Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Mar 1949

Vol. 114 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture.

The Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1949, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, and of certain Services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.

The House will note that the extra money required is set out amounting to £21,360 and that savings on other sub-heads are expected to realise £21,350, so that the Supplementary Estimate that we are dealing with is a net total Estimate of £10. It arises under three sub-heads. The first relates to a grant that has been approved for St. Patrick's Agricultural College in the Diocese of Clogher close to the diocesan college in Monaghan. This college was established in 1943 and it has the distinction of being the first diocesan college in Ireland, a fact of which the Diocese of Clogher has every reason to be proud. It is the first diocese in Ireland which has realised, and given practical effect to that realisation, that the young boys leaving the primary schools in this country may legitimately choose between two forms of secondary education: either the classical and scientific education available in a secondary school or that particular secondary education which equips them to be competent farmers on their own land. In the Diocese of Clogher any boy leaving the primary school now can make that choice with the assurance that he will receive an equal standard of education in the agricultural college as is available in the traditional classical and scientific college provided by the diocesan authorities.

Another peculiarly gratifying characteristic of St. Patrick's College is that it is organised and maintained with a view to providing education primarily for the sons of farmers who intend to return to their fathers' holdings and in due course to carry on the holdings, rather than as a college designed for the higher education of persons who desire to become instructors or enter official life in one capacity or other in the sphere of agriculture.

This college has another remarkable and praiseworthy characteristic, and that is that its authorities have never hestitated to try various forms of educational theory. It is sometimes not easy to persuade the sons of farmers to commit themselves to an academic course of one or two years in a residential college, but you can convince them of the desirability and advantage of taking a short course, say six weeks, three months, or six months, and that serves the dual purpose of conferring an advantage on the boy who takes the short course and also familiarising the young lads of the diocese with the experience of going to a boarding school and leaving their homes, which many young country boys have a profound reluctance to do.

Those who have gone for short or medium courses have had to tell, when they return to their homes, that the experience has been agreeable and that they have found the atmosphere of the college congenial and friendly. We hope that St. Patrick's will be the pioneer of diocesan agricultural colleges which will ultimately be provided in every diocese in Ireland, so that any young man in this country who intends to become a farmer will have available to him a standard of education specialising in agriculture the equal of the education that is provided for any of his brothers who intend to enter professions or other callings in life.

Under the relevant statutes it is in the discretion of the Minister for Finance to provide grants to assist in the initial expenses of establishing a private agricultural college and, accordingly, after five years working at the college, the diocesan authorities approached me for such a grant and, all the circumstances having been carefully examined, the Minister for Finance authorised a grant of £10,500 which, as soon as the authority of the House is secured, it is proposed to pay over to the authorities.

I believe I report them correctly when I say that in the event of Dáil Éireann approving that grant the college authorities will feel they have received a measure of co-operation from the House which they consider to be a fair and reasonable appreciation of their efforts. I would wish to take this occasion of expressing to them, certainly on my own behalf and I dare to think on behalf of the whole House, our very warm appreciation of their enterprise and courage in launching this school and carrying it on during the early and difficult pioneer years, and to give them the assurance that so far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, anything that lies in our power to help them in their work we shall be only most happy to be called upon to vouchsafe.

The second sub-head of this Supplementary Estimate is for £1,650 and it relates to the salaries and wages which will become due as a result of our having expanded the soil testing service at Johnstown Castle. This time last year the soil testing service in this country was located at Ballyhaise Agricultural School and the staff consisted of one soil analyst and one laboratory attendant. The necessary agitation of samples was done by attaching a container to a bicycle wheel, which was rapidly revolved by the attendant. I did not think that equipment was sufficient to meet the requirements of the country as a whole and I directed the transfer of the service to Johnstown Castle and the recruitment of a laboratory staff. In May, 1948, the staff consisted of a junior agricultural inspector, a soil analyst, four laboratory assistants, two laboratory attendants and a temporary clerical assistant, with a good deal of modern, up-to-date, scientific equipment. I am glad to inform the House that the demands made upon this service rapidly outstripped the expanded staff which we then provided and it became necessary to employ additional staff, which has been secured in the recent past. The Estimate now provides for the wages of ten laboratory assistants, three laboratory attendants and two clerical assistants.

I think I am entitled further to congratulate the House on the fact that the increasing payment for this service is brought about because of the additional staff and equipment provisions which we have had to make. I must ask the House when my main Estimate comes before it for next year to make substantial additional provision and I feel sure that I correctly interpret the House's wish when I ask it to facilitate us in providing a service capable of keeping abreast of the ever growing demand for soil analysis which reaches us from every county in the country. During the period from April, 1948, to December, 1948, some 4,400 samples were tested. We reckon that when the present staff is fully trained, which will take some little time, it should be able to handle 15,000 soil samples per annum. I think we shall have to ask the House to make provision in time to enable us to train staff to handle a very much larger number of samples than 15,000 in the course of the coming financial year; but it is not necessary to trouble the House with that matter for the present.

The third sub-head is a token Vote merely for the purpose of permitting us to implement to the wheat seed assemblers in respect of spring wheat the guarantee they enjoyed in respect of winter wheat. Under that arrangement pedigree seed growers were assured that if they assembled winter wheat and any of it was left upon their hands they would be entitled to sell it to the millers and receive from the Government a compensating sum. It transpired that my predecessor in office, contemplating a possible shortage in supplies of Atle spring wheat brought in a quantity of that wheat. I am not suggesting for a moment that he was blameworthy in the proportion he took, but the additional 50 tons that was brought in resulted in some surplus of seed remaining in the hands of the Pedigree Seed Growers and under the terms of the guarantee, had the guarantee covered spring varieties as well as winter varieties, they would be entitled to £338 3s. 3d. I am sure I correctly interpret the House's wish when I ask them for authority to give that guarantee in respect of this small quantity of spring wheat, taking into account the fact that they have already given it in respect of winter wheat. I believe that that substantially covers the matters provided for in this Supplementary Estimate. If there is any other matter upon which the House requires information I shall be glad to give that information when the opportunity arises.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister does not suggest that this covers the whole field of agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

Not at all. As usual, I am in your hands entirely and pledged to the strict observance of your directions.

