May I express the pious hope that the atmosphere which characterised the debate on the last business before the House will be carried forward to the debate on this Estimate?
Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. — (Deputy Smith).
From culture to agriculture.
May I say that the Minister took the words out of my mouth? I was about to express the same hope. I think that anybody, speaking on the Estimate for Agriculture, must first pay a sincere tribute to the farmers and all those working on the land who during the past ten days had done so very much to catch up on the interruption in agricultural operations caused by the appalling weather conditions that went before. Anybody who has been through the country within the past couple of days must realise the tremendous amount of work that has been done. People driving through the country can see tractors working, not merely from sunrise to sunset, but all through the night with shifts of workers. Certainly those who earn their living from the land have made a tremendous effort to overcome the appalling conditions with which nature obstructed them during the early part of this year. Taking the weather position into account and the difficulty of carrying on tillage operations up to a short time ago, we most certainly can say that within the last ten days the farmers have responded nobly to the request that was made to them by the Government.
This whole debate, apart from the atmosphere which was deliberately engendered — an atmosphere of diatribe and hate against the present Minister for Agriculture — has centred around tillage. I had the opportunity last week of listening to most of the speeches made from the opposite side. Those to which I did not listen I have since read in the Official Report. Reading the speeches in that report which were made from the other side of the House, one is amazed at seeing such little evidence of constructive criticism and so much evidence of pure personal abuse. I am bound in fairness to Fianna Fáil to say that the contribution that contained the largest amount of personal abuse did not come from any of the Fianna Dáil Deputies but from Deputy Cogan.
It would appear from the criticisms and speeches of the Deputies opposite as if they were completely out of touch with the plans of their own leaders. Deputy after Deputy got up and belaboured the Minister for Agriculture, because last year he only had 366,000 acres of wheat, and because last season we did not grow as much wheat as was grown during the highest pitch of the compulsory tillage period. Deputy de Valera did not refer to the matter in this House, but, as he has been wont to do recently when he wishes to make a pronouncement, he went down the country, where he could not be answered as he could be answered across the floor of this House, and did so. He went to Carlow and told the people there that any fool could have realised that, since the end of the war, we were living in such a state of emergency that it was essential we should be growing now exactly, and since the end of the war, the same amount of wheat as we had been growing during the war in order to be able to meet our requirements. Either of two things must be true in respect of that speech which was made by Deputy de Valera. Either it must have been dishonest, knowing the report which his Government had given to the Americans and knowing the report which his Government had given to O.E.E.C., or else Deputy Smith sent on the report without Deputy de Valera's permission.
I must confess that I would not like to get Deputy Smith into any trouble. Therefore, I must assume that Deputy de Valera knew all about it and, knowing that, he indulged in dishonest politics. That report was quite clear. It estimated and forecast the acreages and areas of the various crops which we were going to have up to, and in, the year 1950. That report made it perfectly clear that, so far as the Fianna Fáil Party, for whom Deputy de Valera was speaking, was concerned, it knew all along that, since the war ended in 1945 and that things were likely to be difficult, the position was to be that in 1950 the area of wheat that was to be grown in this country was a mere 247,000 acres. That report is there under their signature. In view of that it astounds me, in fact, it is impossible to believe — knowing that that report and that estimate was made by Fianna Fáil — how any honest person in Fianna Fáil could have the hardihood and the impertinence to get up and attack the Minister for Agriculture because he had exceeded their estimate by approximately 100,000 acres. Of course, that alone makes it perfectly clear that the Deputies on the other side are interested in only one thing, in trying to oppose for the sake of opposing, in trying to destroy for the sake of making destructive criticism and in trying to make political capital out of anything regardless of whether it is true or whether it is false.
Only to-day, when I was at another place where many people from my own constituency were gathered together, I was asked by a farmer about the price of wheat. He had been told, he said, by a Fianna Fáil county councillor that the price which this Government was going to give in the coming year for wheat was not going to be as high as the world price. That, again, is typical of the dishonest propaganda which is being put out by the Deputies opposite, because I do not believe they are so foolish as not to know the difference in regard to moisture content, for example, between the wheat that is produced here and the wheat that is produced abroad. The effect of the new announcement which has been made by the Minister means that the farmers will get for their top grade wheat the equivalent of £27 per ton. That means that this wheat which will come in with an average of moisture content of about 19 per cent. will then have to be dried down, and, having being dried down to a moisture content of 14 per cent. or so it is going to be more expensive than the imported wheat brought from the Southern Pacific at £23 4s. per ton or the Manitoba wheat at £26 a ton, with a moisture content of about 12 per cent.
So that the Irish wheat is inferior in your opinion?
The Deputy is trying, by his silly interruption, to show that he does not know what he is talking about. I think he does know, and that he is just doing this quite dishonestly. Deputy Allen knows perfectly well that the moisture content of Irish wheat is higher than the moisture content of the wheat that comes in.
But it costs the Irish farmer as much to grow it?
It does.
And he is entitled to be paid for it.
The Irish farmer knows, and Deputy Allen knows but will not speak the truth to the country, that the Irish farmer is going to get £27 a ton for his wheat, that the American farmer selling South Pacific wheat is getting £23 4s. 0d. per ton f.o.b., and that the Manitoban farmer is getting £26 per ton f.o.b. But, in regard to the two latter prices, there has to be deducted from what the farmer receives the cost of transportation from Manitoba to the nearest American port, and in the case of the South Pacific wheat, the cost of transportation to the nearest Southern Pacific ports. It has also to be said that the Australian wheat is being loaded at £24 per ton on the quayside. The Australian farmer is not getting £24 per ton as compared to the £27 per ton which is being paid to the Irish farmer. When it comes to the making of flour, the moisture content of the Irish and of the imported wheat has to be taken into account. The moisture content has to be adjusted by bringing the Irish wheat down to a millable moisture content of about 14 per cent., and of raising the foreign wheat from 12 per cent. to 14 per cent.
The point which I want to make clear is that when one takes into account inflated freight costs—nobody can deny for a moment that freight costs are not inflated—there is practically no difference in the price which the Irish farmer receives direct into his pocket for his wheat when it goes into the mills and what the American farmer receives for his wheat after a deduction has been made for transport charges to the nearest American port and of charges by the shipping company for bringing the wheat here.
I do not believe that Deputy Allen does not know these to be facts. Of course, it does not suit him to tell the country that just as it did not suit Deputy de Valera last week when in Carlow to refer to the report which his Government had made to the Americans in which they estimated that in 1950 we would be growing 247,000 acres of wheat here.
This debate has turned, as I have said, on tillage, and turned perhaps to one particular aspect of it, the aspect which was put forward by Deputy T. Walsh when speaking for the Fianna Fáil Party last week. Deputy Walsh announced categorically that he stood for compulsory tillage. That reference will be found at column 1097 of the Dáil Debates for the 18th April.
And Deputy Fagan of Fine Gael said that he would take the land from them.
Deputy Allen is not going to succeed by trying to put me off my stride. I know, of course, he would like to do that, and, to be fair to him, perhaps if he were speaking I would like to do the same with him. Deputy Walsh came out quite clearly on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party that their policy was the policy of compulsory tillage. It is as well that we should know that that is their policy and that the country should know, because up to this they have been trying to shillyshally on both sides of the fence and I have far more respect for Deputy Walsh for having come out flatfooted with that statement than for the people who are trying to get the best of both sides of the argument. Deputy Allen at one moment would say that he wants compulsion and the next moment would say that Fianna Fáil would not dream of applying compulsion to the farmers. But we have Deputy Walsh's statement in this House and we must accept it as the authoritative view of the Fianna Fáil Party. It will not do for Deputy Harris to try and deny, as he did deny when speaking on the Thursday night following, that that was the Fianna Fáil policy. If Deputy Walsh is not speaking on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, then it should be made quite clear by one of the leaders of that Party that he had no authority, that he exceeded his authority, and that that is not their policy, because until we know where we stand in that respect we are entitled to assume that he was speaking with the single voice of which we have heard so much from that side of the House.
