President urges focus on farm safety

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese believes farmers can achieve world-class levels of farm safety to match their world-leading performance in food production.

Mrs McAleese gave this encouraging advice at the launch of the Think Safety, Farm Safely campaign, launched yesterday at the Irish Farmers’ Association headquarters in Dublin.

The advice was timely as the sector was hit by 26 on-farm deaths last year, accounting for more than 50% of all workplace deaths. As well as the fatalities, there were around 1,500 accidents on Irish farms last year.