Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Jul 1949

Vol. 117 No. 11

Committee on Finance. - Root and Cereal Seeds—Motion.

I move the motion on the Order Paper:—

That the Dáil disapproves of the policy of the Minister for Agriculture in relation to the home production of root seeds and of pedigree varieties of seed for cereal crops.

There are two rather distinctive categories here, namely root seeds and cereal seeds. I would like to deal with root seeds first. The root crop is a very important item in our agricultural economy. We are dependent to some considerable extent on a good root crop for winter milk production and winter beef and, to some extent indeed, for winter mutton. As well as the other factors required to produce a good seed bed for the root crop, it is essential to have suitable seed if we want a good root crop. Seed for roots, like all other seed, must conform to certain standards.

The first thing a farmer, who is particular about the seed he sows, looks for is purity and good germination. These two particular characteristics, purity of variety and good germination, are achieved primarily in the growing crop that produces the seed. It is important, therefore, that there should be supervision of the growing crop if we are to have any certainty of purity in the seed so produced, together with good germination. There must be supervision subsequently in the threshing of that seed and in the cleaning of it afterwards in order to get rid of any impurities that may exist. When the seed is threshed and stored supervision must continue. The seed for the root crop is threshed in August, or early September, and is then stored until it is required in the following spring. During storage there must be frequent inspection of that seed in order to ensure that germination is keeping up to standard. I think it can be argued, therefore, that in order to achieve the important qualities of purity and good germination it will be easier if we grow the seed ourselves. It is true that we can import seed carrying a guarantee of purity and germination, but it is not so easy to get seed with these very specific quarantees attaching to them.

Another important item is variety. Farmers know that there are certain varieties in swedes and turnips and mangolds and they look for the variety that suits their land best. So far the varieties we require have been produced either at home or in Great Britain. During the emergency and subsequently we had the experience of bringing in root seeds from countries other than Great Britain. They were not suitable varieties for this country. I think that is the general opinion. We brought in swede seed, mangold seed and turnip seed from Denmark and the United States, but they were not varieties that we require. I think there was only one exception where we did get a fairly suitable variety and that was in the case of mangolds imported from Sweden. I want to say, however, that that exception was not superior in anyway to what we produce ourselves. It may have been as good as some of the seed produced here, but it was not superior to it.

Again, in the variety there are different strains, and some strains are better than others. Scientists and technicians dealing with the production of seed try to pick out a good strain of a particular variety and breed up from that. They may even breed from one seed or from the seed of one particular plant. Their object is, of course, to breed a strain that will give a good yield and a good tonnage and which will have, if at all possible, a better feeding value.

In the case of beet, as we all know, great improvements have been made over the years in the sugar content of beet. That was achieved by the breeding of good strains. The same objective would be aimed at in the case of other root seeds. The feeding value in roots lies in the amount of starch they contain. If our scientists and technicians could succeed in getting even 1 per cent. more starch in roots they would achieve a great deal. That, of course, demands plant breeding and selection. In getting a particular strain, therefore, we are helped in that way by the scientists.

We have in this country, as everybody will admit, good brains both on the technical staff of the Department of Agriculture and on the agricultural scientific faculty in University College, Dublin. We have there men who are well fitted to pursue this particular objective.

Another important point is to get, if possible, seed that will produce plants free from disease. In this country I think we are freer, at least in the case of swedes and turnips, from disease than are other countries. We are, therefore, in a position to produce swede and turnip seed that will give us a disease-free crop. We are more likely to get that crop from our own seed than from imported seed. Again, we can call upon the scientists, who are at hand, to improve the position with regard to disease in these crops. As a matter of fact, the agricultural faculty of University College, Dublin, has been working on this question of diseases of root crops for many years. Over 20 years ago, they had achieved a considerable amount of success and their findings were of world-wide importance. Some of these men have gone, unfortunately, but where we have an organisation of that kind capable of producing men of that kind, we should again be in a position to do even better than we have done in the past. These are, I think, generally, the qualities that are required when a farmer looks for good seed.

The next question that the farmer has to consider is price.

On a point of order, it is rather extraordinary that on this Fianna Fáil motion there is no quorum.

There is a House.

The Deputy will remember that in future, I hope.

On a point of order, I would draw the attention of this House to the obstruction tactics employed by the Government Deputies.

That is not a point of order.

I was going to say that in all probability there will be no controversy with regard to the points I have already mentioned. If there is a genuine desire to debate this question on its merits I would think that the principal question that would arise would be the question of price. Deputies, I am sure, from the rural areas will remember that back in 1941 we were left practically without seeds for our root crops in this country. From the time root crops were first introduced into this country we had got our seed practically altogether from Great Britain. However, Great Britain was not in a position to give us any seed, or only a very small supply, in 1941, and we had to resort to emergency measures of dribbling small quantities from what we had and advising the farmers to take a few mangolds out of the pit, to grow their own seed for the coming year and to keep a few swedes and turnips in the field to grow seeds for them in the following years. I am just mentioning that to give an idea to Deputies of the difficulties under which the whole question of growing seed here was organised.

As soon as we had got over, to the best of our ability, the first year's trouble we got two organisations going. Those two organisations were able to give out some seed to farmers to grow seeds in turn for sale, and so the whole project of root seed production grew up. They had many difficulties. They had, for instance, in the beginning no mother seed. If they were starting up now they would be in a position, probably, to get good mother seed from Great Britain and perhaps some of the mangold seed from Sweden. At any rate, they would have some chance of starting off on a better basis than they started on in 1942. They had only phosphatic manures, they had no other manures. They had no cleaning machinery. They had to provide makeshifts for cleaning, and the farmers had no experience of growing these root crops for seed. However, in spite of that, the price at which the seed produced in the years 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1946 was sold the following spring to the farmer was, in the case of mangolds, 2/4 a lb. here and 2/3 a lb. in Great Britain—a penny differential.

In the case of swedes the price was 3/1 a lb. here and 3/- in Great Britain, also a penny differential. I should have mentioned that in one particular year, 1943, it was 2d. a lb. less for mangolds here than in Great Britain. During those four years the farmer who bought Irish seed and was deprived, let us say, of getting seed from England was only at a disadvantage of 3d. or 4d. an acre in the case of swedes and 8d. or 9d. an acre in the case of mangolds. That is not a very big item if other considerations are more important.

In 1947 the harvest gave considerable trouble. Deputies know that to produce the root seed, the mother seed is sown in the summer. That which was sown in the summer of 1946 was in the ground during the very severe winter of 1946-47. When the stecklings came to be dealt with in the spring of 1947 a lot of them had been destroyed by the frost and a very small crop was produced in this country. Therefore, a great deal had to be imported from every part of the world, wherever they could be got, and the result was the prices were very high. They were 4/10 a lb. for mangolds as against 2/4 in England and 3/11 for swedes as against 3/4 in Great Britain. It was the imported seed that was dear. The home seed, such as was produced, was produced at the same price as in the previous three years. It was the imported seed that put up the price. Any Deputy might reasonably say to me: "Is that not a flaw in the whole thing?" It was a flaw, but if we were on a regular basis no doubt those who are providing the seed for this country would do the same as in other countries. In other words, they would have a good carry-over from year to year and in that way a disastrous year would not strike us as badly as we were struck in the year 1947. Anyway, we can keep in mind that, as far as the home-grown seed is concerned, it is a penny a pound dearer to the farmer here than seed sold to the farmer in Great Britain.

Lest any Deputy might wonder why I am mentioning so often the price here and in Great Britain, I want to repeat that the only suitable seed that we know of so far and that we can get is either grown here or in Great Britain.

Are we sure that we can get this supply from Great Britain as time goes on? We did get it pre-war, but we cannot get it now. Whether we can get it in the future or not, I am not so sure. The practice with Great Britain for the past few years is that she takes stock of the total amount and notifies us here, as she does other customers, in November, how much she can spare for the following spring. That is too late for us to know, because we cannot at that stage grow our own seed. For instance, next November she may tell us what seed she can spare for the following spring, but we had to sow seed last summer in order to be threshed this coming harvest to give us the seed we require next spring. So we are leaving ourselves in a certain amount of danger if we depend upon Great Britain unless there is some firm contract that Great Britain is going to supply us to cover any deficiency that we may have.

I am proposing this motion because the Minister for Agriculture announced that it is his intention to allow root seed in after a certain date, giving a certain amount of notice. I think that the Minister for Agriculture, in making that announcement, said that he is in favour of giving every farmer an opportunity of buying seed in any part of the world that he chose.

In theory, I agree that that is a very laudable thing, but, in practice, I am not so sure that it is wise, because, in the first place, there are very few farmers who will avail of it. Very few farmers go past their own merchants for their seed. They go to the merchant in the nearest town with whom they have always dealt and they order whatever quantity of turnip seeds, swede seeds or mangold seeds they want. They do state the variety; some of them want Yellow Globe mangold seeds, some of them want Purple Top swede seeds, but very few of them like to go around to see if they can get their seeds elsewhere. In fact, therefore, I think that the Minister's announcement has given freedom to the merchant to go where he likes for his seed. Is that wise? We all know that many of the merchants who sell root seeds in this country are not men who know much about seeds; in fact, they know nothing about seeds. Many of them are hardware merchants, grocers or general merchants in small towns. They sell seeds to oblige their customers, but they know very little about the business. If they get a very attractive advertisement from some foreign source offering seeds, which promise to give enormous crops, they may order seeds because of that advertisement, but the seeds may not be at all suitable to this country. I would, therefore, say that to give merchants power or an option to buy seeds where they like is a dangerous thing to do.

