Holly Cairns
Question:182. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps he is taking to improve farm safety. [7039/22]
View answerThursday, 10 February 2022
Questions (182)
Written answers
My Department has a range of measures in place to raise awareness of farm safety. These include capital support to make farms safer and support for education and awareness. Some of the measures are as follows:
Under the suite of seven TAMS measures, there is a wide range of farm safety related investments available to be grant-aided, with ‘Health and Safety’ guidelines included in all ‘Building Specifications' for the construction of agricultural buildings and structures. Additionally, it is a requirement for all applicants under the schemes to complete a half-day of farm safety training.
Farm Safety Training will be rolled out to approximately 50,000 farmers as part of the Agri-Environmental and farm safety training package announced in budget 2021. The training of the advisors to undertake this role is being carried out this week.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, in conjunction with the HSA, ran a combined television and radio campaign on farm safety in 2020 and again last year. The campaign focused on reminding farmers not to be complacent around machinery.
DAFM is supporting the AgriAware Farm Safe Schools initiative for 2022 which aims to Engage, Educate and Empower children to be farm safety ambassadors. My Ministerial colleague Martin Hayden launched the initiative on 6th January 2022. To date 400 schools have signed up to participate in 2022.
Further proposals for the dedicated farm safety budget of €2 million for 2022 are in the process of being finalised and will be announced in due course. The Farm Safety webpage www.gov.ie/farmsafety/ will be updated to reflect all farm safety initiatives in due course.
We can and are doing more to improve farm safety. Farming is the greatest profession we have but the number of deaths and accidents are too high and we should ensure that whenever a farmer puts on their wellies in the morning, they take them off themselves that evening.