Safe Pass is a 1 day Safety Awareness Course which meets the needs of construction workers and allied trades to comply with the Construction Regulations 2006(S4) and is valid for 4 years.
All candidates must bring 1 x Passport Size Photograph, PPS Numbers and an acceptable form of photographic ID e.g. driving licence/passport etc.) on the day of the course. The course is delivered through the English language and candidates must have a good working knowledge of English.
The course starts at 8.00am sharp and finishes at 5.00pm. Any person arriving late may not be granted access to the course and be liable for the course fee.
The Course Fee for Safe Pass is €100.00 including Solas Registration – the fee includes a light lunch and refreshments.
Safe Pass Training can be booked online or by phone, 041-9822933.
Workplace Wellbeing Day 2016
Launching Workplace Wellbeing Day 2016, Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said: “A healthy workplace is a happier and more productive workplace. That’s true for both staff and employers. We spend so much of our lives at work that it makes sense for so many reasons to foster a healthy workplace. It creates a happier environment, reduces sick leave, increases productivity, and helps to beat the Monday blues. So I would encourage everyone to take part on the day. The Government will also shortly be launching a new obesity policy so I’m encouraged that industry is already taking a role to improve public health.”
Small Firms Association Director, Patricia Callan said “Over 4 million days are lost in Ireland due to absenteeism by small businesses alone³. As this research shows, employers of all sizes and from all sectors are doing a lot already. But employers should do more to promote these initiatives and encourage staff to get involved. Workplace wellbeing is in everyone’s interest and 8th April is a good day to start.”
What can your company do?
1. Healthy eating initiatives
2. Health screening
3. (Lunchtime) walks
4. Fruit bowls
5. Mindfulness/yoga for staff
6. Promotion of bike to work scheme
7. Smoothies
8. Promotion of membership at nearest gym
9. Training for a 5K run
10. Pedometer challengesWorkplace Wellbeing Day ideas to get you started ….
- 5-a-day…place fresh fruit bowls around the office
- Offer new healthy options on canteen menus and in vending machines
- Host healthy meetings – download our guidelines
- Organise special employee health screenings on the day
- Promote lunchtime walks & runs – identify local routes of varying length and difficulty
- Invite a local gym or personal trainer in to host special exercise classes in your premises
- Arrange healthy cooking demonstrations in the canteen
- 5 –a-side – between departments or neighbouring companies
- Bring in experts for wellbeing talks on topics selected by your staff
- Promote the cycle to work scheme
Courtesy of Nutrition & Health Foundation
Fact or Fiction: Health & Safety Costs Money?
A common question we are asked is “How much is this going to cost?” Well, health and safety costs money doesn’t it? Installing safety devices, training, monitoring, checks and inspections, not to mention time spent on paperwork, it all adds up. So how can health and safety save you money?
Well yes, it is true to say that health and and safety management and measures cost money. But there is also a return on investment – the ROI, and of course, a cost to not having any health and safety measures in place.
Take this simple example, there is a cost of £50.00 to replace a guard on a piece of machinery. There is no other purpose for the guard except to stop the risk of entanglement or personal injury to an employee. £50.00 is the cost.
So why not save yourself money and not put the guard in place – there are 3 guiding principles in health and safety – the legal requirement, the economic requirement and the moral requirement. The question is always – “have you met your health and safety requirements?”. If you don’t put the guard in place and a person is injured then the person is off work for two weeks, you bear the costs involved of downtime, staff cover, equipment damage and investigation – not forgetting that you have to report this accident to the Health & Safety Authority. The total costs could be around £750.00. Now add in any possible payouts for fines and legal costs that may follow and the increase in insurance premiums.
Look at the £50.00 safety measure that could have prevented that accident, and automatically you have saved yourself €700.00.Penny wise and pound foolish! You are probably thinking that this makes sense but you might just see that £50 cost, and not really consider that you have just saved your business a whole lot of money and hassle.
This is just a simple example, but you can learn from other health and safety failings to appreciate the cost of failing to put in place good health and safety management.
With health and safety the return on investment is rarely immediate. There is a risk of much higher costs in the future, due to that health and safety failing.Health and safety measures might not just save you money against future costs. Health and safety measures might also save you money from costs that are already eating into your business profits.
For example, a business might identify a problem with manual handling within the workforce. Regular absences due to back issues, slips, trips and falls, and general accidents and ill health surrounding the movement of materials on site.