Then, there have been failures of crops in this country and so far as I have been able to find out, every failure has resulted from imported seed and none from the home-grown seed. I may be told by Deputies that the farmer will be compensated. He will, when there is a failure, but he is not compensated when he gets a bad strain or a bad variety of seeds. He is not compensated when the seed is diseased. In any case, if he has a lower yield from his crop than he might otherwise have, it is a loss to the country. If the crop is a total failure, even if he gets compensation, that is a loss to the country. So far as it is reasonably possible, we should make sure that only good seeds are supplied to farmers when they go to put in their crops.

I should perhaps say that the present system of growing root seed is that there are two groups here— seedsmen who have formed a company for the purpose and who make contracts with farmers to grow root seeds. They take these root seeds from the farmers and distribute them to merchants all over the country. Now the merchants who are in this company in my opinion cannot make a contract with a farmer to grow these seeds unless import is controlled because they have no guarantee that after they have paid the farmer for his crop they will be able to sell the seed. It is absolutely essential under the system we have—there may be a better system —that the import of seed should be controlled. If not the merchants cannot give a contract to the farmer and if the farmer gets no contract he cannot grow seed for sale.

In my opinion the policy announced by the Minister will inevitably kill this industry of growing root seeds in this country. If it does, I believe, apart from injuring those men who are growing seeds—they are only a small number—by depriving them of part of their livelihood, it is going to destroy the possibility that was there to improve the strains of root seeds so as to give better roots—roots that would give us a better yield in tonnage and starch content. That will go by the board because, if we go back to the imported seed again, we shall have no control over the breeding of strains or any of the matters I have already mentioned. I do earnestly appeal to the Minister, in the first place, to reconsider his decision because I believe he is doing a very unwise thing in killing this scheme, if you like to call it such, that was in existence for the production of seeds within the country.

This motion also deals with the production of pedigree cereal seeds. Again I need not go through all the requisites of good seed. You want purity of strain, and good germination. You want a suitable variety and the best strain that can be got in that suitable variety. You also want seed that is free from disease. All these qualities are requisites of good seed and, as in the case of root seed, they apply equally in the case of cereals. In the case of cereals, however, we have had a better and longer tradition than in the case of root seeds. Ballinacurra and University College, Dublin, have been producing pedigree strains of seeds for some years. I think everybody will pay the tribute to them that they have done great work in producing good varieties and good strains. I have heard it said that they have almost reached perfection in malting barley, that it would be difficult to imagine how a better strain could be produced in any particular characteristic. They have produced some good varieties of oats that have certainly improved the total yield of oats in this country considerably. While the same cannot be claimed in regard to wheat we have this at least, that there is a fund of experience and knowledge there that has been accumulated over the years which it would be a pity to cast aside. We should do everything to see that the brains that are there are encouraged to go ahead in the direction in which they are going. Now, unlike root seeds, it is true that good cereal seeds can be got outside these islands that would be suitable to this country. We have as a matter of fact, as Deputies know, got good varieties of wheat from some of the continental countries and also good varieties of oats. But, even so, it is sometimes difficult to get the seed when needed and sometimes, it must also be admitted, we get seed that is not so good.

There was an organisation something like that for root seeds—a number of merchants came together; only two in this case—and it was called Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited. They took the pedigree seed bred by University College, Dublin, and Ballinacurra. It was bred from one grain. One grain gave one head and that head was taken and from that new strains were got. When in places like University College and Ballinacurra they had reached the stage of producing a few hundred barrels, that was given to Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, and they made a contract with farmers to sow this seed and to give them back the produce of the crop. In that way we were able to keep continually renewing the seed going out to farmers all over the country. This seed was given to any merchant who might require it. In this case there was much criticism of the price. During the war years especially, there were many criticisms in this House of the price charged by Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, particularly for the wheat seed they gave out. It did look very high, I must admit.

"Look" is good.

The case that was made by Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, was that there were big expenses in cleaning, rejecting part of the wheat as unfit for seed, storing, capital, etc., and that it could not be sold at any lower price. The Minister smiles.

I extend this challenge to the Minister—let him ask Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, to put their balance sheet on the table and let every Deputy see it. I do not believe they will refuse. They were what was called a non-profit making company. They took in the seed from University College and Ballinacurra and they sold the produce to merchants all over the country. Whatever was made is there in the fund still and I would be very interested to see the balance sheet. Last year the Minister allowed in seed and here are the prices charged. The wheat seed came from Sweden. It was sold to the farmer at from 115/- to 120/- per barrel. Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, sold theirs at 105/- a barrel. Seed also came in from Great Britain. It was not pedigree seed and it was sold at 95/-. Commercial seed in this country was sold at 90/-, which was the lowest. Commercial seed would be the third or fourth crop, let us say, from what Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, had sent out three or four years ago. The British seed which came in was sold for 95/- and it was not good seed; it was very inferior seed. The only seed we can compare with that of Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, is the Swedish seed, and that was from 115/- to 120/- as compared with 105/- charged by Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited. I am only giving these figures because I want to see that they will get a fair show. If the Minister would ask them to produce their balance sheet to see how their affairs were managed during the last six or seven years, I would be very glad to see it. If they have made any undue profits, then the purchasers can get the benefit of them by getting cheaper wheat seed for a few years to come.

Unfortunately, imported seed in this country has a certain amount of magic attached to it. Farmers think it is good. They have, I am afraid, a very exaggerated opinion about imported seed and they will buy it. Those who bought imported root seeds during the last year and those who bought imported wheat seeds from Great Britain now know what imported seed is like. It certainly is not very good. However, the prejudice is there in favour of imported seed and it would not be possible for any native company to try to push home-grown seed against imported seed in an open market. Pedigree Seed Growers, Limited, cannot continue if the ports are left open for seed to come in, because they cannot give the contracts. If they are to be up against imported seed from England, which is not nearly so good but which has the name of imported seed, they cannot carry on. In the same way as in the case of root seed, we are going to lose the chance that we had of improving our varieties and strains and getting our cereals free from disease. We were going to get the benefit of the experience and knowledge that our scientists have accumulated in University College, Dublin, in the Department, and in Ballinacurra. We are going to lose the benefit of that if the ports are opened for imported seed.

It is reported that the Minister was thinking of growing grass seeds. I do not know what scheme he may have in mind. He may possibly have a scheme which will work better than the scheme for the production of root and cereal seeds. If he has a better scheme, that is all to the good. But to scrap the scheme altogether before something better is put in its place is a great mistake. I am appealing to the Minister not to proceed on the lines of the announcement made by him that there would be free import of seeds, both root and cereal, from now on so far as cereal seeds are concerned, and from a date mentioned so far as root seeds are concerned.

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak later.

I am bound to proceed on the assumption that this performance is in good faith.

Certainly.

I should like to believe that because I would be very glad to get all the assistance or advice that is forthcoming from people genuinely interested in this business. I find it hard to believe it when I find a motion on the Order Paper inviting the Dáil to disapprove "of the policy of the Minister for Agriculture in relation to the home production of root seeds and of pedigree varieties of seed for cereal crops" and when it appears perfectly clear that the mover of the motion has never taken the slightest trouble to inquire about the matter. I gather that from what he says. I think it would be very much more helpful procedure, if he wished to inform the House, to make inquiry on the Agricultural Estimate. If the matter was overlooked, I would have hoped to repair the oversight, as I think I sought to do when dealing with the Fishery Estimate. It seemed to me the Deputy and some of his colleagues had raised points that I had not had time to cover adequately in my reply.

I do not want the debate to proceed on these lines. I was convinced that the Minister said to me when I asked him the question that he was going to allow the farmers to buy root seeds in any part of the world they could get them. Is that right?

I will accept the fact that the whole thing is founded on a misunderstanding and I will explain now what I have in mind. Yes. My object is to open to the farmers of this country access to any source of seeds in the world.

That is right. It was on that assumption I went.

And with that clear unqualified intention, I quite honestly intend to embark on the propagation of root seeds, cereal seeds and grass seeds, put them on sale side by side with the produce of any seed growers in any country in the world on merit alone and confidently anticipate that they will be sought after and that our only embarrassment will be that for some years we shall be unable to fill the demand. I do not accept Deputy Dr. Ryan's view that there is some kind of instinctive prejudice in our people's minds against home produce.

I did not say it is general.

