Document Type

Theses, Masters

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Construction engineering, Public and environmental health, Occupational health, Environmental sciences (social aspects

Publication Details

Successfully submitted for the award of Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) to the Technological University Dublin in 2004.

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this research was to assess factors affecting safety performance on twenty apartment construction sites in Dublin using qualitative and quantitative risk assessment techniques. The quantitative techniques involved observing compliance with recommended safety procedures. The qualitative techniques involved an assessment of site safety management documentation and semi structured interviews with site management regarding site safety procedures. The field work was carried out between November 2003 and October 2004. The results showed that five sites out of twenty had high standards of safety and prevented all possible falls from heights. The five best performing sites were characterised by size of company in that that the largest construction companies were found to be the best performing. What was also found was that when a site performed well in terms of safety, it performed well across all safety categories. Evidence showing that the presence on site of a safety representative improved safety relevant to other sites was also found. The five best performing sites all had a safety representative, whilst the remaining 15 sites had a lesser number of safety representatives. However the overall number of safety representatives was too low to prove statistical significance, Interviews with site management regarding safety standards in the construction sector over the last five years found the following. The majority of site management stated there has been large improvement in safety. However, interviewees also stated that there has been no improvement in relation to buildings being any safer to build and hence no design improvements. Furthermore the clients influence on safety as required by legislation has not improved and in some cases has lessened. In terms of extrapolating the results against the literature the following can be stated. There has been a modest but nevertheless welcome improvement in site safety behaviour when comparing this research to comparable and previous Irish site safety research carried out in 2002.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/D7KP58

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