Behind the individual campaigns on fatalities, mental health and heat stress sits a single long-term EU commitment: Vision Zero, the goal of eliminating work-related deaths entirely. It comes from the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027, adopted by the European Commission in June 2021 and still the guiding document through the rest of this decade. It’s worth understanding, because it’s the frame Irish and EU regulators are increasingly using to justify broader, tougher enforcement.
Three priorities, one framework
The Strategic Framework sets out three priorities: anticipating and managing change from the green, digital and demographic transitions reshaping work; improving prevention of work-related accidents and diseases, with Vision Zero as the explicit long-term goal; and increasing preparedness to respond to current and future health crises. It’s delivered through a tripartite approach, meaning EU institutions, national governments and social partners (unions and employer bodies) all share responsibility for implementation, rather than Brussels dictating rules top-down.
In practice, this is why so much is moving at once. EU-OSHA initiated a process in 2024 that is leading to a new EU-OSHA strategy, with further OSH Overviews launching through 2025 and 2026. The mental health campaign, the heat stress proposals and the tightening of national inspection regimes aren’t separate initiatives. They’re different pieces of the same framework, each targeting one of its stated priorities.
The gap between the goal and the numbers
Vision Zero is aspirational by design, but the gap between it and current reality is stark in Ireland right now. The HSA’s provisional 2025 figures show 58 work-related deaths, a 61% increase on 2024, concentrated heavily in agriculture, construction and manufacturing. A framework built around eliminating workplace deaths entirely is operating against a backdrop where, in Ireland at least, the trend just went sharply in the wrong direction. That’s part of why the HSA’s 2026 Programme of Work steps up inspections so significantly, roughly 11,000 planned, and why training standards for Safety Representatives were widened this year to cover psychosocial risk and remote work, not just physical hazards.
What this means for employers
The practical takeaway isn’t abstract. Vision Zero gives regulators a standing justification to keep expanding what “safety compliance” covers, from physical hazards, to psychosocial risk, to climate-related hazards like heat. Employers who treat each new campaign or standard as an isolated, one-off requirement will find themselves perpetually reacting. Employers who understand the underlying framework can see roughly where enforcement is heading next and get ahead of it.
- Treat risk assessments as living documents that need to expand, not fixed exercises to revisit only when required.
- Expect training standards (for Safety Representatives and others) to keep widening in scope, not just frequency.
- Watch EU-level developments, not just Irish ones; frameworks adopted in Brussels tend to arrive in Irish regulation with a lag, not an exemption.
Vision Zero won’t be reached by 2027, and the EU has never suggested it would be. But it’s the yardstick regulators are measuring progress against, and 2026’s sharp rise in Irish fatalities is a reminder of how much distance remains.
IFC Training Hub provides online workplace safety and compliance training to organisations across Ireland, including Fire Safety, Manual Handling, Working at Height and Abrasive Wheels. Browse all courses or get in touch to discuss training for your team.