Or even widespread prejudice against home-produced articles. I stood behind a counter for 25 years and sold seeds and pretty well everything else that is sold in a country shop. I never in all that time met anybody who rejected that which was produced at home in favour of that which was produced abroad if the article produced at home was equal in quality and value to that which was manufactured abroad. But I have found repeatedly that tariff racketeers in this country, having got high protection, manufactured and offered for sale rubbish and the average Irish farmer, perfectly legitimately, came in and said: "Do not give me that, give me the British thing" because it was the only way he could readily express his grave disapprobation of the commodity that had failed to satisfy him. I remember the late Deputy O'Hara of Swinford getting up in the benches over there and taking out of his pocket the head of a fork every tooth in which was like a corkscrew, and asking the present Deputy Dr. Ryan who was then Minister for Agriculture how he expected farmers to face the harvest with forks of that quality. It was experiences of that kind that have caused our people on occasions and in certain circumstances to seek to defend themselves from exploitation by looking for something that was not the product of a highly protected industry for they had come to associate such products with inferior quality. I never heard a farmer in this country prefer Huntley and Palmer biscuits to Jacob's biscuits. I never heard them prefer foreign produce to domestic produce where both articles had been produced in the free field of competition and both articles had secured their market by merit alone

Deputy Dr. Ryan has adopted a conciliatory tone in his opening observations. I am bound, however, to deprecate strongly aspects of the policy which he rebukes me for jettisoning. The policy of root seed production in this country fell into two parts. There was the duty of the farmer to grow seed, stecklings, and then in the following year to allow these to mature and bear a seed crop. Side by side with these producers, however, there were the monopolists, these two groups of seed merchants. The basis on which these two monopolists were prepared to handle the produce of Irish seed growers was that if they did handle the seeds of the Irish grower they must have an absolute monopoly of the right to import root seeds from any other source and I allege that what in fact was happening was that the monopolists were using the Irish seed growers as an alibi to cover up their activities as importers. Once they became associated in the public mind with the domestic grower they were in a position to say to anyone who challenged their monopoly: "Are you going to hit me with the baby in my arms?" What happened? Armed with the baby, in 1948, the retail price of mangold seed in Ireland was 4/10 per lb. I would like to make this clear to the House— the members of these two monopolies are wholesale seed distributors—Associated Seed Growers and Pedigree Seed Growers. These were the names of the two monopolies. They sold the seeds which they had had propagated for them on contract in Ireland and the seeds they imported to wholesale distributors and they themselves were wholesale distributors. The price per lb charged to wholesale distributors by the producing companies worked out on an average in 1948 at 3/2 per lb. for mangolds. The retail price by the time the farmer bought it was 4/10.

Does Deputy Ryan know the price at which mangold seed was on offer delivered at the port of Dublin from Great Britain? The price was 1/4, which, by the time it reached the farmers' hands, was 4/10. Do Deputies think I am remiss in saying that that kind of exploitation is going to stop as soon as I can stop it? The price of swede turnip seed in 1948, the retail price, was 3/11 per lb., and the price at which that seed was on offer at the port of Dublin was 1/8 per lb. The price of common turnip seed was 1/2 delivered at the port of Dublin, but by the time it reached the farmer the retail price was 3/3.

Deputy Ryan was Minister for Agriculture and he was succeeded by Deputy Smith, who was succeeded by myself. Is it our duty as Ministers for Agriculture to protect the farmers or to protect the seed merchants? Maybe I am wrong, but my interpretation of the duty of my office is to defend the interests of the farmers who live on the land and get their living from the land, and if someone imports seed which could have been imported at 1/4 per lb. and I find the farmers being asked to pay 4/10 per lb. am I expected to get into a wrangle and a tangle with auditors, costing accountants, lawyers and solicitors to disprove the proposition that you can justify 4/10 per lb. for mangold seeds that could be bought at 1/4?

Every monopolist in Ireland loves the prospect of sitting down with a Minister and his officials and introducing them to his costing accountants, his auditor, his solicitor and his expert adviser, and chopping logic till the cows come home to prove that his expenses were so heavy, his losses in previous years so oppressive and the necessity for an ample allowance for management expenses and interest on capital, not to speak of lighting and rates and cleaning and advertising, so great. By the time you have argued the toss with them about each item, everybody has forgotten what the argument is about. I do not think I want to argue with anybody about that. A price of 1/4 to 4/10—not all the auditors, costing accountants, solicitors, business advisers or anybody else can persuade me that that jump does not constitute robbery somewhere along the road. I should like to find out from Deputy Allen, Deputy Corry, Deputy Gorry and Deputy Walsh if they consider it wrong to put an end to a system of seed propagation in this country which conferred monopoly rights on two groups of importers, with the result that in 1948 mangold seed which was available at ¼ at the port of Dublin cost the farmer in Kilkenny 4/10. Gloomy silence!

I announced that if I could open the market to competitors who would put the "come-hither" on that kind of activity the following morning, I was going to do it. What did I discover? I discovered that I was irrevocably bound by an undertaking given by Deputy Ryan some years ago that neither I nor any of his successors could break that monopoly without giving them two years more to rook the farmers right before they let go. That is the position at the present moment. I did my level best to get round that agreement, to get under it, to get over it or to break my way through it, and, short of repudiating an undertaking which my predecessor was legally entitled to give and which was most undoubtedly binding on any successor he might have, whether in the same Administration or another, I could not break loose from that agreement. It is still in operation. From the first tick of the clock, when I can put an end to that, down it will go, as dead as a duck, never to rise again, and, if there is a Deputy who disagrees with that, let him oil his joints for a trip to the Lobby, because he will go one way and I will go another.

I am happy to inform the House, however, that, although I discovered that that agreement could not be broken, I thought a little exhortation might achieve some purpose and I had a discussion with the gentleman engaged in this public-spirited activity, and, with all the respect due by a public servant to his employers, I told them what I thought of them. I am glad to say that in this case the master hearkened in some measure to his servant, and I received an assurance, to which I believe effect has been given, that the retail price chargeable for seeds during the past spring would be substantially regulated by the retail prices ruling in Great Britain. I am glad to have been able to achieve that measure of reform, but I do not propose to take any chances hereafter. The power of exhortation in reforming the wayward is often striking in the early stages. The hardened sinner does not always so readily yield to exhortation. I have decided to remove temptation from their way and the surest way to remove temptation is to provide honest competition. I want to reaffirm that as soon as it is humanly possible to restore the full Arctic blast of competition it will blow through this land like a tornado and the farmer, seed dealer and shopkeeper can buy his seeds where he pleases, how he pleases and he shall be the judge of what he pleases. My Department retains the overriding duty to examine the quality of all seeds offered for sale in this country, with a view to preventing the sale of seeds of low germination or incorrect description. That has always been the duty of the Department of Agriculture and it will continue to be such in the future as in the past. That duty is designed to prevent fraud and will, of course, continue.

Deputy Dr. Ryan says: "You cannot grow seeds here if you allow imports of seeds." Does Deputy Dr. Ryan believe that? Why is it possible for every other country in the world to grow seeds and allow imports of seeds, except Ireland? Why have we so wretchedly low a conceit of ourselves as to imagine that we can do nothing in this country that somebody else cannot do better? I confidently anticipate that within four years from to-day we will have grass seed, root seeds and barley seeds superior to anything else produced in the world and I would consider that we had failed in our purpose if we had not produced here what, in the judgment of a competent farmer, was the best in the world and I have not the slightest doubt of our capacity to do so, it being understood that nothing less is an objective that we would entertain for a moment.

Deputy Coburn said in this House earlier to-day: "Try to forget that the Minister for Agriculture is Deputy Dillon." It is an interesting commentary on that, that a motion is moved in the House calling on the House to reject the Minister's policy in relation to the home production of seeds when the only thing they know about the policy is that it is the policy of Deputy Dillon. I ask Deputies on the other side of the House if they do not feel in some measure that it degrades themselves to be manipulated into the position of getting up in this House and moving that Dáil Éireann do reject the Minister for Agriculture's policy on the propagation of seeds—on the sole ground that the Minister for Agriculture is Deputy Dillon. Surely, if the iron has entered so deeply into their souls they ought to learn, for respectability's sake, the art of dissembling. Hatred is never a very pretty spectacle, clothed even in the raiment of hypocrisy, but Fianna Fáil hatred, naked and unashamed—oh, it is a revolting spectacle.

What then are our plans? In regard to grass seeds, I do not think I need recall the memory of Deputies of this House to the catastrophe which the folly of my predecessors brought upon those who had to buy grass seeds in this country. The situation which was created by their utter incompetence resulted in the man who grew the finest, cleanest seed it was possible to grow being paid precisely the same price as the man who brought in the sweepings of the loft. It is a very natural result that the number of persons who went on taking the traditional care to produce a good clean sample of perennial dwindled steadily until hardly anybody brought anything into the market except the sweepings of the loft and they gave up growing Italian altogether so that for the last three years you could not get a stone of Italian. The nearest you could go to it was mixed seed, because the glorious principle of a guaranteed price for grass seed had been established and, of course, grass seed was grass seed whatever sort it was. But the man who produced it, the man who cleaned it, the man who sold it never lost, because his rate of profit was carefully fixed by Order at every stage. The only man who got it in the neck was the unfortunate farmer who had to buy it and when he sowed that stuff God only knew what was going to come up in the spring. Sometimes nothing came up at all and sometimes there came up a crop that would frighten the rabbits. Then we took the control off. I took the control off. Monaghan is the largest grass-seed producing county in Ireland and I was told that I would be run out of the constituency. I was told that it was a lovely racket, that my constituents in Monaghan had got in on the ground floor and that if I spoiled it on them I would know the reason why. I told my political advisers not to worry their heads, that I knew the people of Monaghan had no admiration for racketeers or love for rackets. I told them that I was going to take the control off grass seeds immediately and that I ventured to say that no county in Ireland would more consistently support me in that than the growers of County Monaghan, and I was perfectly right. Two years from to-day we will be growing in Monaghan, Cavan and Louth better grass seed than is grown in any country in the world—and we want no protection for it. Our only trouble is that we will not have enough to meet the demand that exists for it abroad. Yes, the Deputy may raise his eyebrows and wag his head and dismiss from the range of possibility that anything could be produced in Ireland that people from abroad would come to buy. Deputy Walsh regards such a proposal as grotesque, ludicrous—but he is wrong. According to his standards, I am not surprised that he laughs with scorn at the suggestion that what is here produced should be eagerly sought from abroad. But it is, and it will be, because it is the best and because the men who are growing it are of that invaluable quality—too proud to do less than their best, given the assurance that they will be allowed to sell their produce at its worth, so that their care and labour may be adequately rewarded. Their neighbours all over Ireland would far sooner pay 6d. or 1/- a stone more for the best—what is produced in County Monaghan—than buy the sweepings of the loft, which they were compelled to buy for the last six or seven years.

