Ireland · Employer guide
VDU Assessments in Ireland: What Employers Must Do
Irish law requires employers to assess the workstation of every habitual display screen (VDU) user. This guide explains the duty, who it covers, what a compliant assessment includes, and how Ergo Global delivers them.
In short: under Chapter 5 of Part 2 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, Irish employers must carry out a risk assessment of each employee’s VDU workstation, provide information and training, plan the work to include breaks or changes of activity, and provide eye tests on request. The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) enforces these duties.
Who counts as a VDU user?
The Regulations apply to employees who habitually use display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work. HSA guidance treats an employee as covered where they have no real choice but to use a VDU to do the job, normally use it for continuous periods of more than an hour at a time, and use it more or less daily. In practice, that includes almost every office-based, hybrid and remote knowledge worker in Ireland.
The employer's five core duties
- Assess each workstation. A competent person must analyse the workstation — screen, keyboard, desk, chair, lighting, software and the surrounding environment — and evaluate risks to eyesight, physical posture and mental stress.
- Act on the findings. Risks identified must be remedied: equipment adjusted or replaced, layouts changed, work reorganised.
- Plan breaks or changes of activity. Continuous daily screen work must be periodically interrupted by breaks or other tasks.
- Provide information and training. Users must be trained in the safe use of their workstation before starting VDU work and whenever the workstation is significantly modified.
- Provide eye tests. Employees are entitled to an appropriate eye and eyesight test on request, and to special corrective appliances where the test shows they are needed specifically for the VDU work — at no cost to the employee.
What a compliant VDU assessment covers
Office, hybrid and home workstations
The duty follows the work, not the building. Where employees work from home some or all of the time, their home workstation also needs to be assessed. See our dedicated guide to home working VDU assessments in Ireland, including how the right to request remote working interacts with the employer’s duty of care.
How Ergo Global delivers VDU assessments in Ireland
Assessments can be carried out on-site anywhere in Ireland or remotely by video, in your employees’ own language and time zone. Our scheduling platform lets your team book directly against ergonomist availability — no email back-and-forth — and gives you a live record of who has been assessed, when, and what was recommended: exactly the audit trail an HSA inspector expects to see.
Assessments carried out by Ergo Global’s ergonomists. The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors is the professional body for ergonomists — accreditation means your VDU assessments are performed to a recognised professional standard, not from a generic checklist.
