Man dies after falling into slurry pit in Co Monaghan

A man has died in what is believed to have been a farm accident in Co Monaghan.

The man, who has not been named by gardaí, was understood to have been working at the slurry pit on his farm near the village of Threemilehouse, close to Monaghan town.

Gardaí said the man, aged in his 70s fell into the slurry pit shortly after 3pm. He was pulled out a short time afterwards but was pronounced dead at the scene, the Garda Press Office said.

Both the Garda and the Health and Safety Authority are investigating the cause and circumstances leading up to the man’s death.

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The fatality comes as the Health and Safety Authority has launched a farm safety campaign to reduce the number of such incidents.

A spokesman for the authority said agriculture represented just 6 per cent of the workforce in 2017 but accounted for 51 per cent of workplace deaths.

Of the 47 people killed in workplaces in 2017, 24 died in incidents on farms. Of those 24, 14 deaths were of men aged over 65.

The 10-year average number killed annually is 21.

In response to the statistics the HSA, farm advisory service Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture have determined that large-scale cultural change needs to take place.

The spokesman said farm deaths used to be comparable with workplace deaths in the building industry but safety campaigns in that sector in the 1990s had created a culture “where safety is now the norm rather than the exception”. “This must happen in agriculture,” he added.