Workplace safety - Patience saves lives

MORE than half of all work-related deaths in Ireland last year occurred on farms.

Though this figure is another indication of the collapse of the construction sector it represents a challenge to anyone working on a farm.

Some of the 26 fatalities and the estimate 1,500 accidents on farms might have been avoided but the economic reality means the great majority of farmers work alone. Very many have off-farms jobs as well.

Sometimes farmers are forced into positions they know are dangerous and they imagine they have little alternative but to take what might be a fatal risk.

This may occasionally be the case but more often than not these risks are taken as a matter of convenience rather than necessity. Very many lives might be saved if farmers more readily made that distinction.