Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all my colleagues for their support today. As I said at the outset, this is such an important issue but I am a little taken aback by the Minister of State's response, to be honest. Perhaps the Minister of State had to take the approach he took but I had hoped that under the circumstances and given the topic of conversation, he would not take a defensive attitude. I was very complimentary of the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, and every other body mentioned in the Minister of State's summation. I was very complimentary of their work and was not critical of anybody, the Minister of State included. I said in my opening remarks that the numbers would be far worse were it not for the good work that is being done by a number of different agencies. That said, I did identify cracks in the system and argued that the numbers are still too high, as the Minister of State acknowledged. The reason I am proposing this Bill in its current form is to try to seal the cracks.

The Minister of State mentioned the HSA stall at the National Ploughing Championships. I ploughed at the championships in Waterford in 1983 and have attended the championships every year since then. Until I became aware of this issue, I was one of those who, on walking around the championships site in the evenings would walk by the HSA stall, thinking that it would never happen to me. Expecting people to call to the HSA is not going to work. That is why I am proposing that this agency would have a statutory and legislative footing. I acknowledge the farm safety partnership and the good advice that it gives. However, in its implementation, it is falling between the cracks. Teagasc operates on the agriculture front but if one is not a Teagasc client, one does not receive its literature. If one is not involved in the green certificate programme, one is not getting safety training from Teagasc. If one does not attend a knowledge transfer course, one does not get Teagasc training. Even if nine out of ten people are attending such courses, the one person who is not attending is still vulnerable. It is that one person who, unfortunately, has added to the figures that have been quoted here today by so many Senators.

The IFA is playing an important role, as are the ICMSA and the ICSA. They all have safety officers but not every farmer is a member of those organisations. We have NGOs that are doing fantastic work but not on a national basis so there are areas and pockets of the country that are being missed. Bord Bia is also part of this process. If a farmer applies to be quality assured, the first thing that Bord Bia does is insist that he or she erects a calving gate. I had to do that myself and it is a fantastic measure. I appreciate its value and wonder at times how I or some member of my family did not have an accident when a cow was calving before we had that gate. Had I not joined the quality assurance scheme, I probably would not have installed a calving gate. These are just a few of the many organisations that are doing great work on the back of the farm safety partnership advice. However, as I have said already, there are faults and cracks in the system and people are being missed and falling between those cracks. The issue is how we get to those people who are being missed. How do we reach those with the "it won't happen to me" attitude? They are not going to approach any of the aforementioned organisations. These people are not clients of Teagasc, they have never engaged in the green certificate programme, are not involved in knowledge transfer groups and are not members of any farm representative body. They live in areas where NGOs cannot reach them because of time, personnel and financial constraints.

I am trying to help to provide a solution. I am not being domineering or critical and I am complimentary of what has been done to date. I am here to try to solve a problem, the existence of which is undeniable. The figures, unfortunately, speak for themselves. Everybody today said that it is great to start the conversation but I want this to be more than a conversation. Having a conversation is scant consolation for those families who have been bereaved and those who have family members at home who can no longer do the work they did previously because of an accident. Everyone in here understands how the legislative system works in terms of Bills proposed by the Opposition and money messages. It is very unfortunate that the Minister of State's closing response to a debate on such a serious and concerning issue is that money is more important than the lives of our farmers, who have kept this country viable since its foundation.