Mr. Smith

I agree largely with the complimentary references made by the Minister to the authorities responsible for the establishment of an agricultural college in Monaghan. I am somewhat disappointed that the Minister did not see fit to give us some information as to the success which has attended that effort. I would have preferred something of that nature rather than a merely gushing tribute to their work. According to my information— I admit it is not up to date—the object in establishing this college was to give boys intending to settle upon the land an opportunity of training for the land. It was hoped that that training would equip them to carry on work on the land subsequently. I heard it stated that in a certain town in that county scholarships were offered to farmers' sons. The local authority providing the scholarships found it difficult, if not impossible, to find candidates for those scholarships. I think it is very desirable that we should examine the situation to find the reason for the difficulty to which I have just referred. It is a fact that boys who enter agricultural colleges do so with the object of subsequently securing employment from the State, a local authority, or a private individual. In the case of the small farmer it is often more economic for the farmer to keep his 14 year old boy at home on his own farm than to let him away to college. I do not know what the reluctance was exactly in relationship to these scholarships in Monaghan. I have certain suspicions myself as to the reason. It would have been no harm if the Minister had attempted to explain why there is such a marked reluctance in taking up these scholarships.

Mr. Dillon

I thought it was so obvious that it was not necessary for me to deal with it, but I shall deal with it when I am concluding.

Mr. Smith

I want to say a few words on the sub-head O (5). I wonder is the explanation given by the Minister for this Supplementary Estimate entirely adequate. When glancing at this Supplementary Estimate I immediately thought "this has arisen because of the policy that was pursued by the present Minister since the 18th February last year." The Dáil is being asked to vote a sum of money now because of the Minister's own policy on taking up office in the Department of Agriculture.

On his coming into office he issued public advertisements, paid for by moneys provided by this House from the pockets of the taxpayer. He is entitled to do that as Minister but I have looked up these advertisements. I have compared them with advertisements that were issued on my authority only a few weeks previously, and I find that in the advertisements for which he was responsible on coming into office, the dice was loaded, in so far as it could be loaded, through these advertisements and a pointer given to all farmers, with the emphasis not on wheat but on oats and potatoes. I am not as I say, objecting to the Minister making that change. He was within his right in coming along and saying: "I shall use public money for the purpose of advertising in the daily papers to give an indication to the farmers as to the way in which I want them to travel," but having used public money for that purpose, and having succeeded in inducing our farmers to grow 63,000 acres less wheat than the previous year and diverting our farmers to the growing of oats and potatoes he has created a need for a Supplementary Estimate for the purposes for which he has explained.

Mr. Dillon

Now you have put your foot in it up to your knee.

Mr. Smith

I am making this charge, that on coming into office the Minister for Agriculture used public money for the purpose of giving advice to the farmers to grow oats and potatoes on the assurance of himself and, I take it, of the Government, that they would find a remunerative market for these products. As a result of that advice—

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is now going outside the terms of the Estimate.

Mr. Smith

If the need for this money arises because of the fact that the Minister appealed to our farmers to grow oats and potatoes rather than wheat, I feel I am justified in dealing with the matter in this particular way. I do not want to pursue it further than to say that while the farmers were advised to proceed along these lines, this House now finds itself asked to vote money to seed-assemblers to cover their losses as a result of that policy and as a result of the fact that farmers accepted the advice of the Minister to grow oats and potatoes for which they cannot now find a market. Hence we see that farmers are no longer in a position to know where they stand, and as a result there is evidence that people are turning from tillage everywhere.

Mr. Cogan

It is gratifying to note that farmers generally are anxious to ascertain the quality of their soil and are availing of the soil-testing facilities and equipment. The Minister's estimate of 15,000 samples per year would hardly be adequate to deal with this problem as it exists at the moment. There are 350,000 farmers in this country and I assume it will be necessary for each of them to send to the Department more than one sample of soil, because farmers have a variety of different soils on their farms. Thus it would appear that, if our facilities are capable of dealing only with 15,000 samples per year, it will take a long time to have the soil of the entire State adequately analysed. There is one matter to which I should like the Minister to direct the attention of this section and that is the question of whether those soil tests are absolutely accurate or otherwise. I have in mind the case of a farmer whose soil, on test, was found to be very deficient in phosphates and lime. He applied two tons of lime and half a ton of phosphate per acre and then had another sample taken.

Mr. Dillon

In what form was the phosphate?

Mr. Cogan

I think it was mainly rock phosphate. Within a month after applying these fertilisers, he had the soil again tested and it showed a deficiency in both phosphates and lime. I know that in a test of this kind there is always the possibility that the sample may not provide a true and accurate test of the entire soil of a particular field and there is the possibility of error of various kinds but I think it would not be any harm if there were various checks and rechecks to ascertain, and to be absolutely certain, that the tests afford a true index of the quality of the soil. I think everybody will agree that this service is very urgently needed. At the present time it is only being availed of to a very small extent, so far as the farming community generally are concerned.

Another aspect of the matter is that, probably because the equipment and facilities are not yet fully developed, there is very little propaganda in favour of soil tests in the various rural areas. I think there are very few agricultural instructors or very few people connected with the Department to urge strongly on the people to have these tests taken. I am speaking of rural areas generally and I know what happens. If those tests are to be very valuable it would require better propaganda and publicity in order to have brought to the notice of every farmer the advantage of availing of these services. I know that at the present time if a farmer wants his soil tested, he has got to go chasing round to find an agricultural instructor to take a sample. I do not think that should be necessary but that is a position which I think will eventually right itself.

Reference was made to the reluctance of farmers to take full advantage of the educational facilities that are being provided in institutions such as that mentioned here. I think Deputies should know what is the real cause that farmers do not send their sons to such institutions or do not more largely avail of the educational facilities. The real cause is acute poverty. The small farmer or the agricultural worker who also needs agricultural education to a certain extent— certainly the small farmer—finds it very difficult to do without the services of his son when that boy comes to the age of 15 or 16. He wants that boy to work on the farm to help him. When we consider the low income of agriculture as demonstrated in the Minister's own county of Roscommon on a recent survey, we see the reason why these people are anxious to retain the services of their growing sons on the farm. It is unfortunate that that position obtains. I am one of those who believe that the income from agriculture generally could be raised considerably by increased technical knowledge on the part of those engaged in the industry. But, as I say, if a farmer is finding it difficult to carry on the work of his farm, if he cannot afford to employ an agricultural worker, and if he has a good, strong young boy of 15 or 16, the natural tendency is to keep that boy on the farm. He will probably do just as much work as a grown-up man and give good service. That boy may be the eldest or one of the eldest of a family. There may be many other young children and the farmer may find it difficult to carry on his work and may require that boy's services. It is unfortunate that that should be the case, but we have to face facts.

