Health and Safety Manager

Job Title: Health & Safety Manager

Location: Kildare town, Co. Kildare 

Job type: Permanent, full time

Role Summary:

Dawn Meats is a premium meat processor and supplier of choice for a range of leading supermarket, foodservice and restaurant businesses. Established in 1980, Dawn Meats is an industry leader with annual revenues of over €4.5bn, employing over 12,000 staff in 13 countries and exporting to over 70 countries.

The Health & Safety Manager is responsible for ensuring full legal and organisational compliance with health and safety requirements across meat processing and cold store operations. The role provides leadership, governance, and continuous improvement of safety systems in a high-risk manufacturing environment.

The successful candidate will be based at our Kildare town facility and will be responsible for:

• Ensure compliance with Irish Health & Safety legislation, Group standards, and customer requirements.
• Develop, implement, and continuously improve site safety systems, policies, procedures, and SOPs.
• Lead accident, incident, and near miss investigations; ensure statutory reporting to HSA, insurers, and internal systems; and validate corrective action close out.
• Manage unsafe acts and unsafe conditions processes, including Kaizen improvements and trend reporting.
• Act as the main site contact for the HSA, insurance inspections, and customer ethical audits.
• Manage safety training, inductions, contractor controls, permits to work, and competency records.
• Oversee emergency preparedness, including fire safety, ammonia alarms, drills, and emergency response teams.
• Chair safety meetings, report safety performance trends, and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Line manage the Health & Safety Supervisor and provide coaching to management and operational teams.

Key Skills & Competencies

• Strong leadership and influencing skills with the confidence to challenge unsafe practices.
• Excellent investigation, analytical, and problem-solving capability.
• High attention to detail and strong organisational skills.
• Ability to coach, engage, and drive behavioural safety across teams.
• Experience in high-risk manufacturing, ideally meat processing or cold storage.

Qualifications & Experience

• Recognised qualification in Occupational Health & Safety (e.g. NEBOSH, IOSH, QQI Level 6 or higher).
• Proven experience managing health and safety in a high-risk industrial environment.
• Strong working knowledge of Irish health and safety legislation.

INDLP