Construction Site Accident Claims in Ireland: What Really Matters

Summary: If you were hurt on a building site in Ireland, you may be able to bring a construction site accident claim even where you feel you “should have been more careful.” Irish law places strong safety duties on employers, main contractors and the Project Supervisor Construction Stage (PSCS). Most injury claims start at the Injuries Resolution Board (IRB). The value of your claim depends on injury type, work impact and the Judicial Council Guidelines.

Do I have a construction site accident claim in Ireland?

In simple terms, you may have a construction site accident claim in Ireland if you were injured while lawfully on a site and someone with a duty of care failed to plan, manage or carry out the work safely. Most non-fatal work accident claims start with an application to the Injuries Resolution Board within about two years of the accident or the date you first knew your injury was linked to work. These rules apply to most construction site injuries in Ireland, from falls on larger commercial builds to incidents on smaller domestic projects. In practice we often speak to workers who are unsure whether mixed responsibility or site pressure still leaves room for a claim.

If you want a wider overview beyond building sites, you can read our work accident claims guide which explains how Irish work accident claims are handled across different industries.

Who can bring a construction site accident claim in Ireland?

Many people think only direct employees can claim after a building site accident. That is not correct. Irish law protects most people who are lawfully on a site and who suffer injury due to negligence. We often see agency workers and self-employed trades wrongly told they have no claim because they are “not employees” on paper.

You may be able to claim if you were:

• A direct employee of a main contractor or subcontractor working on the site.

• An agency worker sent to the site by a labour provider.

• A self-employed tradesperson, such as a roofer, electrician or plasterer, working under site rules.

• A delivery driver, engineer, architect or other visitor who was allowed onto the site.

• A member of the public injured by site activity, for example by falling material or unsafe work at a boundary.

What matters isn't your label on paper, but who controlled the work and who owed you a duty of care at the time of the accident.

How construction site accidents actually happen

Construction sites change every day. Structures go up, scaffolds move, trenches open and close and heavy plant works in tight areas. When planning, training or supervision is weak, workers get hurt. We often see a build-up of small shortcuts on site ending in one serious event.

Typical construction accidents include falls from height, slips and trips on debris, collapse of excavations, being hit by moving plant or falling loads and injuries from faulty tools or scaffolding. Long-term harms also arise, such as back damage from heavy blocks, hearing loss from power tools and breathing problems linked to dust or fumes. These are some of the most common construction site injuries in Ireland that we see in practice.

These accidents seldom come from “bad luck.” Often there's a root cause, such as missing edge protection, poor traffic plans, gaps in training or pressure to rush work without proper equipment.

Who may be responsible on a building site?

On a construction project there are usually several people with legal roles. They sit on top of the general duty under safety law to provide a safe place of work, safe systems and proper training. We often see arguments between contractors about who was really in charge. That doesn't remove your right to bring a claim.

Common duty holders include the Client, the Project Supervisor Design Process (PSDP), the Project Supervisor Construction Stage (PSCS), the main contractor, individual subcontractors and direct employers. On larger jobs the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) is often notified and an AF2 form records who held the main safety roles.

In a claim, more than one party can be responsible. For example, the PSCS might be at fault for weak site traffic rules, a subcontractor might be at fault for poor housekeeping and your direct employer might be at fault for lack of training or faulty gear. The court can divide fault between them. You don't need to decide this alone; your solicitor will work out who should be named.

Irish courts also recognise that construction workers sometimes feel pressure to “get on with it” using poor equipment or set-ups. Even if you feel you made a mistake, you may still have a strong claim, with any share of personal fault treated as contributory negligence rather than a full defence. In one scaffolding case, Marsella v J&P Construction Ltd (High Court, 2004), an experienced worker was found partly responsible, but most fault was placed on the main contractor where the scaffold was not safely assembled. Another example is McGann v Manning Construction Ltd (High Court, 2004), where a worker injured during renovation works sought damages and the court examined the employer’s duty to provide a safe system of work on site.

