Smaller firms blamed for failure to reduce workplace-related cancer deaths

Smaller firms that fail to comply with safety regulations are a key contributor in the failure to reduce workplace-related cancer deaths, a conference in Dublin has heard.

The conference, organised by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), heard there are about 100,000 cancer deaths in Europe each year related to exposure to carcinogens in the workplace.

Delegates from across Europe were told there is no reason for anybody to die from exposure to toxic substances in the workplace, but, despite major awareness campaigns and inspections by regulators, the number of fatalities has not declined.

While it is difficult to quantify reliable data due to the timescales involved in illnesses developing, the HSA believes about 400 people die in Ireland each year from such exposures.

Darren Arkins, occupational health programme manager with the group, acknowledged the numbers are not decreasing. “They are plateauing,” he said. “We had hoped to see them start to drop from 2020, but that hasn’t happened.”

HSA chief executive Mark Cullen said compliance by small companies is an issue in Ireland, but put this down to a lack of resources or expertise.

“It’s not wilful, except in a very small number of cases,” he said. “For the most part it’s about a lack of knowledge or awareness regarding the products they are using.”

On a European basis, diesel engine exhaust alone is said to be responsible for 4,200 deaths from lung and other cancers each year.

An EU-backed campaign has sought to identify the roles that carry the greatest risks, with welding, plumbing, carpentry and stonemasonry all mentioned.

“You can find carcinogens almost everywhere,” Angela Crone of the Ministry for Labour in Hessen in Wiesbaden, Germany, told the event.

She said a project in Germany to monitor risks, mitigation and regulatory compliance there found diesel exhaust to be present in 20 per cent of workplaces, with silica dust and asbestos found in 17 and 14 per cent respectively.

She said all 12 of the carcinogens the authority had sought to concentrate on were found during the course of almost 5,000 inspections of workplaces.

The problem was not limited to the sorts of workplaces traditionally associated with exposure, such as construction and manufacturing, and cited the example of formaldehyde, which was commonly used in health settings.

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Barely 20 per cent of the smallest firms were found to have good safety protocols or high levels of regulatory compliance around the use of hazardous substances by their workers.

Meanwhile, twice as many – 41.2 per cent – were said to have poor or non-existent risk assessments and procedures.

The largest category of companies monitored (up to 250 employees) were far more likely to comply and have good procedures, including the involvement of medical expertise, but, Crone said, “even with them, 11 per cent don’t get it”.

Maria Luisa Cabral, director for quality jobs at the Directorate-General for Employment at the European Commission, said: “Nobody should get sick [from exposure to these substances], we know how to prevent it. But we need to ensure that that is translated into protections in the workplace.”