The 2001 Construction Regulations should be amended to give designers and clients the same role as contractors in ensuring safety in building projects, according to a report commissioned by the Health and Safety Authority.
The report, published today, says studies reveal that a "significant proportion of clients, designers and project supervisors are failing to meet their statutory obligations" on safety.
One such study indicated that at least 25 per cent of factors causing fatal accidents in the Irish construction industry in the past 10 years were attributable to decisions taken prior to the start of construction work.
HSA senior construction inspector Mr Jim Heffernan said the report reinforced the experience of inspectors who were enforcing the current legalisation. "The construction regulations need to be made more detailed and specific for all dutyholders in particular for clients, project supervisors and designers," he said. The board of the HSA had recently transmitted a set of proposed amendments to the Minister for Labour Affairs in this regard, he added.
The report, carried out by a UK-based engineering expert, found that inspectors attributed almost 50 per cent of failures to contractors, and just 7 per cent to designers and project supervisors for design stage collectively.
But it suggested the figures were skewed by the fact that duties for contractors were "many and detailed" in legislation compared to those for other duty-holders.
Citing a "lack of depth in accident analyses", the report added that "a standardised methodology to facilitate the identification of root causes is required".