We propose to go a step further. Certain preliminary work has been done in the research institutes of the country on indigenous strains of grass. In the propagation of grass one unique difficulty confronts the propagator, if he is concerned, as we will be, to propagate Perennial, Timothy and Cocksfoot. Broadly speaking, for pasture land we aim to get a leafy tillering strain; for short leas, a leafy but more upright variety; but, in each case, a leafy strain—and a leafy strain connotes a strain which produces relatively little seed. The more seed it will produce the less leaf it tends to retain in maturing. Now the man who grows seed for commercial sale has a perfectly legitimate interest in the bulk of the seed that he saves off his acre; but the variety of grass we hope to propagate is going to be of a variety which, instead of yielding ten to 12 cwts. of seed per acre may yield to the commercial grower no more than five or six cwts.

My aim is to eliminate from our domestic market all foreign grass seed of the Timothy, Cocksfoot and Perennial varieties, but without prohibiting, hindering or taxing by one farthing a lb. the supply of seed from any other part of the world. The aim will be to do that by propagating varieties of seed here derived from indigenous grasses selected by our own agronomists and by making it possible for the grower who is prepared to grow them and accept the yield of five or six cwts. instead of ten or 12 cwts. to get an acreage bounty no more than will put him on an equal footing with where he would have stood had he sown commercial seed. Then put both on the market side by side and let the best seed win, and I confidently prophesy that, so soon as adequate supplies of the seed we wish to propagate and distribute for growing for seed have been made available to growers, not one ounce of foreign grass seed will be brought into this country—because nobody will be able to sell it. Anyone who wants to bring it in, however, will be as free as the air, and if there is any country in the world that can make available a better seed at a lower price to our farmers than the seeds that are propagated here, my advice to our farmers is to buy them and leave the seeds we are propagating on our hands. My advice to every farmer in Ireland is this: Sow your land with the best seed you can find which yields the best value; do not care who propagated it; whence it came, or who is selling it; if it is the best seed for your land and will give you and your family the best living for the work you do on your land that is the seed you should buy; do not ask if it is Cathleen Ní Houlihaun seed or Seán Buidhe seed or Yankee Doodle seed, so long as it is seed that will produce a profitable crop for you and your family, put it down and you are under no compliment to anybody.

Regarding barley and oats, as Deputy Dr. Ryan said, the business of propagating this has gone on for many years. For well-nigh 50 years the attempt has been made to spread the use of pedigree seed by selling it to merchants and asking the merchants to get their customers to sell their production back to them, so that in the second year they could sell it out again. That plan has never worked. One never could get a sufficient number of merchants sufficiently interested to keep the crop under surveillance and get the crop sent back to sell it again. The Pedigree Seed Growers' Scheme was operated here with the astonishing result that pedigree seed was costing 105/- to the farmers who wanted to buy it when commercial seed was costing 85/- or 95/-. Yet Deputy Ryan says: "Get their balance sheets." I saw a good many balance sheets published in the last 15 years in this country and I never saw a trace of an excess profit on them, but some of the tulips who drew the balance sheets, when I first met them, had not a shoe to their foot —and they are going around now in Bentley cars. Of course, you can study their balance sheets for the last 15 years, and more moderate men never transacted business in this country. I often think they must imagine their neighbours' memories are very short. When I pass the residence, standing in its own grounds, of a gentleman I knew 25 years ago in the two-pair back, I am told that he is a prop of Irish industry, an employer of Irish labour, a benefactor of the Irish people and a man who has done yeoman service for his native land. He has done yeoman service for himself, anyway.

Another attack on Irish industry.

Another attack on the frauds who have festered under the cloak of Fianna Fáil in the last 16 years to rob the Irish people and make their annual contributions to the funds of the Fianna Fáil Party——

I knew the dirt would start.

——and publish advertisements calling on all and sundry to put back the Fianna Fáil Party, as their interests would suffer gravely if that Party ceased to be. But I conceive it to be best to take temptation out of their way, too.

That brings me to the general framework within which I hope to put the propagation of root seeds in this country on a solid and enduring basis, not apologetically, not on the assumption that they will always be second best and that unless the farmers of the country are flogged into buying them no reasonable man could ever anticipate them to buy a lb. We propose to propagate swede turnip seed and we will sell it, I hope, proudly labelled as clear as daylight to show that it was produced under the supervision and with the approval of the Department of Agriculture of Ireland. Any competent farmer who sows it and meets with an average season will gather a better crop than he can gather from any other variety of swede turnip that he can buy anywhere else in the world. If our own neighbours do not buy it—and nobody is going to make them—we will sell it in Great Britain, France, Germany or anywhere else and we will be ashamed to offer as the produce of our propagation industry any seed of a quality lower than that which would command a ready market in any agricultural country in the world. I guarantee that not an ounce will be sold under protection or fortuitous advantage of any sort, kind or description. I acknowledge freely that that may mean the elimination of a few individuals who are in the seed propagation business at present, because there will be room in it hereafter for nobody who is not too proud to do less than his best. Now, mind you, a great majority of the men who stuck it out for the last two or three years must be good men, because they had the devil of a time. What Deputy Dr. Ryan says is perfectly true, that in 1947 the fellows who were trying to grow mangold seed, and turnip seed, too, met with a series of disasters following the unprecedentedly severe weather that would have knocked the heart out of most men. It did out of some and they have gone out of business altogether, but others stuck on.

I must confess that it irritates me a little—perhaps I should not reveal this to my opponents, as it provides them with a weapon—when the less scrupulous or, should I say, the more unscrupulous, stoop so low as to use their neighbour's distress for the purpose of trying to toot their own political horn. A consistent yowl has been going on for the last three months from the more depressed elements of the Fianna Fáil Party and their kept newspaper that there was a firm resolve to trample into the dirt every farmer who is concerned with the propagation of seeds. Everything that could be said or done to cause distress, anxiety and confusion among a small group of hard-working men who are trying to make their living has been done by the rag tag and bobtail of Fianna Fáil for no other reason than their faithful belief in the doctrine that the public memory is short, that you can get up and tell any falsehood that comes into your head and will serve a term in perfect confidence that the public will have forgotten all about it in a month's time. I have to take off my hat to Fianna Fáil with regard to that. They are the greatest past masters in the doctrine of saying anything that comes into their head, confident that in a month's time nobody will remember. And, of course, they are perfectly right. The kept newspaper and the "Dáil Reporter" will publish anything that comes into their heads and you would imagine that it could disappear overnight, as three weeks later they publish the diametric opposite and the vast majority do not notice it. Have Deputies noticed—I presume that those of the Deputies yonder who can read have been reading the kept newspaper —the steady bombardment of falsehood with which they have tried to disrupt the seed growing of Wexford, Meath, Louth and Carlow? They never took the slightest trouble to inquire, because they did not want to know. They were very solicitous that nobody would put them in the awkward position: "Did it ever occur to you to find out what the truth is"? Oh, no, that is the last thing they would do. As long as they could dissemble they were free to speculate and display their ignorance. A halfpenny postcard would have got them all the information they wanted. The kept newspaper was quite entitled to go any morning to the Press Bureau and administer a questionnaire, but that would have wrecked the whole ship. They have a perfect right as taxpayers to request of the Press Bureau the answer to any question relevant to Government policy and get it. Any Deputy in this House can put down a question and get an answer, but then they would not have the opportunity of putting down this motion. They hope, according to the classical pattern, to make a bit of mischief, but cheerfully confident that when they were discredited it would be forgotten in a month's time. In the meantime, they would have all the advantage of a bit of mischief.

I have no objection if, in addition to the seed propagation that the Department undertakes itself, the seed merchants in this country want to do it themselves on the Dutch pattern as a co-operative or associated effort under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture, but they have got to do it in the knowledge that they are aiming at a standard of excellence which will sell their product on its merits and that any approach on the basis that the poor ignorant Irish could not be expected to produce it as well as anybody else in the world and that they must have a tariff of 100 per cent. will not be listened to for a moment. I want to make it perfectly clear that any seed grower or seed merchant in this country who is prepared to collaborate with us on those terms will be welcome, and I am prepared to let bygones be bygones.

So long as he gets the credit.

