Griffin began by fielding off expected critcisms about the reduced number of farms to be inspected this year. Some 2,300 farms are to be inspected this year compared to 2,644 last year. Griffin says this amount represents 25% of the HSA's total inspection resource, which for one sector is still quite a significant amount.

How are farms selected for inspection?

Griffin said that HSA inspectors look at trends across the country in order to find out where farms with the highest risk of fatalities are located. Inspectors often go to these black spots or high risk areas. The areas that stand out most as black spots are west Cork and north Tipperary followed by areas in north west Meath and Louth.

They also look at where there is expansion or building on farms as well as focussing on the larger more intensive farms. The HSA has identified that accidents are more frequent in intensive farming and on farms where expansion is ongoing.

The chief inspector officer added that they are in the process of re-terming "farm safety inspections" to "farm safety visits" in order to make them less threatening for the farmer and to put the focus more on providing guidance and general feedback.

He said that most safety issues on farms are resolved with an improvement notice on the first visit and that within a 20 year period of carrying out inspections the HSA has only ever had seven or eight prosecutions.

Discussion groups

The HSA added that the level of inspections carried out by the organisation is being reduced to 2,300 in order to facilitate more discussion groups which research has found to be hugely important for communicating with farmers.