Chapter 3 of Part 6: Night Work and Shift Work - Health and Safety ...

Guide to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application)
“shift work” and “shift worker” have the same meaning as they have in the 1997 Act 33
Night time is the period between midnight and 7.00 a.m. the following day.
Night workers are employees who normally work at least three hours of their daily working time during
night time and whose annual number of hours worked at night equals or exceeds 50 per cent of their
annual working time.
Regulation 154: Application of Chapter 3
154. This Chapter applies in respect of—
(a) an employee and employer to whom the 1997 Act applies, and
(b) a self-employed person.
Chapter 3 of Part 6 of the General Application Regulations does not apply to -
• Those not covered by the rest and maximum working time rules of the 1997 Act,
• A member of the Defence Forces or An Garda Síochána,
• Some transport employees (see Appendix),
• Those who control their own working hours,
• A family employee working on a farm or in a private house.
See Appendix for details of categories of workers covered by alternative working time legislation.
Regulation 155: Night work risk assessment
155. For the purposes of section 16(2)(a) of the 1997 Act, an employer shall carry out, in compliance
with section 19 of the Act, a risk assessment, taking account of—
(a) the specific effects and hazards of night work, and
(b) the risks to the safety and health of the employee concerned that attach to the work that a
night worker is employed to do,
so as to determine whether that work involves special hazards or a heavy physical or
mental strain.
The employer must carry out a risk assessment, in accordance with section 19 of the 2005 Act, to
determine whether night work involves special hazards or imposes a heavy physical or mental strain on
the employee concerned.
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“Shift work” and “shift worker” are defined in Article 2(5) and Article 2(6) of Council Directive 93/104/EC (as set out in the
Sixth Schedule to the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997) as follows:
5. shift work shall mean any method of organising work in shifts whereby workers succeed each other at the same
work stations according to a certain pattern, including a rotating pattern, and which may be continuous or
discontinuous, entailing the need for workers to work at different times over a given period of days or weeks;
6. shift worker shall mean any worker whose work schedule is part of shift work.
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