Mr. John McNamara:

Teagasc welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to and appear before this committee. Teagasc as an organisation is deeply committed to assisting farmers to reduce the level of occupational injury and ill health to the greatest possible extent. We know such occurrences cause great tragedy, pain and suffering, disability and farm business loss. Today, I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Larry O’Loughlin, who lost his father in a farm accident in 1959. We do know the consequences of farm accidents.

Teagasc operates a research knowledge transfer model which is regarded as a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations best practice model. We apply our and other international research to and with the farming community to the benefit of farmers and society as a whole. Teagasc has completed ten high-level research studies into occupational health and safety over the past five years. We wish to have this knowledge applied. I thank our colleagues from the Health and Safety Authority for co-funding several of these studies. My colleague, Dr. Meredith, has done a demographic study of fatal farm accidents. I have done a study on the adoption of the farm safety code of practice. We have done studies on the impact of disability on farm households, rural suicide prevention, safety with livestock and farmers’ physical health. The latter is interrelated as people in poor health tend to have more accidents on the farm. We have recently completed a knowledge transfer studying advice and training. We also have studied work organisation on farms and how they affect farm accidents. We are about to commence a study of discussion groups and their role in farm safety. We have done measurements of slurry gas issues and slurry aeration.

Teagasc is a member of the farm safety partnership. We greatly appreciate working with all State and farming organisations to promote health and safety. We have a memorandum of understanding with the HSA to develop a code of practice and seek its implementation.

On the ground, Teagasc produces media articles on farm safety. We do training with all the farming community. We have a strong training programme in place that every new entrant gets. We also provide training to adult farmers on the code of practice. We run advisory events on farms, farm walks, discussion groups and give strong advice on health and safety issues. Teagasc has a committed staff of 30 trained health and safety officers who provide a service at county level.

Our researchers have discovered that when there is a facilitated peer engagement of farmers talking to farmers in a practical way focusing on an issue on an ongoing basis, it tends to lead to greater adoption of the code of practice.

As part of our programmes, we are increasingly emphasising discussion groups. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has indicated that it plans to incentivise discussion groups in future TAMS schemes, and this is a very positive and constructive development.