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TODAY MARKS THE first National Farm Safety Awareness Day, with farm families being urged to review safety on farms.
Fourteen lives have been lost to farm accidents so far this year – a 70% increase on this time last year. The Irish Farmers’ Association’s ‘Think Farm Safety Day’ is bill as “an opportunity for farm families to dedicate time to thinking about health and safety on their farms; to identify potential danger areas; and, to consider ways to minimise risks”.
IFA President Eddie Downey said farming is a high-risk occupation, but accidents and injuries can be prevented by taking time and working safely.
“Being tired, distracted and stressed is often a reality on busy farms and every effort must be made to avoid shortcuts.
At the peak of this busy summer season on farms, safety must come first.
“We want farmers to ‘Think Farm Safety’ [today] and to continue to ‘Think Farm Safety’ every day after that, because taking even one risk is taking one risk too many.”
The IFA has launched a dedicated ‘Farm Safety’ section on their website, which provides farm safety videos, booklets, links and information.
This will complement a range of initiatives, including messages in the IFA calendar, text alerts to members and regular updates through the County Executive network.
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Safety inspection my eye!
Inspections are worth nothing if they dont have a safe attitude to work 100% of the time. Not 99%. 100%..
My uncle was climbing a tree last yr to saw off some limbs. He normally wears his safety climbing gear cos he is very safety minded but he didnt have it with him so he chanced it. Ya you guessed it. He skidded on a branch fell 30ft with his chainsaw running. Luckily he only bruised his ribs but he was limping for months. And he was sick with himself for chancing it.
Maybe farmers and their kids should be made do a day long course with Teagasc every year to remind them what happened to those who didnt farm safely. Nothing like learning from other peoples mistakes
Teagasc ; That’s nice !
It’s the only big industry in the country that have no obligation to privatise safety equipment for staff or implement mandatory safety procedure in the work place. Every farm should have health and safety inspection before the get a penny of grant money. Far to many killed every year no to mention the amount of 100% avoidable child deaths. These are not accidents, bordering on corporate manslaughter
How do you privatise safety equipment
A mistake on my part, I’ll take the thumbs down on that. But you should be more worried about the careless farm practices than my shoddy grammar.
That’s a high toll and the injuries would be serious as well, I agree with Chuck that enforcement is needed to a practical degree, any industry Health & Safety is factored as priority and so must farming, sad and needless statistic.
Bord Bia carry out a health and safety check on farms as part of their Quality Assurance audits. Are these Bord Bia “employees” properly qualified to do these checks? Getting farmers to put up warning signs won’t stop accidents. Its adopting the correct attitude and procedures and thinking of worst case scenarios when doing jobs that keeps people alive.
Most farmers die farming … that’s a fact !
Safety is a must! we must protect ourselves from sex offenders, they can be anywhere or anytime. We can never predict when they will attack us. Protecting ourselves from sex offenders is our own duty. I am suggesting you to use this application http://safetrec.com/
have your say