Mr. Pat Griffin:

We undertook the GL Noble Denton research to try to identify areas in which we could improve farm safety and change behaviour. Senator Paschal Mooney absolutely hit a particular point, in that the research indicated that we needed to sharpen the message to farmers. While much of the print media and commentary appeal to farmers to work safely, that certainly does not mean much to farmers because everyone wants to work safely. Consequently, one must sharpen the message and become involved more critically in the critical messages. An example of this arose from our reaction to the slurry handling issue, when three dreadful deaths took place within the Spence family in Northern Ireland. There have also been a number of deaths here in slurry handling. In this regard, we certainly tried to sharpen the message on how slurry should be handled. We designed a safety sign that set out simple steps on how to mix slurry safely. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has now agreed to make this safety sign mandatory for placing above agitation points in any new building the Department will grant aid.

Another notable issue to emerge from the GL Noble Denton research was stress and the pressure of paperwork. Obviously, we have covered the point that we are trying to make both safety statements and compliance with legal safety requirements more simple for farmers. We have produced a code of practice which is a checklist form of safety statement. We have also made it available online to make it easier for some younger farmers to comply with it. We have also identified that fatigue is a major issue. Many farmers spend 12 to 14 hours a day working and fatigue is a major issue.

One point that I wish to bring to the attention of the joint committee is that when we conducted this research and tried to examine fatal accident rates across Europe, we were unable to find good statistics for deaths of farmers. We could find figures for approximately 12 member states up to 2007 or 2008, which indicated that approximately 550 farmers were dying in the agriculture sector in the European Union each year. However, if one were to include the new member states and the 28 member states in total, I estimate that 1,000 farmers are being killed each year in producing food for Europe. Certainly, we will try to spread the findings of the research we have undertaken on these issues with our colleagues in Europe to try to deal with this major issue. Our research certainly identified that education, as well as training and working with farmers, was absolutely the way to go.

Deputy Martin Heydon asked what we would do differently this year to try to deal with what happened last year. What we are doing differently is getting involved with discussion groups. We will cover 50 discussion groups and work with farmers to try to improve what they do on farms in order that farmer-to-farmer education and knowledge transfer on safety will actually happen. The research we have undertaken has pointed the way towards what changes are necessary in our programmes of work to change from inspection to broaden it into discussion groups and other preventive methods that we have listed in our submission to the joint committee.