Sir, - The rightful regulation of the private industry lauded in your Editorial of January 5th appears to have the full support of the industry itself and will, one hopes, pass quickly into force. The Bill will remove the untrained "cowboy" operators and lead to a high standard of competency within the field. Good news for an industry that has seen some serious incidents and deaths over the past few years.
However, what will the operators who cannot get a licence do? Perhaps they might like to try their hand at safety consultancy or safety training?
No regulation currently exists for the safety consultancy and safety training industry. Anyone can do it and many do. Unlike the private security industry, safety already has a regulatory body (the HSA) and it also has laws in force (The Safety, Health & Welfare at Work Act of 1989); but it does not have any standard of competency governing those who work within it.
Compared with the private security industry, safety does not, perhaps, seem so important. To the people who die at work each year (average about 50 per year since 1992) and those who are injured (about 25,000 per year according to the Labour Force Surveys) it must seem strange that their well-being can be so flippantly ignored. The last HSA Annual report (1999) shows that only one quarter of companies visited had a competent safety management system.
While Mr O'Donoghue must be rightly applauded for his new Bill, can we ask how long it will take his colleague Mr Kitt to do something to regulate the safety industry? Does it not deserve at least the same attention? - Yours, etc.,
Liam Byrne, Valleycourt, Athlone.