Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senator Paul Daly on his proactive approach not only in bringing forward this legislation but, in addition, providing an excellent explanatory leaflet which outlines the case for his proposals. In the rural parts of my home county of Donegal, as in other rural areas, we have lost too many lives to farm accidents. As other speakers noted, a farm is not a like other workplaces because it is where families live and children grow up and play.I was looking at this publication from the Health and Safety Authority and Teagasc. It teaches about farm safety but is clearly aimed at young people and their parents. This is an excellent example but there is not enough of it. There is not enough focus on it.

Senator Paul Daly made a comparison with the Road Safety Authority. I must commend him on this comparison because we had a serious problem and there is never any room for complacency in terms of road safety in Donegal. At one stage, my home peninsula of Inishowen lost 18 young people under the age of 25 within 18 months. It was horrific. There is a lot of discussion about what we are going to do about this. Such was the scale of the tragedies we had at national level that many good people offered assistance. What emerged from that was, thankfully, a dedicated focus on road safety through the Road Safety Authority with public information campaigns where shocking stories were told to people. When one looks at this information leaflet from Senator Paul Daly, one can see that the statistics are devastating. Half of the accidents are on farms. Clearly, what we are doing is not working.

We always worry about the idea of another dedicated agency. Remember that years ago, there was all this talk about too many quangos but I commend the model because the Senator talks about how it will be an independent agency under the authority of the Health and Safety Authority. This is a really thoughtful approach. The Senator has put a lot of thought into it. It is unusual. Sadly, much legislation in here does not have explanatory memoranda or an attempt to win support for it. I am pleased to confirm that my party is supportive and am thankful to the Senator for the amount of the work and effort he has put into this and the imaginative and thoughtful way he has approached it. It is worthy of support. The Health and Safety Authority does its best with the resources it has and has a wide spectrum within workplaces to consider but, unfortunately, we clearly need a dedicated focus on farm safety. On that basis, we support the legislation and look forward to working with the Senator through the next few Stages as the Bill progresses.