HSA DFW Inspections 2026
On 7 July the Health and Safety Authority launched a nationwide inspection campaign on driving for work risk management. The list of sectors it named is the part worth reading twice. Construction, manufacturing, engineering, services, healthcare, local authorities, utilities and transport operations. If your organisation employs people who drive as part of the job, whether that driving is their main role or something they do between other duties, then you are in scope.
This is not a haulage story
Plenty of employers still read "driving for work" as a transport industry topic. The HSA has closed-off that reading. A community nurse, a site engineer, a council inspector, a field sales rep and an installation technician are all driving for work and the duty sits with the employer in every one of those cases.
The scale is in the HSA's own figures. People who drive for work are 40% more likely than other drivers to be involved in a collision and driving for work is estimated to account for one in three road collisions each year. The RSA data behind the 2025 guidance put it another way: a quarter of all drivers involved in fatal collisions between 2019 and 2023 were driving for work.
What inspectors will be checking
The campaign sets out six things:
- driving for work named as a hazard in the employer's safety statement
- risk assessments covering all driving for work activities
- control measures that add up to a safe system of work
- assurance that employees are fit to drive
- assurance that vehicles used for work, company-owned or private, are safe and fit for purpose
- instruction, information and training so drivers can make safe journey decisions
Deirdre Sinnott McFeat, Senior Inspector with the HSA, was direct about the consequence. Employers who fail to manage driving for work properly are "putting lives at risk and may face enforcement action".
Grey fleet is where most safety statements fall short
Read the fifth item again. Company-owned or private. That bracket is the exposure for most organisations.
Company vehicles tend to be documented, because somebody owns the leasing file, the servicing schedule and the CVRT dates. An employee's own car carries the same legal weight once it is used for work and almost none of the same paperwork. Mileage gets claimed, expenses get paid and nobody has confirmed that the licence is current, that the insurance policy covers business use or that the car has a valid NCT.
An inspector does not need to go looking for this. They only need to ask how many staff claimed mileage last month and then ask what the organisation holds on those drivers. The answer to the first question is usually a payroll report. The answer to the second is often a pause.
The challenge is not going away either. The RSA, HSA and An Garda Síochána plan to put grey fleet at the centre of their next Driving for Work seminar in November 2026.
2025 was the guidance year, 2026 is the campaign
The dates line up neatly. On 7 July 2025 the HSA, RSA and An Garda Síochána jointly published Driving for Work: Risk Management Guidance for Employers, built around the message that road safety is a shared responsibility. It named grey fleet directly, telling employers their duty of care covers company vehicles, hired vehicles and the worker's own car.
On 7 July 2026, one year to the day, the HSA began inspecting against it. The material employers were asked to read last summer is the material they are being asked to produce this year.
Where to start
We set out the practical detail last year in HSA Inspections: Focus Now on Driving for Work, including a 30-day readiness plan and a one-page evidence pack for an inspector visit. While all of this still holds, one change for 2026 is sequencing. Grey fleet belongs at the top of the list rather than the bottom, because it is the section most likely to be empty when the question is asked.
Driving for work is the only high-risk activity many organisations still manage on trust rather than evidence. A safety statement entry, a risk assessment and a training record are achievable in weeks. The harder part is holding current licence, insurance and vehicle checks for every driver - including the ones using their own cars - and being able to produce that on the day an inspector calls.
Related DriverFocus Reading
HSA Inspections: Focus Now on Driving for Work (2025)
Driving for Work Guidance - Your Top 5 Actions (2025)
Sources
(1) Health and Safety Authority targets driving for work risk management in nationwide inspection campaign (7 July 2026)
(2) HSA, RSA and Gardaí issue new safety guidance to support safer driving for work (7 July 2025)
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