It will be interesting to see how the farmers in Wicklow, represented by Deputy Cogan, greet that policy when they remember during the emergency being made to grow more wheat on land entirely unsuitable for the growing of wheat; whether they will support the view and the outlook put forward by Deputy Cogan, that he wishes to have a change of Government in regard to agriculture. Deputy Cogan, when he is voting for a change of Government in regard to agriculture, should remember that he is voting to give the farmers of Wicklow the compulsory tillage advocated by Deputy Walsh. It was also interesting to hear Deputy Harris suggest that the money which was being spent on drainage and the land rehabilitation scheme was being wasted.
It is quite true.
I am glad to hear Deputy Allen confirming that because it does away with the necessity for quoting Deputy Harris, but it is contained in column 1225 of the Official Report. The farmers of Kildare will be interested to know that that is Deputy Harris's view, that he does not believe in drainage or the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds on the acres of land that have become waterlogged. The farmers in County Wexford will be interested to know that Deputy Allen does not approve of the money that is being spent on drainage in County Wexford. Deputy Harris has now come into the House and I shall read his own remarks for him: "Instead of wasting a lot of money on drainage schemes and the land rehabilitation scheme..." There has been a certain amount of work started on the land rehabilitation scheme in the County Kildare. There have been two units working on that scheme so far as the work which is being done by the Department of Agriculture is concerned, one unit in north Kildare and one unit in south Kildare. Deputy Harris suggested that the work is only being done on the land of supporters of the Government.
I did not say that.
Perhaps I misunderstood the Deputy. I thought he was suggesting that.
I said it was the view of many of your supporters in Kildare that much of the money which is being spent on drainage is wasted and that it would be better spent on lowering the price of artificial manures.
Deputy Harris must forget one thing, namely, that in many cases the only chance of the small farmer in Kildare who has perhaps 30 acres of land, ten acres of which are swamp as a result of neglect of the outfalls of the drainage and neglect of the ditches for very nearly 100 years, has of ever getting into an economic holding is the land rehabilitation scheme. He knows it, and he will show his view on that, and did show his view on that last September. The land rehabilitation scheme is still only in its infancy. I do not suggest that anything in its infancy like that is perfect or perhaps even near perfect. It was a tremendous undertaking to start that scheme more or less simultaneously throughout the whole country. It is inevitable in the first year or two years of its working in any county that there will be mistakes, and it is inevitable that they will learn by the mistakes and by the experience that they get in doing the job. I want to be quite clear, so far as I am concerned, and with all respect I think I am better qualified to speak for my supporters than Deputy Harris, that my supporters entirely endorse the scheme outlined by the Minister in his land project of making sure that the countless number of acres that hitherto have not given any return would be enabled usefully to bring to their owners and to the community as a whole that productivity we all need if our standard of living is, in general, to be raised.
I want also to congratulate the Minister on the lime scheme. The other day I had occasion to come across a copy of a speech made by the late Deputy James Hughes at a Fine Gael convention in County Kilkenny on 7th December, 1947, in which he was outlining the policy of this Party in regard to agriculture. One quotation from that speech is worth making—he was dealing with the deficiencies that there were of mineral elements in many parts of the country:—
"The correction of these national deficiencies is of such paramount importance that we propose that the State must provide a high proportion of the necessary capital expenditure. At least 1,000,000 tons of calcium carbonate are required to correct this acid characteristic of our soil and we will provide such capital machinery to produce this quantity in the form of ground limestone at about 14/- a ton delivered on the farm."
The Minister's scheme, by virtue of which it is being produced and delivered on the farm at 16/- a ton, is carrying out the undertaking given on behalf of this Party by the late Deputy Hughes.
There has been a lot of talk by Deputies opposite in regard to the policy of ranching and the policy of glass which makes it clear to me that Opposition Deputies have not yet grasped the fact that grass was regarded as something which 25 and 50 years ago just came and that one left it there and let it grow of its own accord.
Nowadays grass is a definite crop but the Opposition Deputies do not want to allow their own supporters and the people outside to appreciate that the grass crop the Minister is advocating is an entirely different crop from the old matted ranching crop to which Deputy Allen referred. That is not what the Minister is urging. What the Minister is urging is a new approach to our grass problem so that, as a result of that new approach and as a result of the growth of new young grass, we will be in a better position to meet the difficulties even of a winter such as we have just passed through by being able to produce better silage.
I believe that Opposition Deputies appreciate the point perfectly well but for political reasons they take a different line. Their whole anxiety seems to be to keep up at all times a continuous personal attack on the Minister. Perhaps the Minister for Agriculture has left himself by his speeches partially open to that type of attack. One of the main faults I have to find with the Opposition is that they allowed the Department of Agriculture to get into a rut. They allowed it to stagnate. I am not now passing criticism on officials, but I do say that it is essential that the Department should be taken out of that rut. It was only by being thoroughly shaken up and shaken out of itself that we could hope to get a new outlook. The technical instruction branch of the Department of Agriculture had been completely forgotten in the years when both Deputy Dr. Ryan and Deputy Smith presided over the Department. In that effort to shake up consciousness of the fact that the Department was in a rut and to get the Department out of that rut, the Minister has in the past made use of extravagant phrases which have brought criticism of some degree upon his head but which were part and parcel of and absolutely essential to his campaign of shaking things up to make quite certain that the people outside would get away from the old principles and out of the old rut. It is unfortunate that the Minister's effort in that regard should have been taken advantage of in the way it has been by the Opposition.
The last speaker would have us believe that the present Government is carrying out the Fianna Fáil wheat policy. Practically everyone here is interested in wheat and flour. For that reason, and because of the circumstances that surround us, wheat is bound to take a prominent place in any discussion upon agriculture. The last speaker said that the plan prepared by Fianna Fáil has been exceeded by the present Government. What the last speaker did not tell us was that the plan drawn up by Fianna Fáil was one based on the assumption that when the war was over we would again enter into the piping days of peace. All that has been achieved is that the acreage of wheat grown under Fianna Fáil pre-war, without any compulsion, has been reached with the aid of the knowledge that the world around us is again approaching a catastrophe even worse than that through which we have so lately passed.
In the main, those working the land who have the Fianna Fáil viewpoint have not required any compulsion to grow wheat. There are areas where, without any conscious national sentiment, the people have always recognised the value of wheat as a crop both for sale and for the sustenance of their own households. That is particularly true of a large part of County Galway. These people when the national danger demanded that a greater effort should be made made that effort quite voluntarily and quite readily. The work they did was of first-class quality and their efforts were not attended by any of the drawbacks to which new people coming into the growing of wheat are subjected because of having to carry out a compulsory policy against their own inclinations and without any previous experience of the job.
In the main those people who must be compelled to grow wheat are those who are opposed to Fianna Fáil policy generally and particularly to Fianna Fáil agricultural policy. The Minister is being credited with an actual disinclination to compel people who think politically like himself. He would be compelling a very, very small fraction of the community in so far as Fianna Fáil supporters are concerned. Apparently that does not please the Minister. That is a quite understandable attitude.
Deputy Sweetman has made a strong plea for wheat-growing with the full consent of the Minister. I think it would be far better if the Minister himself in this grave national crisis as a result of the world situation, smothered all his peacetime views about tillage and wheat and told us quite candidly that wheat must be grown, if not voluntarily then by compulsion. According to all the indications, we are again on the verge of a very acute crisis. We know as a result of our experience in the last crisis that we cannot feed ourselves and that, if we cannot feed ourselves, we shall certainly not be fed from outside. Live stock alone will not maintain us in an emergency. In the poorer areas where wheat cannot really be grown successfully we have actually a keener interest in wheat than that shown by those living in districts where wheat can be satisfactorily cultivated. In my constituency we have entirely different kinds of agricultural economy. We have good tillage land and wheat-growing land, but over the larger part of it we have land where very little tillage can be done and any that is done must be done by hand. During the emergency the overflow from the wheat-growing areas of my constituency enabled the people in the non-wheat-growing areas to carry on. Were it not for that overflow we would have been in a bad way indeed.
