New laws could see company bosses jailed if they cause a worker's death

LAWS THAT COULD see negligent company managers face jail time and organisations heavily penalised for accidental deaths may be introduced next year – more than a decade after they were first proposed.

The Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2016 recently passed through the Seanad and has progressed to a committee stage, where it will be examined before it goes to the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil senator Mark Daly, who led the debate on the bill, said that legislation closed a gap in Irish law, which meant there was currently no clear legislation to hold corporate entities and state agencies criminally liable for unlawful deaths that occurred as a result of their actions or negligence.

The bill would create two new offences: ‘Grossly negligent management causing death’ and ‘corporate manslaughter’.

The first offence means a senior official in a company or state body could be charged and given a jail sentence in the event of a death. A corporation could be charged with the latter, resulting in a large fine.

Jail time

Speaking to Fora, Daly said he hopes the bill will get through the legislative process and become law next year.

“It will be at committee stage in the first week of January, and if there is enough time allocated the final stage may get done by Easter, we could have it all done before the summer if the Dáil sits late,” he said.

Senator Mark Daly leading debate on the bill in the Seanad

“What is in place at the moment mostly goes under health and safety law. If something like the blood transfusion scandal was to happen again, the people who sent out contaminated blood would not go to jail.”

That scandal first broke in 1994, when it emerged that some women received contaminated anti-D, a product given to prevent Rh disease, a disorder where antibodies in a pregnant woman’s blood destroy her baby’s blood cells.

It emerged that the The Blood Transfusion Service Board had been alerted in 1991 that a batch of anti-D produced years earlier may be contaminated, but did not immediately raise the alarm.

Over 1,200 women were infected via the anti-D product, as well as many others through transfusions and blood-clotting products.

“We hope that there is never a need for anyone to be prosecuted under this,” Daly said.

“Most people in (companies) and the public service are great people and are doing the best job that they can, but if someone knowingly causes death, or if their actions or inaction results in the loss of life, then I think that they should go to jail.”

A similar bill, the Criminal Justice (Corporate Manslaughter) Bill, was proposed in 2010 after a recommendation made by the Law Reform Commission in a 2005 report.

A report was prepared on that bill, but it has not yet been published and the laws never progressed until the matter was recently raised again.

Changes

However Daly claimed that Fine Gael was still trying to remove a key section of the bill, which he said would limit its effectiveness.

“They want to remove a provision that would mean that people can go to jail for corporate manslaughter, which I think is critical,” he said.

A spokesman for the government said the bill wasn’t being opposed at the second stage but confirmed that “amendments will be proposed at committee stage”.

“The bill is currently being examined with a view to this. We won’t speculate on how these amendments will be addressed at this stage,” he said.