A builders' union has repeated its call for the Government to introduce a new offence of corporate manslaughter.
Mr Paddy O'Shaughnessy, general secretary of the Building and Allied Trades Union, told its annual conference that organisations who took "short cuts" on safety measures were putting workers' lives at risk.
BATU would continue its campaign to put pressure on the Government to bring in a law on corporate killing.
It was an "established fact", he claimed, that almost half of all fatal accidents on building sites resulted from site management failures, and that a further 28 per cent of such deaths were attributable to failures at company headquarters.
Mr O'Shaughnessy was referring to a Health and Safety Authority study of 2002 which found that site management failures, rather than the actions of victims, were largely to blame for construction industry fatalities.
It also concluded that nearly half of all fatal accidents occurred at sites where a project supervisor had not been appointed, as required by law.
In the past five years 110 workers had been killed on building sites, Mr O'Shaughnessy told the BATU conference, which was held in Portlaoise on Saturday.
Construction companies that failed to put proper safety management systems in place or cut corners on engineering or design "must be brought to book", he urged.
In its recent submission to the Law Reform Commission, his union had argued that a corporate manslaughter law should not be incorporated in the new Bill on health and safety in the workplace, due to be published soon.
"The new offence of corporate killing must have a separate and distinct legal identity, if it is really going to be effective," he said.
"In any case, the Government should await the final report of the Law Reform Commission later this year, rather than going off at half-cock in a way that risks being ineffective."
In the meantime, BATU awaited the "much promised reforms" of the proposed health and safety legislation, which it would scrutinise carefully.
"At the very least, we want increased fines, as well as greater recourse to imprisonment and a penalty points system for safety breaches by companies who are responsible for ensuring safety on building sites."
Publication of the Bill was promised two years ago, and the delay had undermined the union's confidence that the Government assigned any priority to health and safety and saving workers' lives on building sites, he said.
