Occupational first aid in Ireland: what employers must provide (2026)

First aid is one of those duties that every Irish employer has but many treat casually — a green box on the wall and a vague sense that someone did a course once. The law is more specific than that, and the gap between a nominal arrangement and a genuine one shows up at exactly the wrong moment: when someone is actually hurt. This guide explains what Irish law requires on occupational first aid, how you work out what your particular workplace needs, who can act as an occupational first-aider and how their certification works, how many first-aiders and what equipment you should have, and how to keep the whole arrangement current so that a lapsed certificate never leaves you exposed.

The legal duty

The requirement to provide first aid comes from the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, made under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. In essence, every employer must ensure that first aid can be given to employees who are injured or become ill at work, and must provide first-aid equipment, facilities and — where the risk requires it — trained occupational first-aiders. The level of provision is not a fixed formula imposed from above; it is tied to the actual risks and circumstances of the workplace, which is why the starting point is always an assessment of what your particular business needs.

Assessing your first-aid needs

Because provision must match the workplace, the first step is a first-aid needs assessment. This weighs factors such as the nature of the work and its hazards, the number of employees, the layout and size of the workplace, whether work is spread across multiple sites or floors, the presence of shift or lone working, and how far the workplace is from emergency medical services. A low-risk office with a handful of staff needs far less than a busy manufacturing site or a construction project with heavy plant and working at height. The assessment turns the general legal duty into concrete decisions about how many first-aiders, what equipment and what facilities you actually need.

Who can be an occupational first-aider

An occupational first-aider is someone trained and holding a valid, recognised occupational first-aid certificate. In Ireland the recognised standard is the Occupational First Aid qualification delivered by approved providers, a nationally recognised award rather than an informal in-house session. The certificate has a limited life and must be refreshed by completing the required recertification before it expires — the widely applied cycle is renewal every two years. This limited validity is the single most important practical feature of the whole system, because it means having trained first-aiders is not a permanent state but one that quietly expires and must be actively maintained.

How many first-aiders you need

There is no single magic number; the required number of occupational first-aiders flows from the needs assessment. Higher-risk workplaces and larger numbers of employees call for more first-aiders, and you also need to ensure cover is genuinely available at all times work is going on — which means accounting for shifts, breaks, annual leave and absence. A workplace with a single trained first-aider who is on holiday has, in practice, no cover that week, so sensible employers train enough people to maintain continuous availability rather than relying on one individual. On sites and in dispersed operations, first-aiders may be needed in more than one location.

First-aid equipment and rooms

Provision is not only about people. Employers must supply suitable and sufficient first-aid equipment — typically well-stocked first-aid kits appropriate to the risks and the number of employees, kept accessible and properly maintained, with contents replenished as they are used or expire. Higher-risk or larger workplaces may also require a dedicated first-aid room. Additional or specialised equipment may be appropriate where particular hazards exist. As with first-aiders, kits are not a one-off purchase: they need checking and restocking on a routine basis so that when someone opens the box in an emergency, what they need is actually there and in date.

Appointed persons and lower-risk workplaces

In lower-risk workplaces where the assessment does not call for a trained occupational first-aider, an employer may still need to appoint a person to take charge of first-aid arrangements — looking after the equipment and calling the emergency services when needed. This does not remove the duty to assess needs; it simply reflects that provision is proportionate to risk. The key point is that even the smallest, lowest-risk workplace has to think the question through rather than assume first aid is someone else's problem.

Records and information

Good first-aid management includes keeping the arrangements visible and recorded: employees should know who the first-aiders are and where the equipment is, and it is good practice to record instances of first aid given. Certificates, kit checks and the needs assessment itself should all be retained and kept current, both because they evidence compliance and because they are what you will reach for if an incident is ever investigated. Information for staff — signage showing first-aiders and kit locations — is a simple but frequently neglected part of making the provision real.

Construction and higher-risk settings

On construction sites and in other higher-risk environments the stakes and the requirements rise. The greater likelihood and severity of injury, the presence of plant and work at height, and often the distance or delay in getting emergency help all push towards more first-aiders, better equipment and clear on-site arrangements. First aid also interacts with wider site safety duties, so on multi-employer sites it needs coordinating rather than each contractor assuming someone else has it covered. In these settings a lapsed certificate or an unstocked kit is not a paperwork nuisance but a genuine gap in the site's ability to respond to a serious injury.

Keeping it current

The recurring failure with first aid is not usually the initial setup but the slow drift out of compliance: certificates expiring unnoticed, kits running down, the needs assessment never revisited as the business grows or changes. Because occupational first-aid certificates expire on a rolling cycle and each first-aider is on their own date, a workplace can slide from fully covered to uncovered without anyone deciding it should. This is exactly what Complys is built to prevent for Irish employers: it tracks every occupational first-aider's certificate with reminders well before expiry, and keeps your first-aid needs assessment and equipment records in order — so you always know you have trained, in-date first-aiders available rather than discovering a gap when someone is injured.

The bottom line

Every Irish employer must provide first aid suited to their workplace under the General Application Regulations 2007, starting from a needs assessment that reflects the real risks and circumstances of the business. Where the risk requires it, that means trained occupational first-aiders holding valid, recognised certificates — refreshed on their recertification cycle, commonly every two years — backed by suitable equipment and, in some workplaces, a first-aid room. Provision is proportionate to risk, availability must be genuine at all times work is going on, and the whole arrangement has to be kept current rather than set up once and forgotten. Manage the certificates and kits actively, and first aid does its job when it is needed most.