Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I join in that vote of sympathy to Senator Moynihan.

On the comments made by Senator Sherlock, I was about to raise the matter of farm safety. It is that time of year again. As a result of all of the bad weather, the farm season seems to be getting increasingly shorter. We have so many accidents every year on farms. We had 16 fatal accidents on farms last year. From memory, I believe there were 13 in 2022. The number of accidents is rising. There were 39 work-related fatalities in 2023, and 42% of those were in agriculture. These are very significant figures. No more than the situation with deaths that occur in the water, the number of deaths in the agriculture sector, particularly when the season gets busy, is great.

The Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, and the Government have very strong policies in respect of farm safety. Those policies are constantly highlighted, which is good to see. People can read articles about them in the farming and local newspapers and hear about them on local radio. It might be no harm if the Minister of State made himself available for an hour-long debate some day in order that we might drive home the point and ask people to be careful. Having very young children around machinery is extremely dangerous. Accidents happen. They are sometimes hard to avoid. When we consider what can happen, however, we can see that some accidents could have been avoided. Perhaps the Acting Leader might bring my suggestion to the attention of the Minister of State. It is something good we could do that might keep people's minds switched on at this time to make them realise that farm safety is very important. I am very concerned that we lost 16 people in farm accidents last year and that this was an increase on previous years.