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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Mar 1935

Vol. 55 No. 11

Private Deputies' Business. - Relief of Rates on Agricultural Land (Motion Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Dáil is of opinion that owing to the increasing distress of the farming community arising out of the continuance of the economic war, the Executive Council should take steps to relieve agricultural land of rates during the financial year 1934-'35.—(Thomas O'Higgins, Timothy O'Donovan).

I understood that Deputy Hugo Flinn was in possession when this debate was adjourned on the last occasion. I was rather waiting to see if the Deputy would resume the debate. This motion has been on the Paper for a considerable time, as can be seen from the motion itself. It refers to taking "steps to relieve agricultural land of rates during the financial year 1934-'35." That should now be 1935'36. But when this motion was put on the Paper it was evident to most people who were in touch with agricultural conditions that such relief was necessary for the farming community. That relief, necessary and all as it was at that time, is much more necessary at present. Because those members of the House who are members of local authorities are aware the conditions are considerably worse to-day than they were 12 months ago, and that as a result of the action taken by the Government in withholding the agricultural grants from the county councils because of the non-payment of land annuities, most if not all the county councils in the country to-day find themselves in a very difficult position, to say the least of it. The amounts withheld in many counties will mean a very substantial and a very heavy increase on the existing rate that has has been struck if the services are to be maintained. At the moment I am not quite clear as to the amount which it is proposed to withhold from us in Tipperary. We have two county councils in Tipperary. It has been intimated to the North Tipperary County Councils that a very substantial sum is to be withheld. I am speaking from recollection. The sum mentioned in the statement issued by the Department of Local Government and Public Health recently to be withheld up to the 31st of March was something in the neighbourhood of £44,000. That is equal, I think, to about 4/- in the £ in the rates in North Tipperary. Surely, no person and no member of the Fianna Fáil Party, even those members who try to convince us that as a result of the economic war there is no very great hardship placed on the farmers—will suggest for a moment that it would be possible for the ratepayers to meet such an increase as that.

In mentioning the figure £44,000, I am speaking subject to correction. I am not certain that that is the figure but so far as I can recollect that was the figure mentioned for North Tipperary in the statement issued, as I say, by the Department of Local Government some time ago. In any case, it is absolutely clear that, as a result of the withholding of the agricultural grant, there must be an increase in the rates, if the services are to be maintained at the same level, not to mention county councils going in for heavier expenditure, as many of them would have to do if the ratepayers in different counties were in a position to bear the cost. I think it is clear to most people who are conversant with affairs in rural parts of the country that even prior to the economic war and prior to the very substantial reductions in the price of live stock and so on, most people found it difficult enough to meet their annual demands for rates, and I think it will be admitted that one of the farmer's principal outgoings, one of the heaviest charges he has to meet in the course of the year, is the payment of his rates.

This Motion asks that they should be relieved from that burden during the continuance of the economic war. I think that is a fair demand to make particularly to a Government which definitely promised, when seeking the confidence of the people, that they would derate agricultural land in this country. I know that, since the Fianna Fáil Party came into power, they have on many occasions tried to deny that that promise was ever made or that those statements were made throughout the country, but I do not think that denial was meant seriously because it can be so easily rebutted. I heard it myself on many occasions during election campaigns and I have a very distinct recollection of one very keenly contested by-election, and, if I might say so, that was the real bait, the carrot, that was held out by the Fianna Fáil Party at that time—the withholding of £3,000,000 by way of annuities, £2,000,000 of which were to be devoted to the complete derating of agricultural land. The case was then made by every member of the Fianna Fáil Party that the farmers could not continue in farming unless they got the benefit of derating and if that was the position at that time, how much more necessary is it now?

My friend, Deputy Corry, speaking here last Thursday night, enumerated for us all the splendid and profitable crops which this Government had provided for the farmer and when I suggested to him that, according to his statement, the farmers must be very prosperous, he said that, indeed, they were not. The Deputy, of course, was quite right as he usually is. They are not prosperous. Deputy Corry, I recollect, both inside and outside this House, before he became a respectable member of a respectable Government, on all occasions, and on some occasions when he was not in order tried the patience of this House advocating complete derating for the agricultural community of this country. The Deputy made a very good case when he told us that the farmers were carrying the whole country on their backs and that they were so crushed that unless they got this relief it would be utterly impossible for them to carry on. The Deputy, as a matter of fact, was one of those who was largely responsible for converting me on this question of derating. The argument for derating to-day is much stronger and much more clear and the case can be made with much more confidence as to the inability of the farmers to meet these rates than it could have been made three or four years ago.