It is the 4/10 mangold seed I am talking about now. I am quite prepared to draw a line under these peculiar happenings and to welcome the collaboration of anyone interested in the seed business in a new departure; but the produce of that co-operative effort will be put on offer before our farmers in competition with seed from anywhere else in the world. The produce of that co-operative effort will be offered to seed merchants, shopkeepers and farmers with nothing to commend it except its own performance, though it will carry, I hope, the declaration that the Department of Agriculture in this country stakes its reputation upon the quality of what they offer. No sane salesman will prognosticate the crop-yield of seed because that is contingent on the capacity of the farmer, the quality of the soil and the event of the weather; but the seed that will be offered will be offered on its merits and on the understanding that if our own people do not want to buy it, it will be sold on its merits abroad or thrown away. No one will ever be compelled, and it is only when we are able to do that, as I am certain we shall be able to do it, that I shall regard the seed propagation business in this country as being on a satisfactory basis.

Deputies will probably note that in referring to root seeds I spoke with emphatic confidence of swede turnip seed. I do not think that we have had enough experience of the propagation of mangold seed here. We will have to pursue an experimental degree of propagation of that crop for some time before I am satisfied that we have got the technique right. I do not see why it cannot be got right, but performance to date has not been satisfactory. That may have been due to a combination of weather and unforeseen circumstances and contingencies that could not have been provided for, but I cannot give the same certain promise in respect to that crop that I can of the other one. That we shall try is certain, and that we shall succeed I hope.

With regard to rape, kale and common turnip, I would be interested to hear the views of Deputies as to whether, in their judgment, the market for these crops here is now or is in the early future likely to be of sufficient volume to justify an attempt to propagate them in Ireland. I would be interested to hear the views of Deputies as to whether they believe that in these crops there is a prospect of superiority as between one variety and another which would justify our efforts to propagate them. If the views were strongly held that one of these, or all, had considerable scope for improvement by propagation here at home, I would certainly most favourably consider making the attempt. Of swede turnips I am confident of our competence; of mangolds I am going to try, and I hope to succeed with the other three. I have an open mind on barley. In the case of cereals, we have new varieties, and there can be no doubt that Ymer, a new Scandinavian variety of the short straw type, has potentialities for a feeding barley in this country that it is really hard accurately to estimate. But this is true, that on the shortest straw that I have ever seen Ymer barley has yielded over 50 cwts. per statute acre under a heavy dressing of manure. That, so far as I know, is a new record for barley culture in this country. Now, it is to be noted, of course, that Ymer is a nitrogenous variety of barley and feeds heavily on nitrogen, but with the malting system traditionally obtaining in this country it is not acceptable to the majority of brewers. As a feeding barley there is no doubt that, properly cultivated, it is going to become a real economic rival to my well-beloved yellow meal. That is a most interesting thing, that there should be a cereal crop which will give a yield from our land which puts it in the same economic category as maize meal is, in my judgment, quite an exciting revolutionary development. But there is more to it than that.

Now, a scientist would not even breathe this, because he would regard it as still unproven and would communicate it to a learned paper in about five years' time, I suppose. I am not a scientist, and let us enjoy the good news while it is still good. If it goes bad later on, we will have had a couple of years' enjoyment out of it, anyway. There has been produced at Ballinacurra a hybrid between one of the varieties of Spratt Archer and one of the Scandinavian varieties. If its performance in full-scale field plots approximates to its performance in strips, it will take the talk of this country and of a great many other countries, too. That is the kind of cereal seed that I would like to see propagated in Ireland, which foreigners would be glad to buy by the stone and, like the Aga Khan in his jubilee year, pay for it by weighing it against its weight in gold. And, mind you, if this seed turns out to be what it looks like now—though the conservative will wait —nobody will get any of it, unless the balance of gold against the seed is forthcoming, for a good while, until our own people are fully supplied.

I am an optimist. Doubtless, some of my argosies will not come home, but I have a good many afloat, and if some of them land we will get along very nicely. I do not believe in losing sleep over the danger of some of them sinking. I prefer to glory in the fact that for the moment they are sailing with their sails full spread before the wind. If they hit a rock they will sink, but we will start another one. If some of them come home, you will get a great kick out of unloading the cargo. I think there are a few cargoes in this seed progagation business with which we will be able to astonish, not only ourselves, but our neighbour. I am not one bit afraid to proclaim that hope and I am not one bit afraid to say that if we do not produce seed in this country better than any other seed in that category procurable in the world, I would esteem such a performance a failure. Time will tell whether we are going to fail or not. If we do, it will not be for the want of trying, and anyone who does not like that policy, let him take to the Lobby.

As a farmer, I welcome most heartily the speech the Minister for Agriculture has made. One of his predecessors is hiding behind the barrier, and another former Minister for Agriculture ran out of the House. I boil over when I think of the time that we prepared our land for seed and went to the rounds of cropping it year after year and thought we were getting it in real good heart. Then all we did get was nothing but a lot of furry grass. I gave £5 or £6 for it. I boil over with indignation when I think of that, and when I think also that in 1948 a local merchant showed me a letter from London indicating what I could get seed at. I had travelled from shop to shop in Dublin looking for mangold seed for two acres. I had to get ten varieties after going to ten shops in order to have enough for the two acres. I paid 4/11 here for it. The local merchant had a letter from a London firm. The London letter offered seed at the price the Minister told us.

No wonder one would boil over with indignation. No wonder Deputy Smith would go behind the barrier and no wonder Deputy Ryan ran out. I am boiling over with indignation as a farmer to think of those times. I go through the country now and I see the new grass growing and I remember the time when you could see nothing but foggy dew growing on it—you all know what the foggy dew was like and you all know what we paid an acre for it. Think of the monopoly and think of Deputy Dr. Ryan, with his sweet talk, asking us to try to develop home industry, while they were robbing the farmers. Why did he not go to the Department's farms and grow that seed there? Why did he allow two firms to rob the farmers? Look what we got for a turnip crop. You would have one turnip here and beside it would be a big green thing with nothing on it. I stand up in indignation as a farmer. I thank God something has been done to do away with that racketeering department and the people who ran it. We have put in their place a man who is honest and who will make his name for ever among the farmers of Ireland. I defy any of you on the Fianna Fáil Benches to deny that.

Deputy T. Walsh rose.

Is Deputy Walsh concluding?

There is no great enthusiasm for the assignment.

The Minister for Agriculture has propounded a policy in relation to seed growing which, he says, could have been got by sending a postcard to the Department of Agriculture within the last three months. During the last three months the Government Information Bureau has issued many denials in regard to reports of Government activity and in regard to Government policy. Why on earth did not the Minister for Agriculture, if he had this policy that he has propounded to-night, say something about it? The Minister is not shy. He does not lack words. When he has something to say he can make a noise at length. However, he says to-night that the Department of Agriculture is going to do great things in regard to the propagation and distribution, not only of root but of cereal and grass seeds. I am glad that the Minister is going to do something, but why throw out the dirty water until he gets in the clean?

It is a good thing to get rid of dirty water, Deputy.

Getting rid of the dirty water in this case is getting rid of very hardworking farmers who have been producing root seeds.

Oh, no. The dirty water represents the boys who were getting 4/10.

You can get rid of them, but not the farmers.

That is the rub.

Why do you not? Why does not the Minister for Agriculture, if he wants to get rid of these two organisations of seed merchants, get rid of them, but still carry on and buy the crops from the farmers to whom these merchants issued seed in order to propagate more seed? What we in Fianna Fáil are concerned with is that our farmers should have a decent supply of the best seed we can get under a guarantee of purity, strain and freedom from disease. We cannot get that if the Minister for Agriculture puts the seed produced by Irish farmers on sale side by side with seed imported from other parts of the world. One can get turnip seed or mangold seed which is true to name, which will germinate well but still be quite useless in relation to producing a good crop with a proper starch content.

There are many countries in the world which have difficulty with regard to disease control. Not only do such countries prohibit the import of seed from outside the national borders, but they actually prohibit the transport of seed inside the national territory from one area to another. Having here a situation in which it is proclaimed from the Government Benches that agriculture is the basis of all our national wealth, we should procure for the farmers the best possible seed. The Minister instanced one case to-night where a greatly increased yield has been obtained from a new strain of barley. That greatly increased yield can be obtained without any fundamental change in soil conditions, in the working of the soil or in the weather. Side by side with another variety of barley sown under the same conditions, this new variety will give many times the yield obtained up to this. The same principle obtains with regard to sugar beet. Farmers who grow sugar beet know that owing to the activities of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann in regard to the propagation of seed at home, the shortage of beet seed during the emergency was a blessing in disguise. We now have a stronger growing beet with a higher sugar content and complete freedom from disease. We got that simply because there was an organisation interested in procuring for our farmers the best possible seed. Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann went to the western seaboard and gave the farmers there the stecklings. Those farmers produced disease-free seed because, owing to the constant blowing of the wind from the Atlantic Ocean the seed grown there does not carry any of the germs of disease which affect beet crops in many parts of the world. Because of those activities on the part of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann it should be possible for us to export sugar beet seed to many parts of the world and my belief is that the industry will in time expand sufficiently to enable us to do that. What Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann have done with regard to beet seed we want done with regard to turnip seed, mangold seed, kale seed and grass seed of all kinds. How will the Minister do that?

