Response To Two Case Studies

Safety Statements:The legislation requires all employers to prepare a Safety Statement in writing for their workplaces. In the case of schools the employer in this context is the Board of Management / VEC; teachers are not employers. “It [the Safety Statement] should be drawn up by school management in consultation with their employees ….”. Preparing a Safety Statement requires an employer to “…identify the hazards and assess the risks, otherwise known as carrying out a risk assessment ….”4. A hazard is defined as “anything which has a potential to cause personal injury or ill health”, while risk is “the likelihood that personal injury or ill health could occur from a particular hazard; assessing the risk indicates how severe the effect could be.”The school management may ask a third party, e.g., a science teacher, to carry out a risk assessment for a particular room, e.g., a science laboratory. There is no requirement that pupils be involved in this activity. Irrespective of who actually carries out the work, however, the Safety Statement, once accepted by the management, becomes the sole responsibility of the management. The management is “…ultimately responsible for the safety of everyone in the school/college and