In connection with this matter of seed wheat assembly, will the Minister take steps to ensure that adequate supplies of Progress wheat will be available during the coming year? I think there will be a fairly large wheat acreage in the coming year, and I think the value of Progress wheat is recognised by a great many farmers. It has been found more satisfactory than Atle, and I think it will be widely sold if that variety of seed is available.

Mr. Corry

In regard to soil analysis, that was very largely carried out by the sugar company in the years previous to this. I should like to know from the Minister if he has any knowledge as to why the sugar company gave up carrying out these tests. Undoubtedly they were doing great service, and if the Department and the Minister take advantage of the technical knowledge that is possessed by the sugar company and their chemists, I think it would be cheaper in the long run. I agree with him entirely that the present staff in Johnstown is totally inadequate for the work. I have had experience of the tests carried out by the sugar company on various farms and, undoubtedly, they have succeeded in largely increasing the tonnage of the crops produced.

In regard to sub-head O (5), this £9,200 is a burden on the State, but it only represents a very small portion of the loss that was caused to the farming community owing to the Minister's action. On 3rd March last the Minister stated:

"I ask you to do all you can to increase the area under barley, oats and potatoes. For each of these three commodities there will be a certain profitable market next year. The more oats the farmer grows, the greater the service to the nation. If any farmer finds himself with a surplus——"

Mr. Dillon

Are we to discuss oats and potatoes? I would enjoy that, but I would want to discuss them in great detail if they are to be discussed at all. The Ceann Comhairle ruled that we were not to discuss anything that was not in the Vote.

Mr. Corry

The Minister went on to say:

"If any farmer finds himself with a surplus and communicates with the Department of Agriculture arrangements will be made to put him in contact at once with a purchaser who will take his surplus at a satisfactory price."

There is nothing there about walking it off the land. At that time the seed assemblers had their spring seed wheat ready for the market. There was an immediate change. Farmers who had sold their oats the previous year at anything from £24 to £26 per ton immediately changed their programme and put in oats instead of wheat. The result was that you had a reduction in the wheat area of 63,000 acres, which accounts for this £9,200. On the average tonnage of wheat this year, that 63,000 acres represents £1,500,000, and for that 63,000 acres of oats the farmers got less than £500,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is endeavouring to discuss agricultural policy on this item. I warn him that he will not go much further on that line.

Mr. Corry

I do not wish to go any further than to call attention to how this item came to be here.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has said that. That is the limit to which he will go in discussing policy.

Mr. Corry

The fact of that item being there means a loss to the farmers of £1,000,000 this year.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will either desist from pursuing that line of argument or desist from speaking.

Mr. Corry

Very well. I have looked up the Estimate in connection with sub-head O (5). The expenses in connection with imports of winter seed wheat were £6,000. I take it that that is what this £10 extra is looked for under this sub-head. The assemblers generally estimate the quantity of seed required and fix their price. I say that the Minister is absolutely right in looking for this £9,200. That was due to his attitude and his advocacy of a certain policy here. Further than that I do not intend to go, except to say that I do not think the Minister will have anything to pay this year. I think the farmers have learned their lesson in what is, I admit, the dearest school of all, namely, that of experience. Therefore I think that any advice the Minister gives them will see them rushing to do the opposite.

Mr. S. Collins

I will have a bet with you on that.

Mr. O'Grady

There are three subheads to this Supplementary Estimate. With regard to the first—the sum required by way of Grant-in-Aid for the new experimental school in Monaghan —I wish we had a good many similar schools, not merely in Monaghan but in other counties as well. It is an experiment, but I think a useful one. It helps to fill a long-felt want—to provide higher education for farmers' sons, that is, for the sons of farmers who intend to become farmers as distinct from farmers' sons, and others, whose intention is to get employment through their knowledge of agriculture. I know a few boys who have spent a term there. I can say that it has improved them considerably inasmuch as it has given an edge to their anxiety to acquire further knowledge on the subject. It has made them eager to pursue a course of studies in agriculture. I hope that the enterprise will be entirely successful, and that it is the forerunner of many similar institutions that will be spread throughout the country.

Mention has been made of the fact that some local people were slow, and perhaps indifferent and disinclined to take advantage of the facilities provided. I suppose that is due to this, that most people imagine that anything local, simply because it is local, is not good. I was forcibly reminded of that on one occasion when looking over a farm of land. Standing in one field I noticed how green the next field was. I went to investigate how that was. The one that I was standing in did not appear to be as green as the other. When I reversed my position and crossed over to the field I thought was so green, I discovered that it did not appear to me then to be as green as I had thought. An idea of that kind seems to affect the minds of many people who fail to take advantage of facilities of the kind provided in this college.

The next item deals with soil testing. I may say that this is an idea which I very much approve of. I understand that, in other countries before a farmer prepares his cropping plan, he has every field tested in which he proposes to sow a crop in the ensuing year. As a result of the test he is in a position to know the exact manurial requirements of each field. He will know the fields in which certain crops may or may not be sown. While these tests may not be 100 per cent. accurate, due to various causes, nevertheless they form a very valuable guide, so that any progressive farmer who wants to run his farm successfully will, I think, be well advised to take advantage of the facilities which are being provided.

As regards the other sub-head, the one about which there seems to have been some controversy is that under which compensation is provided for the seed assemblers. Whether the Minister intended it or not, his pronouncements from once he took office gave farmers throughout the country the idea that he was opposed to tillage, and particularly to the growing of wheat. Now, I do not want to pursue that matter. I think the Minister realises, and I am speaking in all sincerity when I tell him, that a great many farmers, particularly the bigger farmers went out of tillage.

