Farm Safety is in the news again – and for all the wrong reasons. The death of Johnny Ryan last week was the first farming death of the year, and had particular resonance because he was well known in GAA circles, and because he was the father of Kilkenny hurling captain, Lester Ryan.
After the tragedy, Lester Ryan spoke of how his father had been extremely safety conscious, always taking the correct precautions when going about his work. And yet, a freak accident cost him his life.
And the Ryan family are far from alone: last year, there were 30 fatal farm accidents – the highest figure since 1991, and twice the number killed in 2013.
Even more disturbing is the comparison between agriculture and the overall rate of workplace deaths – which has tumbled in recent decades, from 5.3 per 100,000 workers in 1993, to 2.1 in 2013.
The trend in agriculture, though, is the opposite. The last year for which figures are available from the CSO is 2013 – when the death rate in farming was half what it was last year. But even still, the trend is up – from 7.4 deaths per 100,000 working in agriculture in 2004, to 9.8 per 100,000 in 2013.
There has been controversy too over the decision by the Health and Safety Authority to reduce the number of farm inspections from 2,900 last year, to 2,300 this year. The HSA says it is using the time saved to involve inspectors in discussion groups and farm walks which may have more influence on persuading farmers to change their behaviour.
Tonight on Prime Time, the HSA and the Irish Farmers Association will discuss the best ways to change potentially dangerous behaviour, and to try to have a real impact on those stubbornly high statistics.
But of course statistics are not the real story – the real story is the impact of a farming fatality on the families left bereaved.
For tonight’s programme, we spoke to two people who know the devastation of a work-related death all too well.
Majella Philpott’s father Dan died three and a half years ago in an accident on his farm in Lyre in north County Cork. Majella told us that her Dad was extremely safety conscious – like Johnny Ryan. He was a safe, if slow, driver; he was exceptionally careful when children were anywhere near machinery; he took care. And yet, in a split second, his life would be lost. He had parked his tractor in a field and got out to talk to another man. As he returned to the tractor, it started to move, and he attempted to get on to stop it. Tragically, he fell and was run over. Majella says the message she wants to get across to other farmers is to take a second to stop and think before acting on an impulse which could put you in danger.
Padraig Higgins of Shannonbridge in County Offaly has been campaigning on farm safety since the death of his six year old son James in 2008. James had just come home from getting his first pair of glasses. Excited, he went to show his grandfather the glasses – just 50 or 60 meters away, a journey he had made several times a day all his life.
When his mother went to check on him, she found he hadn’t arrived, and a search of the farmyard began. Some days before, a hole had been dug to act as a sink hole to take water run-off from the yard; it hadn’t yet been filled with stones, and there was about a meter of water in it. James’ green cap was seen floating on the top, and his brother found his body in the water. Another split second that changed the life of an entire family.
Nowadays, Padraig told me, he sees the farm differently, seeing dangers that he previously hadn’t even considered.
The challenge is to help all farmers to become equally safety conscious – before tragedy visits their farm.
David McCullagh
