As an employer in Ireland, health and safety is not optional and it is not just paperwork. The law expects you to protect the people who work for you, and training is one of your most important tools. This guide explains your duties in plain English and shows how to meet them without drowning in admin.
Want to act now? You can set up health and safety courses for your team today.
Your duties as an employer
Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, employers must, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide a safe workplace, identify risks and give employees the information, instruction, training and supervision they need to work safely. The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) publishes guidance to help you meet these duties.
What you should provide
- A risk assessment that identifies the hazards in your workplace.
- A safety statement setting out how you manage those risks.
- Training matched to the risks and roles you identified.
- Records proving the training happened.
Online courses help you deliver awareness and understanding efficiently. They support, but do not replace, your duty to carry out risk assessments, provide task-specific training and supervise work where the risk requires it.
Why record keeping protects you
If an incident is investigated or your workplace is inspected, clear training records are powerful evidence that you acted responsibly. Verifiable certificates are better than printouts because they can be confirmed instantly. See how staff fit into this in our guide to staff training.
Making compliance manageable
You do not need to build training from scratch. Use ready-made online courses for awareness, keep your certificates in one place, and layer on practical, on-site instruction for higher-risk tasks. That combination is efficient and defensible.
A simple compliance checklist
If you want a practical starting point, work through this short checklist:
- Have you carried out a risk assessment for each area and task?
- Do you have an up-to-date written safety statement?
- Has every employee received induction and role-relevant training?
- Are training records and certificates stored and easy to produce?
- Do you have a process to refresh training and review risks?
- Is suitable PPE provided and maintained where needed?
What an inspection focuses on
If your workplace is inspected, the focus tends to be on whether you identified your risks, put sensible controls in place, and can show that staff were informed and trained. Clear documentation is your friend here. Being able to produce a risk assessment, a safety statement and verifiable training records quickly demonstrates that safety is managed rather than improvised.
Common employer mistakes
- Generic training that ignores the real tasks people do.
- No refreshers, so knowledge and records go stale.
- Missing records, leaving nothing to show at an audit.
- Skipping induction for new or temporary staff.
- Relying on online awareness alone for high-risk practical tasks.
Avoiding these is mostly about being systematic. Our staff training guide shows how to plan rollouts, and the 2005 Act explained sets out the duties behind them.
Making it efficient
Compliance does not have to be heavy. Use online awareness courses to cover the shared baseline quickly and consistently, keep certificates in one place, and reserve in-person time for the practical, site-specific training that genuinely needs a person on the floor. That blend keeps cost and disruption down while keeping your records strong.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is health and safety training a legal requirement for employers?
Yes. Employers must provide suitable information, instruction and training under the 2005 Act. The specific training depends on the risks in your workplace.
What records should I keep?
Keep your risk assessment, safety statement and a log of who completed which training and when, supported by verifiable certificates.
Can online training meet my obligations?
Online awareness training is a strong part of the picture. You still need risk assessments and task-specific, supervised training where the work demands it.
Who is responsible if an employee is not trained?
The employer carries the primary duty to ensure suitable training is provided, although employees must also cooperate and follow safety rules.
Set your workplace up for compliance
Give your team clear, certified training and keep tidy records you can produce on request.
View health and safety courses or ask about group training and record keeping.
