I gave the Minister for Agriculture a notice to-day that on the adjournment I would ask him the following question:—
"If he would be prepared to extend the repayment period of interest-free loans to farmers from four years to eight years and to increase the available maximum loan from five times the valuation to ten times that figure."
During the last few weeks I have received many complaints not only from my own county but from several counties in connection with this interest-free loan to farmers. At first sight it would appear to be splendid help for those who met with serious losses owing to the bad harvest, to the poor quality of the hay fodder, due to the bad harvest, and also because of the general shortage of supplies of stock food on farmsteads consequent on the severe winter conditions we experienced. Now that the loan is about to be put into operation, we find that it does not work out as satisfactorily as we had expected.
I want to suggest to the Minister that, in the case of small farmers with valuations up to £15 and £20, the loan is inadequate. The amount available will be five times the poor law valuation of an applicant's holding. We all know that we have a vast number of farmers with valuations of £5 and £6. In my county we have over 23,000 with valuations under £10. If we take the whole of the western seaboard from Donegal to Kerry, you will find there mostly small farmers. They represent the class that will need to take advantage of the loan. They are faced with this difficulty that the loan available is altogether insufficient for them. It will not afford them any real help. Take the case of a small farmer with a £5 valuation. He may have lost two or three cows which would each be value for £30, or take the case of a non-creamery district where there is a farmer, say, with a holding of a £5 valuation. He may have lost three or four yearlings, or one and a half year old cattle. They would each be worth anything from £10 to £14. The loan available to such men is £25. It would be very small help for the man with the £5 valuation. It would be absolutely inadequate to meet his situation.
The loan is intended to give farmers who have met with serious losses a chance not only of making a fresh start but of being able to repay the loan. In my opinion, it will not put them in that position, because the amount of the loan is too small. I think that if the Minister were to agree to double the amount of the loan that would be made available it would not impose any hardship on the Agricultural Credit Corporation, which is the body that is to loan the money. If the amount were doubled it would be of more help to those who will need to make application for it. I am also asking that the period of repayment be increased from four years to eight years. I think that is not an unreasonable demand, and I am sure the Minister will agree to it. If the figure is doubled for the farmer with the £5 valuation holding, he will be able to apply for a loan of £100. If he had to repay that in four years, with a payment of £25, I do not think he would be able to do it. A man might make a superhuman effort to do that as well as to meet his other commitments relating to the cost of running his house, the payment of rent and other things, but I really do not think he would be able to do it in four years. I am afraid that to ask him to do so would not only discourage him but disgust him. In fact, he might not be able to make the last two or three payments at all. If, instead, the repayments were spread over a longer period the position would be made easier for the borrower. I am well aware, of course, that this is an interest-free loan, to be repaid over a period of four years. I do not want to deny that it is a generous effort, but, at the same time, I want to put it to the Minister that, in my opinion, it is going to prove unworkable in the case of small farmers, who are most in need of the loan.
There is another point that I want to bring to the Minister's notice and that is the question of security. I would ask him to give very careful consideration to this. I have received complaints from farmers who are anxious to avail of the loan to the effect that they cannot easily get security. Many of them are of the opinion that their own holdings ought to be security enough for the loan. If a man's holding is not security for five or ten times the valuation of it, well then it is worth nothing at all. I know that in some of the backward areas— in the mountainous areas—such as Connemara and parts of the County Wicklow that when farmers there who need the loan went to their friends and relations to ask them to go as security, they found that the people on whom they were relying as security were themselves applicants for the loan, and, therefore, would not be accepted as security for others. I would ask the Minister to go into that question and see whether or not he cannot ease that particular situation. I would also strongly impress on him the desirability of extending the repayment period to eight years. Perhaps the Minister may have very sound reasons for not extending it to eight years, but I would ask him at least to consider extending it beyond four years so as to come to the rescue of the people for whom I think the loan is primarily intended, the small farmers who are in many cases living from hand to mouth and to whom the losses during the late winter and spring proved disastrous.