Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our witnesses for their opening statements. I grew up on a farm and we did a bit of contracting in a small way but it was 165s and 135s and smaller tractors than they have nowadays. We would put them in the link box with what they use today. I see youngsters driving very heavy machinery. I know they are probably a lot safer in the sense that they have better cabs on them and many more safety measures within them than were in the older machines we all grew up using. Sometimes I look back and wonder that more of us were not killed or hurt by the way some things went on. On that point about training for young people who are driving these very big tractors, the speed they can go at on the road even is quite dangerous. They can move very fast. We need to get clarity on that and see where it is at.

The other issue is in regard to children. The point is well made that if children learn at the right age, they will become advocates for everybody. That is something we need to be doing more of. For most children who grow up on a farm, their big ambition is to do the work they see going on around them. They want to be the ones pushing in the silage, handling the cattle and doing these things. From a very young age they are trying their best to be that. I have had family members who were injured by machinery and it has been my experience that the thing they have done a thousand times and got away with catches them once. In regard to safety measures on vehicles and the mechanisms that are in place to ensure accidents cannot happen, what more can be done? What can be done to make older machinery and equipment more safe than it is at present?