With 2014 being described as a “black year” for farm safety, the body in charge of enforcing workplace safety is to be given sweeping new powers.

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has confirmed to the Irish Farmers Journal that it can under its new powers bring farmers straight to prosecution for three specific failings.

Perhaps the most hard hitting of these new rules is that a farmer can be brought straight to prosecution should they be caught carrying a child of seven years or younger in the cab of a tractor or any other machine.

The other two areas where a farmer can be brought straight to prosecution are if a farmer has any part of a PTO shaft uncovered or if a farmer is found to have a slurry access point uncovered.

A total of 24 people have died on Irish farms this year.