Building firm fined €250k for breaching safety rules
An English-registered construction company has been fined €250,000 for breaching safety regulations on a building site where a Monaghan drainage pipe layer died six years ago.
PJ Carey (Contractors) Ltd was convicted earlier this month by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of having a dangerous work system at the site on Ballymun Road on December 09, 2002.
Mr Brendan Coulton of Emyvale died after an unsupported trench that he and members of his excavation team were digging collapsed.
Judge Patrick McCartan said that in imposing the €250,000 fine he wanted to "send out a signal to other employers that Health and Safety legislation is there for a purpose".
Judge McCartan noted that the company’s reliance on "a single trench box was somewhat inadequate to meet the challenges of the area to be excavated."
Mr Kevin Broderick, a Health and Safety Authority inspector told the court that an area of 1.5 metres above the trench box support structure placed into the excavation had remained unsupported.
He told prosecution counsel, Mr Colm Ó Briain BL the company was fined €40,000 in 2005 for a machinery-related health and safety offence on the same site several months before the Mr Coulton’s death.
Mr Coulton had been reprimanded three months earlier for going into another unsupported trench two metres below ground level.
Judge McCartan directed the jury to return not guilty verdicts on three other charges against the company with an address at Carey House, Great Central Way, Wembley, England.
The jury of eight men and four women found the company not guilty on a second charge that it had a dangerous workplace on that occasion.
The verdicts were returned following three hours deliberation after a seven-day trial.
