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

I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this critically important issue. As Minister of State with special responsibility for farm safety, I have always considered farmers' mental health and wellbeing to be inextricably linked to farm safety. We know that a farmer is seven times more likely to lose his or her life in a workplace incident on his or her farm than in any other profession in the country, making it by far the most dangerous workplace in the country.

In that context, the results of the recent University College Dublin, UCD-HSE study are particularly stark when we look at their research project into farmers and developing a suicide prevention intervention for farmers in Ireland. That study found that between 2014 and 2019, in five of those six years, more farmers died by suicide than they did in farm safety incidents. That puts in context exactly the challenge with which we are dealing. The extent of the challenge we face in the area of supporting farmers whose mental health is suffering is really clear. Anecdotally, it is very much the case, having dealt with a number of different groups and organisations and with farmers, that the challenge has been in identifying where farmers are struggling and signposting the supports to them. It is not that the supports are not there. We have to do better in identifying where farmers are struggling, however, and identify where they pull back from society and are not having that social interaction or where they maybe feel things are getting on top of them. We are taking a number of measures in my Department and working with colleagues and other Departments as well.

Government has placed a huge priority on farmer mental health and farm safety. We have a €2.5 million allocation in this year's budget. I have a number of initiatives that support increased awareness around the importance of mental health and helping farmers. I was very happy to launch and now look to expand the On Firm Ground proposal, in partnership with the Department of Health, the HSE and the Men’s Development Network, which sees farm advisers who are very trusted in the farm set-up being trained in identifying and signposting the supports for farmers. There are other initiatives as well, which I will come to in my supplementary response.

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