A FARM safety campaign to address the high rate of fatalities on Irish farms was launched yesterday by President Mary McAleese.
A sharp rise in farm fatalities last year to 26 – 55 per cent of all occupational deaths – has prompted the IFA to run the campaign.
“Farming is conducted in all weathers and all conditions, which adds to the pressures and the safety problems on farms,” said Mrs McAleese. “But men, women and children have paid a dreadful price for cutting corners or failing to be 100 per cent risk-aware.”
The President was speaking on her first ever visit to the Irish Farm Centre in Bluebell, Dublin.
“We are rightly proud of our farming tradition and our wonderful farm produce, but there is one statistic we are not proud of and that is the fact Irish farms are among the most dangerous places to work in Ireland.”
Farmers, she said, had the gratitude of the public because of the safe food they produced but none of the consumers of Irish food would want that food produced at the cost of injury or death.
She said every one of the deaths and 1,500 accidents on farms last year were avoidable, and she was glad to add her voice to those insisting farmers put farm safety at the top of their priority list for this year.
Thanking Mrs McAleese for her support, IFA president John Bryan said safety awareness would be promoted this year to the 87,000 IFA members in 947 branches.
Farm safety has been chosen as the theme for an IFA calendar this year, and each county executive will be addressed by experts from Teagasc, the insurance company FBD and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
The IFA will create a farm safety page on its website, and stickers for vehicles will be distributed through the trade press using the slogan Think Safety-Farm Safety.
Pat Griffin, the senior inspector of the HSA with responsibility for agriculture, described last year’s death toll as “quite dreadful”, with farm deaths in virtually every county.
He said machinery, livestock and in recent years tree-felling were the main causes of death. In the past three years there had been eight deaths involving chainsaws. He urged farmers not to be afraid of health and safety inspectors who would visit to advise and help rather than punish.