Irish Water has unveiled a guide on safe design for industry, it has been announced.

Developed by Irish Water’s asset delivery team (engineering services) in collaboration with Health, Safety, Quality and Environment (HSQE) and with Arup Consulting Engineers, the publication provides important guidance across Ireland’s water industry on how to prevent future safety risks by incorporating key safety considerations early on in design phase of assets.

The document is a key output of Irish Water’s safety action plan - ensuring the organisation's assets or services do not cause harm. It will be updated regularly and is available at: www.water.ie/docs/IW-Safe-Design-Guidance.pdf.

Safety at the heart of everything

A core value of Irish Water is putting safety at the heart of everything it does, the organisation said. It said that:

• All accidents are preventable
• No activity is so important that it cannot be done safely
• We all have a right to go home every day unharmed
• We all have a responsibility to look after one another and ourselves
• We all have a role to play in achieving our goal

The quality of its designs can have a significant impact on safety during construction, operation, maintenance and demolition of its assets.

It unveiled the document to provide guidance on the safe design of water and wastewater facilities being constructed and operated by Irish Water or its contractors.

Safe design begins at the concept design stage. In these early stages there is more opportunity to design-out hazards or integrate control measures with the original design concept and functional requirements of the asset.

Safe design applies to every phase in the asset lifecycle, from design to decommissioning. This means designing out hazards as the plant is constructed, commissioned, operated, maintained and decommissioned.

General principles of prevention

Designers must take account of the General Principles of Prevention as set out in Schedule 3 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, when preparing designs.

The General Principles of Prevention (GPoP) are:

• The avoidance of risks.
• The evaluation of unavoidable risks.
• The combatting of risks at source.
• The adaptation of work to the individual, especially regarding the design of places of work, the choice of work equipment and the choice of systems of work, with a view, in particular, to alleviating monotonous work and work at a predetermined work rate and to reducing the effect of this work on health.
• The adaptation of the place of work to technical progress.
• The replacement of dangerous articles, substances or systems of work by safe or less dangerous articles, substances or systems of work.
• The giving of priority to collective protective measures over individual protective measures.
• The development of an adequate prevention policy in relation to safety, health and welfare at work, which takes account of technology, organisation of work, working conditions, social factors and the influence of factors related to the working environment.
• The giving of appropriate training and instructions to employees.

Ability to influence safety of a design

Safety by design is most effective when applied at the earliest stage of the design process, Irish Water stated. There is a direct link to cost and difficulty of implementing controls further along the asset lifecycle.

The most cost effective and enduring controls with regard to safety are usually applied between the concept stage and the detailed design.

As the project progresses towards construction and operation, these controls get more difficult to introduce along with a substantial difference in cost.

In the document, guidance is provided on specific design safety issues relevant to water and wastewater facilities. Examples of good practice are presented, and some examples are shown where the design has not resulted in optimum safety outcomes, Irish Water said.