I do not believe that the organisations set up to cultivate pedigree seed are the racketeers that the Minister says they are. The Minister for Agriculture is very, very free in casting the name of racketeer at every person here who tries to produce at home something that can be imported. If anybody attempts or dares to produce here a substitute for something that can be imported, according to the Minister for Agriculture he is a racketeer. I do not believe that these two organisations are the racketeers the Minister says they are. During the war years not only did they sell turnip seed here at about the same price that the farmers in England were charged for turnip seed, but they paid our farmers who grew the seed for them 3d. per lb. more than the seed merchants in England paid the farmers in England for growing the seed for them. I think they did a good job of work in organising at such short notice the production of root seeds and in having a supply of root seed available for our farmers.

Deputy Dr. Ryan stated the cause for the very big increase in the price of root seeds in the year 1948 and the difference here as compared with England. He compared the performance here with the performance of the pedigree seed people there during the war. The Minister for Agriculture now wants to seize on his opportunity—the opportunity created by the fact that seed production here is small in relation to the effort that was put into it. We on this side of the House cannot prevent him doing that. But there are people on the Government Benches who can prevent him if they wish to exercise their influence. We cannot prevent the Minister for Agriculture defeating this motion here to-night, but those who have an interest in the development of the country can behind the scenes if they will not do it in the open, ensure that if he destroys the organisation that is there for the production of root seeds, wheat seed, barley seed and other pedigree seeds he will substitute something for it. Let the merchants who have been handling this be put aside. Let the farmer who has got seed from them to produce more good seed go on producing. Let the seed be purchased by some State organisation, or any organisation the Minister for Agriculture may set up, but let it be bought and distributed to the farming community so that their crop yields may be improved. I hold no brief for the merchants. I know nothing about them. I do not even know their names. But I do know that in County Louth, in County Wexford and in other counties hard-working farmers were under contract to grow seed for them. A number of towns-people think that agricultural production can be increased overnight. In regard to mangold, turnip and sugar beet, one is faced with 18 months' work before one can get a crop. The seed has to be sown one summer. It will be 15 or 18 months before the farmer can thresh that seed. If we are to secure that improvement in variety and type that the Minister for Agriculture talked about and for which Deputy Dr. Ryan showed the need, we have got to continue the organisation of farmers that has been built up. Put some other head at the top if we are not satisfied that these companies or merchants are running the thing right; let us put them out and put some other organisation on top. There is no use in the Minister saying that at some time or another he will induce the farmers to grow better seed varieties all over the country and that he is going to induce other farmers to buy under the stamp of the Department for Agriculture. We have a stamp at the present time. If anybody wants to buy seed wheat, seed oats or seed barley from the pedigree seed merchants, he will know what he is getting from the stamp. If the Minister wants to substitute a stamp from the Department of Agriculture, well and good, let it be done, but at least let the seed be bought from the farmers who have put it in and let that organisation of farmers be continued. I have no objection at all, if the Minister can organise it, to have it organised on a co-operative basis. It would be the best way of doing it, but it is not always very easy to get these things organised. A lot of people have been advocating co-operation in various ways and we all know the difficulties of getting farmers to co-operate even in their own interests.

I want to say to the Minister, again, if he is not satisfied with the monopolists, as he calls them, who are handling the root seeds and the pedigree cereal seeds at the moment, let him appoint his own monopolist, whoever it is, whether it is an official in his Department or some such people as those they have appointed in charge of the industrial development project. I think it would probably be very much dearer to pay a gentleman, such as the industrial development man, £2,000 a year than it would be to appoint an ordinary merchant in charge of the job. However, we want the Minister to do something.

If the Minister is going to put, as he said, no barrier at all to the importation of foreign seed it will have to be sold side by side. We all know that the farmers are inclined to buy cheap seed and particularly if it is, as all seed coming into the country for a long time has been, guaranteed by the Department of Agriculture as to the germination and type. There is all the difference in the world, however, between the various strains of the same type of seed. I need not go into that point because Deputy Dr. Ryan covered it. There is also the fact that no Department of Agriculture inspector can tell you what strain the turnip seed in the bag belongs to, whether it is a strain that will yield five or six tons an acre or 26 tons an acre. Neither can they tell you whether the seed in the bag is free from disease. Freedom from disease and a good strong growing strain are of very much more importance than the variety or the germination. However, it is the two minor things that the Minister for Agriculture is going to look after in regard to the importing of seed. Nobody, of course, wants to shut off our farmers from the best seed in the world. However, the best seed we can get is the seed that is grown under our own supervision. We know not only its variety but its parentage. We know what its parents have done and we know what to expect the seed to produce. We can know also whether it is growing in an area that is subject to various diseases or whether it has been grown in a clean area.

Another thing about this production is that the farmers who are engaged in the production of seed and, in particular, root seed, are the best type of farmers in the country. They have to take great care in the production of the stecklings. They have to keep their land clean all the time that the crop is in the ground. Then they have to harvest the seed with the utmost care, particularly with reference to mangolds. Surely to goodness, after we have got through the war practically on our own resources we should not give the farmers a blow on the head and trample them into the mud. They are the best type of farmer in the country and they should get every possible support from the Government. As I say, all that I knew up to the moment the Minister for Agriculture spoke was that he tried to break their contract last year. No one in Fianna Fáil was concerned with a few merchants. What we were concerned about was that the couple of thousand farmers who were producting the root seed were going to get a very bad blow.

We were all delighted that the Minister for Agriculture could not let the Arctic gale of his hatred of home production blow upon these farmers. He did not succeed in suppressing homegrown wheat last year. This motion here to-night has got him to come part of the road, at least, to protect the seed growers. We cannot hope to get the members on the Coalition Benches to vote for us on this motion but at least we can hope that behind the scenes they will bring pressure to bear upon the Minister, to make certain that the farmers who are producing these seeds will continue in production and that every year they will be supplied with the mother seed of the best variety and type that we can get from our own plant breeders or from plant breeders in any part of the world. Do not, as I say, throw out the dirty water until you get in the clean. Do not suppress and destroy these farmers who have been producing these seeds until we see whether we can create an organisation to take over from them the seeds which they grow.

I suggest that we should approach this matter on the lines of the policy which I heard Deputy Con Lehane enunciate last night, namely, that we should not import anything that can be produced in this country. We knew nothing in this country of the growing of small seeds when the emergency came. We found ourselves suddenly cut off from the supply of any seeds from abroad. The first deficiency which we had to face was a lack of beet seed. We were in the happy position, as regards beet, that we had in stock two years' supply but we had immediately to prepare for a seven or eight years' period of war in which we could not get seed from anywhere or get sugar from anywhere either. We started with that position. In the second year of the war I grew five acres of beet seed and to my amazement and happiness, I was able to get a yield of 32 cwt. of beet seed per acre. I found that I was able from the cultivation of that crop, to get over £100 per acre and to give a lot of employment in my own district. We are in the position to-day that we are able to export beet seed and the foreigners are very glad to get it because it is superior to their own. It took almost two years after the emergency started before we were able to go in for the production of the smaller seeds such as mangold and turnip seeds. At that time the farmers were largely dependent on black market seeds imported over the Border and from Britain at £1 per lb. That is what they paid for it I paid for it myself and I know it. That is the position in which we found ourselves soon after the war started. If we are to revert to that position let us blame ourselves. I have no particular brief for any firm who took up this matter. I did my damndest to get the Beet Growers' Association to take up the growing of the smaller seeds and my only regret is that they did not do so. It is a pity they did not rather than let any merchant get in on the job. I say that as one who realises that once you bring in a matter of this kind the town or city mind you are immediately going to have the cost of the article blown up.

I deprecate the attitude of the Minister for Agriculture on this matter and I do not know where it is going to lead us. One body of men who cannot be blamed are the farmers who set out on this work with very little knowledge of the work of growing the smaller seeds—mangold seeds, turnip seeds and kale seeds. They had very little knowledge, but they took their chance and they did it at very small profit so far as they were concerned. As I said, once this thing gets into the hands of commercial firms, naturally the price is blown up. The seed that is grown by the farmers at 1/4 per lb. is more than doubled or trebled in price when it reaches the farmers again. I have no sympathy for that kind of conduct. It may be that those people made no great profit. That could certainly happen because the Department themselves knew damn all about it. I saw one lunatic—I cannot describe him as anything else—from the Department who said that the proper place to keep turnip seed after it was threshed was in a bag. He said it was quite safe in the bag although it was freshly-threshed turnip seed, whereas it was explained by those in charge of the Agricultural Seed Station at Ballinacurra, to whom the Minister paid a compliment this evening, that that seed should be spread out in a loft, not more than a few inches in depth, and properly dried, if not artificially dried, or otherwise it would go mouldy. These are the things that have to be considered. For the past eight or nine years I have been pressing my own people to take this matter up. It was a specialised job for the small, uneconomic farmers in West Cork, in Kerry and Connacht.

Not a bad idea at all.

