The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has confirmed that it has rescheduled the start of a farm safety inspection campaign that it announced this week, due to the challenging weather.
The HSA told Agriland: “A focused inspection campaign on the safe use of farm machinery timed ahead of the busy harvesting season has been rescheduled due to the current poor weather conditions and the expected delay to the start of harvesting activity.”
However, the authority said that its inspections across all sectors are considered essential, and as such, routine inspections across all industry and workplaces – i.e. inspections not related to a particular campaign or issue – will continue as normal in the coming weeks.
The HSA statement did not indicate when this inspection campaign will now begin.
The HSA’s decision to reschedule the campaign comes after Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue announced a pause to all non-essential agricultural inspections until April 22.
The minister said yesterday (Thursday, April 4): “I am extremely conscious of the pressure on farmers as a result of continuing and exceptional adverse weather conditions.
“As an immediate step I have asked my department to pause farm inspections not specifically required to support payments until April 22. In considering this matter, I was conscious of the need to avoid any action that might affect payments to farmers,” the minister said.
“This step is a proportionate and necessary one in the current circumstances,” he added.
Earlier today (Friday, April 5), the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) said that “more can be done” to reduce other types of farm inspections.
INHFA vice president John Joe Fitzgerald signaled out inspections carried out by the HSA as well as by county councils and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
On the HSA inspection campaign that was announced this week, Fitzgerald had called on the authority to revisit the timing of the campaign, especially in light of the “enormous mental stress” farmers are under.
“It is important that the HSA acknowledge their remit around health and specifically the mental health of farmers and recognise that inspections around safety at this time will be counter-productive in relation to farmers’ mental health,” he had said.