We have a few problems in my constituency that are peculiar to the congested areas. These problems are not of any very great interest to the majority of Deputies here. In so far as the Minister has tackled some of these problems, he has our whole-hearted support. I was very interested to learn from him the other night that he believes his Department has found a cure for that scourge in the poorer areas called the "cripple". I am glad to see that the Minister used the Irish terms "Brios Bruan' and "Galra trua". I hope that the cure is general and that it will be permanent. If it proves to be so, it will relieve the stock rearers in these areas of a good deal of trouble.
With regard to the poultry scheme, poultry is one of the things that come to mind when one is dealing with the poorer areas. In so far as an attempt has been made to improve it, the benefit will be conferred on those areas, but I think it is no harm to tell the Minister that in the areas where grain cannot be grown the finer breeds of fowl are not suitable. I am sure that the Minister has had reports on that from his officers on the spot. They are very fine birds and all that, but where a plentiful supply of grain is not available, there is great difficulty in keeping them fed. To put it in a very expressive way by using the words of a Connemara man to one of the Department's inspectors:—"It is like this," he says. "They are very fine birds, but this is not a tillage country. We cannot grow the grain and we find it impossible to maintain these Clydesdale hens." However, if the effort itself fails, it has been worth the experiment and, perhaps, the Department may be able eventually to come across a strain that will be more suitable to the agricultural conditions there. It seems to me that at present the people are inclined to revert to the common hen for the reason that I have stated.
I want to cavil at the Minister's disinclination to accept any criticism unless it comes from sources favourable to him. I have had occasion to bring to his notice complaints that were given to me about the type of live stock which it had been sought over a number of years to introduce into the congested areas, mainly for the purpose of improving the milk supply. It was a laudable purpose. The complaint about these cattle is that, like the hens, they are too soft, too delicate and too difficult to rear in the difficult conditions in those districts. The result is that they have been liable to disease which the hardier breeds have been able to overcome.
I take it that the Deputy is not referring to Kerry cows.
I am referring to the dairy shorthorn type that was introduced into Connemara for the purpose of improving milk. In the Letterfrack area serious complaints were made to me that these cattle were becoming diseased. The Minister did not accept my word for it but, within a week, he had quarantined the bulls in question, a fact which proves that my complaint was not as ill-founded as the Minister tried to make out to me.
Why did I quarantine the bulls?
Because the complaint was that they were spreading disease in the district. Within a week the Minister had quarantined these bulls, proving that the complaint was well founded.
There has been a good deal of activity in my constituency in recent weeks. I think that in this particular case the Minister must have known beforehand that what he is embarking upon is not capable of achievement. This rock scheme is a huge joke with the people and the Minister must know that. He must know that any proposal to remove rock in the Connemara district cannot possibly produce anything other than jokes and gibes on the part of the people who know what the problem is. It is all very well for people outside to say that the Minister may be able to achieve something. We know that the amount of surface rock in Connemara is an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. In the whole west of Connemara there is very little rock of the kind that can be removed. All that was there was taken up by the county council roadworkers. If the Department and the Government are prepared to spend huge sums of money to improve conditions there, however well intentioned, they have schemes which will offer a ready return—instead of trying to tackle this rock probblem in Connemara.
When I put a question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce about the turf industry, I was told it was uneconomic. Possibly it was, but, after all, would it not be better to have continued that uneconomic turf industry and spend this money to a certain extent on it, rather than spend it on something that is quite foolish, particularly in view of the fact that we have given very uneconomic prices for coal in America and elsewhere since that turf industry was dropped?
Is not the Deputy a bit out of date? There is more turf being produced this year than ever before.
Turf is not relevant to this Estimate.
How does the Deputy come to that conclusion, having regard to the fact that turf cutting began only a fortnight ago? It is all very well for Deputy O'Higgins to tell me about turf production when he has in mind the huge mechanised turf schemes in his constituency.
I suggest that the Deputy pass from the turf scheme altogether.
In any event, I will give a substitute for the turf. We had, for instance, the concentrated crops like tomatoes. I would like to know what the Minister is going to do on this question. Surely the money he proposes to spend on shifting the rock might be more profitably used in spreading the glass-house scheme. The Minister knows, as his predecessor knew, that there are many reasons why ordinary crops, even if the land were there, cannot compete with crops produced in places nearer to the markets. We are far away from the markets and we have not got arable land. All the labour is by hand and, therefore, the obvious thing to do is to get concentrated crops that will get high prices. Tomatoes were an obvious one and the last Government seized on that and the Minister knows, since he became a Minister, that that scheme was well worth while. It did two things: it gave people a steady guaranteed income and it gave them a new food. If there is any part of the country in need of a new wholesome nutritious food it is the area where the land is poorest. It is a delight to see the children, when the tomatoes are in, eating them up as children in the towns would eat sweets. Even that alone would seem to justify the attempt to encourage glass-house culture in those districts.
Is the Deputy of opinion that the glass-houses have given the proprietors of them a good return?
I know, from the figures that the Minister himself gave me, the lowest figure even, that it is no discouragement to the scheme. I think it was £50 a house. In our time it was £80.
In your time there was never a tomato grown there at all.
Does the Minister say it is a failure?
I am trying to find out. The Deputy tells me they are making a fortune.
I am not saying that. I am saying their income has been increased by the amount of their annual sales, less expenses, and that in addition they have been given a plentiful supply of a new and wholesome food. In my opinion, that is one of the biggest advantages of the scheme. It is not nearly as fantastic a proposal as the rock scheme. It is a thing that can be done in slow stages, and it is a type of work that every member of the family can engage in. The work is usually under cover of glass where they can continue if the weather is too bad to work outside. There are many advantages in it, and it has given the people in those districts a new interest.
After the first flush of enthusiasm there has been about this rock scheme. I can say that I am quite satisfied myself that it will flop. There is work of reclamation that needs to be done.
Do your best to make it a flop.
Whatever Fianna Fáil can do to make it a flop, that will be done.
The Minister and the Deputy ought to know, if they ever took an opportunity to drop around there and talk even to their own supporters——
I have done that and I have talked also to the Deputy's supporters.
They say it is the most fantastic proposal ever attempted, and the Minister's own officials are quite ashamed going round to the people taking particulars in connection with this scheme.
I wonder if the Deputy would say that in Roundstone.
As a matter of fact it was in Roundstone that statement was made.
It was not made in the open daylight.
What was not?
Any such statement.
I am saying to Deputy O'Higgins that it was his own supporters, no later than yesterday, who condemned this scheme as a fantastic proposal.
Nonsense.
If it were a question of removing surface rock one could agree, but the proportion of surface rock there is negligible. The Minister put in a proviso, of course, that he would deal only with glacial rock. I understand that is the stuff that rests on the top of the ground, but even when you remove that you find that it is resting on bedrock. It is all right to remove it where the boulders are there, but the rock problem of Connemara as a whole is not a surface rock problem; it is 99 per cent. sedimentary rock and the Minister knows that. There are many places along Cois Fharraige where you get a lot of these granite boulders, but even when you remove them you have not got land, you are still on the rock. Does the Minister or Deputy O'Higgins think I am going to stand up in public and condemn a scheme for my area in which not alone will a large amount of money be spent but by which permanent good will result? Does he think I am a fool?
I am going to stand up here with the responsibility that rests on a public representative and point out, apart altogether from what my own opinions are, what is the opinion of people in my constituency, given to me quite irrespective of political affiliations. I do not expect Deputy O'Higgins to accept my word on that. Let him go down there himself.
No one need partake of the scheme if he does not wish to do so.
It is satisfactory to know that, but does the Minister not know there is to be public money spent on it and that in the administering of it I have a duty as well, to see that it is administered to the best possible advantage?
There is a by-election pending there. Kill the scheme because of that.
As a matter of fact, the by-election has given the scheme the best fillip possible and it will be in full swing until the by-election is over. The place is overrun with inspectors. If Deputy O'Higgins thinks there is anything in that, he can move the writ for the by-election and have it. The combined Coalition vote was less than 14,000 at the last general election and since then there has been heavy emigration from the area, which has hit Fianna Fáil the hardest. Nevertheless, he can come along and move the writ.
Would the Deputy deal with the Estimate?
