High farm fatalities alarms Health and Safety Authority
21/06/2005 - 12:42:47The Health and Safety Authority has expressed concern about the high level of deaths on Irish farms this year.
The authority said nine people had died in agriculture-related accidents so far in 2005 compared to 14 throughout 2004.
It said farm accidents were accounting for one-third of all workplace fatalities, despite efforts to promote safety awareness.
HAS inspector Pat Griffin said: "The area that most concerns us would be the use of tractors and farm equipment. The other area would be animal handling, particularly bull handling.
"During our inspection campaign, we found that problems with all these areas still persist, even after a lot of effort has been put in by farming organisations and the authorities in trying to bring these issues to the attention of farmers."
