Ms Kate Tobin:

I will address some of the direct questions before Mr. Roche comes in on where we see the most critical challenges facing farm safety. The work of the farm safety partnership has highlighted those challenges and has a programme of work in place around them.

Senator Lynch asked whether we have seen any changes in patterns over the years. Generally what we see from an insurance perspective are accidents. We saw very high levels of accidents and high numbers of claims around ten years ago with some 1,000 accidents a year. We have seen that reduce and it is now in the region of 800. Some of this is down to the work of the groups here today. That figure is still quite high. I am not saying that this is a full achievement but we have certainly seen a reduction over time.

With regard to premium differentials relating to farm safety, we generally do not penalise farmers in terms of farm safety. We probably see it as a much more important investment to put the money into behavioural change in a more widespread perspective. Accidents can happen even on the most safe farms, so it is just about trying to address it in that way.

There was a specific question around seized vehicles post accidents and if they had they failed their test. I would not have statistics on that in front of me. Perhaps this is something we can look at and revert to the committee on it.