Having a crime of corporate manslaughter on the statute books is not a guaranteed "cure" for the ills of the construction industry, the Dáil was told.
The Minister of State for Enterprise, Mr Frank Fahey, said worldwide practice had shown that the offence of corporate manslaughter "is not successful in other countries".
He was not interested in putting in legislation just "for the sake of doing so" and pointed out that the situation would not improve until good preventive practice became the norm in the construction industry.
He told Labour's spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, that corporate manslaughter was a complex area and that under current legislation in Britain, "the prosecution can only succeed if the controlling mind of a company is identified and that person is found to be guilty of manslaughter. There have been few successful corporate manslaughter prosecutions in Britain".
Mr Howlin had sought the introduction of the offence because of the "continuing unacceptable level of deaths through workplace accidents".
When he suggested that it was "important to address the enactment of the legislation as an indication of our seriousness about the matter", the Minister said he was not interested in "tokenism".
A paper by the Law Reform Commission, expected later this year, will consider whether such an offence should be created or if existing law should be extended.
