Seeing is believing

Date: 25/09/1997

Fresh evidence has emerged of the scale of the challenge facing the EU's Agency for Safety and Health at Work, which clearly has its work cut out in clamping down on dangerous practices.

The scene at a recent conference organised by the agency in Bilbao, which was attended by Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn and the Spanish and Luxembourg premiers, was enough to make any self-respecting health and safety official turn white.

As delegates were listening to speaker after speaker underlining the need to do more to tackle the problem, with statistics showing more than 6,000 people die each year in the Union from work-related accidents and injuries, building workers were busy trying to complete construction of the prestigious venue - the Guggenheim Museum - many of them without the appropriate helmets and safety harnesses.