I heard of one myself who, immediately the change of Government took place, converted 200 acres of tillage into grass. If that were done on a big scale, is it any wonder that there would be a big reduction in the area under wheat? The Minister will, of course, not like to believe that, but he should make some inquiries from farmers up and down the country. They will tell him that what I have said is the general consensus of opinion in the country. I wonder whether he meant to convey that idea or not. At any rate, it got into the heads of the people, with the result that many of them last year switched from the sowing of spring wheat to the sowing of oats and other cereal crops. That meant that the wheat was left on the hands of the assemblers, and now the Minister has to come here with a Supplementary Estimate to the tune of £9,200 to compensate them. The Minister stated, and truthfully stated, that wheat can be a profitable crop. I was glad to hear him make that statement because on any land that is suitable for the growing of wheat it is undoubtedly one of the most profitable crops that a farmer can sow. It can be grown here as well as in any other country in the world.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

On the question of soil analysis I do not forget that, at an early stage when speaking on this, the Minister indicated very clearly that he was speeding up the examination of soils. He informed those sending up soils to be analysed that the tests would be done almost immediately. I do not know whether that was a wise thing to do or not. In my experience it is the agricultural instructors who usually send up these samples of soil, and they have complained to me frequently that they did not get any results. The farmers then came along and told me that the instructors must not have sent up the samples at all. If that is a fact, if the Minister would do something to explain the considerable delays that there are—a large amount of analyses to be made and so forth—it would satisfy both the farmers and the agricultural instructors. I do not know if there is that considerable delay, possibly there is. I am quite sure they must have sent an amount of soil to be analysed.

Mr. Dillon

I am afraid there is two months' delay at present.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

If some public statement was issued in that way it would make it more pleasant for the agricultural instructors and for all of us. Farmers have complained to me bitterly. They came to the conclusion when there was so much delay that they had not sent up any soil for analysis at all.

With reference to the wheat situation and this subsidy to compensate seed assemblers, I am afraid that the Minister is at fault there and he is quite justified in paying this money to them. The Minister definitely stated, since he became a Minister, that the farmers should grow plenty of oats. Before he became a Minister he definitely stated that they should not attempt to grow wheat at all. The situation has become very involved both as regards potatoes and as regards oats. In one district alone in the County Meath in which a large amount of potatoes has always been grown there are now well over 1,500 barrels of potatoes that cannot be sold and which are likely to become a total loss.

Mr. Dillon

Why should they become a total loss?

Mr. M. O'Reilly

They have no means of cooking them and they cannot sell them.

Mr. Dillon

Get in touch with me and I will have them cooked.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

To be quite candid, the Committee of Agriculture did get in touch with your Department. I do not know what the results are. One week ago nobody had come to take them away and nothing had been done. That demoralises farmers a good deal. I think some effort should be made to compensate them, especially in potatogrowing districts, if these potatoes have become a total loss. I should be obliged to the Minister if he would make some inquiries and indicate that he had some sympathy with those people. That resolution was sent from the Committee of Agriculture at least a fortnight or three weeks ago.

That is all I have to say on this Estimate with the exception of the educational part of agriculture. For years there has been great disappointment in that. Pupils go to these agricultural schools and colleges with the definite intention of getting a job out of it. I have seen quite a number of them who did not get a job at all. When they came back to their fathers and mothers they were told they had no brains, that they could not get a job and that they were no use on the farm. We should have sufficient propaganda or something else to change that attitude of mind which they adopt. Generally speaking, they do not go to these colleges for the purpose of getting educated specifically in agricultural production. They go simply for the purpose of getting a job. If they do not get a job out of it and come back to the farms they are simply looked down upon as duds and told they are inefficient and incapable. Instead of doing good it demoralises them.

Mr. Sheehan

I am glad to support this Estimate of the Minister for Agriculture. I am pleased to see he is taking a keen interest in the agricultural schools of this country. The training of our young farmers is very important because agriculture is one of our main industries. A great deal has been said by Deputies about too much oats and too much potatoes. I should like to compliment the Minister for Agriculture on his great achievement of selling 50,000 tons of potatoes to the British Government. I do not think that any man in living memory has known that amount of potatoes to leave this country. I would say in passing that the farmers of this country are as well off as they have been in living memory. That is a great credit to the Minister for Agriculture. Again I would like to compliment the Minister for Agriculture on what he is trying to do, working hard and conscientiously for the country. I hope his efforts will prove fruitful.

Mr. Allen

It is very refreshing to hear farmer Deputy Sheehan complimenting the Minister.

Mr. Sheehan

On a point of order farmer Sheehan did come from the land and was born and bred there.

Mr. S. Collins

He had more manners than Deputy Allen.

Mr. Allen

I am sure he has. It was interesting. I should like to ask the Minister whether it is proposed at any future time to establish the temporary assistants in Johnstown provided for in this Vote in the matter of soil testing. I think that is important. I am sure that the Minister will also realise the importance of having that post established permanently. I did not have the advantage of hearing the Minister's opening remarks on this matter but I gather there is a two months' delay in the matter of getting returns from soil samples sent in there. Is it possible to provide for the shortening of that period to any extent? That is all important for the farmers. They complain about the length of time it takes to get samples returned to them.

Mr. Dillon

Surely we are doing better than the two fellows on bicycles were doing 12 months ago.

Mr. Allen

It is not a question of that. An increase in the actual rate of progress and a shortening of the time would be an advantage to agriculture as a whole.

With reference to item O (5) of £9,210 the Minister admits, I am sure, that the whole of that arose out of his pronouncements. Wheat would have been sown by the farmers were it not that the tendency for farmers last spring, arising out of the Minister's pronouncements, was to switch away from wheat and to sow oats in the month of March when the farmers had all their land prepared for sowing. Last year 95 per cent. of the farmers had all their ploughing done that they were going to do for the year when the Minister's policy which was announced at that time indicated that he wished farmers to go away from sowing wheat on to sowing oats. We know of the disaster all over the country that resulted.

Mr. S. Collins

He is codding himself.

Mr. Allen

There were very disastrous results. Even at the present time, in the month of April now almost here, there are many farmers with the total products of their last year's harvest still on hands which they cannot cash to my own knowledge and they will not be able to cash in the present year unfortunately for themselves. Many of them who depended on their oat harvest to meet all the liabilities of the year have been unable to dispose of their whole harvest. That is quite true.

