Vol. 54 No. 9
I move:
Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £470,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1935, chun an Deontais Talmhaíochta do mhéadú.
That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £470,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1935, to increase the Agricultural Grant.
We attempted a couple of times during the passage of the Bill through the House to get some explanation of the vacillating policy with regard to this grant. I should like to ask if the Minister for Finance has any statement to make on the matter. We have pointed out that up to the time the present Government came into office the line taken by their Party was that the farmers were not getting sufficient assistance. They voted £200,000 additional in relief of rates. They did that at a time when the total assessment was £2,323,000, when the arrears of rates in the previous year were £432,000, most of that having been collected before the warrant was issued, so that arrears amounting to only £129,000 were included in the warrant. Next year, the farmers suffered a reduction of £448,000 in the amount voted by the Government for the relief of rates. That year, the assessment rose by £650,000. The county councils had to budget for £2,972,000. At the end of that year arrears of rates had gone up by £100,000 to £542,000. This year, the Ministry reversed their tendency.
Whereas, in the second year, they cut the grant by £448,000, now they are restoring £220,000. While restoring that £220,000 they are putting their hands into the farmers' pockets and taking an equivalent amount, by reduction of bounties, to the extent of 5/- in the case of cattle and 6d. in the case of sheep.
Is the Deputy serious?
Yes. In the year in which they are doing that, we find that the total assessments of county councils amount to £2,963,000, practically the same as last year. They do that in a year in which the county councils, with that very heavy assessment, have unpaid rates to the extent of £1,442,000. As I said before, the income of the people from live stock and live-stock products has fallen from £27,000,000 in 1931 to £11,000,000 in the current year. Already, the very small wages of agricultural labourers have suffered a reduction throughout the country of 3/3. None of the Ministers —the Minister for Local Government or his deputy to-day or the Minister for Finance, who introduced this Estimate—has said anything on the subject of the unfortunate people whom he is supposed to be assisting by this vacillating policy.
The purpose of this Estimate is to provide funds to give effect to the proposals contained in the Bill which the Dáil has just passed. Having passed a Bill of that sort, the Dáil would stultify itself if it did not give the Government the wherewithal to make the Bill effective. I presumed that the debate on this Estimate would be confined to the question as to whether or not the proposal to grant £470,000 was within the terms of the legislation. Accordingly, I did not feel it necessary, when introducing the Estimate, having in mind the Bill which the Dáil had just passed, to deal with the question of de-rating.
The Deputy who has just sat down made a number of statements which are inaccurate. He said that this year we had decreased the amounts for bounties and subsidies. I am afraid the Deputy suffers from an affliction which, I think, is called amnesia—blanks in the chain of thought. It is only a fortnight ago since the Deputy took part in a prolonged debate on a Supplementary Estimate the purpose of which was to provide an additional sum of almost £750,000 for bounties and subsidies. The original vote for agricultural subsidies and bounties was either £2,148,000 or £2,150,000 and that represented an increase of almost £300,000 on the amount actually paid in respect of agricultural export bounties and subsidies for the year ended 31st March, 1934. In addition to that sum of about £2,150,000, the Dáil, as I have said, no later than a fortnight ago, passed a Supplementary Estimate for £750,000. That will make £2,900,000 which, on the assumption that the whole of the money will be spent, represents an increase of £1,100,000 in export bounties and subsidies to be paid this year over and above what was paid last year. In face of that, Deputy Mulcahy has told the Dáil that, having increased the grant in relief of rates on agricultural land this year, we have concomitantly reduced the provision for export bounties and subsidies. If the Deputy had the facts before him, I do not see how he could have made a statement of that sort. As I have already pointed out, the House fully discussed the principles underlying this question of the agricultural grant on the Bill which we have just passed. The conclusions of the House are expressed in that Bill.
The Minister has only reminded us of further vacillation on the part of the Ministry. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health started the local authorities on their work last year with an announcement upon this subject. In the Press of the 17th February certain information concerning agricultural grants was announced in an official communication from Government Buildings as follows:—
"The Government has announced its decision to increase the agricultural grant from 1934-35 to the amount necessary:—
(a) to give relief on the first £20 of the valuation of agricultural holdings at the same rate as was given on the first £10 in 1933-34, and, secondly, in the case of holdings of over £20 valuation to give relief on an additional £12 10s. 0d. of the valuation in respect of each male worker, including relatives of the occupier, between the ages of 17 and 70 permanently employed on the holding. The original proposal for 1934-35 provided for relief on the first £10 of the valuation and on an additional £10 in respect of each male worker over 18 years of age. The alteration in the scheme is estimated to cost £220,000, bringing the total amount of the agricultural grant to £1,970,000, the increase to be made good by a reduction of bounties on agricultural exports. The increase, bringing the total amount of the grant to £1,970,000, is made good by a reduction of bounties on agricultural exports."
The official announcement goes on:
"The Government has also announced that after the 31st March the bounty on the export of cattle shall be reduced by 5/- per head, and the bounty on the export of sheep and lambs by 6d. per head."
The Minister for Finance has addressed himself to the additional moneys provided for subsidies to the farmers, driven to the dire circumstances in which he finds the agricultural population. Here we are concerned with the county councils, the financing of their work and the carrying on of important local services. We ask the Minister, who has run away from the position he took up in April or May last, has he no care for the position of local government in the country, knowing, as he does from the returns of the rate collectors, the condition of those services? Has he gone any way to meet the local bodies, many of whom are unable to pay their accounts, their home assistance and their various contractors? I ask the Minister, pressed by circumstances of his own creation, since he is coming to the assistance of the farmers with this miserable type of aid and the provision of additional bounties, is the local government going to trudge along without any further financial assistance? He knows that, at the end of last year, there was more than £1,000,000 outstanding in rates. He knows that the councils this year were merely collecting old debts, that they are now only beginning to collect on their present warrants and that they are likely, at the end of this year, to be in a worse plight than they were at the end of last year.
