Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses from the Health and Safety Authority. It would be remiss of us not to express our sympathy to the families of those who passed away last year. Last weekend in my constituency we had an unfortunate death in the Ryan family and prior to that in April 2014 a Mr. Byrne died in Bennekerry, County Carlow.

I have been involved in farming for many years. I was taught to drive on a little grey Massey Ferguson. My father put it in gear and I hopped up on it when he got off. That was very safe. Things have changed a lot in recent years. I will continue the point on which Senator Mooney concluded. The conclusion on page 20 of the report is that the Food Harvest 2020 targets will lead to more emphasis on production and on efficiency in terms of farmers trying to do things on their own, which means they are putting themselves under more pressure. That is a big issue.

I was interested in the statistic on the number of accidents on dairy farms in recent years. I was mistakenly of the view that dairy farms were among the safer places because of the considerable investment in recent years. It goes back to the fact that dairy farmers, like other farmers, are on their own. If a cow is calving at 3 a.m. a farmer will not be looking for half the country to give him a hand to get the cow in and do whatever he has to do with her. He will have to do it on his own and if he gets into a spot of bother he will have to try to sort it out himself. From the point of view of common sense, one could ask how one could deal with such a situation when it arises. In most cases, accidents have a freak nature. One of the individuals I mentioned was unfortunately killed by his son because he was blinded by the sun. He did not see his father coming into the yard. The sun blinded him and he hit him with the loader of the tractor, which unfortunately killed him. It is very difficult to legislate for something like that happening. Last weekend, in the case of the Ryan family, which I understand has one of the safest farms in the country, an issue arose. Again, it was a freak incident. The culture must change.

Education is key, and it must take place on the farm, as opposed to online education, which was mentioned. While online education might be useful the education must happen on site. If there is an incident in my yard or whoever else’s yard, one will see that clearly, as opposed to something online. Education is not as effective online as on site. Knowledge transfer is crucial. We have had various discussions about sheep, dairy and tillage farming. Farm safety should be a compulsory element of education. Generally speaking, farmers do not like inspectors calling. They would get more from a group session when they do it themselves and it would be more beneficial.

The Health and Safety Authority could consider changing in that regard and rather than having an inspection regime it could have more involvement with Teagasc and the agricultural colleges. As a former student of Kildalton, John McNamara, whom I am sure the witnesses know, was very involved there in farm safety at a time when farm safety was not as prominent an issue. It was a matter of getting in and out, doing what one had to do and moving on. In recent years agricultural colleges are bursting at the seams with more and more young farmers coming back, for example, from the building sector. Perhaps more of an emphasis could be made in the colleges, which again relates to education.

To return to a point made by Deputy Heydon on children, we all try to encourage our offspring to get involved in farming. Reference was made to the fact that a large proportion of farmers nationally are at the higher end of the age spectrum. Likewise, I am trying to encourage my children to get involved. When a young fellow wants to become actively involved on a farm one cannot say he must stay in and watch television. It is hard to say to a child that he should be careful.

In terms of children aged under seven and tractors, is a figure available on the number of children killed who were in a tractor as opposed to those who were running around the yard and got killed? I accept what was said about under sevens. Valid points were made about machinery nowadays and about high-tech electronics in tractors. Is there an argument to the effect that a child aged up to ten would be safer in a tractor where the farmer can keep a close eye on him or her, as opposed to the child running around the yard near animals or a slurry pit? I do not say a child would be safer but I am interested to hear what the statistics show.

There is obviously off-farm income involved and the mother in the household is more than likely out working as child care costs a good deal of money. Increasingly more children are being kept at home and the father who is farming is trying to be the child carer and do everything else. He is trying to incorporate everything together. To return to my initial point, with the increasing emphasis on meeting targets, he is trying to achieve all those targets and be the Jack of all trades. There needs to be more education around that end of it. The main emphasis must be on education.

What way do the authority's farm visits work? Its target is to carry out 2,300 farm visits this year. Does the authority inform the farmer beforehand? When its inspector visits the farm would the farmer be given a programme of work to do and a timescale to complete it? How does the authority select the farmers in terms of farm visits? Is it random or who supplies the list to the authority?