Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier, farmers' mental health and well-being is integrally linked to farm safety. As far as I am concerned they are the same and one cannot look at them in isolation. I definitely share the concerns. Farmers work in isolation anyway. It is the nature of the job and it then makes it harder when the pressure is on. We are all aware of the impact that Covid has had on farmers. Across all sectors of society it has affected people who live alone or in more isolation but I have particular concern for farmers who work alone and live alone and particularly during the Covid restrictions. Their social outlet was to go to mart and maybe go for a pint at the weekend or to go to a sporting match or maybe to a religious service at the weekend. All of those four things were taken away during the lockdown. The pressures of farming and the ongoing work of farming did not go away. The release valve of talking to other neighbours and to share their experiences and to realise that they were not the only ones who are feeling the pressure, was taken away from them little bit. I am acutely aware that. This is why the On Feirm Ground project is so important. The farm adviser is very trusted. They are in the yard and they have that opportunity to lean over the gate and have that chat with the farmer at the end, and to identify if a farmer is in distress. The adviser is also in a position to be able to signpost supports where he or she thinks they are needed. I spoke about the innovation partnership models we have introduced. A number of the approved European Innovation Projects, EIPs, will address issues the committee has raised such as farm succession and health and well-being. These include the An Meitheal Feirme Project and Eco-T, which is a collaborative response to farmer mental health and suicide. The mid-Leinster farming and well-being project will carry that out. The farm family continuing professional development working group has also secured funding under the EIP. It is very striking that of the successful applications coming through the EIP model, many of them incorporated the farmer mental health and well-being piece as an integral part of addressing other safety hazards on the farm. They are inextricably linked, as the committee has also highlighted.