Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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60. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine what new initiatives he plans on the farm safety front; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8350/24]

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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This question relates to farm safety. What initiatives are currently planned? Will the Minister provide an update on current initiatives, how they are working and how they are being reviewed?

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Griffin for raising a really important issue. Due to the prevalence of farm safety issues and farm workplace incidents, farmers are the most likely workers to lose their lives. Farming is the most dangerous profession in Ireland. A farmer is seven times more likely to lose their life in a workplace incident than any other one of the more than 2.5 million workers in this country who is in a different profession. That meant that we put a particular focus on this issue when we formed this Government. I was the first Minister of State to be given direct responsibility for farm safety. In that time, I have used my role in the Department of agriculture, working with the Health and Safety Authority, which has statutory responsibility for workplace safety, to work on its promotion and changing the culture.

It also includes, structurally within the Department, getting a dedicated unit set up, as well as a dedicated fund, which stands at €2.5 million following the most recent budget, to support initiatives to promote farm safety practices, risk awareness and behavioural change around farm safety from a young age. We have a range of ways of doing that. We have done it through working with the HSA on media and promotional campaigns, following on from joint media campaigns in 2023. In conjunction with the farm safety partnership advisory committee, we put together the booklet, "How to Make Construction Appointments for Your Farm", which was distributed to 125,000 farmers as part of their 2024 basic income support for sustainability, BISS, packs. We know that when construction takes place on farms, that is a time of real risk and danger.

Beyond that, there is the On Feirm Ground initiative, which I am very proud of. My Department works in collaboration with the HSE and the Department of Health to co-fund a farmers' physical and mental health awareness programme. This includes trained agricultural advisers and has now expanded to bring in private veterinary practitioners, departmental staff and other professionals who are in regular contact with farmers and are ideally situated to signpost farmers to relevant health services. We have also incorporated training through the suckler carbon efficiency programme to 15,000 farmers. The agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. training scheme provides an overview of health and safety, while knowledge transfer programmes will include farm safety, farm health and well-being as priority topics.

I will touch on a number of other areas in my supplementary answer.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his very comprehensive response. I appreciate all the efforts that are being made. He is in a difficult situation in that the number of lives saved will never be known, but he can take it and accept, due to these initiatives, that lives are saved. Naturally, we do not ever hear about that but it is critical that all efforts are maintained and intensified. Every single death is one too many.

I sympathise with everybody who has lost someone on a farm, whether recently or in the past. In particular, I offer my condolences and sympathy to the family and friends of Darragh Dullea and Cillian Kirwan, who were students at the college in Pallaskenry, County Limerick. They passed away in a tragic accident on Tuesday. My thoughts and sympathies are with them. They were young farmers who had bright futures ahead of them. It is extremely tragic.

Will the Minister of State outline whether efforts are under way to plan for Farm Safety Week 2024? Are there further initiatives that he would like to see implemented in future?

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I share with the Deputy in offering condolences to the families of those affected in that awful tragedy on Tuesday.

There are other initiatives. I see my role in farm safety as not just involving the physical form of farm safety but the mental health and well-being of farmers. My Department continues to support research into farmer health and well-being. The DCU-led farm health research project is examining farmers' mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour to inform the development of educational mental health programmes through which we can support farmers. I announced funding of €700,000 under the recent thematic research call for the UCD-led "Farming Minds: Developing evidence-based interventions to enhance farmer mental health" project, which is very important.

I will also highlight an initiative I am very proud of, namely, getting farm safety as a scheme under targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, 3. Of the ten TAM schemes, the farm safety capital investment scheme has been significantly subscribed to by farmers. It has had the biggest number of applicants at 5,163, which is proof that when farmers are given the support they will invest in safety on their farms and put it as a top priority. Along with my €128,000 in funding to Agri Aware for its school children's farm safety initiative, it means we are touching every generation in farming to bring about that cultural change we need to make farming much safer for everyone involved.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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All those initiatives are very important. I am glad the Minister of State mentioned mental health as it is something that particularly deserves attention and focus. It is a very worthy effort and expenditure that the Department is embarking on in that area because it is critically important.

In the past, I remember television was a medium used for farm safety promotions and various other initiatives. Is that something that could again be looked at? With social media, there are ways to target your audience in a very specific way, but television is a catch-all. We know that many people who are not farmers visit farms. Children on their holidays, for example, would be in close proximity to farms or using roads that are shared with farm machinery, etc. There is scope for a broader, blanket farm safety and agricultural safety awareness campaign in future. Perhaps it might be considered.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. Promotion is a key part of my role. In the children's farm safety initiative in schools, in conjunction with Agri Aware, we are using the positive pester power of children. The Deputy is well aware, as I am, that when children decide they want something, they do not leave you alone until they get it. Instead of me pleading with my uncle to get on top of a very dangerous load of bales on the trip home, as I did 40 years ago, those children are now pestering their parents by saying what they are doing is not safe because they learned that in school. That is a very positive initiative and way of doing that.

The point the Deputy made on promotion is very valid. There are numerous ways to do that. We have had joint TV initiatives with the HSA in the past, but I am acutely aware of how farmers in the modern day now get their information. It is largely through their mobile phones, online and digital. We have to change. We funded an online initiative last year, which got directly to farmers where they sourced their news, to place adverts, pieces of information and key campaigns throughout all the seasons. At this time of the year, it is about calving and later it will be about silage, slurry spreading and agitation. At those dangerous points, we are getting the key message of how to operate more safely and how better to identify risk to farmers at that time.