I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1951, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and Sundry Grants-in-Aid.
This is a token Estimate for £10 because the bulk of it is met by savings on other sub-heads. At this stage perhaps the most helpful procedure will be to go shortly through the several sub-heads.
The first sub-head, sub-head B, in respect of which a supplementary sum of £4,000 is required, arises in connection with travelling expenses. These are difficult to forecast with precision and they depend in each year very largely on the degree of activity proceeding in the Department. In the financial year under review I am glad to say that the activity exceeded our most optimistic anticipations and it is necessary to provide that additional sum of £4,000 to meet the travelling expenses which will come in course of payment.
Sub-head E (2), which is in connection with veterinary research, makes provision for £48,350. That includes the sum of £37,000 which is the purchase price of Abbotstown, the property recently acquired in the vicinity of Clonsilla for adaptation as a veterinary research station. As soon as we have the necessary adaptations carried out it is proposed to transfer the work hitherto done at Thorndale, Drumcondra, to the new premises. One of the difficulties at Thorndale is that it is now completely encroached upon by the City of Dublin, and at no time had it more than 25 or 26 acres of land which was obviously a very inconvenient arrangement for a veterinary research station. Abbotstown is a relatively large property and extends to some hundreds of acres. It is proposed in the initial stages to divide the premises, and to appropriate the main residences and part of the outoffices for the purpose of a veterinary research laboratory, together with 100 acres of the land, using the remaining 300 odd acres for the purpose of the new division of my Department which has been constituted for the purpose of propagating cereal seeds, root seeds and grass land experimentation. It is intended, in the event of the veterinary research station requiring, as its work progresses, more land, to transfer blocks of land to it from the propagation division of the Department, as and when the necessity shall arise.
There is also provision in this sub-head for the purchase of a year's emergency supplies. It was thought in the circumstances well to have at the research station approximately a year's reserves of stocks in view of the disturbed state of the world.
We are also providing under this sub-head for the purchase of heifers. That is really a part of a larger project. It has been always the practice on Department lands to provide live stock to consume the produce produced thereon. Last year, on the farm at Grange, live stock, bullocks, were fed. We are now about to embark on a very large-scale programme for the elimination from the dairy herds of the country, on a purely voluntary basis, of uneconomic cows. When we came to consider the basis upon which that programme should be developed, we had to consider the scale of compensation that would be payable to a farmer who had agreed that two, three, four or five cows of his herd were uneconomic for one reason or another, and had best be eliminated from the dairy herd. It occurred to us that a farmer might feel that though you paid him ample compensation, he would find great difficulty in replacing cows or heifers that had been removed for slaughter to the canning factory on the ground that they were no longer economic milch cows. It was, therefore, thought well to provide for such a man the alternative of an in-calf heifer of his own choosing from the stock of 800 heifers which we propose to assemble at Grange farm in the County Meath, Abbotstown and possibly at Clonakilty, each of which heifers would have been submitted to the tuberculin test, inoculated against contagious abortion, artificially inseminated and proven in calf to one of the high-priced stock bulls which are now being installed in the insemination centres established by the Department. One such insemination centre will be located at Grange, Killeshandra, Lough Egish and North Leitrim. Another will be established in Clonakilty with sub-stations, and another at Castle-island in County Kerry with substations to cover County Kerry. There will be a further station to serve the Clare area, the site of which has not yet been determined.
There may be headquarters for another insemination centre, which has not been decided upon yet, at Abbotstown for the purpose of serving such part of the Dublin milk supply area as is not supplied from Grange. I think it is a desirable thing if you want to secure the maximum co-operation from dairy farmers in getting rid of uneconomic cows, to be in a position to say, if a man has for slaughter a substantial number of cattle: "You can either have the money wherewith to go and buy your replacements and use your own judgment in the local fair, or you can visit the Grange farm, the Abbotstown farm, the Clonakilty or the Athenry farm, and you should be able to pick out of the 800 in-calf heifers, three or four for the replacement of those which have been slaughtered." In any case it will be purely at the election of the farmer to take his compensation in whatever form he chooses. That is the reason we are now stocking farms with heifers, rather than with dry stock.
Sub-head E (3) refers to subscriptions to international associations and research organisations. It is not always easy these times to know what your liabilities are likely to be in respect of such bodies because their multiplication has become so remarkable since the war that very often, new ones arise in the course of the financial year which were not in existence at the beginning of the year and which, in the circumstances, it is desirable that this country should adhere to. One is the International Committee for the control of the Colorado Beetle. We have every reason to be grateful to Providence that, so far, we have not encountered the Colorado Beetle pest in this country. Unfortunately, we have learned that in England and the Channel Islands, they have encountered the Colorado Beetle arriving on the breeze almost like locusts and it is necessary to be ready, in such an event, to mobilise effective measures at once so that the spread of this pest to the potato crop can be controlled and expelled before it spreads throughout the country. It is, therefore, necessary for Ireland to take an active part in these international bodies so that we may exchange information, one with another, as to the best methods to be adopted in the case of any unforeseen arrival of the pest.
