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TODAY IS THE day many businesses have longed for in the past few difficult months. Ireland’s exit from lockdown restrictions due to Covid-19 has been accelerated, and today we expect to see more of a return to as close to normal as we can hope for in a pandemic.
It means that from today, apart from some exceptions, many more businesses and activities will resume including places of worship, cinemas, gyms, hairdressers and sporting activities.
The speed of the initial lockdown restrictions was then followed by a cautious phased lifting strategy, which has been swiftly fast-tracked, creating a minefield for businesses to navigate as they struggle to adapt to the ever-changing landscape. Many businesses across all sectors have been sadly unable to cope or absorb such economic shock and will not be reopening today, or may never reopen.
For those businesses that are reopening today, heightened compliance requirements regarding health and safety measures present fresh challenges and risk of potential liability.
Such workplace challenges must, therefore, be met to ensure the requisite safeguards are in place to protect the general public and employees, whilst limiting the contributory risks of a potential second wave of the pandemic.
Accordingly, businesses and employers throughout the country and across all industries have many compliance planning and legal considerations to make in adapting to this new regulatory landscape.
The primary legislation covering the health and safety of people in the workplace is the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
It sets out the rights and obligations of both employers and employees. Whilst also providing for substantial fines and penalties for breaches of these health and safety laws including the potential for criminal prosecutions. This legalisation applies to all employers, self-employed and employees, including fixed-term and temporary staff.
Initial health & safety steps
Employers should by now have carried out risk assessments to see if there is a risk of Covid-19 outbreak in the workplace and taken whatever measures are necessary to mitigate such risk.
Businesses this morning should be confident they’ve updated their safety statements and ensured staff have received the necessary training as required. They should take into consideration the views of their staff and any reservations they may have about their return to the workplace.
Staff should also by now have completed a “return to work questionnaire” devised by the Health and Safety Authority (HAS) before returning to the workplace.
This self-declaration document asks a series of questions of staff, relating to potential symptoms, diagnosis or contact with Covid-19 patients.
Data protection issues
Employers will be obliged to ensure that any precautionary measures taken which may involve the use of personal data to include health data, must be “necessary and proportionate” as advised by the Data Protection Commission (DPC).
Employers will need to ensure that existing data rights and entitlements of staff are not now disregarded or breached, for instance, they need to tread carefully when handling receipt of and storing such sensitive information as contained within the “return to work questionnaire” or face complaints being lodged with DPC.
Isolation areas
Employers should by now have allocated a designated area within the workplace that can act as an isolation zone for any suspected cases of Covid-19 amongst staff. The purpose is that the member of staff is kept in that room until arrangements are made for their safe removal from the work premises.
This measure, along with other HAS protocols such as good hand hygiene, social distancing, additional cleaning and disinfection controls, will all need to be by now and such mandatory standards will need to be maintained.
It is also crucial for employers to keep up to date with the guidelines being devised and tweaked by the Department of Health and the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) in their efforts to combat and suppress the virus.
These are understandably testing times for both employers and employees in this post lockdown period. However, it is vital for employers to remain diligent and compliant with such health and safety standards or risk not only the adverse health effects of this pandemic but also the cost implications of potential employment law claims or statutory fines for perceived failures.
Jason O’ Sullivan, is a Solicitor and Public Affairs Consultant at J.O.S Solicitors.
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With MM as Taoiseach I have no faith in him guiding us through the pandemic. He and his party ruined this country once before and not that long ago. I can’t believe he is Taoiseach.
@2thFairy: It was a worldwide recession, it is unlikely that he or FF caused it.
@The SEO Crypto Trading Guru: was it also unlikely they lied to people about the imf in Dublin as they were pictured in Dublin, how about creating nama, how about the fact they could create legislation for everything and bring in emergency this that and the other but couldn’t do it when it came to locking up the Anglo circle…..MM and FF have literally blood on their hands from people who suffered during the last recession and now they are back in to ruin us again or carry on the misery imposed by FG
@Michael Patrick Newell: nama was a good idea or else the alternative???? And how would your alternative played out in your perfect world??
So your for government interference in the legal process? Stalin would be proud comrade.
Blood on hands. That old chestnut. Prove suicides were higher in that period then any other time over say last 20 years. Hint they weren’t.
It was global, it was down to collective greed in property market and ff not taking unpopular decisions of tight regulations.had they imposed strict mortgage rules they would be out of power back then.
@The SEO Crypto Trading Guru: Recessions are not “world wide” the economic down turn was “world wide”. Ireland’s problems were worsened by Government screw ups and elitist political actions to protect the banks. Only FF and SF could make Fine Gael look…… decent
FF I wouldnt trust to tell me the weather, never mind run the country. Although I suppose I wouldnt trust SF to tell me the time, nevermind the weather.
@Everyone: the recession was caused by the underlying assumption that the housing market won’t fail being found out to be false. It affected every country whose economy relied on this assumption and the subsequent credit crunch had worldwide implications.
This is going to be a disaster for bars and restaurants. Trying to control times and interactions of customers will be impossible. Not looking forward to going back to work.
This is just gonna be messy especially when the pubs reopen, how do those in power and the likes think pubs and restaurants are gonna enforce social distancing, people aren’t robots and this isn’t school time……we can’t even get everyone to wear masks on public transport never mind trying to get them to social distance when they wanna enjoy a night out
@Michael Patrick Newell: Anyone going to a pub or restaurant should have the cop on to realise they are entering a high risk environment and so abide by social distancing. If they don’t we will risk spikes and risk having the pubs closed again.
@NotMyIreland: People will do as they please, if lockdown proved a lot of things, its that certain individuals thought they knew better than anyone and did as they please
Who would want to be an employer in this country, with all the rules, regulations, conditions, state quangos, form filling, taxes, etc not to mention COVID.
Thank you journal for this article. Very very useful.
Lots of issues from a consumer point too. My sons gym just canceled his contract as their insurance won’t cover under 18’s anymore. Is this legal? Is there free reign to cancel any contracts now? Genuine question.
@Julz: Honestly, if an insurance company has calculated that his life is not safe working there, I’d say he dodged a bullet. Here’s hoping he finds a better place to work for.
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