Mr. Connie O'Driscoll:

There are fewer than 100 players in our club, from the youngest aged six to the adult players. Our core business is hurling and football. In 2010 we began to look outside that and talk about other issues that affect our players. Our numbers are very tight and we saw the importance of the survival and health of our players from the neck up and the neck down. We need them in full health - alive - to sustain our club. We need them to be in good running order.

In 2010 we set up the care for our players programme which we think is unique to our club. We used three headings: road safety, health and well-being, and jobs and enterprise. Under health and well-being we operate an amber flag programme for suicide awareness and hold positive mental health days once a year. Under the jobs and enterprise remit we talk about promoting local enterprise and shop local, using billboards to advertise. Our road safety programme has been recognised locally and regionally and has won a national award from the Road Safety Authority, RSA. In 2014 farm safety became so topical that we felt we should go beyond road safety and include farm safety.

We looked at what we might do and realised that machinery was the big issue, so we organised to take some of our players over to a good facility, the Bantry Driving Academy, which has an off-road track purpose built for learner drivers. It is mostly for learning to drive cars, but we used it on that day with the help of farm relief services, who supplied us with a tutor to teach our people about tractor safety. We got some funding from our local FBD office and those involved had a very nice day out there. They learned about farm, tractor and machinery safety and we thought it was appropriate and worked very well. It is something we intend to do a lot more of. It touches on what has been talked about, especially by the three organisations that were here a few minutes ago.

I am disappointed that the image of living on a farm has become seriously tainted because of the discussion about farm safety over the last years. Now, it seems undesirable to rear children on a farm. We were brought up on small farms in west Cork and have reared families on farms. It was always a tradition that children would visit farms but that has become a bit of a no-no because parents are so conscious of the risks. A lot of what they hear now are adverse comments on the safety of farms. It has become a serious issue. We have some great memories of growing up when we were young on the farm. The few times every year or every second year when my siblings and I meet, we talk about the memories of growing up on a farm long ago. Are we going to deny the next generation or the generation after that the same enjoyment? We need to reverse the trend in farm accidents so that we do not deny them that.

With regard to what is to be done, some of the material in our submission is very simple but effective. These measures would work well and are not expensive. Money has been talked about and, from our own experience, low income on farms has contributed to farm accidents and deaths. We have no doubt about that. We tend to try and fix a lot of things, to be builders, engineers and welders - we try to be everything and maybe we do not master anything.

We have two words for solving this problem - awareness and education. They have both been mentioned already today. We would distinguish between the youth and the more seasoned farmers or the fellows who are farming now at whatever age. We need to start young because if we get the message to the schoolchildren and convince them, they will go home and convince their parents. We need to start the programme in primary school and to put a big emphasis on the programmes in transition year. Already there are safe driving programmes in schools and they should be expanded to safe driving in agri-business - tractor and machinery safety. There should be much more focused training programmes in the agricultural colleges as they are the people who will be farming in the future and will be rearing families on farms. The RSA has been mentioned here more than once, along with the campaign it ran to reduce road fatalities - my God, was it successful - and farm safety deserves exactly the same attention.

There are so many groups doing so many good things individually. Some we hear about and some we do not but they need to be co-ordinated.

We would have an issue with the HSA running this because we think there should be a dedicated farm safety group looking after it. We think it deserves that. It is a no-brainer because the RSA did a successful campaign. We have no doubt that some of the same images and television campaigns that the RSA used to reverse and lower the number of road deaths need to be used in this case as well. This is what needs to be done. I repeat that the GAA should be involved much more. For example, there are some high profile GAA players who would be good at spreading the message. Young people look up to them, as do adults and farmers. We need to use them more. We also need to use the ICA more because if a farmer was to listen to no one else I can guarantee he would listen to the wife, the partner or the girlfriend. If she says it, he might listen.

I am delighted to see the farming organisations are here. They need to work together and with all others as well. In our view it is a case of hitting the young people with stark messages and using the stick with them and in the case of the more seasoned farmers, use the carrot approach because they will not react to too much stick.

I thank the committee for having us. We wish the members well in their work. Farm safety is a big issue in rural Ireland. We ask the committee to report pretty quickly, using a language that we can understand and giving practical suggestions. I say this because farmers will react to practical suggestions. They are the leaders in practicality. If the committee gives us the leadership we will do the rest at no cost to the State whatsoever.