Farmers urged to review safety over fears of spike in child deaths
The Health and Safety Authority has urged farmers to be extra vigilant as it fears a spike in child deaths on farms could occur this year.
Two people were already killed on farms in just one week this month — a child in Roscommon and a 64-year-old man in Cork.
As more children are at home throughout the Covid-19 lockdown, HSA inspector Pat Griffin warned that we could see a further increase in fatalities, specifically in child deaths, on farms this year.
“We would urgently appeal to farmers to please, please look at child safety,” Mr Griffin told RTÉ.
“Children are at home for an extended period of time and may want to get out and down the yard. We would appeal to farmers to go down the yard with their children, look at the risks, and eliminate them if possible.”
Agriculture is the most dangerous employment sector in Ireland, with the young and the old the most vulnerable to accidents.
Last year, the HSA, which investigates all workplace fatalities, recorded 18 farm deaths nationwide — a 20% rise from the 15 deaths recorded in 2018.
The HSA is now concerned that this year could see a further increase in the number of child deaths.
“Farms are by far the most dangerous places of work in Ireland that we are concerned about this year, in that we may get a spike in child deaths in 2020,” said Mr Griffin.
He also warned that the elderly and those who usually work off-farm may be around farms much more than usual during the current lockdown, further increasing the potential for accidents.
Mr Griffin said that to keep children safe this year, farms must follow the rules. These include banning children under seven from riding on tractors or other farm machinery.
The most vulnerable people on farms are young children and older adults, HSA statistics show.
Last year, 13 of the 18 people who were killed on Irish farms were aged over 60.
Wexford had the most deaths in the country in 2019 with seven fatalities, Dublin had the second-highest number at six, followed by Cork which recorded five farm deaths across the county.
This month, a five-year-old boy died after falling from a trailer on a farm in Co Roscommon on April 5.
Earlier that week, a 64-year-old farmer was killed by a bull on his farm in Charleville, Co Cork.
He was found unconscious by a neighbour and the emergency services were called.
They tried to save his life, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The man, who was aged 64, had been working on his own in a shed at the farm in Tullylease, near Charleville, on April 2 when one of the bulls attacked him.
Kerrie Leonard, a para archer and Paralympics hopeful, who was paralysed from the waist down when she fell from a tractor aged six, also called for increased vigilance on farms.
“You could do something 10 times, and nine times out of 10 it will be fine, and it is the 10th time there will be an issue,” she told RTÉ.
“That can be because of complacency, or just a freak of nature.”
Ms Leonard, from Co Meath, fell out of a tractor which then ran over her legs in 1997.
“Everyone was very vigilant with there being children on the farm, it was just one of those things that happened,” she said.
