Gas Networks Ireland has won the ‘Health and Safety Initiative of the Year’ award for its HazCon app at the Networks Awards 2020.

The ‘Health and Safety Initiative of the Year’ award recognises exceptional commitment to all-round health and safety and is awarded to organisations who demonstrate an innovative, robust and high-quality safety management system and evidence of health and safety performance that goes beyond statutory requirements.

Launched in 2018, Gas Networks Ireland’s HazCon (Hazard & Control) app is a safety hazard reporting system which allows staff and contractors to report potential safety issues they encounter in their place of work and surrounding areas.  The system then sends a notification so that immediate action can be taken to not only remove the hazard but assist in implementing mitigation and preventative controls.

Gas Networks Ireland’s Head of Health, Safety, Quality and Environment, Conor Ahern, welcomed the win, saying: “As guardians of Ireland’s gas infrastructure, safety is at the heart of everything we do. Our HazCon app is easy to use and has helped us to foster an even stronger health and safety culture within the organisation. Because of how well it has been adopted by our teams, numerous hazards have been removed – preventing accidents from occurring.  The fact we didn’t have a loss time incident  in over a million working hours  shows the effectiveness that fixing smaller issues, before they become a bigger problem has.

“Having won an Engineers Ireland MEETA award last year, we are delighted that our HazCon app has now received international recognition. Winning these awards is an important validation for Gas Networks Ireland and a reflection of how we continually improve as a business, how we serve our customers, and is a testament to our employees.”

Gas Networks Ireland was also a Networks Awards 2020 finalist in the ‘Gamechanger’ category for ‘Dial Before You Dig’, its online service to check the location of underground gas pipes on a site – an essential safety step before excavation works commence.

Paul O’Brien, Design Services Manager at Gas Networks Ireland acknowledges that the ‘Dial Before You Dig’ online service has already been a game changer for Gas Networks Ireland: “Dial Before You Dig is an innovative online service that makes it easier than ever for anyone involved in excavations to access information about the gas network and stay safe. Our user-centric digital mapping system has been strongly welcomed by the construction industry. To date 13,000 maps have been generated by over 1,500 registered users since the service went live in October 2019.”