Health and safety inspections are to be stepped up on Irish farms following a large increase in farm fatalities over the past 12 months.
The number of people who died on Irish farms in 2010 was 25 compared to a total of 11 in the previous year, making it one of the worst years on record.
Now, resources within the Health and Safety Authority will be redeployed from areas such as inspecting the construction industry to Irish farms.
It is expected the number of inspections of farms will rise from the 1,300 carried out last year to more than 3,000 in 2011.
There is also expected to be a clampdown on those farmers who failed to prepare a mandatory Farm Safety Statement.
Seminars and other events to highlight the danger of working on farms are to take place and the authority has been conducting a major publicity campaign through the farming press.
The work being carried out by the authority with the farm development body Teagasc, the farm organisations and insurance companies will be intensified.
The huge increase in farm deaths last year has also put the very contentious issue of linking farm safety to EU farm payments back on the agenda.
When it was put forward some years ago at EU level that farmers could be penalised by losing some of their farm payments for non-compliance, there was huge opposition from farm organisations.
A breakdown of the accidents investigated last year by the authority's inspectors, showed 10 of the victims died as a result of accidents with farm machinery and vehicles. Four died while felling trees or working with timber and four other victims died when they fell from heights.
In recent years there has been an increase in the number of people being killed by animals on farms and, last year, three people died this way. There were also two deaths recorded when farm machinery was in collision with trains, one in Clare and the other in Roscommon.
Cork had the largest number of farm fatalities with three and counties Clare, Galway, Kerry and Kilkenny had two farm deaths each.
There was a single fatality in Kildare, Carlow, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford, Wicklow and Westmeath respectively.
Figures for farm fatalities since 2003 show there were 20 in that year, 13 the following year with 18 in each of 2005 and 2006. The total fell to 11 in 2007, jumped to 22 in 2008 and then dropped to 11 again in 2009.
Agriculture has shown a far higher fatality rate than any other major economic sector in the 10 years between 1998 and 2007. In that period, 15 fatalities per 100,000 workers were recorded, compared with two per 100,000 workers across all sectors.