Adding up the costs of absences, loss of productivity, downtime, staff cover, staff turnover and recruitment costs, over a year period, is costing this fictional business in the region of £50,000 additional costs.
Once this has been identified, the business invests £10,000 in extra measures including new equipment, training, a campaign to raise awareness and better monitoring.
The results were that the company saved a staggering 50% of the costs they were experiencing due to poor manual handling practices.
Cost: | Annual Saving: | Saving (5 Years): |
-£10,000 | £25,000 | £115,000 |
The above might be a fictional example, but the potential cost savings are real.
When looking at the cost of health and safety, don’t just think about how much you will need to spend to put better health and safety practices and procedures in the place, but also the savings that you could make.
New Woodworking, Abrasive Wheels and Abrasive Blasting Regulations – July 1 2016
The new regulations are being brought into force as part of the General Application Regulations. The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2016 (SI 36/2016) introduce three new parts and two new schedules to the General Application Regulations:
- Part 11: Woodworking Machines
- Part 12: Abrasive Wheels
- Part 13: Abrasive Blasting of Surfaces
- Schedule 13: Woodworking Machines
- Schedule 14: Training and Instruction.
The new regulations repeal the:
- Factories (Woodworking Machinery) Regulations 1972 (SI 203/1972)
- Factories (Abrasive Blasting of Surfaces) Regulations 1974 (SI 357/1974)
- Safety in Industry (Abrasive Wheels) Regulations 1982 (SI 30/1982).
WOODWORKING MACHINES REGULATIONS
The new regulations include definitions and cover space around machines, guarding and protection, maintenance of machines, dust, circular sawing machines, band sawing machines, planing machines and vertical spindle machines. The full list of machines is set out in schedule 13. There are provisions on training, instruction and information.
ABRASIVE WHEELS REGULATIONS
The new regulations include definitions. The regulations apply to the use of any abrasive wheel for grinding or cutting at a place of work. The regulations deal with the use of abrasive wheels, speed of revolution, mounting of abrasive wheels and guarding and rests for workplaces and flanges. Schedule 14 deals with training and instruction.
ABRASIVE BLASTING OF SURFACES REGULATIONS
Again the regulations include definitions. The regulations apply to all places of work in which blasting is done, with the exception of blasting enclosures for cleaning of castings, , enclosures, blasting apparatus and ventilating plant. The regulations provide for the provision of blasting apparatus, enclosures, ventilating plant. The regulations include rules on the prohibition of silica, the protection of employees and other persons and also of persons under 18.
Click here to obtain a copy of the new regulations:
GAR 2007-2016 Woodworking-Abrasive Wheels – Abrasive Blasting Regulations
WELCOME
Following the enactment of the new regulations, the General Application Regulations will in future be cited as the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Regulations 2007 to 2016. Both the HSA and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation are to be congratulated on bringing in the regulations as part of the General Application Regulations. It is a welcome easing of the administrative burden, without impacting on the protection of workers.
Courtesy – Health & Safety Review
Ergonomics – Good Practice in the Irish Workplace
EMS & Associates were very proud to be associated with the preparation and publication of the recent Health & Safety Authority publication – “Ergonomics – Good Practice in the Irish Workplace” (2015) – and our client – MFP Plastics Ltd. – in preparing the case study of good ergonomic practice that we developed in-house following a Process Improvement Project(PIP).
MFP Plastics Limited manufactures a comprehensive range of PVCu drainage, roof-line and infrastructural duct products primarily for the Irish and UK markets. MFP is an ISO 9001 registered company and is part of Grafton Group PLC. MFP Plastics Limited was established in 1967 and is based at Lucan, County Dublin. The company operates from a large manufacturing and warehousing facility utilising the most up-to-date technology and equipment.
We aimed to reduce the number of lifting, twisting, turning and repetitive motions being carried out. Following an in-depth period of consultation we devised an engineering solution involving vacuum power lifters to reduce the impact on staff. The overall results have proven very successfully.
Why not take a look – click here for a copy of the HSA Ergonomics – Good Practices in the Irish Workplace (2015) publication
"Perform as a Leader" Book Launch
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We were delighted to attend the launch of Orlaith Carmody’s Book – “Perform as a Leader” at Waterstone’s in Drogheda on Friday(25.09.2015). Orlaith is a former national newspaper journalist and co founder, with Gavin Duffy of training and business development company – mediatraining.ie
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”2049,2048″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Details can be found here – http://performasaleader.com/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]