Farmers are being warned of the importance of safety on farms – particularly with children being at home.
Two children have been killed in farm accidents since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, which includes a 14-year-old boy dying in an incident with a tractor in Clare yesterday morning.
Six people have died so far this year on farms, and the IFA says they will look at updating guidance.
President of the association is Tipperary’s Tim Cullinan – he says safety needs to be the utmost of importance in a farmyard:
“Children are at home from school now, they’re home for the last number of months and I understand the pressure on farmers. But look, the first thing is farmyards are not playgrounds.
“We need to be very conscious of if there’s children playing in a yard and tractors are so big now, if they come into a yard the driver of that tractor may not be able to see young children.
“In every farmyard there needs to be a safe area for younger children so that they’re not in the main yard.”
