Firm fined over lead poisoning accident

Firm fined over lead poisoning accident

4 February 2015

A CONSTRUCTION company has been fined £2,500 after a workmen received lead poisoning while working in one of Downpatrick’s most historic houses.

The workman was stripping paint from the windows in 400 year-old Finnebrogue House when he took ill with flu-like symptoms. He was admitted to hospital where tests showed he had high levels of lead in his blood.

The firm carrying out the renovation project at Finnebrogue House, B.A. Shaw Contractors Limited, appeared at Downpatrick Court on Monday and admitted four breaches of health and safety legislation.

A prosecution lawyer explained that the firm was carrying out renovations at Finnebrogue House in Downpatrick in early 2013 and had hired a subcontractor to strip the paint down to the wood on window frames in the property.

After the workman took ill medical tests were conducted on other employees and subcontractors who were also found to have elevated levels of lead, although none of them were showing symptoms.

It was later discovered that stripping the very old lead-based paint turned it into dust, which was then found on all three floors of the site and in the canteen.

The defence solicitor said B.A. Shaw Contractors Limited is a small family business that began constructing homes int he 1980s, but now carries out restoration work on historic buildings.

He said the company had carried out health and safety and risk assessments on the 400-year-old Finnebrogue property but had not dealt specifically with lead as a hazard.

“This was an unusual event and the risk was unknown beforehand,” he said, adding that work on the premises stopped for six months while the property was decontaminated.

He said the company had originally wanted all of the window frames to be stripped of paint off-site, which may have solved this entire problem. 

However, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s Historic Buildings Unit imposed a requirement that everything must remain in place during the renovations.

He said the subcontractor who stripped the paint was the only one who displayed symptoms of lead poisoning and he made a “full recovery” after six days in hospital.

The company has now put in risk assessments regarding lead paint and has contacted other companies restoring historic homes in Northern Ireland about the associated risks. “They believe that many contracts will now benefit from their experience,” he said.

Deputy District Judge Mr Terence Dunlop said this was “an unfortunate incident.” “It was essentially inadvertent. It wasn’t due to any cavalier actions of B.A. Shaw Limited,” he said.