Ms Norma Rohan:

None of us appearing before the committee is a health and safety expert on how something should be done. Nevertheless, legislation and regulations have their part to play and they are there for a reason. When legislators are producing legislation, focusing on the product is only one aspect. Farmers' well-being has to be side by side with that, not at the bottom of the pile. The Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, has committed that in the new Food Vision 2030 policy, the farmer will be up there, although I am not sure about that. Similarly, the Health and Safety Authority and its officials want farmers to be safe. They do not want them injuring themselves or dying.

Even so, when these people are front-facing with farmers, there is a way to deal with and interact with people. It might be a suggestion for the Department to have a psychotherapist or psychologist on its payroll to help with training of officials and so on. There are no official figures from the CSO on farmer suicide in Ireland that we can get our hands on. Apparently, our country is too small and it is too easy to identify people. Based on the figures from the UK, however, we estimate approximately one farmer per week takes his or her own life. That is an estimate but-----