To my mind it should be grown on small holdings instead of having the small uneconomic holder growing an acre of oats or potatoes. He will certainly have to put a large amount of intensive labour into it, but, even at that, he will have something that will yield him from £80 to £100. That would be far better than sending this money over to England to be paid to the seed producer there. I have heard the Minister speak about mangold seed at 1/4 a lb. which came here from England. We have heard this kind of thing before. It is not the first time that young Irish industries were crushed in their infancy by a flood of shoddy products from abroad. These foreign producers are now in the happy position of having a Minister here who will certainly give them his blessing in everything in which they want to engage. You cannot expect the farmer who had over a long number of years to pay a high price for the fork that the Minister described here to-night if he is deprived of the home market for these products. I do not use these forks, but I was one of those who succeeded in having started in Temple-michael one of the finest industries in Cork County, the products of which are able to hold their own against any imports.

I do not mind Deputy Fagan. I spent five or six weeks in Deputy Fagan's constituency. They get up at 11 o'clock and go out and look at the bullocks, come back to dinner and go out and have another look at them in the evening and then take the car into the village for the rest of the time. I am not surprised when he says that the mangolds were green and small because that is what you can expect from land that has not been ploughed for 150 to 200 years, and where you have men who never saw a plough following a plough. I remember on one occasion when we were travelling from Cork by train, bringing the ex-Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Mr. Eamonn O'Neill, and many other Deputies to the window when we reached Kilmallock to see how they sowed wheat in the County Limerick. There were two men sitting on top of a seed sower and a pair of lively horses galloping up and down the field and nobody to see whether there was any seed in the machine or not. Then Deputy Fagan comes here and tells us about his unfortunate two acres of mangolds. Deputies of that description know nothing about tillage and were not reared in a tillage atmosphere, and regarded Deputy de Valera in a bad light because he was the first man who ever made them plough. I had about seven acres of mangolds last year and had no danger of not getting seed. I could get all the seed I wanted and there was competition in Cork amongst the merchants for custom.

Was it not impossible to get seed during the war?

I did not experience any shortage of seed last year. If the Deputy will call at Lacey and O'Connell's any day they will tell you what mangold seed they had to spare when the demand was over. That is the attitude adopted here. I was glad the Minister paid tribute to the fine agricultural station in Ballinacurra and to the value of the men in that station, and the fine property that is being handed over and the skilled men that are being handed over. What I want to know is what he is going to do with them and what use he is going to make of the brains that we have trained and the experience these men have gained in growing seeds of all descriptions? What use is going to be made of them now? Is all that experience and all that skill to be thrown on the scrapheap now so that we can bring over from Mother England cheap seed until such time as the last of our growers has gone out of production and then you will pay John Bull just what he likes to charge you for it? Nobody knows that better than the Deputies who are listening to me here to-night and who perhaps in their own particular business and their own time have had the same bitter experience as we had. How much turnip or mangold seed would you get from Britain in 1941? Where were the farmers of this country to get mangold seed or turnip seed from 1941 to 1948? Where will they find it in two years' time when the next war starts? Where are they to find the seed now if the growers are crushed out of existence by this Minister who complains of the mangy, inadequate salary of £2,100 a year that he is getting? I suppose that is why he does not look after all these things.

You want to increase it.

I appealed last night but there was another reason for that. A Deputy in this House who was a colleague of mine put in for a rise for this post.

These increases are not to enter into this debate. They are not relevant.

I am sorry, Sir, but I think that is largely the cause of the wiping out of the Irish root seed growers by the Minister's Department.

The Deputy has moved around several things like that in the last ten minutes. He referred to farmers of Westmeath in a derogatory term and to people engaged in the seed trade in which he himself was involved. I think he should not have called them lunatics and all that sort of thing.

Of course, he is referring to a class. If he was referring to an individual it would be different.

He said one lunatic.

Not identifiable to me, at any rate.

To some people at any rate.

When I see a definite move made by a whole Executive Council——

May I intervene to ask when will the Vote be taken?

The Vote must be taken at ten past eleven and there are at least two Deputies who wish to participate. I have no power to limit any Deputy's speech.

I would be very sorry if you were to do so because I am only just getting into what I have to say. However, in view of the fact that there are other Deputies who desire to speak I shall not delay the House much longer. I would appeal to Deputies here, particularly Deputy Con Lehane, of the Clann na Poblachta Party, who were elected to this House on a policy of fostering Irish industries——

Will the Deputy come to the motion? Deal with the motion.

Yes, Sir, and I am appealing to Deputies here on this motion——

Deal with the motion.

I appeal to them to see that the Irish seed industry is not ended and wiped out by the action of the present Minister for Agriculture and I appeal to them further to beware——

I have to call on a Deputy to conclude at 10.55. That leaves only a quarter of an hour for any other Deputies who want to intervene.

In those circumstances, I will say no more.

I would like to say a few words.

I have called Deputy Allen.

If Deputies from all sides of the House had any doubts in their minds as to the wisdom of or the necessity for this motion, having heard the Minister for Agriculture, they must have no doubts now. On all sides of the House there are Deputies who have an interest in everything that can be produced in the country and in the welfare of its citizens. I put it to these Deputies: Is it in the interest of the country and its people that we should have sitting over there a gentleman, now the Minister for Agriculture, who has deliberately set out since he became Minister to damn in every possible way he can the efforts of his predecessor over a dozen years to grow crops, to grow seeds, to grow tomatoes, to grow all the necessaries of the people within the country? That is what the policy of this Minister has been. It is a damnable policy for any Minister for Agriculture in this country which has made sacrifices. It was not the Dillons or Mr. James Dillon who made these sacrifices——

The Minister for Agriculture.

The Minister for Agriculture—to have set up in this country an Irish Parliament with a Sinn Féin policy.

Will the Deputy deal with the motion?

Perhaps you will allow me to finish my sentence—the Sinn Féin policy of Arthur Griffith. The founders of this State, the people of the country, should have a right so to organise matters as to serve the needs and the interests of the country.

It is about time you recognised that.

That has been killed deliberately by the Minister for Agriculture who hates and abhors the name of Sinn Féin.

The Deputy is dealing with the Minister for Agriculture, not this motion.

I am dealing with seeds. Amongst the things given to this country was the growing of root seeds— turnip, mangold, rape and all the other small seeds that are necessary for the farmers. The Minister announced here boldly to-night, without a blush on his cheek, that he proposed wiping out that industry.

I challenge——

I know very well that the Deputies who sit behind the Minister cannot vote for the motion because they are afraid that the result might mean a general election. A couple of months ago these small root seed growers tried to see the Minister in his office. A Deputy of the Minister's Party made the arrangements, but the Minister refused to see that deputation.

The Minister did not refuse to see the deputation. You know that is a lie.

He refused to see a deputation in January last. He sent two officers of his Department to meet that deputation from the root seed growers of Wexford, Tipperary and Dublin. I challenge denial of that.

I am denying it.

These seed growers prepared a memorandum and made a case why root seed growing should continue. I ask Deputies on all sides of the House to ponder well on what the policy of the Minister has been on several matters, not alone on root seeds. That is only one of the items, but it is an important one and a very serious one for the country. In my constituency there are a large number of hard-working, struggling farmers who have been growing these seeds for a number of years. They have now been told that they must abandon this seed growing from which they have been earning a livelihood. They are to be prevented from growing these seeds. I want to register an emphatic protest against a Minister of an Irish Government, by his policy, killing an Irish industry in its infancy.

I think we had better come back to the terms of the motion. One can readily admire the sentiments expressed in the motion, and undoubtedly Deputies on all sides will subscrible to the view that if it is possible to grow seeds of the type and variety referred to in the motion it should certainly be done. We have heard Deputy Ryan speaking of the wisdom of preserving this industry. We have also heard the Minister and, unless I am stupid or unable to understand plain English, the Minister's speech was to the effect that, so far as lay in his power, within a period of three or four years, the farmers engaged in the production and growing of these seeds would be in a position to grow as fine seeds as could be grown in any part of the world. I further suggest that the charges made by Deputy Allen that he is out to kill an Irish industry are not true.

I recognise my limitations, so far as my knowledge of the growing of these seeds is concerned, but I represent a constituency in which the farmers have been engaged in the growing and saving of grass seeds from time immemorial. The saving of these seeds did not start with the advent of a native Government. When I was a boy of seven I can remember seeing at certain times of the year, and especially in June, July and August, the main streets of Dundalk chock-a-block with farmers' carts full of grass seeds. That was almost 60 years ago, so that Deputy Corry need not think that the growing and saving of grass seeds started with the advent of either the Cumann na nGaedheal or Fianna Fáil Governments. The farmers of that period saved that seed without any protection, without any tariffs, and, the farmer being a keen businessman and human nature being what it is, I could not visualise the farmers of that generation engaging in a type of agricultural economy that did not pay all down through the ages.

Deputies opposite seem to base their whole argument on the principle of bidding the devil good morning before they meet him. They are always looking at what will happen to this country in the event of war. Let us forget about war and about when it will come or will not come. Life would not be worth living if we were to live in fear and dread of what would be this country's position in the event of another world war, but the argument of Deputies opposite is that we must continue this activity because a war may come and prevent the farmers from getting supplies of seeds necessary for their economy. In all wars, supplies of various commodities are not as plentiful as they would be if there were no war, and, during the last war, it was imperative that certain seeds should be grown in this country, just as we had to grow wheat in greater abundance than before. The farmers took up the growing of these seeds under contract to the merchants and seedsmen in Dublin. They sold these seeds, and I do not agree with Deputy Corry that they got very little profit. The farmers in my county generally tell the truth and they are not always crying about bad prices. Any of these farmers whom I met told me that they were well paid for their labour, and Deputies opposite ought to admit that occasionally and not say that the farmer gets no return at all.

