The Minister of State for Forestry, Farm Safety and Horticulture, Michael Healy-Rae, is seeking proposals for projects which promote safety awareness for children and young people on farms for the next five years.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is providing €200,000 from its dedicated farm safety budget for 2025, with an option to extend the contract for a further four years.

This tender will support initiatives that have the potential to make a real impact on farm safety and reduce the number of fatal and serious non-fatal incidents involving children and young people on Irish farms.

Minister Healy-Rae announced the competitive public procurement procedure today (June 20), and made a request for tenders.

He said: "This request for tenders will support initiatives that promote a lifelong culture of farm safety from a young age.

"The successful initiatives will make an important contribution to changing attitudes to safety on Irish farms, not only by increasing farm safety awareness among children and young people, but also by encouraging conversations about farm safety among all generations in farming families," Minister of State Healy-Rae added.

According to DAFM, over the past 10 years, 17 people under 18 years have died on Irish farms.

This accounts for almost 10% of all fatalities on farms.

DAFM has highlighted that children and young people are particularly vulnerable on farms as the workplace surrounds the family home.

The closing date for tenders is 2:00p.m, Monday, July 14, 2025.

Separately, teenagers are being offered the chance to learn proper and safe tractor driving habits through a dedicated course being run in counties Kerry and Cork.

Hundreds of young people have completed the ‘Safe Tractor Driving Skills’ course since it was developed by North East West Kerry Development (NEWKD) around 15 years ago.

John Dalton, a member of the farm family committee of NEWKD and co-ordinator of the course, told Agriland that the training has been expanded this year to include boy and girls aged from 14 to 17 years.

He said: “The reason we do it is we feel there’s a lot of young people going up on tractors at a very young age and they don’t have any idea of the safety aspects about tractor driving.”