There is another aspect of this matter which, I think, ought to commend itself to this House. If the Minister withholds these moneys, which he says he will withhold, and if county councils are deprived of those moneys, unless they strike a very much higher rate, the services which are usually carried on by local authorities will suffer and many things will flow from that, not the least of which will be a considerable number added to the already very much swollen numbers of unemployed. I had expected—I still have some faith in our friends on the opposite side—that this motion would have been accepted at the beginning. If it had been accepted at the time it was put on the Order Paper, the farmers would have been relieved of a considerable burden. We hear from time to time that there is a conspiracy against the payment of rates. So far as I am personally concerned, I know of no such conspiracy and, if there was such a conspiracy, I certainly would not stand for it for one moment. I believe the farmers of this country— it does not matter what their political affiliations may be—are finding it very difficult and, in some cases, perhaps, impossible, to meet the charges made upon them and I am quite satisfied that there are many Fianna Fáil farmers who find it as difficult and who find it impossible to meet these charges in the shape of ratés as farmers who are supporters of the U.I.P., or any other Party.

We have to realise that it is not a political question but that it is an economic question for the farmers. It is a question of a man not being able to walk into a fair, as he could a few years ago, and be sure of being able to sell his stock and to sell at a good price. Deputy Corry, or some other Deputy, may tell us that they are getting so much for wheat and so much for beet and so on, but that does not obtain all over the country. There are farmers who, perhaps unfortunately for themselves, cannot grow either wheat or beet and cannot take advantage of these fairly heavily subsidised crops because of the nature of their land. I know, and there are other members of this House who know farmers who are in the position of having to depend absolutely on the few cattle they bring to the fair, and not only is the price of that particular type of beast very much reduced, but cattle of that particular class are almost unsaleable at the moment. I suggest to the House that it is very difficult indeed for those men to meet the demands made upon them in the form of rates and I suggest that before voting on this question, if there is going to be a vote, members on the opposite side should throw their minds back two or three years and remember the views they then held and to which they gave expression and try to be consistent. If they are, I have no doubt that this Motion will be carried.

In rising to conclude the discussion on this motion standing in my name and in the name of Deputy O'Donovan, namely, that the rates on agricultural land shall be remitted for the financial year just drawing to a close owing to the inability of the farmers to pay their rates, one would think that on a motion such as that, in times such as these, with the whole machinery of the Government, military, police and others, utilised in order to wring the last shilling out of the farmers towards the payment of overhead charges, at least this much was due to the farmers, that when a matter of this kind was under discussion some Minister who represents an agricultural area would stand up and have sufficient courage to speak for that motion or make a case against it if a case could be made. There are ten or 12 Government Ministers and four Parliamentary Secretaries. Two of those Ministers represent city constituencies and one Parliamentary Secretary represents a city constituency, and the only speakers we have had from the Government Bench are the two purely city Ministers and one purely city Parliamentary Secretary. I do not think that is creditable; I do not think that is facing up to the job either as a Minister or a representative of a constituency.

If there is a case to be made against this motion, if anyone has a case to make to demonstrate the capacity of the farmer to pay, surely the House was entitled to have that case made. Surely Ministers are not usually such a row of dummies that, when a vital matter arises affecting the main industry of the country and the backbone of their constituency and the class in their constituency most deluded by their own promises, some voice of a Minister representing an agricultural constituency might have been heard. Surely it is a motion on which the Minister for Agriculture might have had something to say. Not one of those Ministers was so very modest or meek when any question affecting rates came up a few years ago when they were sitting over here, without any economic war and with prices some 40 or 50 per cent. higher than they are now. One after another they all jumped up to point out the urgent necessity of reducing the overhead charges of the farmers of Ireland. Is there anyone prepared to justify that slick political game, that shirking of Government responsibility, when a motion of this kind is taken, that no Minister representing a rural constituency will have the courage to say either "Yes" or "No," taking no action beyond tramping into the Division Lobby against this motion in the hope that his constituents will never hear it?