Having heard the Minister speaking of what he proposes to do in relation to the growing of these seeds, how can it be argued by Fianna Fáil Deputies, and especially Deputy Allen, that the Minister is out to crush in its infancy every little Irish industry which starts? Deputy Allen tries to create an impression by quoting Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin policy. I am quoting what the farmers did years before Arthur Griffith spoke about this policy of Sinn Féin. I am not decrying the policy. We are all Irish and each man does the best he can, but why Deputy Allen should go out of his way to give the impression to the House and the country that the Minister is an enemy of the agricultural community is something I cannot understand.

Would the Deputy mind if I called on the Deputy who is to conclude?

Let me wind up on this note: In view of the figures given by the Taoiseach in his reply and in his opening statement on his Estimate, I submit that Deputies should get off that trail and cease to try to convince the House and the country that the Minister is an enemy of the farmers and should be got rid of as soon as possible.

The Minister's statement regarding the production of seeds is the first intimation I have had that he intends to develop the production of root seeds. Never before have I come across a statement of his that he intended to have root seeds produced. His intimation last January that the contracts which were in existence the year before for the production of root seeds were to be cancelled was the first thing that worried the root seed growers.

It was only when he was confronted with the bill of £88,000 for compensation for the breaking of a contract which had been made that he reconsidered his decision and it was in February, when the mangold stecklings should be sown, that he consented to give protection to root seeds for the coming year. This is the first time that we have heard that the Minister is in favour of producing small roots here. We heard the Minister to-night talking about the two companies— Associated Seed Growers and Seed Industries. He talked about the profits they made. He has employed those tactics in connection with everything regarding agriculture. He has talked about the fertiliser cartels. He has talked about the huge profits they have made.

Why would he not?

And rightly so.

He told us about our Irish manufacturers. I think he mentioned a man named O'Hara who produced a fork here which was twisted like a corkscrew and which was made in this country. What he said was no tribute to the Irish manufacturers. Deputy Hickey, I am sure, will not stand over what the Minister said to-night. He spoke about the inferior type of stuffs we in this country are producing. That has been the theme of his arguments since I came into this House. I think I have never heard the Minister for Agriculture praise one thing, with the exception of beef, that was produced in this country—not one thing. The position that obtained in this country in 1941 was that England prohibited the export of mangold and turnip seeds. It was, therefore, necessary for our farmers, if they were to produce mangolds and turnips in this country, to set about producing the seeds themselves. They had no equipment and they had no knowledge. They did not know how to proceed about the production of these seeds.

The farmers, particularly in the county I come from, where a big acreage of root seeds was grown during the past six or seven years, took the stecklings out of the pits at that time. We did not know the proper size they should be. We did not know the proper treatment they required. We did not know what type of artificials was best for them, and we did not know how they should be cultivated. We knew very little, even in regard to the harvesting, but nevertheless we produced a profitable crop. Our principal difficulty in that particular year was the threshing of these mangold seeds. We had not the machinery the English people had, but, notwithstanding all that, we produced, we harvested and we placed on the market a crop that ensured that in the following year we had a sufficiency of mangolds and turnips to feed our live stock in the country. That has continued. We have been producing our own supplies during the past few years. There have been very few complaints regarding the purity and the germination of these seeds and we have ensured that we have had mangolds and turnips. We do not know, even though Deputy Coburn said we should never live in dread of war, when the same conditions may obtain again, but whether these conditions should ever obtain again or not, I say that this industry was built up during the past five or six years by the tillage farmers of this country and that it was worth in the neighbourhood of from £60,000 to £100,000 per year. We export that amount of money every year to the English farmers for producing our beet and turnip seeds. Why should we do that when we have farmers in this country capable of doing that work and workers capable of harvesting it? Why not keep that money here and thus give employment to about 250 agricultural workers in the production of the necessary root seeds we require for the country? That is a point I would ask Deputies on the Labour benches to think of.

We are with you in that.

When you say that you are with us in regard to the production of our seeds you should come to this side of the House when this vote is being taken. That is the only way in which you can show your sincerity in the matter. There is no use saying that you are with us unless you do that. There is an old saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In this case the proof of the pudding is in walking into the Division Lobby behind us.

Were you listening to the Minister?

The Deputy must listen to the Deputy in possession.

Well, did he not hear what the Minister said?

I expect the Deputy is anxious to vote.

This motion is of the utmost importance to the farmers. We have Deputies in this House in the Clann na Talmhan Party who claim to represent the farmers. However, while the opening statement regarding this motion was being made by Deputy Dr. Ryan, and even while the Minister was speaking, there was not one member of that Party in the House until very late in the evening when one of them came in. Does that show that the farmers who returned those Deputies to the House did the right thing when they sent them here? A matter of the utmost importance, as far as the farming community is concerned, is being discussed in this House and these people do not think it worth their while to come in and find out if there is any reason to take part in this debate. The Minister for Agriculture was very loud when he was talking about the profits which were made by certain people during the war. I understand he is a big trader himself. He has made good profits.

That has nothing to do with the matter.

During the debate the Minister mentioned a person who is now living in a house built on its own grounds—a person who, when the Minister knew him 25 years ago, had nothing, not even a decent shoe on his foot.

Quite. But he did not identify him.

The Minister is identifiable.

There are people trading in the same business as the Minister and we have heard nothing about the 25 per cent. and the 33? per cent. profits these people have made in the retail business. The Minister, I am sure, could have told us about the profits that people who are living by this type of business are making. But he had to select someone or somebody who was probably of some use and benefit to the country, a manufacturer probably. Maybe it was one of the Associated Seed Growers, we do not know, but it was somebody whom the Minister had thought had come on money that he should not. The Minister thought—even without inquiring and without knowing what business that person had.

The production of beet seed in this country was started in 1941. Many of the Deputies here who are not beet growers must have heard of the condition that obtained here in 1942, when there was only one year's supply of beet seed available in the country. We were depending then on Germany, Czechoslovakia and Belgium for our beet seed. The sugar company set out and asked the beet growers to produce seed for them. We did not know whether it was going to be a success or a failure. However, the fact is that our farmers went out and produced that seed, under the supervision of agricultural advisers to the factories all over the country. We produced a seed that was equal to any and that, in later years, proved superior to the seeds that had been imported. If it had not been for the initiative of the sugar company at that time we would have found ourselves in the position in 1943 and 1944 that we would have no beet grown in this country.

All we ask in this motion is protection for the people who are prepared to continue growing seeds—that is, that they should not be subject to the dumping of foreign seeds on the Irish market. We may be told about the purity and the germination of these seeds. They may be all right, but we have nothing to indicate the purity of the variety and it is only in the following harvest or the following winter, when the mangolds and turnips are being pulled—we will see it, of course, before that—that we will reap the disaster, if the mangold or turnip seed is of an impure kind.

We have developed the industry in the country. It has been and will be a success. It will give that amount of money to our farmers, £100,000 and it will give employment to 250 farm labourers. Why send that money out and throw these men out of employment? I do not say they are going out of employment, but it will help to put them out of employment; as they will not be finding the same amount of work and eventually it may be responsible for these men not being able to obtain full employment.

It has been mentioned that, during the past couple of years, our production of seeds was not up to the required standard. All the turnip seed of 1946 that remained in the ground, something in the neighbourhood of 500 acres, was destroyed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947 and there was a scarcity. In that year also, 1,500 acres of mangolds were destroyed, due to frost, floods and snow in the late spring. Notwithstanding that we had that amount destroyed, we were still producing last year and the year before and in other years, two-thirds of our requirements and we had to import only one-third.

I think the Minister for Agriculture would be very unwise if, at this stage, he would not continue the production of seeds. I listened to him here to-night and came to one conclusion, that he is prepared to go ahead with the production of these seeds, but he does not want to give the credit to those who have been in the business for the past five, six or seven years. If the credit could be given to him, he would be perfectly satisfied to give that protection; but until he gets the credit for everything that is done, so that people will say he is a great "I am", he will not be satisfied to give way to anything that Fianna Fáil has done. It is his hatred and detestation of Fianna Fáil that is preventing him from protecting seed production in this country.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 61; Níl, 74.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Davern, Michael J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lahiffe, Robert.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, John.
  • McCann, John.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • McGrath, Patrick.
  • Maguire, Patrick J.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Walsh, Thomas.

Níl

  • Beirne, John.
  • Belton, John.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Collins, Seán.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Connolly, Roderick J.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Cowan, Peadar.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Davin, William.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Esmonde, Sir John L.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finucane, Patrick.
  • Fitzpatrick, Michael.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hickey, James.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sheehan, Michael.
  • Spring, Daniel.
  • Hogan, Patrick.
  • Hughes, Joseph.
  • Keane, Seán.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Kinane, Patrick.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, James.
  • Lehane, Con.
  • Lehane, Patrick D.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacBride, Seán.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Madden, David J.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, William J.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Gorman, Patrick J.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Palmer, Patrick W.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Joseph.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Timoney, John J.
  • Tully, John.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Ciosáin and Ó Cinnéide; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Kyne.
Question declared lost.
The Dáil adjourned at 11.20 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 26th October, 1949.
Top
Share