What is a GA2 weekly examination? A guide for Irish plant operators

If you operate lifting equipment on Irish construction sites, GA2 is a record you will have seen. It is also a record a lot of people complete without being entirely clear on what it represents, who is supposed to complete it, or what happens to it afterwards.

This guide covers the basics and, more usefully, the part that causes most of the day-to-day trouble: keeping the records findable.

The short answer

GA2 is the name commonly used for the record of the weekly examination of lifting equipment used on a construction site.

Lifting equipment used on a construction site must be examined weekly by the user as regards the features related to its safe working. That weekly examination is commonly recorded as a GA2.

The form is the output. The examination is the actual obligation.

What a GA2 weekly examination is

It is a practical check of the equipment’s condition and operation, intended to identify defects or problems that could affect safe use.

Depending on the equipment, the examination can include items such as the rated capacity indicator, wire ropes and chains, limit switches, structure, lifting attachments, hydraulics, brakes, controls and other safety-related components.

It is not necessarily just a visual walkaround. As well as looking for damage or defects, the examination can include functional checks appropriate to the machine.

The person carrying out the check is normally the person using or operating the equipment and should be familiar with the machine and the checks required.

GA2 is not a GA1

A GA2 weekly examination should not be confused with a GA1 thorough examination.

A GA2 is the weekly examination carried out by the user of lifting equipment on a construction site.

A GA1 records the separate periodic thorough examination of lifting equipment carried out by a competent person in accordance with the applicable statutory examination intervals.

The two checks serve different purposes and one does not replace the other.

Who normally completes the GA2

The weekly examination is carried out by the user of the equipment. In practice, this is often the machine operator.

It does not have to be carried out by a competent-person lifting inspector. That role belongs to the separate thorough examination, commonly recorded on a GA1.

The person completing the GA2 should know the equipment and understand the checks relevant to its safe operation.

Is the paper GA2 form compulsory?

No. The Health and Safety Authority provides a GA2 form to help businesses record the weekly examination, but the form itself is not a statutory or approved form.

The examination may be recorded in another suitable format. What matters is that the weekly examination is carried out and that there is a record of it.

The problem nobody warns you about

Almost everything written about GA2 concerns the examination. Almost nothing concerns what happens to the paperwork, which is where operators actually struggle.

A paper GA2 has to survive a specific journey: completed on site, carried back in a van, handed to somebody in an office, filed against the correct machine, and then found again when it is asked for. Each of those steps is a place it can go wrong, and they compound.

The symptoms are familiar to anyone running plant across multiple sites:

• Nobody is certain when a particular machine was last examined
• The form was definitely completed but cannot be located
• A machine moved between sites and the paperwork did not follow it
• The defect noted on the form never reached the yard
• Producing a full history for one machine means an afternoon of searching

None of that is a failure of the examination. It is a failure of the filing, and it produces exactly the same outcome when somebody asks for the record.

Fixing the record rather than the examination

The weekly examination itself should not change. What can change is where the record goes.

With digital GA2 weekly checks, an NFC tag is fitted to each machine. The user or operator taps the tag with their phone and the correct weekly examination checklist for that machine opens in the browser. There is no app to install. After a one-time registration they log in and complete the check, with no possibility of recording against the wrong item of equipment. Defects are logged with notes and photographs taken at the machine, and the completed record is stored against that machine and visible in the management dashboard.

Check Go does not replace the GA1 examination. It makes the routine GA2 weekly examination and its record easier to complete, report and retrieve.

The same tag, twice over

If you are fitting a tag to every machine anyway, it is worth knowing that it can do more than one job. The same tag can open the operator manual for that machine and the weekly GA2 check.

That matters more than it sounds. An operator who can reach the manual in one tap will check it; one who has to walk to a site office will guess.