When President de Valera spoke on this question from that seat there, time and time again he told us that any aids to agriculture, short of reducing the overhead charges, would be merely so much useless effort, merely shirking the real way to help agriculture, which is to reduce overhead charges. When there is a motion to do that, in face of a falling market and in face of the economic war, surely we were entitled to hear some word from the President as to whether he had a view one way or the other or whether views recently expresed, when he was striving to get over there, were only the protestations, so much cheap chaff of a politician thrown out to catch so many sparrows. Surely the word of the leader of the then Opposition, who is now President, is of some importance to Ministers and Deputies opposite, and the House was surely entitled to some explanation as to why every promise made by that man in his reckless scramble into power should be now tramped on by the votes of himself and his followers. It is true the Vice-President made a very feeble attempt to dispute the fact that that promise was ever made by President de Valera. He played around the word "would," as if that promise was contained only in one speech.

I congratulate Deputy Corry at least on his straightforward honesty when he admitted that that promise was made, that he stood for it, but that since that he had changed his mind because he had discovered that a freeholder would get the benefit of it as well as the annuitant. That, at all events, was an honest statement in contrast to the hair-splitting attempted evasion of the Vice-President when he quoted one speech of the President in which the word "would" was used. I will quote a speech in which the word "will" was used:

"The overhead charges of the farmers are too heavy for them and must be lightened. One of the heaviest of these charges is the burden of local rates. We propose to derate agricultural holdings. They are derated in Britain and the Six Counties. Two of the £3,000,000 unjustly taken away from us every year in land annuities will suffice for this derating."

That was a speech by President de Valera, reported in the Irish Press on 18th February, 1932. Where is the word “would” in that speech? “Will” is there; “would” is in the other speeches. Why is “will” here and “would” in the others? Because that speech was three weeks nearer to a general election and he had to come out flat with it; statements had to be made in a manner that would leave no room for doubt in the minds of any of his farming audience. It is as clear and definite a statement as was ever made by any man holding a responsible position. When a motion is put down here merely to honour that word given in public, to honour a pledge that carried with it the votes of 300,000 or 400,000 trusting farmers, there is absolute silence from the man who made the promise.

With public platforms treated in that discreditable manner, with words bandied about merely as the reckless statements of individuals to serve a purpose for the time being, can we be surprised if constitutionalism is running with a halt up and down this land? Can we be surprised if the State is shaken by the sapping of subterranean forces, and can we be surprised if hundreds and thousands are flocking to the standard and the ranks of unconstitutional parties in this country? Is it not well-known that if you want the constitution and the State respected, respect must begin on top? An example must be set by public men themselves, placing reliance on their own statements and carrying out their own promises.

In a country with a tradition such as this country has, and with a background and history such as ours, if we shake the faith of the public in the constitutional machinery of the State, we blast any hope that any of us had of ever getting this country trained back along steady constitutional lines.

We had few Deputies and Ministers opposite who did not speak, and in the speeches that were made we had as much confusion as was ever heard since the Tower of Babel. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Finance explaining, at great pains and length, why, in fact this motion was necessary; explaining by a comprehensive survey of world conditions how agriculture had been set back, how profits had disappeared, how the markets were slumping, not only in this country, but all over the world. Then, we had a feeble effort by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He told us, on the word of a parish priest, that agriculture was never more prosperous in this country. Here we have a Government Front Bench—the war lords of an economic war—and when the front line casualties are under survey, and when we inquire into the whole agricultural position, the only expert that can be quoted on agriculture is an Irish parish priest. To show the Vice-President's extensive knowledge of agriculture, he told us that this parish priest said that agriculture was not so bad because, although money had been lost in the first year of the economic war, in the second year the farmers bought their young cattle cheap. I wonder does the Minister think that young cattle and calves grow on hawthorn bushes, or that the farmers bought those young cattle at the post office or in Woolworth's Stores? Did it ever strike the Minister to inquire where the farmer bought those young cattle cheap? They were not bought from bakers or from Dublin publicans. They were bought from other farmers. If any clear picture were required of how this economic war is hitting the very small farmers, it was the quotation from the Irish parish priest that was given by the Minister for Local Government. Having launched into a clerical atmosphere, however, it did not suffice the Minister merely to quote a parish priest as an authority on agriculture. He had to go one further, and I think that some word of protest is desirable. He quoted, as an argument against this motion and as an argument to illustrate the capacity of the farmers to pay their rates, the fact that they had subscribed well and generously to the building of a cathedral in Mullingar. I think that kind of argument should not be used. It is well-known in this country that out of their poverty the people have always subscribed to such purposes, and it will be helpful neither to the building of a cathedral nor the collection of dues, nor to any other such purpose, if the amount of a collection is to be used as an argument here to show the prosperity of farmers.

