Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 July 2020
17. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation if the regulations will be amended to make Covid-19 an occupational illness having regard to the immediate, exceptional and manifest risk posed to human life and public health by the spread of Covid-19, thus ensuring occurrences of same among workers in the workplace are reported to the Health and Safety Authority. [15752/20]
View answerThis is a fairly simple straightforward request and the Tánaiste can just say "Yes" and we will not need a back and forth. It is simply to ensure that where a worker contracts an illness in the workplace, that illness being Covid-19, that it is notifiable to the Health and Safety Authority, which can examine the case to determine how the person got it. I am a member of the Covid-19 response committee and I have heard from people representing workers in high-risk sectors, such as meat plants, and healthcare workers among whom infection rates are very high. It beggars belief that this is not notifiable in the normal way that an illness acquired in the workplace is to the HSA.
I will set out the current situation for the Deputy, if that is all right.
As the Deputy might realise, Covid 19 has been included as a notifiable disease under the Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Regulations 2020. Any infectious disease pandemic is first and foremost a matter of public health, for which a legal basis for reporting already exists under public health legislation. Notifiable infectious diseases are statutorily reported under the Infectious Diseases Regulations 1981 to the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health for investigation and control. At present, under the occupational safety and health legislation the requirement to report accidents does not apply to a person who suffers a disease, occupational illness or impairment of mental health as a result of workplace activity.
There are a number of considerations to take into account with regard to reporting occupational diseases or illnesses or both to the Health and Safety Authority. These include the fact that many employers are not in a position to assess or attribute the diagnosis of Covid-19 as an occupational disease or illness with any degree of reliability since it can be acquired in a community or workplace setting. It would also introduce an obligation on employees to provide detailed confidential medical information to their employer, which would be seen as contrary to the protection of an individual's right to the privacy of such information.
However, I do understand that the board of the Health and Safety Authority has requested a review of the reporting obligations concerning infectious diseases in the context of employers' obligations under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. The review will include consultation with a range of parties, including the Department of Health and the State Claims Agency. It will also examine whether a proposed change can be achieved without increasing reporting requirements for employers outside the health sector and can be aligned with general data protection regulation, GDPR, requirements. The review will also look at the practices in other European countries on the reporting of infectious diseases by employers. I have asked that the review be presented to the Department for consideration as soon as it is available. I am happy to revert to the Deputy at that stage.
I thank the Minister of State. Will representatives of workers be involved in the review? I heard the Minister of State list the stakeholders but I did not hear worker representatives on it. If they are not involved in the review, I urge the Minister of State as a matter of priority to ensure they are.
I note the Minister of State's concern for workers with regard to any responsibility that might be placed on them but their representative body, and a fine representative body it is too, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, wrote to the previous Minister to outline that the workers are more than happy to undertake that responsibility. If a person acquires an injury or illness in the workplace it should be notifiable to the Health and Safety Authority. It beggars belief. I actually did not believe it when I read the correspondence first that it was not notifiable to the Health and Safety Authority. For some people, putting themselves in the way of this disease is part of their job. It is part of their work and it is in the transaction of that work that they acquire it. It is not good enough to say we might not be able to determine exactly how people acquired it. That is what the Health and Safety Authority inspectors are there to do. They can come in and investigate how it happened. The Covid committee has heard at length how it runs through workplaces in particular settings. We know we have unusually high rates of infection among healthcare workers, which is very worrying. What we need now is to give the HSA the authority to do what it should be doing and inspecting these workplaces. However, in order to do this they have to be notified.
I understand that as part of the report, it will consult. We can check this. It is something we can also do when we get the report. To be clear, the Health and Safety Authority is aware that Covid-19 is a risk in healthcare settings and in other settings also. It is working with the HSE and individual employees in places of work to investigate the incidents among healthcare workers. The HSA is also investigating fatalities arising from cases where healthcare workers have contracted Covid-19. This is when they are called in. Approximately 9,000 non-fatal workplace injuries and accidents are reported to the HSA per year.
However, the report of a workplace injury or accident is for statistical analysis generally. It is when it goes deeper that it carries out the full investigation.
The Deputy asked why it is not included. As recently as 2016 a statutory instrument, SI 370 of 2016, amended the health and safety general application regulations to clarify issues for employers as to what was a workplace accident by setting out that the requirement to report an accident does not apply to an accident which occurs in a place of work or as a result of work activity in respect of which a person suffers any disease, occupational illness or any impairment of mental condition. At that time a regulatory impact assessment was carried out as part of this change to the regulations. The regulatory impact assessment identified that the exclusion of disease or occupational illness or any impairment of mental condition was needed as employers were not in a position to assess or attribute occupational disease or illness to a workplace activity. That is probably a fair assessment. However, we will await the report and take matters from there. We can discuss it in the House.
On 11 June, the European Parliament took a decision to include Covid-19 in the definition of biological hazard as encompassed by the biological hazards directive. It would seem, therefore, that the decision has already been taken at European level. It is a very simple request - that the Minister of State make the necessary amendment to regulation 224 of the safety, health and welfare at work general application, amendment, regulations. He has the power to do it. I understand and respect that he will wait for the report and the review, but this issue has been ongoing for some time. With the greatest respect, we should have that report and subsequent action on it without any further delay. As the Tánaiste pointed out in the previous reply, we do not have a crystal ball when it comes to this virus. In all likelihood we will face more waves of it, so we must put contingency measures in place now to ensure workers are protected to the greatest extent possible.
Every effort is being made to protect workers through the back to work protocols. That is an absolute guarantee. It is likewise in the health service. With regard to the changes and the biological agents regulations, this does not impact the reporting of Covid-19. The reporting requirements in the regulations require that the HSA be notified immediately of any accident or incident which may result in the release of a biological agent which could cause severe human infection or illness in a laboratory setting. For example, if a sample containing SARS-CoV-2 was released, this would have to be reported. The requirement for an employer to report a case of Covid-19 in a healthcare worker is not covered, or intended, under the biological agents regulations.
I can just set out what the situation is. It is appropriate that we wait for that report. Naturally, if the report makes recommendations, we will act. I have committed to discussing it in the House. We are very open on this as there is no issue with it.
