The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has cut its 2017 farm safety initiatives budget by 25% on last year, according to data released to Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McConalogue.

In response to McConalogue’s parliamentary question on the HSA’s farm safety spending figures, former Minister of State for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Pat Breen, said that last year the HSA allocated some €384,000 to farm safety initiatives.

This compares with €287,000 allocated to such initiatives this year.

In a statement, McConalogue expressed his concerns for this decrease, highlighting the high number fatalities already confirmed in 2017.

“The decision to cut the farm safety budget so dramatically will sound alarm bells for farming families in every parish in the country.

“Considering the fact that there have already been 12 fatalities in the agriculture sector this year, this budget cut is not only unwise, it is alarming.

“The move follows the publication of a report by the ESRI and the Health and Safety Authority which found that the fatality rate for farming is nearly ten times the average across occupations between 2009 and 2015.

“The decision by the Minister for Jobs to stand over these harsh cuts at a time when there needs to be more awareness of farm safety is extremely worrying”, Deputy McConalogue concluded.

HSA comment

A spokesman for the HSA told the Irish Farmers Journal: “We in the HSA take a risk-based approach to our work and use all of our resources, whether that’s money, time, energy or thought, where it is needed most.

“Farming is the highest risk category and we give it a lot of our resources. We won’t stop doing that until we get a zero-fatality rate in farming, which we believe is possible.”

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