After the declaration of the Republic here, naturally, our membership of the Commonwealth Bureaux became incongruous and we accordingly withdrew from our membership of the Commonwealth Bureaux of agricultural sciences of one kind or another which have their headquarters at the Imperial Institute. However, the close and cordial relations which have always existed between the Department of Agriculture in this country and the Department in Britain, result in constant discussions taking place between the officials of my Department and the officials of the British Department of Agriculture. In the course of these discussions, and of certain discussions which the ambassador had in London, it became clear that the Commonwealth Bureaux were not only willing, but anxious, to receive associate members from countries which were not in the Commonwealth or in the Empire. They were gracious enough to indicate, in the new situation, that such associate membership of Ireland would be very welcome. That was an indication which we were very happy, indeed, to acknowledge, and happy indeed to avail of, because these bureaux are the depositories of vast reservoirs of research and scientific information, and constant access to their proceedings is of incalculable value to anyone who can avail of them. Our associate membership will appropriately mark the conditions under which we participate. It affords to Ireland all the advantages of full membership which the members of the Commonwealth would ordinarily enjoy.
Sub-head F (1), which deals with agricultural schools and farms, contains provision for a year's emergency supplies, and for the purchase of heifers for Clonakilty, Ballyhaise and Athenry. There is also provision for the insemination equipment at the Grange cattle farm and the expenses of the management of the Chantilly stud farm. I might mention that we hope to evacuate Chantilly at an early stage when the activities hitherto carried on there will be transferred to Grange. Chantilly is situated in the direction of Loughlinstown, and from many points of view is very convenient. It was held by the Department on a number of extraordinary titles, leases and head rents. We would have evacuated it some time ago but for the fact that the surrender of our tenancy is a matter of such grave complexity that it has taken us about 18 months to persuade the landlord, or the variety of landlords whose tenants we are that we desired to terminate the leases, head rents and so on that fall to be extinguished.
The additional grant to the university college was, I think, dealt with by the Minister for Finance when he brought the main Estimate before the House. There is a rather odd convention in connection with that matter. The Minister for Finance answers to the House and explains the university grant, but inasmuch as Albert College was at one time under the direct administration of the Department of Agriculture, prior to its transfer to the National University in 1924, the financial provision by way of a Government grant for the classes in the agricultural faculty, continue to be chargeable on my Vote. In fact, the practice has been and will continue to be, that the Minister for Finance answers to the House in respect of it, as he does in respect of the balance of the Grant-in-Aid to the university.
Sub-head I (1) will be, I think, of special interest to the House because it involves a somewhat larger sum than we had anticipated for the allocation of increased numbers of rams in the congested areas. Heretofore, the House will remember that we have always provided pedigree rams at reduced prices for the people living in the congested areas for the improvement of sheep flocks. In 1946, the allocation was 157, in 1947 180, in 1948 194, in 1949 227 and last year 412. I think I will have correctly interpreted the wishes of the House by the general direction which has been given to the agricultural overseers in these areas to place black faced or Cheviot rams wherever it appeared to them a useful purpose could be served. That has resulted in practically every application from sheep farmers in the mountain areas who required rams being granted in the past two or three years. The results have not been unsatisfactory in as much as some of us here in this House will remember black faced wool being sold in West Donegal at 4d. per lb. It realised this year up to 8/7½d. per lb. Our forecast in multiplying the number of rams has been amply vindicated. Deputies will learn that Cheviot wool which used to sell at 1/- per lb. was sold during the last three months at 16/3 per lb. The activities of the Cheviot rams, we will all agree, have been of a very remunerative character. Perhaps the House will be interested to learn that the exports of wool in 1950 were valued at £3,516,767.
Anybody familiar with the congested areas will remember the perennial difficulty of providing West Donegal and parts of Connemara with the type of cow which would give a decent yield of milk under the very rigorous conditions that obtain there. It is true that we have always been able to provide the people in these areas with a type of cattle which will produce good stores by the judicious crossing of certain types of Scotch cattle with Shorthorn foundation stock. But it has been a chronic problem to secure an adequate milk supply in West Donegal and in parts of West Connaught. No one would seem to have adverted to the fact that that chronic problem did not exist in Kerry. It seems to me perfectly obvious that the reason it did not was because there was in Kerry a breed of cattle unique in the whole world. To the best of my knowledge and belief, there is only one breed of cattle in the world which could live on the mountain and give milk on a scale which justifies it being kept as a milch cow, and that is the Kerry cow. I confess it caused me some irritation when I learned that certain sophisticated farmers in the country were bringing in Jersey, Guernsey and Ayrshire cows. I apprehended that they would start bringing in Abyssinian cows at a time when we had already an indigenous breed of cattle in the country of which you could keep three on the grass that you would feed two Shorthorns, and of which you could keep four on the grass that you would feed two Friesians. But there was no respect for the Kerry cow in this country because it was the Kerry cow. If it was an Andalusian cow people would be paying 200 guineas for it, and would bring it in in a passenger liner.