Mr. S. Collins

Were they ever better off?

Mr. Allen

Go down the country amongst them and inquire and you will know all about it.

Mr. S. Collins

Down in West Cork they were never better off.

Mr. Allen

I am glad to hear it. They were always poor in West Cork.

Mr. S. Collins

It is a good thing for you they are not. We had to carry Wexford on our backs part of the time.

Mr. Allen

The Minister, I am sure, appreciates that he made a serious mistake last year in advising farmers in the wrong direction. The fruits of his policy are well known to the agricultural community, to their disadvantage in many directions. I hope the Minister will provide more staff for Johnstown and extend the buildings there. I understand that very soon the buildings will be found inadequate and it will be necessary to extend them as the demand grows for soil testing. We hope that the Minister will be compelled in the near future to provide a larger staff.

Mr. P.J. Burke

There are a few matters in which I am interested. One is with reference to the training of individuals in the agricultural colleges as instructors. During last year I had a number of letters and representations from persons trained in our agricultural colleges who had to leave this country. I wonder will the Minister try to get employment for people trained here as agricultural experts and instructors? I welcome any scheme that will educate our people more in agricultural matters. It is rather sad to think that during the last 12 months so many of our trained instructors had to leave the country. No later than this morning I got a letter from a man who was trained in the Albert College and who had to go to England.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is no money here for the Albert College. This is to provide for St. Patrick's Agricultural College, and reference to other colleges will not be in order.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Minister referred to some people walking the oats and potatoes off the land.

Mr. Dillon

I did? I never referred to it, but I could do so at great length.

Mr. P.J. Burke

You went to great length asking them to grow certain crops, and I have the case of one woman who has 300 barrels of oats in her own barns and in other barns in County Dublin.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not like to interrupt the Deputy, but this is totally irrelevant.

Mr. P.J. Burke

You let others speak on this subject.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair did not allow any Deputy to make irrelevant remarks.

Mr. P.J. Burke

Will the Minister give these people compensation after advising them to grow oats? It is very little use to advise people throughout the country to feed it to stock. They grew it on the Minister's advice, hoping to make better use of it. I would like to see more soil testing. In County Dublin, where it has been carried out it has been most successful. I hope the Minister will get all the staff necessary to carry out this useful work. One farmer told me that where he had a lot of crop failures he had his soil tested and that was responsible for improving his land. Everybody welcomes it.

Mr. Dillon

Did it increase his crop?

Mr. P.J. Burke

Definitely.

Mr. Dillon

He must have got hysterics through having an abundant crop.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I wonder would it be possible to have some scheme so that our Ministers for Agriculture could go through an agricultural college and secure practical knowledge rather than have them making flamboyant statements.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Burke conceals under a bland and benevolent exterior a Machiavellian combination of disingenuousness and ignorance which I find it hard to rival. These he conceals under a reference to the afflicted widow who was threatened with an inundation of oats, the bewildered landowner who had his soil tested, and a series of anonymous persons, male and female, who told him this and told him that. It is all unloaded on this House with a hypocritical sanctimoniousness——

Mr. P.J. Burke

The same as the Minister.

Mr. Dillon

God knows, no one ever called me sanctimonious. All this is designed to create the impression that he is a well-meaning, simple, country lad.

Mr. P.J. Burke

When I was speaking I did not attack the Minister the same as he is attacking me.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Burke dissembles a harmless innocence, but it is all done for the purpose of trotting out every Fianna Fáil canard with which he was briefed in the Party room. The Chair having commented on the irrelevance of his remarks, he executed an elephantine departure. There was, first, the reference to the oat-afflicted widow; then he begged the pardon of the Chair and rushed on to the next irrelevance. But the widow was standing in front of us with her surplus oats. All that ráméis about oats was organised in the Fianna Fáil Party room. Before they went home for their Christmas holidays every Deputy of the Party was told to go round the country and urge on farmers to sell their oats and potatoes for the purpose of creating a glut upon the market; and one unfortunate individual, not knowing the ropes, Deputy Davern, got up on a public platform and blurted out the whole thing on December 13th last, revealing that the whole squad were racing around the country deliberately trying to create a situation in which the market would be flooded with potatoes in the hope that individual farmers would experience a loss and that there would be some confusion.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Minister does not believe that statement.

Mr. Dillon

And some of them took good precautions to market their own produce before the barrage began. As Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork was good enough to recall, this year 50,000 tons of potatoes were sold to the British Government. I want to take this opportunity of stating publicly that when a very abundant crop in Great Britain left the British Ministry of Food with a far larger supply than they anticipated they honourably honoured their bargain and insisted on taking delivery and paying for all they had bought.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Now the Chair has deliberately prevented Deputies from discussing the oats and potato position on this Estimate. The Chair cannot allow the Minister to discuss what he did not allow the Deputies to discuss. The Minister knows that.

Mr. Dillon

Fully, Sir, and in deference to your wishes I shall depart from it though I venture to direct your attention to the ancient device with which you and I are so well acquainted of launching the slander, being called to order, speeding away from it, and trusting to God that the person who has been slandered will not be allowed to answer.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is not aware of that subterfuge.

Mr. Dillon

I have no doubt that the Chair appreciates the shapely form of the oat ridden widow as I do. She is left here to haunt us but I fully agree, Sir, that her person is sacrosanct from the moment her corpse was dropped upon the floor. But we shall come back to the oat ridden widow some other time. It may be that we shall be able to identify her.

Deputy Allen was anxious to know if we would accelerate the return of soil samples. We are doing all we can in that direction and I am prepared to certify to the House that the men working on this are performing veritable prodigies considering the task with which they have to grapple. Deputies will realise that the procedure of securing new entrants to the Civil Service is not the most expeditious that has ever been devised by the mind of man. Additional recruits are bespoken; when you get them they have to be trained in the work. We cannot expect the officer responsible for soil analysis to get all these recruits to work as expeditiously as they will be able to work when he has time to give them expert training. I am glad to testify to the zeal and industry of everyone associated with this work and to assure the House that they are doing all they can to catch up on the arrears. It is a source of some gratification to be able to recall that the arrears are due not to any slackening of speed in dealing with samples but to the ever-growing number of samples being sent in and I think that constitutes the highest tribute that the service could receive. Deputy Allen, another innocent babe in the wood, wants to know if I will guarantee that all the civil servants engaged in Johnstown Castle will be established.

