Farmer Mental Health and Farm Safety: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Nicole Ryan (SF), Administrative Panel

I thank both Ministers of State for being here. They are most welcome. It is great to hear that suicide rates have started to come down, but not all suicides are recorded as suicides. Some are recorded as misadventure. We can only go on the statistics that we have, but sometimes that does not reflect the truth of what people are encountering on the ground. For every statistic, there is a family that is shattered, a neighbour lost or a community that is grieving. Machinery, livestock and slurry tanks can be unpredictable and deadly. Even the most careful experienced farmer can fall victim to tragedy. Farm safety is not just about physical risk, it is the mental risk as well. Teagasc and HSE research shows that farmers experience higher levels of psychological distress, anxiety and depression than other occupational groups.
In rural Ireland, suicide rates remain stubbornly high, and in too many homes that silence continues. That silence is costing people's lives. As so many others have mentioned, it is time for a national co-ordinated response that recognises that mental health well-being is just as important as farm safety and physical well-being. We need accessible mental health supports that meet farmers where they are. That means it should not be in distant clinics, it should be at local GPs, primary level centres and community hubs. We should also extend outreach to where the farm discussion groups are being held, where farmers meet in marts with Teagasc advisers, and places where farmers already go and trust people. The peer-to-peer support is vital because sometimes the most powerful interaction is a conversation with somebody who truly knows what is going on. We should invest in farming programmes that provide connection and purpose for people, particularly those who are recovering from trauma or have addiction or mental health challenges. Addiction and trauma will impact our farmers as well. People think that people who farm have their lives together and sometimes addiction does not touch them, but it is does sometimes and that is another layer they have to face.
On a policy level, mental well-being cannot be separate from the wider realities of rural life. A farmer who feels financially secure, who can plan for succession and has access to childcare, housing and stable supports is far less likely to reach crisis point. That is why there needs to be a cross-departmental strategy that is bringing various Departments together, because it cannot just fall to mental health or agriculture. We also have to properly fund a lot of the organisations that are already doing some great work. The Minister of State mentioned a few of them. Things like Embrace FARM, the Farm Well Hub and Macra na Feirme do a lot of great work among their communities at a local level. There is the IFA and a lot of local initiatives that maybe some of us have never heard of that do great work on the ground with volunteers.
Farmers deserve more than our sympathy after a tragedy. They deserve a system that prevents it and values their work, supports their well-being and keeps them safe. When we protect our farmers, we protect our food supply, rural heritage and the fabric of Irish life. What we need to do is make the people who feed the nation no longer feel like they are left to struggle by themselves, support them and recognise that they are just as valuable, if not more, in our society that keeps us going.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:18+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12