Unworthy and insincere motives, a Leas-Chinn Comhairle, are being attributed by Deputy O'Higgins to what I am saying about this rock scheme and I want to tell the House that the scheme is condemned by the people who live in the district. I am their representative and my job is to represent their views here. I am doing that genuinely and honestly. I have not heard one opinion in the area —and I have not canvassed adverse opinions—that this scheme is feasible. In so far as it will spread money in an area where the people require more earnings, it is going to be welcome— is any one going to blame the people for that—but, after all, if the same amount of money can be spent to better purpose, that is what I want to achieve. I would back any experiment, and would not condemn any Minister for its failure, if there were any chance that it would succeed. That is my view about the poultry scheme. I think the Minister was well justified in spending money on it, even if it has not been the bright success we all hoped. It was something, in any event.
If you cannot curse it, the great thing is to damn it with faint praise.
In view of the agricultural conditions there and the difficulty in producing grain in sufficient quantities, the people find difficulty in feeding these——
Clydesdale hens.
That is what they say themselves. If the Minister thinks he can draw the long bow, he can make an inquiry about it. He can inquire from his representative in the Clifden district.
I wonder was that Miss Lee.
Deputy Bartley is entitled to make his statement.
Deputy O'Higgins must be talking out of the depth and fullness of his ignorance when he mentions Miss Lee and a rate collectorship in Clifden. He apparently knows absolutely nothing about it.
There is nothing about a rate collectorship in this Estimate.
He would not have the muinéal and the éadan to refer to that case. If it is mentioned on the Local Government Estimate, I will probably have a chance of dealing with it.
Perhaps the Deputy will leave it until then.
Let us return to the Clydesdale hens.
That remark was made to your representative in the Clifden area and the Minister can inquire whether I am spinning a yarn or not. The public are concerned that this question of food production should be tackled vigorously, in view of the anticipations of a world war and a consequent food shortage. I was very pleased to read in a sub-leader in the Irish Times a few days ago, under the heading of “Irish Industry”, that the Irish Times has come round to the point of view of self-sufficiency in food. When that has happened, something may be achieved in the matter.
If yon do not get a war soon, you will be terribly upset.
I have listened to the volley of abuse which the Minister has received from the opposite side and it has caused me some surprise. I will preface my remarks by saying that I am not a farmer, but that, nevertheless, does not prevent me from rising to speak on the Agriculture Estimate. I always remember Clemenceau's remark during the 1914 war that war was too important to be left to the generals, and I think that a word from a city Deputy, with reference to some of the broader aspects of agricultural policy, would not be out of place. Looking at Ireland generally, it seems that, under the Ministership of the present Minister, the Department and the farmers generally have been raised to a degree of excellence and financial soundness never known before.
I suppose that no Minister has ever run into quite as much political abuse as this Minister, but I think that much of it has arisen, not in relation to his agricultural policy, but in relation to the forceful way he has put forward his argument and the still more forceful way he has rapped his political opponents. It would be a great pity if certain people on that account thought he had not done a fine, and indeed a magnificent piece of work for this country. I do not think that any man in his office has ever had the breadth of vision which he has shown and I would say as a city Deputy that, looking at Ireland broadly, the measure of his success is represented by the condition and standing of the farmers to-day. That is the monument to the work he has done. The land rehabilitation project, farm improvement schemes and various other projects which he has initiated will in time show what James Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, has done for Ireland.
Speaking again as a city Deputy and notwithstanding anything various Deputies from the dairying districts and so on have said, I would say that the Minister has so ably defended the point of view of the farmers for whom he works and whose cause he champions in the House and in the Government that we city Deputies consider that the cost of many agricultural commodities is too high. I say that on this Estimate lest some people should think that it was only the Minister who was standing between them and a higher price. Speaking on behalf of the consumers, I say that we feel that prices are already very high and farmers are fortunate in having as able an advocate as they have in the Minister.
There is one matter on which I particularly rose to speak, the export of live horses from this country. I know that the Minister feels deeply on this subject, but nevertheless a number of people, and Irish people especially, have had their feelings outraged by the callous treatment meted out to our horses. We in Ireland owe a great deal to these animals. Many thousands of people make their living out of horses, in the shape of breeding, racing and so on, and altogether the horse is one of our major industries. It is a very sad thing that in this country which owes so much to the horse — a fact which we have recognised by putting a representation of a horse on our largest silver coin — that animal should be sometimes treated as it is.
I should say at this point that this is not an attack on the Minister in relation to the export of horses. The Department sees to it that certain regulations are complied with, in an endeavour to ensure that these animals will be properly treated while in the ships in which they leave this country, but notwithstanding any rules or regulations which the Department lays down and which in the main they see to it are carried out, from time to time the most frightful cruelties and hardships are inflicted on them while at sea. Indeed, we have no control whatsoever over any of the conditions which may ensue when the animal arrives at the continental port or in the British Isles — although I should imagine that, in the main, they are well treated in many of the ports in the British Isles: I do not know about the continental ones. Notwithstanding these regulations, if a storm happens at sea there is nothing to prevent very great hardships and pain to these animals. I suggest that the Minister should bring in an Act or make an Order prohibiting the export of aged horses for the meat trade. I think it would be quite possible and feasible that an Order should be made saying that these horses were slaughtered over here and the meat exported as dressed meat.
What does the Deputy mean by an "aged" horse?
That is a matter which the Minister could lay down.
Is the Deputy apprehensive on the score of old horses?
Yes.
It is absolutely prohibited. No old, decrepit or diseased horse is permitted to leave this country.
But what about the horses which leave this country and suffer hardship en route?
I travelled on the Queen Mary on her maiden voyage and 17 people had broken bones when they reached New York.
Nevertheless, there are these conditions which seem to apply in the case of certain types of animals which are sent to the Continent. When it is a question of moving bloodstock, I understand that owing to the value of the horses the owners take very good care to ensure that the horses will not break their legs — except under the most extraordinary circumstances. Undoubtedly, however, there are cases of the type to which I have referred. There was the case of horses which left Limerick recently.
The matter was dealt with very exhaustively in the House.
Yes, but nothing was done to help the horses.
They were gone beyond help at that stage.
There was a lot of conversation about it, but I do not think anything emerged from the discussions that took place then which would lead anyone to believe that the same thing could not happen on the next occasion. However, I trust that the Minister will go into this matter exhaustively and draw up some scheme which will prevent, as far as is humanly possible, a similar occurrence. I hope that the Minister will do what he can in connection with this matter of the export of horses.
I wish to close by saying that I think that the handling of the Department of Agriculture by the present Minister has been one of the finest things for which this Government has been responsible.
To listen to the speech made by Deputy Sweetman a short while ago one would be led to believe that the only honest Deputies in this House are those who ardently support the policy of the present Minister for Agriculture. Apparently, anybody who criticises or complains about that policy is dishonest.
To listen to the city and the professional Deputies on the Government Benches praise the policy of the present Minister for Agriculture, and praise the Minister himself, makes one wonder whether they come out openly and praise the policy of the Minister for Agriculture when they know nothing about agriculture. Do they do so because agricultural prices to-day are lower than those which obtained in 1947? Do they do so because they can get agricultural produce now cheaper than they were able to hitherto? Would they ever consider that one of the results of a policy such as that which is being pursued by the present Minister is that they cannot get an ounce of Irish butter in the city to-day and, further, that if that policy is persisted in that they may not get any Irish produce in the very near future? I hope those times will never come, but I suggest that these are things that ought to be considered. The possibility is there and the farmers are not fools.
Deputy Commons spoke last week of conditions in the West of Ireland. In one breath he stated that as a result of the Fianna Fáil tillage policy the land in the West has been made barren and poor. In the next breath he stated that the farmers down there who grow beet and who feed the tops, and so forth, to their live stock have a rich soil afterwards. I suggest to Deputy Commons that he should go back to his constituents and indeed all over his county — especially that part of County Mayo which borders the North Galway area, where there is a real live industry—and induce all his county men to grow all the beet which will make their land rich. I do not agree with Deputy Commons or with any other Deputy, who says that a tillage policy will make the land poor. I maintain that a policy of tillage, based on a proper system of rotation, will leave a farmer's land more fertile and richer than it was when he started.
One more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough.
Major de Valera
The acres have gone down.
A convert.
