Rural Industries Section launched

7 April 2011

A man tasked with protecting Ireland’s fishing resources has been appointed the first chair of a new Rural Industries Section – a group of health and safety experts dedicated to reducing deaths and injuries across the sector.

The IOSH Ireland Branch appointed Inland Fisheries Ireland health and safety executive, Michael Cusack as chair of its Rural Industries Section on Tuesday (5 April) at Lough Owel Angling Centre, just outside Mullingar.

Mr Cusack is from Castlebar, Co. Mayo and has been a member of IOSH for five years. In his day job, he makes sure workers who protect, manage and conserve Ireland’s inland fisheries are kept healthy and safe.

He is a member of a dedicated committee who have joined together from organisations across construction, farming, forestry and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), who all volunteered to play a part in organising events, research projects, seminars and outreach programmes for people in Ireland’s rural industries.

He said: “I’m really looking forward to the challenge as I felt there was a void here where IOSH could develop a real connection with the Irish rural industries. As a committee we have an array of experience and knowledge which means we can reach all corners of the rural industries and properly promote health and safety and its importance.

“The death toll across our rural industries is nothing short of shocking. I volunteered for the role of chair because I’m passionate about reaching not just the big businesses, but the smaller, often family-run ones, with the message that health and safety saves lives.”

The Rural Industries Section will raise awareness of best practice ways of working, to drive up standards in health and safety. It hopes to improve upon last year’s Health and Safety Authority (HSA) figures, which showed 29 workers died across the rural industries - a 10-year high that saw 25 deaths in farming alone.

On the day, IOSH Ireland Branch chair Declan Gibney inaugurated the committee and said: “This section is about bringing together a group of people who can lend their expertise and use it to help the work of others.

“By tapping into the resources of IOSH they can begin to make a real difference to people in the rural industries, as it doesn’t have to be a sector where people risk their lives on a regular basis simply by turning up to work every day. We want to contribute to starting a safety culture change.”