Mr. Allen

I asked no such thing.

Mr. Dillon

I understood the Deputy to inquire if it was intended that all the officers working in Johnstown Castle Soil Testing Station would be established.

Mr. Allen

I asked if the number of temporary assistants—either ten or 13 —would be established. That is a different thing.

Mr. S. Collins

Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Mr. Dillon

A very formidable distinction. I think all civil servants should be established civil servants. I believe the whole system of having unestablished civil servants is a thoroughly rotten one. I do not believe any Minister of an Irish Government ever took any other view. I imagine that most of our predecessors in office shared that view and most of their predecessors shared that view also; and most of the Ministers of every British Cabinet responsible for running this country back into the middle of the last century shared that view. But the Deputy knows that the whole problem of eliminating the system of temporary servants in the Civil Service is one of great complexity and difficulty in the attempted resolving of which many Ministers for Finance have burned much midnight oil. I hope that the officers of my Department in Johnstown Castle will be in due course established civil servants, as I wish it for every member of the public service; I am sure the Deputy will share my rejoicings if and when that desirable end is achieved by any of us.

I am grateful to the Lord Mayor of Cork for his kindly observations. I am so old a hand at politics that I do not expect people to be grateful. But the most hard-hearted of us has to confess that when somebody thinks it worth his while to speak an appreciative word it is very far from unwelcome and I thank him for taking the trouble to do what he did this evening.

'Pon my word, I think the inspectors in County Meath would be a great deal better employed addressing their lamentations to their superior officers in the Department of Agriculture rather than to Deputy O'Reilly. I shall certainly have a note made at once of the complaints made to Deputy O'Reilly by the inspectors of my Department about the inefficiency of their fellow employees in the public service. If the complainants seek out Deputy O'Reilly again I would be grateful to him if he would remind them in a forceful way of the proprieties and decencies usually associated with the Civil Service.

Deputy O'Grady has a great deal to say about wheat. He wept salt tears because of the awful diminution of the supply of wheat which our people made available consequently on the shameful discouragement that they experienced at my hands. I wonder does Deputy O'Grady know the relative quantities of wheat that were produced this year and last year.

Mr. Lemass

Never mind the quantities. What about the acreage?

Mr. Dillon

I am sorry Deputy O'Grady has left the House for I can cheer his heart. But this will encourage Deputy Allen at any rate. From the harvest of 1947—the last harvest on which the radiance of Deputy Allen's countenance fell from this side of the House—we had 1,600,000 barrels of wheat. From the despised harvest of 1948, the inadequate harvest, the shrunken harvest, we had 2,530,000 barrels of wheat.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister quote the acreage in each case? Is he seeking credit for the increase?

Mr. Dillon

No—Oh, no. Since I became Minister for Agriculture for every good that happens, thanks be to God; for everything bad that happens, blame the Minister for Agriculture. For 16 years we have been treated to every ray of sunshine as a special dispensation of the Minister for Agriculture; and every misfortune was something that the poor man could not help because it was an act of God. But I do not mind this reversal in the very least. I prefer to be judged by results. Whether it was due to the benevolence of God and the rejoicing of Heaven for the deliverance of this country from the plague from which it suffered for 16 years, there is the result, and that is what matters. When Deputy O'Grady deplores our reluctance to cry out for an ever-growing acreage of wheat as distinct from barley, oats or roots and other crops, does he ever advert to the fact that native wheat costs approximately £28 per ton delivered at the mill?

Imported wheat costs anything between £20 and £25 and when Deputy Lemass used to go to town, in his solicitude to ensure that no one would go hungry, it was liable to cost almost anything at all. The highest anybody ever struck was £50 a ton.

Mr. Lemass

It passed that during the war.

Mr. Dillon

I think the highest anybody ever paid was the figure which the Deputy paid to Señor Miranda, namely, £50 per ton.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The country was very grateful to Deputy Lemass for the provision which he made to prevent hunger.

Mr. Dillon

I suggest to the House that Deputies should carefully consider this matter. If the land of this country were given up to the growing of an ever-increasing harvest of cereals, roots and grass for conversion into livestock and livestock products, and if out of every acre we could profitably earn the price of 16 barrels of wheat, is it sound economics, instead of growing on that acre what could be exchanged for 16 barrels of wheat, to grow eight barrels of wheat? Suppose I offered to Deputy Allen two varieties of wheat and said that the one in my left hand would give a yield of 16 barrels per acre, and the one in my right hand would give eight barrels an acre, which would the Deputy sow? He does not care to answer that question. How very cautious the Deputy is becoming!

Mr. Lemass

Which would the Minister eat?

Mr. Dillon

He does not like to answer that. I think he would prefer to sow the variety that would yield 16 barrels. When the Deputy comes to learn that by growing another cereal crop and a green crop and converting them into protein foodstuffs, he can earn sufficient money to buy 16 barrels of wheat instead of growing eight barrels of wheat, I think he would be a silly-Billy if he went on growing eight barrels even though he thinks it is the Gaelic thing to do so. I do not think it Gaelic to make a fool of yourself. I do not think it Celtic to be incompetent. I do not think it is patriotic to be idiotic.

Mr. Allen

Like you.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister say why this is the only country in Western Europe where flour and bread are rationed?

Mr. Dillon

That opens a pretty wide topic.

Mr. Lemass

It is very relevant.

Mr. Dillon

Does the Leas-Cheann Comhairle think that a review of the reasons why our bread is rationed is a suitable matter for discussion now, because if he does, I shall be happy to accommodate the ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think it is a matter for the main Estimate.

Mr. Allen

Would the Minister inform us why France and England are doubling their wheat acreage this year?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a matter which arises on the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Allen

Could he answer that?

Mr. S. Collins

Ask the widow beside you.

Mr. Lemass

Do I hear the voice of Pop-Eye?

