A man falls through a roof on a Tuesday afternoon. He's been up there an hour. The homeowner made him a cup of tea before he started. By Thursday, the family who hired him gets a solicitor's letter.

That is how fast this goes.

The Gap Between "Grand" and "Covered"

Ireland has a thriving informal economy in home repairs. Some of it is perfectly legitimate sole traders working cash-in-hand for tax reasons that are between them and Revenue. But a significant slice of it involves workers with no public liability insurance, no employer's liability cover, and no registration of any kind. They are operating in a legal void, and when something goes wrong, that void opens up directly under the homeowner's feet.

Recent prosecutions brought by the Workplace Relations Commission and the Health and Safety Authority have shown a consistent pattern. A contractor takes on a job, presents no credentials, completes the work or partially completes it, and then either causes damage, suffers injury, or both. The homeowner assumed the contractor was covered. The contractor assumed nothing would go wrong. Both assumptions were wrong at the same time.

The phrase "just one quick job" is doing enormous work here. It is the phrase that gets said when someone's brother-in-law knows a fella who does roofs. It is the phrase that explains why nobody asked for a certificate of insurance. It is the phrase that appears, implicitly, in every case where a family ends up liable for an injury on their own property.

What "Uninsured" Actually Means for You

If a contractor without public liability insurance is injured on your property, you are potentially liable under occupiers' liability law. The Occupiers' Liability Act 1995 sets out duties to visitors, and a contractor working on your premises is a visitor. If that contractor falls from your roof and suffers a spinal injury, the bill for their care, lost earnings, and damages does not disappear because they had no insurance. It lands on whoever can be shown to have a duty of care.

That can be you.

The same logic applies to damage caused to a neighbouring property. An uninsured roofer who dislodges debris that breaks a neighbour's skylight or damages a car creates a liability chain. Without insurance, the contractor cannot pay. The homeowner who hired them may well be the next person in line.

The figures involved are not small. Personal injury awards in Ireland for serious injuries regularly run into six figures. A fall from height resulting in a significant workplace injury can produce claims well above €200,000 when you factor in medical costs, loss of earnings, and general damages. No homeowner budgets for that when they agree to pay €400 cash for a roof repair.

What Contractors Should Carry (and What to Ask For)

Public liability insurance covers injury to third parties or damage to their property. The minimum level most professional bodies recommend is €2.6 million, and many require €6.5 million. Employer's liability insurance is required by law if a contractor has employees working on your site. Both policies should be current, not expired, and specifically covering the type of work being done.

Ask for the certificate. Not a promise of a certificate. The actual document, with the insurer's name, the policy number, the expiry date, and the scope of cover. A legitimate contractor will hand it over without blinking. An uninsured one will find a reason to delay, deflect, or become suddenly very busy.

Also check:

  • That the policy has not lapsed. Certificates can be printed from expired policies.
  • That the work type is covered. A general builder's policy may exclude specialist roofing or gas work.
  • That the company name on the certificate matches the name on the quote.
  • Whether the contractor is registered with the Registered Gas Installers of Ireland (RGII) for gas work, or the Register of Electrical Contractors of Ireland (RECI) for electrical work. These are not optional extras. They are legal requirements.

A boiler installation carried out by someone who is not RGII-registered is not just uninsured. It is illegal. If that boiler subsequently causes carbon monoxide poisoning or a gas explosion, the paper trail on who authorised the work leads back to the homeowner as much as the contractor.

Why Workers Do It Anyway

Insurance costs money. For a sole trader doing small jobs, public liability cover can run from €500 to over €2,000 a year depending on trade and turnover. That is real money when you are competing against someone who simply is not paying it. The informal economy rewards the uninsured because they can undercut everyone else on price, and the homeowner, chasing a bargain, does not ask the question that would end the conversation.

The contractor who falls through the roof was not trying to hurt anyone. The homeowner who hired him was not trying to defraud anyone. But good intentions do not fund rehabilitation, and they do not settle damages claims. The legal system is not interested in what anyone meant to do.

The Prosecution Record

Irish courts have dealt with cases where uninsured tradespeople caused serious harm and left homeowners exposed. The pattern in these cases is that the contractor was operating without any formal business structure, had no insurance documentation, and was paid cash without any written contract. When proceedings began, the contractor had no assets worth pursuing. The homeowner, who had a mortgage and a house, became the target.

This is not a hypothetical. When contractors cut corners on their legal obligations, the consequences spread outward from the job site into the lives of everyone connected to it. Fines are levied on the contractor when they can be found. But the civil liability follows the asset.

The Turn

The cheap job is never cheap. It is deferred cost. It is the €400 saving that becomes a €250,000 exposure, which becomes a remortgaged house, which becomes a marriage under catastrophic stress. The system that makes this possible is entirely legal. The informal contractor is breaking rules. The homeowner who hires them is, depending on circumstances, potentially enabling an illegal operation. Neither gets a warning before the fall happens.

Ask for the certificate. Every time. No exceptions.