The Work at Height Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these Regulations –

“the 1978 Order” means the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978;

“access” and “egress” include ascent and descent;

“construction work” has the meaning assigned to it by regulation 2 of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996(1);

“the Executive” means the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland;

“fragile surface” means a surface which would be liable to fail if any reasonably foreseeable loading were to be applied to it;

“ladder” includes a fixed ladder and a stepladder;

“line” includes rope, chain or webbing;

“the Management Regulations” means the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000(2);

“personal fall protection system” means –

(a)

a fall prevention, work restraint, work positioning, fall arrest or rescue system, other than a system in which the only safeguards are collective protection measures; or

(b)

rope access and positioning techniques;

“suitable” means suitable in any respect which it is reasonably foreseeable will affect the safety of any person;

“territorial sea” means the territorial sea of the United Kingdom adjacent to Northern Ireland and “within the territorial sea” includes on, over and under it;

“work at height” means –

(a)

work in any place, including a place at or below ground level;

(b)

obtaining access to or egress from such place while at work, except by a staircase in a permanent workplace,

where, if measures required by these Regulations were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury;

“work equipment” means any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work (whether exclusively or not) and includes anything to which regulation 8 and Schedules 3 to 7 apply;

“working platform” –

(a)

means any platform used as a place of work or as a means of access to or egress from a place of work;

(b)

includes any scaffold, suspended scaffold, cradle, mobile platform, trestle, gangway, gantry and stairway which is so used.

(2) Any reference in these Regulations to the keeping of a report or copy of a report or plan shall include reference to its being kept in a form –

(a) in which it is capable of being reproduced as a printed copy when required;

(b) which is secure from loss or unauthorised interference.

(1)

S.R. 1996 No. 510, as amended by S.R. 1997 No. 229, S.R. 1999 No. 150, S.R. 1999 No. 304, S.R. 1999 No. 305 and S.R. 2000 No. 388

(2)

S.R. 2000 No. 388, as amended by S.R. 2001 No. 348 and S.R. 2003 No. 454