I submit that where the land in the West of Ireland is poor and barren it is due to a system which has been in operation for the past 500 years — the system of rearing young live stock there and, before they have finished growing, transferring them to the Midlands and the fertile plains of Meath and Kildare.
The Deputy cannot blame the present Minister for that.
Shut up.
I am sure the Minister will be able to reply to that when the time comes.
That is a useful contribution from Deputy McGrath.
Deputy Lahiffe, without interruption.
As a result of the policy of rearing young stores and transferring them to the Midlands before they have finished growing, so as to be fattened on these rich lands, before being slaughtered, a good deal of the benefit which they derived from the West is gained by these richer lands, because they are not able to give it when they are growing. If we could have a policy of rearing the smaller stock in the Midlands and then sending them to the West for fattening we would enrich the lands of the West. However, that would be impossible because of the wet climate in the West, which is not suitable for heavier stock. The Minister should seriously consider the matter of improving the lands in the West of Ireland. He would be very wise to do so. It would give a greater incentive to the people there to fertilise their lands and, if possible, the Minister should subsidise them in that connection.
Have I not started the lime drying industry in Cong for you?
The Minister will hear all about lime, I am sure, in due course.
I can neither praise nor condemn the land project because I have not seen it in operation in my constituency yet. We are 14 or 15 months waiting for it, and until it comes my way I can say nothing about it.
There is one matter of which this House should take serious cognisance, that is an industry that has in the past two or three years spread itself and developed itself in every household in rural Ireland, an industry that has been carried on principally by the women in the house, the poultry industry. When the Minister made his 1948 agreement with Britain regarding eggs people all over the country went fully and wholeheartedly into the poultry business and developed poultry which was practically disease free. I may say that the Department of Agriculture did excellent work in that regard. Although we may criticise the slowness of the work last year the results this year have been very satisfactory. Because of the price of commercial eggs to-day since the 1st February there is a danger that this whole industry will collapse. The poultry industry has been built around a number of supply farms that supply eggs to the hatcheries and the hatcheries distribute chicks to the rural areas. The Minister will agree with me that there is practically no demand this year at the hatcheries for day-old chicks or a greatly reduced demand. Why is it? They all complain that the price of commercial eggs is not economic. Those people who put in day-old chicks last year and fed up the pullets to laying point found then that they had to sell the eggs at 2/- a dozen. If any Deputy on any side of the House will stand up and say that 2/- a dozen is an economic price for eggs I say that he should get into the poultry industry as quickly as possible.
It may be that we are unduly blaming the Minister for this price, but I wholeheartedly blame him for one thing— that he has persistently refused to meet the representatives of the poultry supply farms, the poultry producers' representatives, from as long ago as last November. Had he met these people they would have put their difficulties to him; he could have explained his difficulties and perhaps they might have arrived at a satisfactory decision. Instead he did not receive them at all, good, bad or indifferent and for that I blame him. He should have seen these people as long ago as the 16th November when a meeting of the Hatchery Suppliers' Association was held in Dublin attended by suppliers from all over the country.
A letter dated the 7th November from the Department of Agriculture was read there stating that the Minister could not receive a deputation to discuss the price of commercial eggs and spring cockerels. Some time after that the Minister went to Kilkenny and agreed to meet representatives of the Kilkenny branch. That was on the 13th November and the Minister informed the deputation that he could not see his way to increase the price of commercial eggs and spring cockerels:
"Mr. Dillon pointed out that most of the poultry-keepers were very prosperous, and when asked for costings, he informed them that no costings had been taken and he was not prepared to take any."
What does the Deputy purport to read?
The minutes of the 13th Central Executive Meeting of the Hatchery Suppliers' Association of the Republic of Ireland, held on the 16th November, 1950, at Jury's Hotel, Dublin. Some correspondence from the Minister's Department was read stating that he would not receive them. Again on Friday, 5th January, at another meeting, another letter from the Minister's Department was read stating that the Minister was not prepared to meet representatives of the association. My complaint to the Minister is that he should have met these people and discussed their difficulties fully with them. Had he done so he might have saved a good many laying hens all over the country. It must have been brought to his notice that people sold at 10d. a lb. hens laying eggs rather than feed them. All these difficulties were foreseen in November by the association yet the Minister would not meet them.
Another difficulty facing egg suppliers and producers in general is the increased cost of food. Supply farms all over the country are complaining that they are going out of business and some have actually gone out of business this year. If they are so prosperous, if they are making so much money why should they get out of the industry?
How much are they getting per egg?
I will tell the Minister that in due course.
Tell it to me now.
When the Minister asked people to go into the poultry business——
Are they not getting 7½d. per egg?
They are not and the Minister knows they are not.
What are they getting?
They are getting 5/- a dozen.
That is 5d. per egg. Are they not badly off? Musha, God help them — 5d. to 7½d. per egg.
Deputy Lahiffe.
Why does the Minister not say 8/9 a dozen as some hatcheries are paying? His bluff is called a bit. When these hatcheries went into the supply farm business they were told that the production period was from the 1st November to the 10th May. Yet we find this year that not a single hatchery to my knowledge opened its doors to receive eggs until the middle of December. Many of the bigger hatcheries did not take any eggs until the middle of January and sometimes did not supply any eggs until the middle of February. By public notice the farms were notified that the period this year was to be extended to the 19th June, if my memory serves me aright. A week after that we find that some of the hatcheries have notified their suppliers that they are going to curtail the supplies and that they are going to reduce the price from 7/2 to 5/- a dozen and that they will only accept either light breeds or light breeds crossed with a heavy breed. That is a most unsatisfactory situation. Whatever the price of hatching eggs might be, if the hatchery supply farms could get rid of all their hatching eggs from November to the 10th May, the prescribed period, they might not cavil at the price. But they are not able to get rid of their stock. A great many of our supply farms in the West of Ireland cannot get rid of their supplies from one hatchery in any week. Small suppliers are supplying three different hatcheries, sending eggs to their stations three different days in the week. That is a most unsatisfactory position and it is one that has been brought to the notice of the Minister on several occasions.
That is the ground on which I blame the Minister very definitely. Had he met the representatives of the supply farms from November last he would be made aware of the difficulty with which these supply farms have to contend. Last year there was a dispute between the hatcheries' association and the producers' association. The Minister met the hatcheries' association on one occasion. The suppliers demanded 7/6 a dozen for hatching eggs and the hatcheries agreed to pay 7/3. The Minister asked the hatcheries to pay 7/- and he also asked them to give at the end of the season a bonus for high fertility. The hatcheries were very quick to agree with the Minister. They reduced their price by 3d. a dozen, but there was no mention of the bonus afterwards.
There was a dispute also this year between the suppliers and the hatcheries. Although the cost of production went up, in several cases by 100 per cent., still the producers asked only 7/6 a dozen. The hatcheries offered 7/2. The great majority of the hatcheries in the country gave no more than 7/2 this year. Granted some hatcheries did give 7/6 and some gave 8/9, provided you had 100 per cent. fertility. But, due to weather conditions this year, fertility in all areas has been low and there is a general reduction in the price of eggs, even below 7/2. Since last week the hatcheries have reduced their price to 5/- a dozen — that is, where they are collecting eggs at all.
The situation is one that demands the immediate attention of the Minister. Everywhere we go we hear of supply farms going out of business. Some of them are out of business this year and the Minister's officials are already approaching these farms to recover the grants. I do not know how they will succeed in doing so in some cases. I am aware that some of these supply farms would be glad if the Minister's officials took them over lock, stock and barrel, because they are a liability at the moment. It is a pity that what promised to be a very good industry should now be allowed to collapse, and in such a short time, too.
Quite recently the Minister announced that he would increase the price of wheat by 5/- a barrel. But, to qualify for that 5/-, it must bushel 61 lb. In my constituency last year — and there was a fair amount of wheat grown down there — there were very few farms where the crop would bushel 61 lb. Therefore, this price of 5/- will not reach a good many producers. Indeed, it went down as low as 58 lb. Few will benefit by the increase and there are very few who can hope for that increase so long as it is based on wheat bushelling 61 lb.
