Former MP raises health and safety debate

Former Labour MP Tony Benn has raised the debate on health and safety to a global level when he delivered the fourth UU/HSE Annual Health and Safety Lecture "Health and Safety and Human Survival" in Belfast this week.

Speaking at the University of Ulster on Thursday Mr Benn said the health and safety of people at work had become a real issue and that safeguards by law had been introduced to protect those who are at risk.

“This protection is still far from comprehensive at home and the pressure to privatise the public services will inevitability widen the dangers from lowered standards,” he said. “But if we look at the world where factories and services are being outsourced because it is cheaper to do so there is no comparable system of safeguards and the exploitation of people to make a bigger profit for the multinationals poses severe threats to workers' health and safety."

Welcoming Mr Benn to Northern Ireland, Professor Gerry McKenna, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ulster, praised his special political legacy of transparent honesty and integrity. "Tony Benn has unique cross-party respect for his political integrity and for his skills and dedication as one of the most distinguished parliamentarians of our time,” Professor McKenna said.

“He is also a brilliant speaker and a supreme political diarist, whose volumes of diaries have served as a very personal chronicle of some of the most important issues that have shaped our way of life".

Liam McBrinn, Chairperson of Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland, the lecture sponsor, said Mr Benn’s lecture had lifted the debate on health and safety at work unto a new plane.

Tony Benn's words will I know reverberate for sometime and I believe will cause some to stop and re-think how they approach and manage this aspect of their business,” he added.

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