12.05.2005

Contractor fined €100,000 for Lorry loader death

The South Midland Construction Company Ltd has been fined €100,000 for breach of health and safety regulations which led to the death of an employee in Blanchardstown in November 2001.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Michael Murphy, employed by the company as a truck driver, died from severe brain trauma, after he was hit in the head by the clam shell bucket of the lorry loader crane on his truck.

Health and Safety Inspector Mr Martin O’Dea told prosecuting counsel, Mr Patrick McGrath BL, that investigations into Mr Murphy’s death revealed that sensors on the lorry loader that would have stopped the bucket from coming into the vicinity of Murphy had been removed from the machine.

Mr O’Dea said that location of a compactor which he was preparing to unload using the lorry crane also contributed to the accident as it had been too near control station from which Mr Murphy was operating the crane.

Mr O’Dea’s investigations further revealed that there were features in the Epsilon Palfinger E93 crane itself which contributed to the accident, including a lack of proper instruction manual relating to the sensors and the guards protecting the operation area not being high enough.

Were those guards higher, Mr O’Dea told Judge Michael White it might have prevented Mr Murphy from inadvertently operating the levers which caused the grab bucket to swing into operation.

The safety hooks on the chain to the bucket had also been removed deliberately for use in other operations and had accelerated the movement which caused the grab bucket to hit Mr Murphy. In addition, the grab bucket itself was not a certified lifting device.

Mr O’Dea also reported that there had not been an adequate review system within the company that would have identified the missing sensor or the removal of the safety hooks.

Judge Michael White noted that SMC had a good record on health and safety measures which showed that it took the safety of its employees seriously. "This is not a company that has disregarded safety and was in no way an operator which the health and safety authorities would have concerns about", he said.

He also noted that since the accident, SMC had taken substantial steps to modify its review system from that which was in operation at the time.

Despite being impressed with the general steps that SMC has taken to safe guard the health and safety of their employees before and since the accident, Judge White said, the court had a duty to ensure that the level of fine it imposed on the company acted as a general deterrent to those who disregard their employee’s health and safety.

Mr Fergal Kavannagh SC, defending, had earlier told the court that SMC now spends 1.53 percent of revenues on health and safety, while the average spend in the Irish construction industry is only 0.3 percent. Prior to the accident the company was spending 0.4 percent on health and safety.

The court was also told that SMC is also currently in the process of building a state of the art health and safety training school for the company’s employees.