Mr. Patrick Duffy:

Is mór an onóir dom a bheith anseo inniu le bheith ag caint faoi sábháilteacht ar an bhfeirm. Gan dabht, is ábhar fiorthábhachtach é an t-ábhar seo agus tá áthas an domhain orm deis a fháil labhairt faoi. My name is Patrick Duffy and I am from County Monaghan. I am a member of the farming community. As the Chairman said, I work regularly on my own farm at home and on my uncle's farm down the road. I am currently a transition year student at Ballybay Community College in County Monaghan.

As a young person living in rural Ireland today I believe I have some knowledge and some experience of farm safety. Today I will talk about farm safety from a young person's perspective. Of the 30 people who died on Irish farms last year, five were children. Three of these children were under the age of seven. According to the HSA, 22 children died on Irish farms between 2005 and 2014. This is an extraordinarily high number for such a small and young age group.

In my view there is currently a lack of awareness among young people regarding farm safety. If we want to lower the number of deaths and accidents among young people, this attitude must change. The way forward to promote this awareness, as has been mentioned earlier, is through education both at home and at school.

In my submission I called for farm safety to be taught as a compulsory subject throughout primary school, from junior infants to sixth class. This education should be continued on to second level as part of the transition year programme.

As part of a school project two or three years ago I designed a farm safety board game which is aimed at primary school children to teach them the rights and wrongs, per se, of safety on the farm. It is a very simple game. If the dice rolls on a positive space, such as "farmer wearing a reflective jacket" or "farm safety signs in place", the player goes forward two or three spaces.

On the other hand, if I land in a negative space such as "children playing in a field with a bull" or near "an open slurry tank", I have to go back two or three spaces. The aim of the game is to highlight the dangers on farms in a fun and interactive way. Children often learn better this way than they do in reading information in a book. Not only will the game be a good tool in the classroom, if children bring it home to their families and play it with parents, grandparents and siblings, they will also be teaching these other family members about farm safety. This was a point made by one of the Senators. Believe it or not, sometimes it is the child who can teach the adult. I attended an IFA meeting in County Monaghan recently at which a farmer told me he how he had wanted to bring his son with him one day in his tractor. The child refused to go because he knew about the Health and Safety Authority's regulation banning children under the age of seven years from being in a tractor cab. This young boy had heard about the regulation on the news or heard other farmers talking about it. It was because he was informed and educated that he could, in turn, inform and educate his parent on an issue to do with farm safety. I see no reason this cannot happen and I am sure this will happen on a broader scale if there is more education on these matters in schools.

My board game is only one example of the many ways in which we can teach farm safety to young people. Another tool I wish to bring to the committee's attention is "Stay Safe on the Farm with Jessy", a joint publication by the HSA and Teagasc. It tells the story of a dog bringing her puppies around the farm on which they live, pointing to the various hazards and how to avoid accidents. It is from this book that I learned most of my knowledge of farm safety. When we were small my parents would sit us down as a family and read the book to us, emphasising the various dangers on our farm and other farms. Every farm family should have a copy of this book and ensure it is read to their small children.

There is a lack of awareness among young people involved in farming regarding farm safety. The way to increase the level of awareness is through more education at home and in school, at both primary and secondary level. There must be greater co-operation between young people and their parents on this issue. If that is done, we will see a decrease in the number of on-farm fatalities and accidents involving young people.