It is a pity that this announcement was not made last November. Some people might have been able to put in winter wheat in February when the weather was fairly good, but it is obvious now that the announcement came a bit late. I do not propose to discourage anybody sowing wheat at any price because it is a crop without which we cannot exist. Deputies like Deputy Dockrell clap the Minister on the back because he can buy it at the same price as three years ago. These Deputies can be complimented for getting it at that price, but they should remember what happened in the case of butter may also happen in the case of wheat. Every organised section of the community has got a fair crack of the whip, but the farmer is told he must take a reduced price for anything he produces. How long more will he stick it?
Labour Deputies like Deputy Davin can laugh and skit. They do not care, because they have their pound of flesh, but the farmers have a quiet way of doing things. They will not go on strike — I hope they never will — but they have a far more effective way of seeking a remedy.
I will conclude now with a recommendation to the Minister's Department to examine carefully the poultry and eggs side of the industry. That is a thing that cannot be built up overnight. It costs something to produce a healthy stock. If the whole thing is allowed to drop now it will cost a tremendous amount to restore it. As it is, the situation is fairly critical. I again commend to the Minister the need of careful consideration of our poultry and egg production.
I have heard lots of criticism of the Minister here from time to time. Why he is criticised so much, I do not know. Perhaps the reason is that he is a highly intelligent Minister and that he has advised the farmers to do the right thing. If the Deputies who come here to criticise him went around their constituencies advising farmers to grow wheat, beet, cereals and that kind of thing, they would do a much better job for themselves and for the country.
The Minister has asked the farmers to grow cereals. He said he does not want to make it compulsory. There are many small, poor farmers in this country. Some of them grow corn. Others grow wheat, beet and other crops. The farmers who grow corn, such as barley and oats, have no capital. That is a serious matter in a country in which agriculture is the main industry. Without capital, the farmers cannot produce the nation's needs. As long as I can remember, the small farmers have threshed their corn and have brought it to the merchants and paid the merchants for the seeds they bought. Then they went to the hardware and fertiliser merchants and paid them what they owed. Then they paid their rent and rates. When he had paid all these things, the farmer had no money left after his year's toil.
The farmer buys maize and cereals for feeding stuffs, for which he has to pay the American and Australian farmer. The Minister has asked the Irish farmers to grow the cereals they require to feed their own stock and, if the Irish farmer does not do that, it is his own fault and he is making a serious mistake. Whether he has a big or a small farm, whether he has 20 or 30 cows or a big or a small number of pigs and hens, the farmer should grow the feeding stuff for them on his own land. The land is capable of growing it.
It has been said that the Minister has not advised the farmers to grow wheat. The farmers know that they should grow wheat, that it is their duty to do so, and the Deputies who have raised this matter here should advise the farmers in their constituencies to grow wheat.
Another matter to which I wish to refer is lack of capital. The Minister should devise a scheme whereby a grant would be given to farmers who have not sufficient capital to work their land. In parts of the West of Ireland, in North Cork and West Cork, there are small farmers who live from hand to mouth. They cannot get proper results without capital. While a great deal of money is being spent on drainage and such things, it would be more advisable to spend the money in the way I have suggested.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the price of milk, butter, wheat and beet. I have studied this matter for a number of years and I have asked technical experts why the Fianna Fáil Government did not pay to the Irish farmer at least the same price for his produce as they paid to the foreigner. Deputy Corry has raised that matter on several occasions. This Government, or whatever Government is in power, should pay the Irish farmer at least the same price as they pay the foreigner for sugar and wheat. My contention is that the Irish farmer should be paid more than the foreigner because the money that is paid to the Irish farmer circulates in the country whereas the money that is paid to the American, African or other foreigner, goes out of the country. It should be the policy of the Government to pay a little higher for the produce of the Irish farmer, which will enable him to increase employment and pay higher wages.
During the course of the debate, a Deputy said that there were hundreds of cattle dying in the West of Ireland for want of fodder. Bad weather had a great deal to do with that. I definitely do not believe that statement about hundreds of cattle dying.
Whatever the Minister does, he is blamed. That is always the case where a man is trying to do a good job. He will make plenty of enemies. When he makes a success of the job, there are plenty to criticise him. I remember 1947, which was a bad winter, when a great number of cattle and sheep were dying. I did not see the then Government giving any help to the people who lost their cattle.
Did not they give them money free of interest?
Major de Valera
Free loans.
The present Government give free loans too.
They do not.
The same scheme is in existence still.
They are not giving any of these people free loans.
The same scheme is in existence still.
You would not put any Fianna Fáil scheme in force.
There is too much criticism of the Minister and I say again that it would be better for the people who criticise him to put their cards on the table, to co-operate in an emergency such as this and to help the farmers in their constituency. Fair criticism is all right but when criticism is carried too far one gets tired of it.
Deputy Sheehan complains that the Minister is criticised but if the Deputy reflects on what he has said he will realise that he has severely criticised the Minister. He has told the Minister that he should give a better price to the Irish farmer than he gives to the foreigner for wheat and sugar. One of the things that puzzles me, as a city Deputy, is why we should pay £31 15s. 0d. a ton for wheat to the foreigner and pay £25 a ton to the Irish farmer. That is one of the matters in respect of which one is entitled to criticise the Minister and it is one of the things in respect of which Deputy Sheehan criticised the Minister. The same applies to sugar. Why is not the Irish farmer entitled to a better price for beet and why is not the Irish factory worker entitled to a better wage? We should keep the money at home and not pay for Cuban sugar £1,250,000 more than it would cost to produce sugar in this country.
We hear a great deal of discussion about the balance of imports and exports. One of the easiest ways in which we could balance imports and exports would be to give our farmer a better price and our factory worker a better wage and create more employment. I cannot understand the mentality of a man who says that the Minister should not be criticised and proceeds to criticise him to that very serious extent in regard to a matter about which I cannot understand the Minister's action.
I cannot understand the mentality of the Minister who when the creamery suppliers throughout the country ask him to receive a deputation, replies in such an insulting way and tells them that the secretary is only an old age pensions officer and the chairman has a saw mill. It can be said of the Minister that he is a shopkeeper. Those organisations would be just as entitled to ask, why should a man in charge of a huckster's shop be in charge of agriculture? I do not think insulting remarks of that kind will get the Minister anywhere. These people are organised, as they are entitled to be organised. They are entitled to be received by the Minister who, for a couple of years, was telling everybody that he was the servant of the people but who seems to have changed his opinion altogether lately.
As far as agriculture is concerned, I am really interested in only one thing, that is, the milk supply for Cork City. Last year I asked the Minister what he would do to guarantee that Cork City would get fresh milk during the three summer months. The Minister said that if the Cork Corporation passed a resolution in favour of pasteurisation, we would have pasteurisation before Christmas. The Cork Corporation, within a couple of weeks of that statement, passed a resolution in favour of pasteurisation and we have heard nothing about pasteurisation since. I should like to know from the Minister whether he has taken any steps to ensure that the people of Cork will get a supply of fresh milk during the months of June, July and August. This is a matter that has been coming up here year after year and, so far as Cork Corporation is concerned, they have done what he asked them to do. They have passed a resolution and I think he is called upon to tell the citizens of Cork what he is going to do now.
There are not many points I want to raise in this debate but I cannot help expressing some surprise at some of the speeches we have heard this evening from the Opposition. It is becoming more and more clear in recent months that the Fianna Fáil Party have no settled policy, no settled ideas and no plans in regard to agriculture — in fact, nothing to offer the people except criticism of the present Minister for Agriculture. A good way of testing whether an Opposition has a policy is to consider the interest which they take in the annual discussion on the main Estimate for Agriculture. It is worthy of note that this year Deputy Patrick Smith, the former Minister for Agriculture, sat in this House during the debate on this Estimate for no longer than two hours and he has not intervened in the debate since. Instead, the Front Opposition Bench has been consistently occupied by a city Deputy. That shows the interest of Fianna Fáil in agriculture.
I am not a city Deputy.
Deputy Kissane blows in and out.
I was here all day on Thursday.
