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Did you know that so far this year (up to today, Monday April 19th), thirteen people have been fatally injured at work. It’s not something that people generally like to think about, but the statistics are there for all to see on the Health & Safety Authority website. Of those 13 people who died, 6 were in the agriculture/hunting/forestry sector.

I was born into a farming family. Farming goes all the way back for generations on both sides. It’s been bred into us. My eldest brother Liam took over the family farm from my parents in 1990. In 2006 he died in an accident on the farm. He was 37. And we were devastated…

I’m an engineer, and I work in the construction sector. I am not out on site every day, but I have done stints on sites and in operational plants. From the first day I started work the importance of my own personal safety and the safety of the people around me was instilled in me. There is a real culture of safety where I work; there is a real concern that at the end of each work day everyone goes home with all their bits still attached.

I’m not sure the same can be said on most farms. My other brother had his thumb crushed when we were kids. I fell over a bailer twine while chasing cattle when I was 12 and chiped a bone in my toe. I’ve lost count of the stories of kicks from a cow, cuts and scrapes, and near misses.  Everyone who has lived or worked on a farm has them. There is no such thing as a culture of safety in farming, as much as the HSA and the Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith might like one.

Its the big things like machinery that do the real damage. And the statistics bear this out. Between 200o and 2009, there were 80 farm deaths involvong macinery, tractors or vehicles. That’s 49%  of farm deaths from one source. My brother was one of these. Now he is a statistic.

It wasn’t until my brother died that I realised what a workplace accident can do, and what it means. Its means that a family is left without a brother, father, son, sister, mother, daughter, neighbour, friend. It means sorrow, loss, and utter heartbreak. It means tears and funerals and shaking hands with so many people that you end up with bruised knuckles. It means economic hard times and though questions which need even tougher answers. It means guilt and pain. It means so much more than bloody statistics.

Why are our farming and rural organisations not out there going around to schools, youth groups, farmers groups, womens groups, even masses, and spelling out the consequences of not taking safety seriously? I’ve sat through a safety induction for every site I’ve been on, but there is no safety induction when I go out on the farm at home, or before I sit up on a tractor. You need to do a test to prove you can drive a forklift, or a teleporter, or a loading shover, but every 16 year old I knew when I was 16 got their tractor licence the day the came of age with no test and no rules of the road to learn. Why is there no dedicated safety section on the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) website?

In work, after every reportable accident (a lost time injury of three working days, reportable to the HSA) the details of the accident are published for all within the company to see. The idea is that everyone can learn from accidents and near misses. Why cant the HSA or the IFA send every farmer the investigation report on each farm fatality this year and see how that affects the statistics next year? Grusome you might say, but Irish farmers need a wake up call.

In 2006 my youngest brother took over the farm. He continues to toil away there today. Its in the blood. I live in the hope that I can pass on the safety culture that is now in my blood to the generations after me so they dont become statistics too.

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