Court Fines Of €190,000 For Marina Village Site Accident

The late Gerry O’Connell

t was a death that sent shockwaves through Greystones, as Marina Village construction worker Gerry O’Connell fell through an unprotected gap in the scaffolding.

And this week, at a sitting of Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court, Glenveagh Contracting Limited and KDK Scaffolding Limited were fined a total of €190,000 for the site accident.

According to Darragh McCann in The Bray People, Glenveagh pleaded guilty to an offence under Section 12 of the Safety, Health and Welfare of Work Act 2005, contrary to Section 77(9)(a), whilst KDK pleaded guilty to an offence under Section 15(3) of the same Act.

At the core of the court case was the simple fact that bricklayer Mr O’Connell fell through a gap measuring 40cm when the Scaffolding Guidelines 2019 state that it should have measured no more than 22.5cm.

As Health and Safety Authority inspector David O’Connell began examining the scene on December 10th, 2019, the day after the accident, this week he told the court that the companies involved in the Marina Village construction site had four ways that they could have safeguarded the scaffolding. Following the incident itself, Glenveagh had told the HSA, “It was a bad error, it was our mistake”, and the site “could have been safer, with solutions available, just not in place”.

Both the deceased’s brother, James, and his widow, Mary, gave victim impact statements to the court, the former describing standing by Gerry’s graveside, saying, “I was emptied and hollowed out inside”. For the latter, the past seven years for her and their daughter, Megan, she said, had been the hardest of her life.

“Now we can get some closure,” she finished. “Gerry is with us. May he rest in peace.”

Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin asked the two accused why the issue had not been identified before the tragedy, stating, “There were lots of qualified people. Why wasn’t it noticed?”

Stephen Garvey

Present in court, Glenveagh Group CEO Stephen Garvey read out a letter of apology to the family of the deceased.

In summary, the judge said that the incident was clearly not the result of the companies cutting corners, given their considerable experience and expertise together, but she described the failure as “a glaring, literal hole” through which Mr O’Connell fell.

With counsel for the prosecution, James Kelly, pointing out that the maximum penalty for both offences is a fine of €3million or a prison term not exceeding two years, Judge Ní Chúlachain settled on €250,000 for Glenveagh and €125,000 for KDK.

Taking the guilty pleas into consideration, and the new safety measures introduced by both companies, those fines were reduced to €125,000 and €65,000 respectively.