We have this motion moved in the light of events which are happening in the country. No matter which side of the House we are on we know that every farmer in this country, big and small, is getting rapidly poorer and poorer. The various Bills that have been brought in here in order to plug holes in a leaking barrel were all justified from the Government Front Bench on the grounds that something has got to be done; that the bottom has gone out of the cattle market; that England has shoved up tariffs against us and introduced quotas, and that something has got to be done to save that particular industry from complete ruination. We have the knowledge that, whether it is a Fianna Fáil county, a Fine Gael county, or a Commissioner county, a most dismal picture is presented of the increasing accumulation of unpaid rates, and we have, owing to that, the threatened annihilation of social services. We have the bailiff and the sheriff, the armoured cars and all the rest of it, busy from morning to night in frenzied attempts to get in either rates or annuities. In that particular set of circumstances a motion is put down, to remit the rates and, incidentally, to keep the President's promise, and the answer to that is to tell us that a cathedral has been subscribed for generously in the town of Mullingar.

As far as any other Front Bench attempt was made to meet it, it was a survey of world agricultural conditions, merely to prove up to the hilt the necessity for some such step in this country. I do not think that that is a square way to face up to this. There is, and there was, a responsibility on those sitting opposite, before they put a body of people through the mill, to prove that there was the wherewithal to pay. An attempt was made to show that there was a political conspiracy for the non-payment of rates and that that political conspiracy was sponsored or fathered by this Party over here. If there were any truth in that it would go to show that the counties in which we had the greatest influence would be the County of Clare and the County of Kerry. I do not say that those counties are particularly bad in their payment of rates because they are so pronouncedly Fianna Fáil, but I mention that as an answer to that particular charge. It was not believed at the time it was made and it is not believed by anybody who listens to it.

I do not want to hark back any distance, but I am entitled to say this: that the people and the personnel who constitute this Party have given ample evidence time and again of their desire for the strength and stability of this State and of every institution in the State, whether it is local government or central government, and that in the long run the people who built up the State would lose more by the destruction of that State than the people who came in merely to occupy it and enjoy a comfortable position when the State was fairly firmly established. This motion was put down mainly with the intention of averting bankruptcy in local administration. It was also put down in an attempt to equate the losses and the hardships of the economic war. The economic war came about because of a squabble between Governments. It led to the losing of practically 50 per cent. of the market on which this country lived. It led directly to the reduction in the prices of agricultural commodities by about 50 per cent. It was a war started by politicians and carried on by politicians, and it is unfair and unjust that one class of the community, the class that suffered most, should be left to suffer entirely alone.

The proposal to remit the rates on agricultural land amounts to this: that the sum required for these rates will be borne by all the people; that it will come out of central funds. It does not mean that the other classes should step in and pay what the farmers paid heretofore. The farmer is a taxpayer the same as the rest of us. It is a case of spreading all over some of the losses arising from this economic war. Just as there was a responsibility on Ministers, which was shirked, to make a case against this motion, there is equally a responsibility on every Deputy to justify before his constituents his vote in this House, if he votes against this motion.

Deputies opposite know as well as I do that the main part of their political success in rural Ireland was due to the President's clearly-put promise to derate agricultural land. The time has come when it is a vital necessity that that action should be taken. It is for Deputies opposite to make a choice now as to whether they will relieve to a certain extent the most hard-pressed of their constituents and the principal casualties of the economic war, and, at the same time, honour their leader's word; or vote the other way and go back to their constituents and say, as was said from the Front Bench opposite, that if the farmers are not paying their rates and annuities it is because of a political conspiracy; that they have the money, but will not pay. They will go back down to those areas and tell the people that President de Valera when he was making those promises was only looking for votes and never meant to keep such promises.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 36; Níl, 49.

  • Beckett, James Walter.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Bourke, Séamus.
  • Broderick, William Joseph.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Costello, John Aloysius.
  • Curran, Richard.
  • Davis, Michael.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finlay, John.
  • Fitzgerald, Desmond.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Keating, John.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGovern, Patrick.
  • McGuire, James Ivan.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James Edward.
  • Nally, Martin.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Mahony, The.
  • O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Redmond, Bridget Mary.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Rice, Vincent.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Cooney, Eamonn.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • Doherty, Hugh.
  • Donnelly, Eamon.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Geoghegan, James.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Jordan, Stephen.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Doherty, Joseph.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Victory, James.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Question declared lost.
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