Mr. Bill Callanan:

Good afternoon. I thank the Senators for inviting the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to make a presentation on farm safety at the Seanad Public Consultation Committee. The Minister, Deputy Coveney and the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, regret their unavailability to attend this afternoon and wish to convey their support for the public consultation on this critically important area of farm safety. On behalf of the Department, we also offer our condolences to all families who have been affected by a fatal farm accident.

To date this year, there have been three fatal accidents on Irish farms. This follows a very difficult year in 2014, when 30 people lost their lives on Irish farms due to workplace accidents. These three fatal farm accidents account for 60% of all fatal work accidents so far in 2015, while farming accounts for less than 6% of the workforce. While the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, has primary responsibility for occupational health, safety and welfare in the workplace, including on farms, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine supports the work of the agency in promoting safer and healthier farming practices. The Department is an active member of the farm safety partnership advisory committee, FSPAC, which is run by the Health and Safety Authority. Established in 2002, the farm safety partnership advisory committee is a sub-committee of the board of the Health and Safety Authority. Members of the committee actively work to promote safe farming practices. The FSPAC is chaired by a board member of the HSA, currently Professor James Phelan, and reports at every meeting of the board. These reports include the actions taken by each member organisation to reduce the number of deaths in the workplace. This committee also advises the HSA on farm safety.

A number of actions have been taken by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the most significant being the Minister's recent launch of a farm safety scheme on 22 October 2014. This scheme, with a dedicated fund of €12.2 million, attracted 6,299 applications and all valid applications will be approved. Specifically, this scheme supports improvements on farms aimed at addressing safety risks. Equipment for safe cattle handling and electrical work are the most popular items to date in terms of approvals issued. All work under the farm safety scheme must be completed and a payment claim lodged with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine by 31 August, 2015. A further farm safety scheme including a wider range of items will be made available under the 2014-20 rural development programme, RDP.

In addition to the farm safety schemes, there will also be a mandatory health and safety element as part of all the knowledge transfer groups under the 2014-20 rural development programme. These knowledge transfer groups bring together small groups of farmers working with an agricultural adviser on their own farms with a strong emphasis on shared learning experiences. It is expected that this initiative will reach 27,000 farms over the course of the RDP period. Over the last four years, a farm safety leaflet has also been included with the single farm payment application packs, which are sent to over 130,000 farmers every year. This is a joint initiative between the Department, the HSA and the farm safety partnership advisory committee. This leaflet has targeted different risks in each year and this year is focused on machinery safety. There are approximately 140,000 individual farms employing approximately 6% of the workforce. Each farmer must be reached and encouraged to manage farm safety.

Research has shown that farmers are aware of health and safety issues and the real pressure is to drive behavioural change. This change has already occurred in other sectors. For instance, during the construction of Glanbia's new milk processing plant at Belview, County Kilkenny, there were only two minor accidents over the course of the whole building project. It is now time to ensure equally good outcomes in health and safety for farms supplying the plant and indeed all farms. By the nature of their work, farmers have to be able to undertake a wide variety of tasks. However, they need to ensure they know how to safely complete the required tasks. The "I have always done it this way" or "It will not happen to me" attitude needs to be eliminated. Although farming can be a dangerous occupation, most dangers can be reduced or eliminated by using the correct equipment in the correct manner. Machinery is getting bigger and animals are getting less used to being handled. Even the milking of dairy cows can be undertaken with robots.

Farms are active businesses and farmers need to invest in ongoing maintenance and upgrading of facilities to ensure a safe working environment. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has particularly supported the raising of awareness of this serious issue and has taken every opportunity to highlight the importance of changing behaviour on farms and making farming a safer occupation for all.

As a farm is a dynamic, ever-changing environment and in the majority of cases includes the family home, such changes in attitude are considered to be most critical in addressing the unacceptable number of farm fatalities.