When laying before the Dáil the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture for the year 1929-30, I explained in considerable detail the subjects covered by various groups of sub-heads. The gross Vote for the Department of Agriculture is £624,691, and the net figure as shown in the Estimate— £475,456—is obtained by deducting from the gross figure the amount of Appropriations-in-Aid, £149,235. Of this sum, £54,650 are not Appropriations-in-Aid in the real sense of the word, and this amount should be added to the figure which I have given, making the total net expenditure on the services covered by the Vote of the Department, £530,106. Sub-heads A, B, C and D form one group representing the salaries and expenses of the headquarters staff, which is not only administrative, but preventive. The increased provision under sub-head A is mainly required for (1) annual increments for the existing staff; (2) employment of additional staff by reason of the extension of the Livestock Breeding Act to boars; (3) the employment of a superintending veterinary inspector and clerical staff for the working of the Fresh Meat Act.
Sub-heads E 1, E 2, E 3, E 4, F 1, F 2, F 3, F 4, F 5, F 6, F 7, K 2, L, M 1, M 2 and M 3 form one division under the heading of Educational Services, the total cost of which will be £131,000 as against £125,000 last year. Sub-heads H 1 and H 2, amounting to £83,600, consist of grants given to county committees of agriculture to augment the funds available from rates for the purposes of the educational, live-stock and other schemes administered locally by these bodies. The sum contributed from rates will be about £48,600, which, together with the total of £83,600, will represent the gross amount available for the operation of these local schemes. That is to say, about £130,000 will be spent by the local authorities. Sub-heads G 1, G 2, G 3, I, K 1 and M 4, amounting in all to a little over £113,000 gross, or £72,000 net, as compared with £120,000 gross and £78,000 nett last year, represent central expenditure on work which, in many respects, is analogous to that done through the county committees of agriculture except that the administration of the services is carried out directly by the Department. I may here mention that we are no longer continuing loans to co-operative creamery societies, but it will be observed from the table of Appropriations-in-Aid that the Department expect to receive £10,500 in the current year in part repayment of advances issued in previous years.
As regards sub-head M 5, the sum provided—£90,000—is slightly less than that which was available last year, but it is difficult to make a precise estimate under this sub-head, as so much depends upon opportunities arising during the year for the acquisition of creameries still under proprietory control. The total number of creameries purchased to date is 170, of which 75 have been closed as redundant, 41 have been transferred as operative premises to cooperative societies, and 54, which have had of necessity to be temporarily retained, are being worked in seven groups. This exhausts the groups of sub-heads which I have classed as educational.
The following variations in the provisions made for the current year as compared with last year call for some remark. Sub-head E 2— Veterinary Research. The increase of £1,350 is due to arrangements for strengthening the technical staff at the Research Institute, a step which has been rendered necessary by the great increase of work in connection with animal diseases investigations. Sub-head E 3—World's Poultry Congress, London. It is necessary in the interests of the country's poultry industry that the Irish Free State should be adequately represented at this important international Poultry Congress, especially in view of our extending export trade in eggs and poultry with Great Britain. £1,900 represents the estimated gross cost of staging at the Congress Exhibition (1) a national exhibit illustrating the development of the Irish Free State poultry industry; (2) a trade exhibit of Irish Free State eggs and dead poultry; (3) an exhibit of Irish Free State live poultry, and cost of sending an official delegation. Over £600 has been contributed by Irish Free State egg exporters towards the cost of the trade exhibit, and this sum, together with receipts in respect of the sale of exhibits, is estimated to reduce the net cost to £1,200. Over fifty countries are taking part in the Congress.
Sub-heads F 5 and F 6 I will take together. With regard to university education, we are no longer concerned with capital expenditure in connection with the faculty of agriculture at University College, Dublin, as we completed our payments in that regard last year. The full amount provided, £7,250, was spent. The work of extension of the Albert Agricultural College to contain the advanced laboratories cost £3,200. £1,500 was spent on the plant breeding and animal nutrition departments, £730 on the plant pathology and zoology laboratories; £800 on heating and so on. The annual expenditure on the faculty came to £20,000 in 1929-30, but as certain appointments to the staff have yet to be made it is expected that an extra £2,500 will be required this year and provision has accordingly been made in the Estimates for £22,500. The maximum annual grant provided for by the University Education Act, 1926, is £24,984. As mentioned last year, it was necessary to increase the amount of the capital grant for the dairy science faculty at University College, Cork, from £67,000 to £85,000 in order to meet the increased cost of the dairy institute and creamery being erected in the College grounds. The creamery building has been completed, the necessary machinery installed and the manufacture of butter is now proceeding. It will, however, be some time before the dairy institute is finished. By the end of last financial year, we had paid University College, Cork, close on £55,000 from the capital grant. The acquisition of land and purchase of livestock and farm equipment accounted for nearly £10,000, the balance being spent on building operations. The capital provision in this year's Estimate is £29,500. The annual expenditure for 1929-30 came to £7,810. Our estimate for that year was £10,000, but the fact that the creamery was not completed as early as we expected and that in consequence certain appointments to the staff were not made accounted for the saving. This year, we have put down £11,000 as the amount of the annual grant and we expect the full amount will be required.
