I wish to express the condolences of the Labour Party Group to our colleague Senator Moynihan who lost her mother at the weekend.

At the start of this week, Max Shields, a 15-year-old boy from Clondalkin, lost his life when swimming in the Grand Canal. I express my condolences to his family. This is the time of year when the weather becomes wonderful, thank God, and people take to the big beaches, the rivers and the canals. Indeed, there were people swimming in the canal at Phibsborough at the weekend. We want people to be able to swim. However, understanding the risks involved and people's ability to swim is absolutely crucial, as is what the State is doing to ensure safety in our waterways. Much attention is being paid to road safety at the moment. When we look back over the five-year period between 2017 and 2021, we can see that 1,298 people died on the roads and in the water. Some 45% of those deaths occurred in the water. Listening to all of the coverage, one would think that the vast majority of accidental deaths that take place in this country occur on the roads and that very few happen in the water. That is not the case. The overwhelming majority of those who die in our waters are male, approximately 79%. Most of these incidents happen in home counties and the majority are accidental in nature.

When we look at where Ireland stands in the context of drownings relative to other EU countries, it can be seen that we lie at about the halfway mark. However, we have approximately 3.2 times the rate of drownings per 100,000 of population in comparison with our nearest neighbour, Britain. The reason for this is that we are simply not investing the time and resources or educating people to ensure that we reduce the numbers who drown in this country. For a start, we need to ensure that our education system is got right. Waterways Ireland has a fantastic programme for preschools, primary schools and secondary schools. Schools voluntarily adopt those programmes, but they are not a formal required part of the curriculum. They should be.

The second key point relates to lifeguards. The season in Ireland in this regard only begins on 1 June. Lifeguards are only in place weekends in June. They are there on a full-time basis in July and August and for the first two weeks in September. That has to change. John O'Regan, my colleague in Carrigaline, County Cork, and I are aware that councillors across the country have been calling for the lifeguarding season to be extended to start on 1 May. They are also calling for it to operate on a full-time basis - not just at weekends - from that date right up to the end of September. We have to ensure that we have enough lifeguards on our beaches and at other popular places for swimming.

The other side of this matter is that we have to look at the pay of lifeguards. We know that there is a major differential between local authorities. We know that certain local authorities are very much struggling to recruit lifeguards this summer. We know that Sligo has outlined the shortage it faces, as has Fingal. Any of the parliamentary questions on this issue tabled in the Dáil have been referred by the Minister for local government to Waterways Ireland. The latter has then passed the buck back to local authorities. We need a Government response. This should not be a difficult thing to do. There are a small number of measures that could be taken to save lives and ensure that we prevent heartbreak for families.

I join Senator Sherlock and, I am sure, all of our colleagues in expressing sympathy to our friend Senator Moynihan on the sad loss of her mother. I thank Senator Sherlock for thinking of her today.

Anois, glaoim ar an Seanadóir Murphy.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Chathaoirleach. I join in that vote of sympathy to Senator Moynihan.

On the comments made by Senator Sherlock, I was about to raise the matter of farm safety. It is that time of year again. As a result of all of the bad weather, the farm season seems to be getting increasingly shorter. We have so many accidents every year on farms. We had 16 fatal accidents on farms last year. From memory, I believe there were 13 in 2022. The number of accidents is rising. There were 39 work-related fatalities in 2023, and 42% of those were in agriculture. These are very significant figures. No more than the situation with deaths that occur in the water, the number of deaths in the agriculture sector, particularly when the season gets busy, is great.

The Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, and the Government have very strong policies in respect of farm safety. Those policies are constantly highlighted, which is good to see. People can read articles about them in the farming and local newspapers and hear about them on local radio. It might be no harm if the Minister of State made himself available for an hour-long debate some day in order that we might drive home the point and ask people to be careful. Having very young children around machinery is extremely dangerous. Accidents happen. They are sometimes hard to avoid. When we consider what can happen, however, we can see that some accidents could have been avoided. Perhaps the Acting Leader might bring my suggestion to the attention of the Minister of State. It is something good we could do that might keep people's minds switched on at this time to make them realise that farm safety is very important. I am very concerned that we lost 16 people in farm accidents last year and that this was an increase on previous years.

I take this opportunity to ask Senator Sherlock to pass on my sympathies to Senator Moynihan regarding the death of her mother.

I wish to raise two issues relating to education. The first is in respect of Ballymahon Vocational School in County Longford and the application for additional temporary accommodation it has submitted. Perhaps a request could be passed on to the Minister for Education to ask for an update on that.

I also have another concern.

I worked with principals of the post-primary schools in Longford previously to get additional home-school community liaison co-ordinators to work in the schools and we were quite successful in getting additional posts at the time. Currently, however, two ETBs are sharing a co-ordinator between two post-primary schools, one of which is in Roscommon, with the other in Ballymahon, on a rotating two-day, three-day basis. When this post was granted a number of years ago, both schools had a population of just over 200. Now the schools are at 500 students each, which means that the home-school community liaison staff member is working with over 1,000 pupils in two separate counties and with two ETBs. This is not workable. I want to highlight my concerns in this regard. I have corresponded with the Minister on it but am asking the Acting Leader to also bring it to the Minister's attention.

I compliment Senator Ahearn on taking on the role of Acting Leader today.