Vol. 427 No. 6
127 Mr. Power asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the action, if any, he will take to ensure Sikhs living in Ireland and throughout the EC are exempted for religious reasons from requirements to wear protective headgear in appropriate work places.
Existing occupational safety and health legislation including the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989 and the recently published Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations, 1993, highlight the need to identify hazards at work, to assess the risks arising and to put in place appropriate collective prevention measures. However, it is also recognised that it may not be possible to avoid or sufficiently reduce risks in all circumstances by technical means of collective protection or by measures, methods or procedures of work organisation. In such circumstances the legislation requires the employer to provide appropriate personal protective equipment for use by employees. The employer is required to determine the conditions of use of personal protective equipment on the basis of the gravity of the risk, the frequency of exposure to the risk, the characteristics of the workstation and the adequacy of the personal protective equipment concerned. The employer must also provide information, training and instruction to employees on the risks against which the personal protective equipment is intended to provide protection and in relation to the use of the equipment. Employees who are provided with personal protective equipment are required under the legislation to make full and proper use of it in accordance with the instructions which the employer is required to provide.
The potential hazards and risks of serious head injury in various types of workplaces and work activities have long been recognised as major problems in occupational safety and health. This has been reflected in our safety and health legislation, including, for example, the Construction (Safety, Health and Welfare) Regulations, 1975. Such concern is also reflected at EC level in Council Directive 89/656/EEC of 30 November, 1989, on the minimum health and safety requirements for the use by workers of personal protective equipment at the workplace. The General Application Regulations, 1993, already referred to, give effect to this Directive.
On the basis of advice available to me from the National Authority for Occupational Safety and Health — the body charged with the day-to-day administration and enforcement of safety and health at work — I do not propose to alter the current legislative requirements with regard to the provision and use of personal protective equipment where it is required to protect safety and health and where other preventive measures are inadequate or not feasible.
