The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 (No. 10 of 2005) provides for the securing of the safety, health and welfare of persons at work. Specifically that Act places a duty on employers to ensure as far as reasonably practicable, the safety, health and welfare of their employees. This duty includes the assessment of the risks at that place of work and the implementation of the necessary controls to minimise these risks so that the safety and health of the employees is ensured. The duties also include, amongst other things, the provision of information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure as far as reasonably practicable the safety, health and welfare at work of his or her employees. There is a further requirement for the employer to have regard to the general principles of prevention, including the provision of appropriate personal protective equipment where risks cannot be avoided, eliminated at source or controlled through collective protective measures.
Section 2 (5) of the 2005 Act, states that for the purposes of the relevant statutory provisions, a person who is training for employment or receiving work experience, other than when present at a course of study in a university, school or college, shall be deemed to be an employee of the person whose undertaking (whether carried on by him or her for profit or not) is for the time being the immediate provider to that person of training or work experience, and “employee”, “employer” and cognate words and expressions shall be read accordingly. The 2005 Act does not place any restrictions on those who are training at work but requires as indicated in section 2(5) that they there must be regarded as employees and therefore the relevant duties of an employer apply.
The provisions of the Act apply to all places of work and there are no plans to reduce this coverage