More needs to be done by both the construction industry and other stakeholders to ensure higher levels of protection among workers, including compliance with all the relevant legislation, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority said.

Contacted yesterday, the watchdog's chief executive officer, Mark Gauci, said planning permits should be linked with occupational health and safety regulations. Most of the building permits issued do not take certain health and safety requirements into consideration, he pointed out.

"This might lead to a situation where an employer starts operating from a building - even a new one - which is not compliant with requirements and is, thus, liable to criminal prosecution under the occupational health and safety law," he said.

On Monday, a 27-year-old construction worker James Aquilina, from Siggiewi, died after falling seven storeys in Qawra. He was the fifth construction site fatality of the year. A total of 30 construction workers died since 2002.

Dr Gauci agrees that fines imposed for incorrect work practices should be increased to act as a deterrent. The law lays down penalties ranging between Lm200 and Lm5,000 and two years' imprisonment in case of guilt. "It is imperative that, in their rulings, the courts of law take the severity of the risks and their effect into consideration and impose an equitable penalty," he said.

Asked whether the construction industry could be failing to adhere to good practices simply because their implementation was costly, Dr Gauci said the main problem is usually haste and the urgency to finish a stipulated project in a very short period of time. In the case of a large project, the actual cost of implementing all the adequate safety measures would tot up to between five and 10 per cent of the total project bill. However, one needs to look at this in the light of the cost of human life.

A number of inspections at workplaces in July showed that only 47 per cent of entities observed good high-rise building practices. Dr Gauci said the main problem lies in the fact that there is a chain of responsibilities that cascade from the actual owner of the building site, to the employer, contractor, supervisor and right down to the employee. "Regrettably, these are not abiding by their legal obligations, which, in reality, are minimum safety requirements."

He said the OHSA has repeatedly stressed the need for a risk assessment to be carried out and the resultant measures to be implemented. Moreover, workplaces should have workers' health and safety representatives elected by the employees and who could provide a much-needed link between them and the management.

Asked whether education campaigns were working, Dr Gauci said that while information campaigns and training - particularly those carried out by employers - were essential, there was a limit to their effectiveness if there was no enforcement and self-regulation by stakeholders. "The OHSA has encountered trained persons at workplaces who themselves ignore health and safety requirements and standards."

Dr Gauci said the authority's recently-published strategy for 2007-2012 calls for a number of measures, including a clearly-defined structure and system of penalties that would have an adequate deterrent effect and can be imposed transparently, equitably and with the least administrative burden possible on the authority. It also calls for all stakeholders to take preventive measures, comply with legislation and self-regulate their operations.

Several attempts to contact Employment Minister Louis Galea proved futile yesterday.

Meanwhile, the General Workers' Union has called for a national conference on health and security, stressing that accidents and deaths at the workplace could no longer be tolerated. It said the OHSA should have enough human resources to regularly carry out strict inspections, especially on construction sites.

The GWU's call for a national conference on health and security was yesterday backed by the Turu Micallef Institute for Health and Security. The institute said the time had come for a common effort to be made for such tragedies to be avoided.