Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the debate. It is timely that Farm Safety Week is the second week of July because many farm accidents occur during the school holidays and involve children, including grandchildren visiting their grandparents. I express the solidarity of the House with all those families who have been bereaved and all those who have been injured in farm accidents. As we discuss this issue, I am mindful of the fact that there are people who have had direct experience of such accidents. While many of them were avoidable, there were many that were not, regardless of what anybody might have done. Community education programmes could make an important contribution in creating an awareness of the need for farm safety, particularly among younger people and children but also across the board.

Farm safety measures need to be incorporated into environmental schemes, including the green, low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS, previously the rural environment protection scheme, REPS, notwithstanding the fact that the farm safety scheme is separate from them. There is a direct correlation between accidents and decreasing farm incomes, particularly in the west, in the same way as young fishermen have lost their lives in taking risks to try to increase their incomes. Farmers working long hours and the issue of affordability have an impact on farm safety.

I welcome the changes to the farm assist scheme that I heard the Minister mention yesterday and look forward to hearing the details of the changes he has in mind. He knows that farm assist payments were eroded twice during the term of office of the previous Government, which resulted in a dramatic loss of income for those dependent on them.

I take the opportunity to ask the Minister to consider the soil sampling deadline of 31 March under the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS, and the fact that there is no flexibility in that regard. Even though soil samples were taken prior to 31 March, in a number of cases people have been excluded from the scheme because it took a number of days for the soil samples to be submitted.

The Minister might come back into the House to enable us to have a full discussion on the review of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, particularly on the issues of eligibility, GLAS, designations and the impact of Brexit. I look forward to discussing all of these issues with him on another day.