Call for new laws on corporate manslaughter
New laws on corporate killing should be introduced to deter companies who blatantly disregard the safety of their workers, an expert said tonight.
Although there have been hundreds of deaths in the workplace in recent years, often due to inadequate safety standards, no company has ever been prosecuted for manslaughter.
The Law Reform Commission (LRC) recommended a new corporate manslaughter offence should be introduced which would impose unlimited fines on a company it displayed gross negligence resulting in the death of a worker.
The other offence would apply to senior personnel such as company directors and managers, who could also be fined, jailed for up to 12 years or banned from managing from up to 15 years, for grossly negligent management causing death.
LRC director of research Raymond Byrne said corporate manslaughter laws were already in place in Canada and in some states in Australia and the US.
“Certainly it fits into that general purpose of the criminal law which is to deter really gross negligence,” he said.
Mr Byrne said the proposed new laws would cover a broader area than the existing health and safety legislation for companies.
“This would apply if a company manufactured a pharmaceutical product and was grossly negligent in terms of the research that did before it put in on the market.”
The LRC report, which follows a consultation paper two years ago, said it only envisaged companies and managers being prosecuted for corporate manslaughter on rare occasions.
There would be no offence committed if all reasonable measures to anticipate and prevent risks to human life had been taken and prosecutions might not go ahead even if health and safety legislation had been breached.
Mr Bryne said this was because the test for corporate manslaughter would be the same as the test for personal manslaughter.
“It means you’ve got to prove gross negligence,” he said.
Enterprise and Employment Minister Micheál Martin said he would be brining the report to cabinet for consideration.