Sub-head F 7 is new. It is intended to provide a contribution towards the expenses of selected itinerant instructors in agriculture, for whom it is proposed in the coming summer to arrange a tour abroad which will provide them with an opportunity of studying at firsthand the farming methods followed in other countries. Taking subheads H 1 and H 2 together, there is an increase of about £4,000. The greater part of this is due to the necessity of providing the county committees of agriculture with funds to enable them to offer additional bull and boar premiums, the need for which is due to the operations of the Livestock Breeding Act. Sub-heads N 1, N 2, N 3, N 4, O 1, O 2, O 3, O 4, O 5, and O 6 may be grouped together under the general heading of "Control." The nature of the work is, I think, sufficiently dealt with by the descriptive titles in Part 3 of the Estimates. The cost of these control services is £53,761 gross, or about £33,000 net. The Livestock Breeding Act, the Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Act, and the Dairy Produce Act—that is, legislation which has been passed since the Free State came into existence for the better control of three important parts of our agricultural production—cost together £29,273 gross, or £9,693 net. The variations in this group between last year's and this year's estimates represent, where increases occur, normal developments of the Department's activities.
The following items may be referred to:—N 2, Bovine Tuberculosis Order. The increase of £700 is due to more animals being slaughtered and to the higher proportion of "not advanced cases" now being reported. In "not advanced cases" the compensation is three-fourths of the valuation as against one-fourth in advanced cases. N 4—Livestock Breeding Act. The increase of £110 is due to more appeals to referees and to provision for equipment, etc., for applying the Act to boars. O 4 —Weeds. and Seeds. There is an increase of £275. Six additional inspectors will be employed as two additional local authorities, Offaly and Cork County Borough, have adopted the Act, and it has become necessary also to make a more intensive general inspection.
The total amount of the Department's net Vote may, therefore, be summarised as follows:—Headquarters staff, £131,000; direct educational services, £131,000; co. committee schemes and supplementary schemes. £155,500; purchase of creameries, £90,000; control services, £33,000; total, £540,500. If Deputies take these items one by one, and consider them, I am sure it will be agreed that the money is well spent.
There is £131,000 spent on the headquarters staff. That, as I have said, includes the cost of practically all the important technical officers through the country with the exception of the county committee of agriculture officers, and they are doing good work. With regard to educational services—and everybody is in favour of education— they are costing £131,000. The county committee schemes are administered by the local authorities, and therefore they must be highly efficient. They are costing £155,500. With regard to the purchase of creameries, nobody has ventured to criticise the principle yet. There may be difficulties of detail, but I think that all parties are enthusiastically in favour of buying and selling creameries. But we cannot buy without paying for them, so we want £90,000 more. Control services will cost £33,000. We are getting better service from this than from any other item. There are such things to be considered as the Live Stock Breeding Act, the Butter Act, the Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Act, and the Dairy Produce Act. They are costing £9,000 net. I do not think that the State is getting better value for any £9,000.
The Department of Agriculture is staffed as follows:—There are, roughly, 236 administrative officers, 272 technical officers, including agricultural overseers, assistant overseers, flax instructors, cow testing instructors and potato demonstrators; about 260 wage earners employed in connection with the various institutes at the ports, etc., making a total of 768. In my opinion, you cannot get the farmers to go to school to learn; you have to go to them, and that is the reason we have so many technical officers. In addition, there are 148 officers employed by committees of agriculture and also certain temporary men employed for short periods each year in connection with the operation of Acts, such as the Live Stock Breeding Act, the Weeds and Seeds Act, etc. Of the 148 county committee officers, the salaries of 29 are provided wholly by the Department and the remainder are paid out of a joint fund composed of about £83,500 provided out of taxation, and about £48,500 out of rates.
Special mention was made last year with regard to the livestock schemes administered either through the county committees of agriculture or directly by the Department. I do not propose to repeat the analysis I then gave. It may be sufficient to mention that we propose to expend out of the Vote nearly £38,500 in the current year as against a little over £35,000 last year, and that we hope to have nearly 1,600 ordinary premium bulls placed to the county committees of agriculture as against 1,545 in 1929. In addition we will have 225 special premium bulls placed directly by the Department in congested districts, as well as about 200 animals of a similar standard located under special arrangements by which the animal is sold at a reduced price payable in three or four annual instalments. We have on the one side more than doubled the high class breeding animals of the country and we have cut out more than 50 per cent of the scrub animals. That is bound inevitably to bring about a very considerable improvement in the quality of our livestock and, in fact, it has done so.
As regards boars, including together animals for which premiums are provided directly out of the Department's funds, out of the county committees' funds and out of the fund to which the bacon curers contribute, we hope to have about 1,300 premium animals this year as compared with 1,100 last year. Owing to our being unable to secure the full supply of rams for congested districts last year we are asking for an increased provision. £1,950 instead of the usual £1,350. We were short of rams last year. We had the money, but we could not get them as they were not available. We want to make up for it this year. It is a particularly valuable scheme. We are continuing the provision made under sub-head G 2 (D) and under sub-head G 3 (D) for the purchase of high class animals for use as stock bulls. Under the former sub-head £2,500 is intended to be spent on the purchase of dairy bulls and these animals are sold at reduced prices or are leased to members of the cow-testing associations. Under the latter sub-head £2,000 is provided for the purchase of animals of the beef type. Under G 3 (A) you will observe that we are continuing our policy of purchasing high-class stallions for re-sale at reduced prices. It is also to be borne in mind that under sub-head M 4 a considerable part of the sum provided is used to. make advances to persons who desire to purchase registered stallions or premium bulls and who would without assistance of this sort be unable to procure animals of a sufficiently high standard. There are no other points in the various subheads which require comment at the moment—at least none that occur to me.
