It Won’t Happen To Me

Unfortunately, all too often, this is the rationale behind many a tradesman’s thinking when it comes to asbestos and its lethal effects.

We should all learn then from a very tragic case that came to light in Ireland recently where three members of the same family died as a result of exposure to asbestos. To make matters worse the three that died were two brothers and their sister.

The one brother was involved in cutting asbestos sheets for the building trade in the 1960’s, the other brother was a pipefitter in Australia in the 6o’s and 70’s and their sister was exposed to it when she washed her builder husbands overalls after he had been working with asbestos.

Three people, all suffering the same fate, all exposed in different places at different times, but all three dying from a mesothelioma, a tumour around the lungs which has a more than 90% association with asbestos exposure.

So please don’t think “it won’t happen to me” think carefully about what you do and think about booking onto one of C&D’s Asbestos Awareness courses.

Here's a link to HSE’s Mesothelioma campaign video:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/campaign/video.htm

Tragic Tale From Ireland

The Irish Independent newspaper of Tuesday 25th November has a tragic story of two close friends and neighbours who, unfortunately, died together doing something they had done “hundreds of times before.” The pair were inflating a tyre on a tractor one of them owned, in a field, when the accident occurred.

A close friend is quoted as saying, “they would have blown up tyres hundreds of times in the past without a problem. This time something went wrong, horribly wrong”

Link to the story:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/entire-community-in-deep-shock-over-freak-accident-that-killed-best-friends-30765860.html

A sobering story that reminds us all of the very distinct possibility that something we do as a matter of course and that we have done many times before, may well one day cause us, or others, injury. Our thoughts go out to the two men’s families and many friends.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg433.pdf - Health and Safety Executive

“Safety during tyre inflation in motor vehicle repair” leaflet details safety precautions for dealing with the changing and inflation of the tyres.

Tyre inflation is something that happens on demolition sites and in demolition company garages on a regular basis but ask yourself the following questions;-

• Do you have a risk assessment and method statement to cover this work?
• If you use a tyre repair company with mobile fitters do they have “suitable & sufficient” risk assessments and method statements to cover their work?
• Does the hose repair fitter who deals with machine hose failures have a “suitable & sufficient” risk assessment and method statement, or do you say "It is only the hose guy and he has done this job thousands of times?"
• If the tyres need to be removed and replaced is there a manual handling assessment in place?

When you have done all this and you are satisfied that nothing will go wrong just take a few minutes to consider “What if?”

Dublin landmark Liberty Hall may be up for demolition

Liberty Hall in Dublin is well known for a number of reasons. The headquarters of the Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union (SIPTU) it used to be the tallest building in Ireland measuring 195 feet.

As for the history behind the building and the structure that stood before it we turn to Wikipedia for a concise explanation:

Standing on Beresford Place and Eden Quay, near the Custom House, the original Liberty Hall used to be a hotel before becoming James Connolly's personal fortress in Dublin. Following the outbreak of World War I a banner reading "We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland" was hung on its front wall, and within was printed the newspaper The Irish Worker. The Irish Worker was shut down by the British Government for sedition as outlined in the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). It was replaced for a short time by a paper called the Worker until that was also banned, and in 1915 the Workers' Republic was edited by Connolly until the Rising in 1916.

The original building was demolished in the 1950s due to becoming unsafe and the current replacement built in 1965. Now SIPTU want it demolished and replaced with a larger building that has both more facilities and is more power efficient. Depending on how big the new building is it may retake the crown as tallest in Ireland.

For the moment there are no set plans for demolition, but keep it on your radar in case more progress is made by SIPTU in their bid to replace it.

You can read more about this story as reported on the BBC News website