Michael Mullins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As others have done, I extend a welcome to the representatives from Embrace FARM and Irish Rural Link, as well as Mr. Dolan. This has awakened in all of us the need for everybody, particularly farmers but also the general public, to be aware of the dangers on the family farm. We acknowledge that Senator Conway, as a result of the interview he heard on Clare FM, raised this issue in Seanad Éireann one morning. That has made everybody sit up and think, and today's process is a very productive follow-on from the intervention made by the Senator that morning.

Mr. Rohan's statement brought home the terrible difficulties that a survivor of a tragic farm accident can have. There are legal and financial difficulties, for example, and there is a need for the State or organisation to provide support for people who find themselves in such a difficult position. Irish Rural Link is involved with everything that is significant in rural Ireland and it has put forward some very interesting suggestions. Councillor John Dolan has, like me, worked in industry. I spent many years as secretary of a safety committee in a multinational company in which I worked.

That committee met every two months and looked at various problems throughout the organisation. It put deadlines and targets in place for supervisors and managers who would have to account for themselves at the following meeting. A huge amount of time and effort is put into safety in multinational companies which contrasts sharply with how little time and resources are available to address the issue of safety on family farms. Some very significant and interesting suggestions have come forward from the contributions we have heard in the last half an hour. The whole area of education is important. Young learner drivers must display L plates and young farmers taking part in Teagasc farm safety courses should be mandatory in this day and age. The machinery that young farmers are handling now is so different to the machinery on farms in the past. The power of the equipment is so much greater now. If Teagasc can lay on a farm safety course over a half day for every farmer for €25, then it is a no-brainer that every farmer should be encouraged to take part. It is all about education and heightening awareness through advertising on radio, television and through local and social media.

I ask the witnesses to comment on how we can start engineering some of the problems out of the farm. The detection of gases, for example, is one area but there are probably business opportunities for people who are close to farms and who see the potential problems which could be engineered off the farms. I am referring in particular to equipment, power take-offs and so forth. The witnesses have made us all sit up and think with their contributions. Unfortunately, all of us here know people who have either been very seriously injured or who have lost their lives through farm accidents. It is incumbent on all of us as public representatives to heighten awareness and continue to work with the various representative organisations to keep spreading the word about the need to be much more careful and safety conscious on farms.