Head Of Training, The Healthy Work Company

April 5, 2017

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Aer Lingus fined €250k over Dublin Airport death

aer lingusAer Lingus has been fined €250,000 for health and safety failings following the death of 55-year-old John Murray, a cargo driver at Dublin Airport.

The incident

John Murray from Skerries, Co Dublin, was climbing down from a loading bay at a cargo warehouse with some light parcels at the airport at night when he fell and suffered fatal head injuries, the Journal reported.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard he was discovered lying on his back unconscious approximately 25 minutes later. He suffered fractures to the base of his skull and despite undergoing surgery to relieve swelling of the brain he died several days later.

Whilst my clients welcome today’s verdict, it does little to ease their pain.

Safety failings

The company admitted “exposing non-employees to risks to their health and safety in relation to a practice which had developed of cargo drivers habitually gaining access to a loading bay by climbing onto and off a three foot high loading dock”.

The company’s failures included:

  • failure to manage and conduct undertakings in such a way as to ensure, that individuals who were not its employees were not exposed to risks to their safety, health or welfare at or near Gate 7 at Aer Lingus Cargo Warehouse on November 5, 2014
  • failure to ensure that adequate measures were in place to protect people from the risk of a fall from height
  • failure to implement its written procedures dealing with driver access to loading bays.

Sentencing

On sentencing the Judge said that Aer Lingus was a “flagship company” and people expected it to run a good operation but in this case it had not. He noted the maximum fine applicable to this offence was €3 million but said he did not believe this was an extreme case and imposed a fine of €250,000.

Mitigation

Judge Nolan noted that the company had a generally good record and that steps had been taken to address this practice since the incident. He noted the company’s early guilty plea and its apology to the family.

Shane Murphy SC, defending, said that there was now strictly supervised access, a fence around the loading bay and signs in place. Spot checks were also carried out. He agreed that there had been no recurrence of this activity.

Mr Murphy said Aer Lingus deeply regretted that this tragic situation came to pass. He said the company had cooperated fully with the investigation and the current situation meets the implementation of best practice.

Dermot McNamara on behalf of the family said: “Whilst my clients welcome today’s verdict, it does little to ease their pain.

“John Murray went to work on 5 November, 2014 and his family expected him to return home safely.

“He died because Aer Lingus did not open and close the designated pedestrian door and instead drivers had to access the warehouse via the loading bay.”

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Health & Safety News Round Up: April 6th | Callidus Health & Safety
6 years ago

[…] Aer Lingus has been fined €250,000 for health and safety failings following the death of 55-year-old John Murray, a cargo driver at Dublin Airport. (SHP Online) […]