The potential danger posed by a fragile floor covering on the top floor of a Dublin office building was known 15 months before a telecommunications subcontractor suffered a fatal fall from the area, an investigation has revealed.

John McCann (62) died on September 23, 2019, when he fell 24 meters into a ventilation shaft at the Irish headquarters of the engineering consulting firm Ove Arup and Partners on Ringsend Road, Dublin 4.

At a hearing in Dublin District Coroner’s Court on Wednesday, it was revealed that the married father of seven children fell six floors of the building into the basement after stepping on a surface that looked like a concrete floor but was actually just 60 millimetres thick insulation and fireproof material.

Health and Safety Authority inspector Kevin Broderick told the hearing that a “no trespassing” sign placed near the sensitive surface was “totally inadequate.”

The investigation revealed that Mr McCann, of Cuckoo Cottage in Donard, Co. Wicklow, was working as a foreman for Total Splicing Solutions of Kilmainham, which had been appointed as a subcontractor to supervise the installation of fibre optic cables in the building.

Mr Broderick said that during the preliminary planning for the project, which began 15 months earlier, control measures regarding the sensitive surface in the plant room of the Ove Arup building had been discussed.

However, he added that different control measures had indeed been introduced, but their adequacy had never been verified.

Mr Broderick said such measures had also not been communicated to Ove Arup’s subcontractors and staff, who had never entered the area with the sensitive surface before the fatal incident.

He described the signage in the area as “minimal and inadequate.”

Mr Broderick told coroner Aisling Gannon that the warning barrier used was similar to those found in supermarkets to alert people to “wet floors”.

“It is easy to remove, very light and not secured,” he said.

Small surface

Mr Broderick noted that a colleague of the deceased had been standing on the same ground shortly before Mr McCann but was unharmed because he was “of small stature”.

In response to questions from the coroner, he replied that such a surface would have to be at least 150 mm thick in order to comply with fire safety regulations and to withstand a load of 200 kg per square meter.

The inspector said the HSA served an improvement order on Ove Arup following the incident and the company had taken steps to make the surface safer, including increasing the use of safety signs and painting it yellow with a “fragile surface” warning.

Mr Broderick noted that Ove Arup subsequently carried out a review of all its buildings worldwide and he agreed with the coroner that the company had responded “very comprehensively” to what had happened.

Following Mr McCann’s death, Mr Broderick said the HSA had also launched a process with industry leaders to investigate the dangers posed by fragile surfaces in buildings, as there had been other cases of “near misses”.

In an earlier statement, one of McCann’s colleagues, Ian Moore, described how he had stepped over the fragile surface in the building’s sixth-floor plant room immediately ahead of McCann to point out where a cable was located.

Mr Moore said he removed a small plastic barrier to gain access to the area, which was “easily moved”.

He said Mr McCann came towards him and heard “a scream of terror” as he fell through the floor.

Mr Moore said his colleague briefly touched his leg as he disappeared through the opening.

He remembered that he couldn’t see where Mr. McCann had gone because there was dust everywhere.

Mr Moore told the coroner that he did not consider the sign he moved to indicate any danger in the area.

“There should have been a structured solution to stop you from getting through,” he said.

Another Total Splicing Solutions employee, Vincent McGrane, also described his shock at seeing Mr McCann “disappear through the floor right before my eyes”.

Stephen Mulhaire, a former Ove Arup employee who took Mr McCann and his colleagues to the engine room, recalled how they went from floor to floor of the building trying to find out where the victim had landed.

Ventilation shaft

The investigation revealed that members of the Dublin Fire Service had to drill a hole in a basement wall to rescue the injured man.

Sergeant Diarmaid Morris said Mr McCann was found lying on his back and showed no obvious signs of injury.

He stated that he had been told that the deceased had tried to grab the knee of his colleague’s trousers as he fell vertically into the ventilation shaft.

However, the investigation revealed that he was unresponsive and was officially pronounced dead at the scene at 3:23 p.m.

Sergeant Morris confirmed that a “No Entry” sign was posted on a shaft behind the opening.

A son of the deceased, Barney McCann, told police that he had officially identified his father’s body and described how he learned of his father’s death through a telephone call from one of his brothers.

Mr McCann, originally from Stratford-on-Slaney in County Wicklow, had recently returned to the area after living for many years at Greenfort Gardens in Clondalkin.

The results of the autopsy showed that he had died as a result of acute traumatic injuries consistent with a fall from a great height.

At the end of a three-hour hearing, a jury of five women and five men returned the verdict of “accidental death.”

Ove Arup’s counsel, Brian Gageby BL, expressed his deepest sympathy to Mr McCann’s family on behalf of the company, while the Coroner also expressed her condolences to a large group of the victim’s children, relatives, friends and colleagues who attended the inquest.

Ove Arup was fined €750,000 at a sitting of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in June 2023 after the company was convicted of two breaches of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 in connection with Mr McCann’s death.

The company pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of non-employees in the workplace on the day in question.

The company also admitted that it had failed to ensure health, safety and well-being in the workplace, particularly with regard to the sensitive flooring in the work area.

In a victim impact statement, Mr McCann’s family said the pain and hurt of losing their father was “simply unbearable”.

At the same court hearing, Broderick criticised Ove Arup’s “laissez-faire approach” to health and safety and the failure to carry out a rigorous risk assessment.

The court heard that the company had accepted responsibility for Mr McCann’s death and wanted to make a donation of around €40,000 on his behalf to a charity he supported.