Workplace Accident

Workplace Accident 

Workplace Accidents* continue at high levels in Ireland in 2010

Accidents and occupational illness at work are still a common occurrence in Ireland despite almost 20 years of progressive legislation and a certain level of enforcement through the Health and Safety Authority. 
Even with the  obvious incentive of lower insurance and employee absence costs for employers who take Health and Safety at work seriously, we still have high rates of workplace fatalities and serious injuries.
According to the Health & Safety Authority, the boom years of the Irish economy  saw workplace accidents resulting in injury hold steady at the 8,000 per annum level. This was an improvement on the peak years around 2000 when reported accidents hit 10,000. More recently the figures appear to be improving but much of the recent reduction in accident and injury rates is attributed to the decline in employment rather than an improvement in health and safety.

Workplace accidents and illnesses at work can be tough cases

Accidents at work can lead to complex legal situations and complex legal cases. This is caused by the following factors:
  • Liability in such cases is almost always contested by the employer - even where the accident appears to be clearly the employer's fault.
  • There may be uncertainty as to who is at fault where two or more parties may have an involvement in the cause of the accident or when two or more parties had control over the location where the accident occurred. This is a very common problem on building sites.
  • The accident may occur while working “off site” such as when a delivery man is working on the premises of another or an employee is sent to the premises of another employer to complete a task and suffers an injury on that other parties premises. The degree to which responsibility for their health and safety has been delegated to the occupier of the second premises may be at issue.
  • The accident may have been caused or contributed to by the employee.
  • Not every accident at work is the employer’s fault. Sometimes an event occurs that leads to injury which is not the result of either negligence or breach of a duty to protect the employee's safety.
Because every workplace accident or injury is different, the precise circumstances of your accident, the nature and course of your injury, the training you received, the witnesses that you will rely upon in proving your case, all these complex matters must be given detailed attention from the very outset.

Our Approach

Cian O'Carroll has successfully taken hundreds of cases for employees injured in the workplace over the past 20 years or so.
Over that time he has seen and learned a lot about different types of workplace and different types of risk but above all, he believes that a case is won - not at court - but in the office. It is won in the early weeks and months after you instruct us to act for you. The time spent building the foundations of the case always rewards later, both by building a stronger case that is much more likely to win and in turn with a stronger case, having a much greater likelihood of achieving a better financial outcome.