Mr. Seamus Boland:

Senator Mullins asked, in the context of various experts being here, where we go from here. We sympathise with the work being done by Embrace FARM. We would argue that a lot of farmers out there are very busy people. They are particularly busy at hay time, milking time and so forth and those are the times when accidents happen. The term "culture" is used in many different contexts but we must change the culture on farms. We have got to get people to walk around yards, their own or their neighbours' and notice risks. They have to see, for example, that a pallet should not be lying there, that a tractor should not be left with its loader up in the sky and so forth. It is a culture of noticing that we need to develop. Farmers have to think of everything else - they need to get this, that and the other together - and they forget about the guard and the safety. It is a safety culture that Embrace FARM, Mr. Dolan and all of the others who have presented today want to generate. We need to change the mindset of farmers.

In the midlands, we got ordinary farmers to turn up to discuss these issues, to see what they do best and to respond to their colleagues. When a departmental inspector comes into a farmyard, farmers are worried about what he or she is looking for. No offence to the representatives from the Department of agriculture, but when an inspector arrives, the farmer's main objective is to get him or her out of the yard as quickly as possible instead of listening to his or her advice. When a farmer colleague or neighbour comes into the yard, on the other hand, farmers will listen to him or her. Indeed, farmers may compete with one another, saying to themselves, "He has a great yard but wait until I get my yard together. I'll soon show him".

It is a culture. One must notice the mistakes and notice the potential. The potential for organisations that have presented here to do so in some sort of proper safety forum is crucial because one has survivors who can speak and tell the truth, and people like ourselves who are ordinary farmers, many of whom have not experienced accidents but who now know what could cause them. The answer is to bring people together to share the experience. Irish Rural Link would like such a pilot scheme to be extended all around the country. The midlands were a blackspot before the pilot scheme was introduced and there was a reduction in accident numbers during the process. Tipperary and Cork are now blackspots and they need help.