Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, has ruled out changing the condition in the Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 3) that internal slurry agitation points be removed before farm buildings can receive grant aid, calling it an important safety measure.

He was answering a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East Albert Dolan, who asked whether the rule could unintentionally exclude older but otherwise functional livestock buildings from grants for safety, animal welfare and environmental improvements, and whether future schemes could allow a phased move to external agitation.

Heydon said the Farm Safety Capital Investment Scheme within TAMS 3 already grant-aids both the removal of internal agitation points and tank extensions built to provide external agitation points, paying 60 percent on all eligible investment, and encouraged farmers to apply for that work. TAMS 3, part of Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan, supports investment in a specified range of farm buildings and equipment.

A fatal incident involving slurry equipment on a farm in Co. Galway earlier this month again drew attention to farm safety rules.

According to the Health and Safety Authority's latest annual report, 23 people died in the agricultural sector in 2025, 40 percent of all work-related deaths in Ireland that year, although the sector employs only about 4 percent of the workforce. Over the past ten years, 38 percent of all fatal workplace accidents occurred in agriculture.

Photo: wfmillar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Source: Agriland