First 24 hours after a construction site accident

In the first day or two, simple steps can make a big difference to your claim and your recovery. Work accidents should be treated with the same care as any serious incident, even if you hope to return to work quickly. We often see people try to “shake it off” and only report the accident days later, which can still be workable but leaves more room for dispute.

Evidence that helps a construction site accident claim

Construction claims often stand or fall on paperwork and site records. Standard personal injury evidence still matters, such as medical reports, wage details and photos. On top of this, good construction claims make use of safety documents that should already exist under law. In practice we often see gaps in inspection records or RAMS that line up with how the accident happened.

Useful items include the site Safety Statement, risk assessments and method statements (often called RAMS), induction and toolbox talk records, scaffold inspection records (such as GA3 forms), lifting plans, plant inspection certificates and site diaries. Where a project is large enough to need HSA notification, the AF2 form can help identify who was PSCS and PSDP at the time.

If a scaffold collapsed, missing or incomplete GA3 inspection records can point to a breach. If a trench caved in, records may show that support systems were not designed or maintained correctly. In many cases your solicitor will ask the defendants to hand over these records during the claim.

Don't worry if you don't have these documents yourself. Your job is to keep what you can and to give clear details about the site, the date, the companies present and any witnesses who saw what happened.

IRB process in a construction context

Most non-fatal construction injury claims start with an application to the Injuries Resolution Board. The Board looks at whether the claim should be assessed and, if so, values it using the Judicial Council Guidelines. In practice many straightforward construction injury claims resolve at IRB stage, while more serious or complex cases continue to court.

In a construction claim you may need to name more than one respondent. That could include your direct employer, the main contractor, the PSCS and sometimes a separate scaffolding or plant company. Getting those details right early can save time later. The IRB explains the steps in its public guide on injuries.ie.

Where liability is heavily disputed, where injuries are life-changing or where there are several defendants arguing among themselves, the claim may leave the IRB and move on to court. Many cases still settle by agreement once key facts and medical evidence are clear. From experience, good early medical and site evidence makes later negotiations much more straightforward.

How compensation for construction injuries is assessed

Compensation in Ireland has two main parts: general damages for pain, suffering and the effect on your daily life and special damages for out-of-pocket losses and lost income. Both parts can be significant where a worker can no longer do heavy work or where retraining is needed. From experience, construction injuries that stop heavy work can have a much larger future loss-of-earnings element than many people expect.

The Judicial Council Guidelines replaced the old Book of Quantum. They set out value bands for different injuries, such as ankle fractures, serious back injuries or hand trauma. For more than one injury, the court usually takes the most serious one as the starting point and then applies a smaller uplift for the rest, rather than adding several full figures together.

Special damages in construction cases can be complex. They may include past and future loss of earnings, overtime and bonus loss, loss of craft allowances, tools and ticket costs, travel costs to treatment, care and support and the cost of aids or home adjustments. Where a worker can no longer safely work on sites, long-term earnings can be affected, so expert evidence is often needed. When you set the Judicial Council Guidelines alongside real figures from your payslips and social welfare records, you can see how a construction injury can turn into a larger future loss-of-earnings claim than many people expect.

To learn more about how Irish claims are valued, you can read the current Guidelines on the Judicial Council site in the Personal Injuries Guidelines PDF. Larger construction claims can end up in the High Court at the Four Courts in Dublin, with lower-value claims heard in the relevant Circuit Court for your county, for example the Circuit Court sitting at Washington Street Courthouse in Cork or your local Circuit Court.

We discuss pay, sick leave and income gaps in more detail in our work related injury sick pay guide which many construction workers use when planning how to manage their finances during recovery.

Construction accident scenarios snapshot

This simple table is a high-level summary of common construction accidents we see in practice. It's not a list of every possible scenario, but it shows how facts, hazards and likely duty holders interact. In practice we often see the same patterns repeat across many projects, regardless of county or project size.

timeline
  title Typical 2-year time limit for an Irish work accident claim
  0 : Accident on site
  0-24 months : Usual window to start IRB claim
  24+ months : Claim usually out of time unless exception applies