Accordingly, we have arranged that, to meet this chronic milk problem in West Donegal, and in the west of the province of Connaught, instead of bringing in Ayrshires or Andalusians, we should bring in Kerry cows. To date, we have only one moment of anxiety and that is because we discovered that the Kerry cows do not take kindly to sea voyages and that if you want to escort them, without mishap, to Aranmore island or across the sea, it is necessary to handle them for some time before you show them the bottom of a boat. Otherwise, they are inclined to leap over the side. However, we have overcome that difficulty and we hope to embark the first contingent for Aranmore, if it has not already gone there. We have located the first brigade on the mainland in Glencolumbkille and we propose to send further platoons and battalions in due course to various parts of Connemara, West Mayo and West Donegal.
I am glad to inform the House that one of the most distinguished breeders in Scotland hopes to establish a model farm in the south-west of Ireland, whereon to assemble consignments of Kerry cattle for shipment to Palestine, where a profitable market exists for them for precisely the same reasons as they are proving a success in West Mayo and West Donegal. Throughout the whole Orient, one of the great problems has been to find a breed of cattle which, on the extremely impoverished grazing there available, will survive and provide milk. There are any number of indigenous breeds of cattle in the Mediterranean and East thereof which can be made to do in the special conditions there, but it is one of the chronic problems of the Middle East and the Orient to find livestock which, in the conditions there obtaining, will provide milk.
I ignore no market, however novel, which can be conquered by the peculiar merits of the stock we have to offer and I think that, for certain conditions, in densely populated countries, particularly where poverty and malnutrition have been a perennial problem, the Kerry breed of cattle can provide milk from the domestic forage resources there available on a better scale than probably any other breed of cattle in the world. If we could make of Kerry cattle as remunerative a business as the people of the Channel Islands have made of Jerseys and Guernseys, we would have secured for the kingdom of Kerry a not insignificant source of income, a source of income which would be perennial, which would not be for this year, next year or the year after only, but for all time and on an expanding scale.
There is only one thing, in my judgment, that can prevent that development and that is the deplorable tendency of our own people to look down their noses at their neighbour's son or their neighbour's beast. If it is ours, it is no good and it is only a "cod" to be trying to sell it to the people in Palestine, or the people here, there or elsewhere; but if it is a Jersey or a Guernsey, everybody kneels down in front of it and says: "Is it not wonderful? Is it not lovely?" I do not know why our people have that supreme contempt for the neighbour's son or the neighbour's beast, but the interesting thing is that the neighbour's son or the neighbour's beast from this country conquer the world when they get outside Ireland and very often are driven out of this country by the contempt heaped upon them by these neighbours. I have no doubt that contempt will be heaped upon me for suggesting to anyone that it is anything approximating common sense to send a Kerry cow a couple of thousand miles away from Ireland—"Sure, the poor creature will die of the lonesome". A good many are going to go and I hope that considerable sums of money will be sent back for them. In the meantime, I am going to send them no further afield than Donegal and Connemara, and, speaking as a Connacht man, and, as a Donegal man by adoption, I can guarantee that there will be a very warm welcome for them in both these localities.
Sub-head M (9) refers to the potato reserve scheme. That money was used for the purpose of breaking a racket which was started in this city towards the end of last year. Some enterprising souls got it into their heads that there was going to be a scarcity of potatoes in Dublin about May or June of last year, and suddenly, where there was an abundance of potatoes, to my knowledge, the vanishing trick took place. There was not a potato to be found. The price of potatoes began to shoot up on the Dublin market and mirabile dictum, as the price rose, a thin trickle began to approach the City of Dublin from the general direction of Donegal. I then took precautions to bring sufficient potatoes into Amiens Street to create a situation in which the Great Northern Railway were not prepared to accept consignments of potatoes from Donegal because their storage in Dublin was packed, and, to my great amusement, a number of public spirited citizens sent urgent messages from a number of stations in Donegal asking what, in the Name of God, had happened and why would they not take potatoes, and they were damn nearly fainting on the floor when told that there were too many potatoes in Amiens Street to permit the shipment of another ton. Whereupon, the lorries began to roll and the scarce potatoes, the non-existent potatoes, began to arrive from the faminestricken areas where men and beasts were dying from want of food, by night, and were hawked around the greengrocers of Dublin at any price they would fetch. If I am not mistaken, some fingers were burned in the transaction. I must say that I never smelt burning substance with greater joy.
