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Draft Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) Regulations 2010

The Health and Safety Authority requests comments and observations on the proposals for Draft Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) Regulations 2010, the associated draft Code of Practice, Guidelines to the Safety, Health and Welfare (Biological Agents) Regulations 2010 and the draft Regulatory Impact Analysis prior to submission of the proposals to the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment (Mr Dara Calleary) for his consideration.

The draft Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) Regulations 2010 are designed to transpose fully into Irish law Directive 2000/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 on the protection of workers from risks related to exposure to biological agents at work (hereafter referred to as the Biological Agents Directive). Directive 2000/54/EC is a consolidated Directive, which repealed and replaced Council Directive 90/679/EEC of 26 November 1990 as amended by Council Directive 93/88/EEC of 12 October 1993, Commission Directive 95/30/EC of 30 June 1995, Commission Directive 97/59/EC of 7 October 1997 and Commission Directive 97/65/EC of 26 November 1997.

Those Directives were originally transposed in Ireland through the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) Regulations 1994 (S.I. No. 146 of 1994) and the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) (Amendment) Regulations 1998 (S.I. No. 248 of 1998), which are intended to be repealed and replaced by the proposed Regulations.

The objective is to replace both sets of existing Regulations with one set of Regulations which will:

  1. Transpose in full the requirements of the Biological Agents Directive and remove a current classification anomaly.
  2. With reference to 1 above, allow the employer, having completed a risk assessment, to dispense with certain group 3 containment measures for specific agents identified in a relevant code of practice and allow the Authority to publish guidelines, as deemed necessary, specifying minimum containment measures which shall be applied.
  3. Enable by regulation, the publication of the Schedule of the Safety Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) (Amendment) Regulations 1998 as a Code of Practice. It is proposed, in the interest of the safety of the relevant workforce, to regularly update the Code of Practice, having regard to the latest and most up to date scientific information.
  4. Simplify and improve on the existing Regulations by reference to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the General Application Regulations 2007.
  5. Clarify the notification process and clearly align the Regulation with the requirements of the Directive.

The text of the following may be accessed at the links below :

The closing date for receiving submissions is 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday 3 March 2010

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