Health and safety regulation in Ireland related to agriculture

20 September 2010

Farmers in Ireland have been subject to statutory OHS legislation for over 20 years since the passing into law of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989. This legislation followed the report of the Irish Barrington Commission, which included among its recommendations that the ‘self-employed’ be covered by health and   safety legislation.

The 1989 Act was a framework piece of legislation which established and empowered the Irish Health and Safety Authority (H.S.A), placed duties on all parties in the workforce as regards OHS, established an inspectorial system and provided a means of giving legal effect to secondary legislation by means of regulation and codes of practice. 

The 1989 Act was also the principal means of implementing the EU Health and Safety Framework Directive and its subsidiary Directives. All Irish legislation can be accessed at Irish statute book.

A key requirement of the 1989 Act was for farmers as well as all workplaces to prepare a written document referred to as a ‘Safety Statement’ which ‘identified the hazards, assessed the risks and specified the controls required’.. Research however indicated that while the majority of farmers became aware of the legislation less than 10% had prepared a Safety Statement by 2001.

The 1989 Act was superseded in 2005 by a new act( no10/2005). A key change in the 2005 Act is that under section 20(8) it allows small-scale enterprises with ‘ three or less’ employees to fulfill the duty to prepare a safety statement by instead  completing a Risk Assessment document developed under a statutory code of practice.

As Agriculture in Ireland is the sector with the highest level of small-scale enterprises and the highest level of workplace deaths. This sector was given priority as regards implementation of section 20(8) of the 2005 Act. The H.S.A. and Teagasc (statutory agency providing research, training and advisory services to the agriculture sector) entered into a joint agreement in 2005 to develop and evaluate implementation of a Farm Safety and Health Code of Practice Risk Assessment approach in conjunction with short training. This was completed in 2006 and the Code of Practice/ Risk Assessment documents can be viewed on the HSA website.

 The Code of Practice documents were then sent to all farmers nationally and in a follow-up national survey by Teagasc 42% of farmers reported completing the Risk Assessment. Since 2006 a further 14% of farmers have completed a short half-day course on its completion bringing total engagement with the document to about 56% of the farming population.

Further information related to the evaluation and implementation of the Code of Practice by farmers can be viewed on the HSA website.

Prepared by Mr John McNamara CMIOSH, IOSH Rural Industries Group Committee member. 

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). Where the content includes discussion and information about UK law or occupational health matters, this should not be regarded as legal or medical advice. Where legal advice is required, a suitably qualified lawyer should be consulted. Where medical advice is required, a suitably qualified medical practitioner should be consulted.