Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator D'Arcy for giving me the opportunity to outline the situation. The Health and Safety Authority, HSA, under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, has primary responsibility for health and safety in the workplace. The HSA is also the enforcement agency for workplace safety. It carries out in the region of 3,000 inspections annually and plans to continue with a high level of engagement during 2014. These visits are aimed at advising and educating farmers of the dangers that are ever present in the farm environment.

It is a fact that farming is the most dangerous occupation in the country, with more people killed on farms than all other workplaces combined. To a large degree, the nature of a farm is at the core of the problem. A farm is, to a great extent, seen first and foremost as a family home. This means it is seen as a place of security and welcome for family, friends, neighbours and visitors. However, a farmyard is a very dangerous place of work with large modern machinery and other dangers such as animals and extensive slurry storage areas.

The difficulty is to marry the family home part of the farm with the farmyard and other dangerous areas of the extended farm.

Last year there were 16 fatal accidents reported on farms, down from 21 in the previous year. Unfortunately, there has already been one fatality this year.

The Department is represented on the farm safety partnership advisory committee which is a sub-committee of the Health and Safety Authority. The committee advises the board on the direction the authority should take in farm safety. The farm safety action plan 2013-15 follows on from the previous farm safety action plan 2009-12 and has been developed in conjunction with the farm safety partnership advisory committee. Slatted slurry storage units are safe as long as they are designed, constructed, operated and maintained in accordance with best practice. The most dangerous time in the use of a slatted slurry storage tank is during the agitation of slurry. All animals must be removed from the building during agitation; all vents must be opened to the maximum, including sliding doors, and agitation must take place on a breezy day. Most importantly, it is critical that no person enters the building during the agitation process.

The other danger is the risk of slat failure. With slatted units it is important to ensure slats are inspected on a regular basis. They are not lifetime items and need to be replaced before they fail. Slat failure can be an expensive way to discover replacement is required. Failure can and has resulted in the loss of highly valuable livestock. To avoid broken legs or, worse still, animals or people in the slurry tanks, all slats should be carefully inspected for cracks and sagging and replaced, as necessary. Attempting to rescue animals from slurry tanks is extremely dangerous and has resulted in the loss of multiple human lives.

In November 2012 my Department, in conjunction with Teagasc, published a two page article in the Irish Farmers Journal on how to inspect cattle slats on top of a slurry tank in a safe manner. The article highlighted the importance of regular monitoring of the condition of cattle slats and the safe procedures for entering a slurry tank to undertake such an inspection. The Department has detailed specifications for the design and construction of all slatted units. These specifications detail the required safety procedures and construction standards for these units. The first section in all of the specifications documents concerns safety. All of the specifications are freely available on my Department's website to anyone who is undertaking work on the construction of a slurry store. The specifications are kept under continual review and any development in safety or construction techniques is incorporated into them.

In March 2013 the Department included a farm safety message with the single payment application packs sent to over 130,000 farmers. The leaflet focused, in particular, on the dangers of slurry gases and the safe procedures for handling slurry. This was a joint initiative between the Department, the Health and Safety Authority and the farm safety partnership advisory committee and its aim was to draw attention to the risks associated specifically with slurry gases. It is just one example of co-operation between various agencies to remind farmers of the importance of following safe farming practices and the potentially fatal consequences for them, their families and other farm visitors of lowering their guard.

There is no single solution to the problem. All relevant agencies should and, I am confident, will work with the HSA and the farming representative organisations to continue to tackle this issue. This is a good time to be a farmer. We want to do everything we can to get individual farmers to take care of their safety and that of their family and all others who visit their farms. The information is available, but we must keep working to get individual farmers to take notice and put into practice good safety procedures and routines at all times.