Mr. Dillon

Would Deputy Allen think of following the example of the Government of France? He does not know the answer to that. I should like to remind Deputies who started wringing their hands about my brutal destruction of the wheat crop of this country that the first thing I did after I came into office was to persuade the Government to guarantee the highest price for wheat that ever was paid in the history of this country for a five-year period. Is that not true?

Mr. P.J. Burke

It was fixed before you came in at all.

Mr. Dillon

No. After I came into office I said to my colleagues——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What relevancy has this matter to the Vote now before the House?

Mr. Dillon

I submit, Sir, that it is strictly relevant under sub-head O (7). About the first thing I said after I came into office was: "The real test of a democratic Government is not to eject a defeated Opposition but having taken office, to show due regard for the feelings and convictions of the exGovernment which now constitutes the Opposition. A great many ardent supporters of the Fianna Fáil Government have a kind of mystic devotion to the wheat crop. There will be those who will suggest to them that there is now a desire to trample on them and to completely abolish their whole approach to agriculture. I believe it would be in the best interests of the country as a whole to give an early earnest of the fact that we are determined to deal in a generous way with the minority in this country who have just as sacrosanct rights as we have. Accordingly, if it will not involve the State in any serious loss, I must ask Parliament for authority to give the fullest reassurance to them that they are completely free to follow the agricultural policy in which they, as individuals put their faith. I thought it was the right thing to do, if not from the economic, from the political point of view in the highest sense of the word, for the purpose of establishing that the minority in this country have rights just as sacrosanct as those of the majority and that a democratic Government, if it wishes to be democratic, must effectively acknowledge and respect these rights.

Deputy Corry complains that the sugar company has given up testing soil. I did not know that but I do not control the sugar company. I do not want to control the sugar company. I am satisfied that if it has a soil-testing station, it is excellently conducted. If they wish to continue it, they have my blessing. If they have closed it down and wish to restart it they will do so with my cordial approval, if it is, in their absolute judgment, in the best interests of the company to do so. Deputy Corry also dwelt at some length on the subject of potatoes and oats. I bear in my mind what the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has had to say on that matter and I shall postpone any further pronouncement on these matters for a more suitable occasion.

I should be distressed to hear, if it is true, that any farmer, as reported by Deputy Cogan, was chasing around to find somebody to test his soil. So far as I am aware if a farmer in Wicklow or any other county will send a penny post card to the C.A.O. of the county or simply to the county committee of agriculture, the agricultural instructor will call on him at the earliest possible moment, take the soil sample and send it away. If in any county correspondence is not promptly acknowledged and attended to I will be glad to know of it.

Deputy Cogan spoke of a discrepancy between the test that was done on soil on which subsequently two tons of lime and ten hundredweights of phosphate were put and the test taken after that application. I should like to know who took the samples. A great many people imagine that the taking of soil samples is a perfectly simple procedure, but really it is not. The taking of each individual sample is a comparatively simple procedure but the discretion which must be used in the number of samples taken and the mixing of them in order to get an average sample is not so simple as it looks. I would be glad if the Deputy would inquire if these samples were taken by a competent person.

Mr. Cogan

They were taken by the agricultural instructor.

Mr. Dillon

In the same field on two successive occasions? I would be glad if the Deputy would ask the instructor concerned to let me have particulars. The last point is the matter mentioned by Deputy Smith, who made sinister observations about suspicions which he was not going to mention. Why he would not mention the suspicions I do not know. He asked dramatically why students of agricultural colleges did not want to work on the land but wanted to become inspectors or instructors. Who, in the name of God, would want to work on the land for the last 15 years? It was a constant purgatory. The more you knew, the worse it was, because the more competent you were to judge of the disgusting folly which masqueraded as an agricultural policy and which reduced the soil to a condition in which the cows eating the grass could lie down and die of starvation.

Mr. Allen

How did they grow the crops in it last year?

Mr. P.J. Burke

It is a good job for the people that you were not the Minister for Agriculture then.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy's inspiration must be controlled. This may get him into trouble.

Mr. Lemass

Is the college full now?

Mr. Dillon

St. Patrick's? I do not think it is full, but it has done a series of short courses. It has a number of students in it and is, I believe, making steady progress. That is something on which that college may be most cordially congratulated, because it is primarily designed to serve the sons of local farmers. It does take boys from other dioceses, but when boys from the small farms in Fermanagh, Monaghan and the other counties in the diocese present themselves in sufficient numbers to occupy all the available places in it, the college will be primarily designed for them. I would be very much surprised if within the next few years you will not see St. Patrick's College with no vacancies for any one other than a child born in the diocese of Clogher.

I think I ought to make one thing clear. When opening, I referred to the necessity for the supplementary under sub-head O (5) arising exclusively out of the purchase of Atle wheat. In that I made a mistake. The Atle purchase renders necessary only £338 3s. 3d. of the total sum asked for. The assembly of domestic seed created a surplus of about 80,000 barrels, in respect of which the bulk of the £9,000 has to be paid under the implied agreement to indemnify the seed assemblers.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister give us some information concerning the temporary technical assistants and the clerical officers employed in the soil testing service? Will he say if all the temporary staff set out in the Estimate held office for the same period of time? If so, will he say for how long and what rates of remuneration are fixed, because on the face of the Estimate the clerical assistants appear to be paid more than the technical assistants? Furthermore, will he say by what process they were selected for appointment?

Mr. Dillon

Most of them would not have held the job for the same period of time. Some of them have been there longer than others and we have recruited a number quite recently. I do not know the procedure by which they were chosen, but I think it was some Civil Service procedure which short-circuits the long wait attendant on the Civil Service Commissioners. How precisely that was done I do not know.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister express the hope that these officers will secure established status? Did he mean to imply that at some stage these posts will be thrown open for competition under the Civil Service Commissioners, or did he mean that the officers appointed in a temporary capacity might, by some amendment of the law, secure established status otherwise than through the Civil Service Commissioners?

Mr. Dillon

My rejoinder to Deputy Allen was that I do not believe in having temporary public employment, that I thought all public servants should be recruited on an established basis. That is, on the broad general question. Some of these technical officers were junior inspectors in the Department's service, established officers. As to the temporary clerical assistants, frankly I do not know how they were appointed. They were appointed by whatever is the usual procedure in the Department. They are not people with Civil Service certificates. How they were appointed, where they were got, or how they were got I have not the faintest notion, except that I am satisfied that competent officers of my Department saw that they were the best that could be got and that they were got in the most expeditious and satisfactory way.

