet builders are allowed flout these laws with impunity every day. Furthermore, serious breaches which endanger lives should involve prison sentences.
The numbers employed to enforce this legislation must be drastically increased. Enforcement is not adequately funded at present and it is widely believed in the building industry that the recent budget reduced it further.
Employers argue that, there are not sufficient people trained in the necessary skills, scaffolding, etc. And, while that may be true, they themselves opted out of training these skills to workers over the years. They now try to shift the blame on to FAS or to some other state body. But in regard to Health and Safety do FAS need to train the employers into providing welfare facilities such as toilets and canteens which are either absent in many sites or else unfit for human use.
Finally, there is a serious question mark on the commitment of this and previous governments to take the necessary steps to prevent death and serious injury to workers in the building industry. Yours, etc.,
Hillcrest Avenue,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.