That shows their interest in this most important discussion. Indeed, if one were to examine the speeches that were made one would see further evidence of their lack of policy. We heard Deputy Lahiffe, who has fled from the House now, make the astounding statement that what is wrong with agriculture in Ireland to-day is that the farmer must take a reduced price for everything he produces. Is that intended to be a serious contribution to a discussion on agriculture in the year 1951 — that to-day a farmer has to take a reduced price for everything he produces? I would not mind if Deputy Lahiffe said that once, but he said it three times in the course of his speech. I am not at all surprised that, having said that, he fied from the House lest anybody might challenge him as to the accuracy of his assertion. Everybody knows that to-day there is no clash, as there used to be, between tillage and grass. To-day every farmer in the country can engage in some form of balanced industry. A farmer gets more for everything he produces than when the Fianna Fáil Party were in power. I have not all the details before me, but I certainly can recollect that down in my constituency, which is a tillage area, when the fortunes of this country were guided by the hefty hand of Deputy Patrick Smith, the farmer was compelled to grow barley or some other crop. If he grew barley, he was compelled to accept and could not demand more than 30/- per barrel. People who dared to give him more than that were hauled up in court because it was an offence for a farmer to seek more than 30/- per barrel and an offence for a purchaser to give more than that figure. The price of barley to-day is 57/6 per barrel. Again, in the case of the much-discussed wheat crop, under Fianna Fáil the price of wheat was 55/- per barrel. For the last three years there has been a guaranteed fixed price of 62/6 and that has now been increased by 5/-. The difference with regard to other items of production in agriculture is also very marked. I do not know whether Deputy Lahiffe or any other Fianna Fáil Deputy who expressed his views has any sheep in his constituency. If he has, he will appreciate that there is an immense difference in the price to-day as compared with the price three years ago.
Generally, while it is quite legitimate for the Opposition to approach a discussion on this Estimate from a constructive point of view and to show, if they can, that there is a wrong policy or a wrong approach by the Minister, it is certainly absurd for them to come in here and suggest that the income of the agricultural industry to-day is in any way reduced or lower than when they were in power. Such a suggestion is contrary to the facts, contrary to common sense and contrary to the figures which are available to all of us.
In the Counties of Laoighis and Offaly which I represent, there are farmers who drive to Mass in their motor cars, men who never before had a car or possessed anything like one and more power to them. It is only right that they should, but that is made possible because they are now getting a measure of justice which they would not get from the whip wielders who guided agriculture when Fianna Fáil were in power. Some of the criticism which we heard in the debate has been so hesitant that we have often wondered in the last three or four days whether Fianna Fáil Deputies were serious. There were so few in the House and any of them who spoke, spoke so reluctantly that anybody listening to the debate and trying to see where lies the difference in policy between the administration of the present Minister and the alternative offered by the Opposition, must find it difficult to ascertain where the difference really lies. One will hear long speeches criticising the Minister for various things but one will find nowhere in any Fianna Fáil speech any constructive suggestion as to where or in what respect the present policy should be changed. I have said "in any Fianna Fáil speech" but perhaps that is an exaggeration because there was one Fianna Fáil Deputy at least I heard who did suggest a difference in approach and that was Deputy Walsh from County Kilkenny.
Deputy Walsh, speaking here on 18th April, as reported in Volume 125, column 1097, in answer to a query by my colleague Deputy Davin as to what alternative he was suggesting with regard to the tillage policy of the country, said that was a subject about which he would not be silent. "Yes, he was standing for compulsory tillage for this country." I assume that Deputy Walsh, in speaking from the Fianna Fáil Benches and in making that statement, was speaking Fianna Fáil policy. If he were not, his statement has not been contradicted since in this debate. If my assumption be correct, that Deputy Walsh was expressing Fianna Fáil agricultural policy when he said that he was standing for compulsory tillage, for this country, then at least that is somewhat different in policy to some of the alternative suggestions which the Opposition are putting before the country. May I take it that, if there were an election in the morning they would endeavour to convince the farmers that they should vote for a Government that was going to prosecute them if they did not do what they were told and did not run their farms as the civil servants wished? If that is the Fianna Fáil policy, as it appears to be, it is well that the country should realise what the alternative is that lies before it.
When Fianna Fáil were in power pursuing their policy of compulsory tillage, the farmers were compelled, irrespective of the suitability of their land, to grow a percentage of tillage on it — to go in for tillage and produce crops at prices which were generally recognised as being completely uneconomic. When the Government was changed, compulsory tillage was abandoned as a policy and, instead, the prices for all tillage crops were substantially increased by the present Minister for Agriculture. Over the last three years, a consistent effort has been made to get farmers themselves to till, not by reason of compulsion but by reason of the fact that tillage suits them, suits their holdings and their pockets. Therein lies the difference between the Fianna Fáil suggestion and the approach of the present Minister for Agriculture.
I have heard other Fianna Fáil Deputies endeavour to justify a compulsory tillage policy by saying that you will not get tillage unless you can compel the farmer to till. That, obviously, is Fianna Fáil's belief. They may be right and they may be wrong. As proof of their statements they point to the fact that, in 1947, under compulsory tillage, there were 579,000 acres of wheat sown in the country, and that in 1950, without compulsory tillage, there were only 366,000 acres of wheat sown. Therefore, they say that compulsory tillage is the correct policy, and that without compulsion the acreage under wheat fell. It is a pity that the Deputies who expressed these particular opinions did not realise that you do not eat an acre under wheat — that the only thing you eat is what is produced from that acre.
The test, surely, of a policy is whether you get more in the way of grain from the ground that is being worked, because from the 500,000 odd acres of wheat sown under compulsory tillage, the return in 1947 was 313,000 tons, while from the 300,000 odd acres of wheat sown under this Government's policy in 1950, the return was 327,000 tons. In other words, from a reduced acreage last year we produced more wheat than was produced from twice the acreage when Fianna Fáil were in power. There is the difference and there is the proof if you like. It would be of very little use, if our people were getting less bread to eat, to assure them that there were more acres under wheat, and that two fields to-day were required to produce what a field produced a week ago.
I think the results, as regards the tonnage of wheat produced, show that it is better for the country to have the wheat grown on land suitable for wheat growing, that it is better to assist the farmer who is growing wheat with fertilisers and to attract him to do so by offering him attractive prices. It is better to help him to do something which suits his land than drive him into doing something for fear of the bailiff or a District Court warrant. That represents the difference of approach between Fianna Fáil and the present Minister and Government in their policy.
I have only a few other matters which I would like to mention, matters which affect my constituency. I should like to know from the Minister when he is concluding what is the reason for the apparent delay in the working of the land project in the County Offaly. I note from the figures supplied to Deputies on 19th March that, out of over 1,000 forms returned, only 174 grants have been approved. I have received from Offaly a number of complaints from farmers anxious to avail of the land project as to delays in carrying out the work. There are no complaints that I have received anyway with regard to departmental delays in dealing with applications; they are dealt with quickly enough. But in regard to the actual carrying out of the work or approving of the grant, there appears to be some considerable delay in the County of Offaly Whether that is tied up with work under the Brosna drainage scheme or not I do not know. I should like the Minister to inquire into that. I have also been informed that in parts of Offaly there is a considerable tonnage of potatoes unsold and I should like the Minister to indicate the possibilities of a market for those potatoes.
Reference was made on the last day of this debate to cattle losses this winter. I think it was Deputy Moran who raised the matter and, if one were to accept Deputy Moran's speech as being accurate, one would get the impression that hundreds of cattle were dying all round the West of Ireland. Any of us who know Deputy Moran appreciated straightway that his story was likely to be slightly exaggerated. Most country Deputies, however, will agree that this has been a hard and difficult winter for live stock. Nevertheless, most of the gloomy prophecies made months ago have not been justified. It has been extraordinary how well the country has gone through the last winter and how very little damage has been caused.