Mr. Allen

Has the Minister any announcement to make for the benefit of farmers throughout the country in regard to the possibility of selling surplus potatoes or oats this year?

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not in the Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

The best thing for any farmer with surplus potatoes or oats is to feed them to live stock. It is the only market that any Minister for Agriculture in the whole world can guarantee at the present time. No Minister for Agriculture in the United States, in Great Britain, in France or in any country in Europe or the Western Hemisphere can guarantee a market for cereals or potatoes except this country, who can say confidently to every farmer that there is a guaranteed profitable market for all the oats and potatoes he has, provided he feeds them to live stock.

Mr. Allen

If he has any.

Mr. Dillon

If he has not, let him go and get live stock. As the Deputy knows, we helped a co-operative society in the south end of his county, the Shelbourne Co-Operative Society, to get breeding sows for as many farmers in their area as they chose to nominate and there were made available to them, I think, three times the number of sows they were ultimately prepared to accept.

Mr. Connolly

Why should not that scheme apply to every county?

Mr. Dillon

It will be applied with pleasure if the Deputy will name any co-operative society which has the ability to pay the debt.

A Deputy

Or a county committee of agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy can get a county committee of agriculture to operate a scheme to supply sows on credit, I will be most happy to cooperate in finding sows for them.

Mr. Lemass

Before the vote is put, I want to make a brief statement.

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order, I am willing and ready to answer any question.

Mr. Lemass

We are in Committee, and I can talk as long as I like so long as I am relevant.

Mr. Dillon

I am ready and willing to answer a question asked by any Deputy. I understand the Chair has ruled that, when you call on a Minister to conclude the debate on an Estimate or on a Supplementary Estimate, the debate is then deemed closed. I will be ruled entirely by what the Chair says. If the debate is reopened, then reopened it is.

Mr. Allen

Certainly.

Mr. Dillon

I am prepared to go on all night or to-morrow.

Mr. Lemass

I want to exercise my right to make a statement relevant to an assertion of the Minister reflecting on a number of Deputies.

An Ceann Comhairle

The practice has been that when a Minister is called on to conclude he does conclude. There have been only two exceptions to that in 20 years.

Mr. Lemass

I do not want to argue the point of order. The Chair cannot deprive me of my rights by using the words "to conclude".

An Ceann Comhairle

That has been the practice for 20 years, but if any Deputy cares to rise then the Chair sees that Deputy.

Mr. Lemass

I think that a Deputy has the full right to rise under the Standing Order.

Mr. Dillon

Let us get this clear. If the procedure of this House, sanctioned by 20 years' practice, is being departed from, surely I have the right to say that the debate is reopened.

Mr. Allen

The present Minister for Finance exercised that right on one occasion when in opposition.

An Ceann Comhairle

This is the third time in which it has happened. Deputy Lemass is quite capable of handling the matter himself.

Mr. Lemass

The statement made by the Minister for Agriculture that members of the Fianna Fáil Party were instructed to advise farmers to sell their oats for the purpose of depressing prices was a complete falsehood.

An Ceann Comhairle

Was that made in this debate?

Mr. Lemass

It was made a few minutes ago. The allegation that Deputy Davern made a statement to that effect on the 13th December is, to the knowledge of Deputies, incapable of being true. The Donegal by-election took place on the 6th December. The Government's plan to support the price of oats by establishing official buyers to buy oats at a named price was announced some weeks before that election took place— that is towards the end of November. Therefore, any statement made by Deputy Davern in December could not, in the least degree, have influenced any farmer in the matter of the disposal of his oats because by that time every farmer must be presumed to have known the Government's plan for supporting the oats price. I would not have intervened at all except for the statement made by the Minister, and for the purpose of getting a complete contradiction of that statement on the records.

Mr. Dillon

I want to reaffirm in the most categorical and positive way that Deputy Davern, on a public platform in the County Tipperary, maliciously exhorted the public to sell their oats and potatoes, well knowing that at the time he did it the only possible result would be seriously to depress the price of both commodities, to double the difficulties of the small man who was most vulnerable and with utter indifference to the cruel and iniquitous wrong that he was perpetrating upon defenceless small farmers for a political end in which he was encouraged by the leaders of his Party. He in public did that which I believe his colleagues in private did—they sought to create every difficulty, every embarrassment and every exacerbation in regard to what appeared a surplus of these two commodities.

They did so well knowing that if, instead of taking a destructive and viciously irresponsible line, they had encouraged the farmers of the country to stay their hand where possible, a lot of these two crops would pass into consumption gradually, that none of the admitted difficulties that were created need have been created, that none of the perturbation which they hoped would be grist for their contemptible political mill would be available, and that many unfortunate people who have been injured as a result of that irresponsible campaign would have come scatheless through the disposal of their crop.

I say further that Deputy Davern's declaration from a public platform was not reckoned with by his leaders. I believe that his colleagues were encouraging him to do so surreptitiously by whisper, rumour and underground, and that he blabbed it out in public—that, but for his silly indiscretion, it would never have become possible for me to expose the whole transaction before this House. I repeat that that speech was made in the month of December, and that it was published in the Tipperary Star. I refer Deputy Lemass to the issue of that paper for the month of December. I attribute 90 per cent. of any inconvenience that was caused to those who had crops of potatoes or oats for sale to that malicious campaign that was conducted by most Fianna Fáil T.D.s by rumour, whisper and secret incitement, and by the poor innocent, loud-mouthed Deputy Davern off a public platform.

Mr. Lemass

I can only describe all these statements of the Minister as a collection of falsehoods. I repudiate every single one of them, and I say that it is a disgraceful performance.

Mr. Dillon

Get the Tipperary Star.

Mr. Lemass

And fully worthy of the present Minister.

Mr. Allen

I defy the Minister to go into any fair in Ireland and make that statement. If he were to do so he would be torn in bits.

Mr. Dillon

I would make it at every cross-roads in the country.

Mr. Blowick

Would Deputy Allen repeat the statement that he made about the Minister at a private meeting in Westport?

Vote put and agreed to.