I want to mention one particular area in my constituency in which there has been considerable anxiety with regard to cattle losses. I refer to the Luggacurran area in which, even at the best of times, there is very little natural feeding. The land is poor and produces very little. The Minister very kindly met a deputation of public representatives from the Luggacurran area at the beginning of the year and he did take steps to ensure that there would be available in that area, and I am sure in other areas also, sufficient feeding stuffs to avert any danger of the death of cattle. Owing to certain difficulties over which the Minister had no control, however, there have been cases in my constituency in which cattle have failed and have been the cause of considerable anxiety to small farmers. Unlike Deputy Moran, I do not suggest that we should talk about providing some scheme for replacing cattle before they have died. Should the worst happen with regard to cattle that have failed, however, I hope that an assurance will be given that the 1947 loan scheme will be available for farmers who suffer losses. I understand that that scheme is still in operation and it is a matter that the Minister might deal with.
Major de Valera
Is it or is it not in operation?
It is.
Major de Valera
So that any farmers who have lost stock can get a loan free of interest to replace them?
In suitable circumstances.
Major de Valera
What are the restrictions and the circumstances?
An honest, genuine intention to repay.
Major de Valera
How evidenced?
By the customary signs and symptoms.
While Luggacurran is a poor area and the Minister has taken steps to meet difficulties there in recent months, I should like to urge this upon him. A number of small farmers in that area availed of the previous cattle loan scheme in 1947. As a result of the losses which they suffered this winter, some of them may be faced with difficulties in connection with the payment of instalments. It would be a considerable hardship on them if they had to sell a failing beast now in order to raise money to pay the instalment. I suggest to the Minister that the repayment of these instalments should be postponed until next October which is the time in that area in which ordinarily their cattle would be sold. The cattle that would be sold next October would in many cases be the cattle bought under the scheme. I suggest to the Minister that, if there are cases in which men anxious to pay their just debts are compelled to sell at the wrong time some of the cattle bought under that loan scheme, these cases should be considered for the purpose of postponing payment until the proper time for the sale of these cattle. I know that the Minister will have these matters which are of particular interest in my constituency attended to by his departmental officials. I should like to say on behalf of the farmers in the Luggacurran area that they are extremely grateful to the Minister for his interest in these recent difficult months and they hope that his interest will continue with regard to any current difficulties.
If this debate is to continue to-night, I hope we will have some better effort from the Fianna Fáil benches towards a constructive approach with regard to the agricultural industry. We have not had that up to the present. We have had nothing but bitter criticism of the Minister and suggestions that everything he does is wrong. There has been no suggestion as to what alternative policy he might follow. The only suggestion which came from Deputy Walsh was compulsory tillage. That alternative policy is not one that could ever commend itself to the free farmers of the country, but it appears to be the only suggestion which Fianna Fáil have to offer as their agricultural policy.
I am afraid I misled Deputy de Valera by saying that the 1947 heifer scheme he has in mind, which was a free interest scheme, was still in operation. It is not. I had in mind the ordinary procedure whereby farmers can get loans to replace stock; but not the scheme which I think was present in mind, that is to say, the one to meet a special emergency in 1947 under which farmers got interestfree loans to replace stock.
Major de Valera
I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. The Minister was not present when that question was raised and I think it was Deputy O'Higgins and Deputy Rooney who said across the House to Deputy Lahiffe that the scheme was still there.
I was indeed surprised to hear the Minister say that the free loan scheme introduced by the previous Government in 1947 was still in operation when I was aware that the contrary was the fact. I am glad the Minister has cleared up the matter but, having cleared up the matter, I think it is incumbent on us now to consider what are the best means to adopt to come to the aid of these farmers, especially the small hardworking farmers who have lost a high percentage of their cattle during the recent harsh weather. Deputy O'Higgins seemed to blame Deputy Moran for exaggerating the position.
For telling a cock-and-bull story about one particular case.
But at the same time Deputy T.F. O'Higgins admits that there is a grave problem needing attention.
One beast got sick.
In my opinion, the statement made here by Deputy Moran last week was substantially correct.
You are quite mistaken and I will give you full particulars of that case, because I have inspected the farm.
In the part of the country that I represent——
Kerry?
Yes.
This woman lived in Mayo.
——the cattle have been dying of hunger.
She was selling hay by the cartload.
Deputy Davin smiles but Deputy Davin does not understand the conditions that obtain in the part of the country that I come from.
That is quite right.
That being so, it would be well for Deputy Davin to listen to what I have to say.
I thought you were talking about Deputy Moran's story.
In the part of the country that I come from the farmers have been very badly hit because of the shortage of fodder and foodstuffs.
What shortage of foodstuffs?
Shortage of hay in the first place. There has been a very grave shortage of hay, such a grave shortage that hay has been fetching as high as £1 per cwt. Within the past couple of weeks at markets in my constituency where hay was for sale, the farmers stampeded the market in an endeavour to get hay to prevent their cattle from dying of starvation. I have been informed that even the newly-calved cows are dying in that part of the country.
What part of the country?
I am speaking about certain parts of North Kerry. Apparently the position in North Kerry is much the same as that obtaining in other parts of the West, especially in the congested areas.
Is there any area in North Kerry the Deputy has in mind?
I am referring to North Kerry.
The whole of it?
The Minister has been talking about parish agents. If the Minister has parish agents to spare, he should send them down there to get him the information he is looking for.
I get a weekly report from every parish in North Kerry.
I am telling the Minister my own experience and giving him my own knowledge.
Will yon not tell me the area so that I can help you if it is possible?
There are many areas. It is widespread all over the place.
Would you tell me one area?
Deputy O'Higgins——
Why do you withhold the information when I want to help?
Deputy O'Higgins upbraided Deputy Moran for raising this matter here.
Give us one area.
I will make my own speech in my own way just as Deputy O'Higgins made his speech in his own way. I am making this statement with a view to ascertaining from the Minister whether he proposes to reintroduce the 1947 scheme under which loans free of interest were made available to the farmers who had suffered in the bad spring of that year.
I want to prevent the cows dying.
What about the farmers whose cattle have died——
Tell me where they are.
——and who cannot replace them?
Tell me where they are and I will help them if I can.
I will tell the Minister that later on.(Interruptions.)
We would like to know when the Minister is replying whether he proposes to reintroduce that scheme or some scheme of a similar nature in order to come to the rescue of the small farmers who cannot afford to replace the cattle that have died. We have heard speeches from some Deputies here describing how well off the farmers are. Listening to them speak, one would think that the farmers are living in riches. Deputy T.F. O'Higgins spoke about the farmers in his constituency having motor cars. I can assure Deputy O'Higgins that many farmers in the constituency I represent have not got motor cars.
A lot of them have.
They cannot afford such a luxury. It might be argued, perhaps, that some of the big farmers, such as those Deputy Fagan and a few others have in mind, are well off. Those who produce fat cattle and have land on which to rear those cattle are well off. They are not the farmers we have in mind. They are not the hardworking farmers who could be described as the backbone of the nation. Judging by some of the speeches made on the Government benches, one would imagine that the prices the farmers are getting at the present time are due to Government policy. Such is not the case, and that the prices the farmers are getting for their produce and their cattle, especially——
Their sheep and greyhounds.
——are not due to anything this Government has done.
What about sheep?
I would like someone to point out to me what agreement or portion of an agreement the present Government came to with anybody outside that would justify that line of argument? The present prices the farmers are getting for their cattle are due to world circumstances; they are scarcity prices. I am not in a position, no more than the Minister, I think, to say how long those scarcity prices will last, but when I hear Deputies speak here and down the country and say how well off the farmers are under the present Government, I have to smile. Somebody said here quite recently that the farmers would be better off were it not for the action of the present Government, were it not for the 1948 agreement. Somebody has referred to that already and reference has been made to the prohibition that has been put on this country by that agreement, whereby we have to sell 90 per cent. of our cattle to our neighbours across the water.
We never succeeded in shipping the 10 per cent.
The Minister, in reply to that, said he had not the shipping to send them elsewhere. I am sure that if the Minister and the Government made an agreement with another country or other countries, the Governments there would find shipping, if they got the cattle.
We did make an agreement and they did not get it.
If there were free competition between our nearest neighbour and the people of other countries on the Continent of Europe, the price of cattle would be higher.
There is free competition.
No: 90 per cent. of our cattle must go to Britain, whether we like it or not.
The continental men are fly-by-night men, according to the Minister.
Is fíor dhuit.
How are we getting on with the eggs?
Very nicely, thank you, Deputy. You will be very much distressed. Prepare yourself for bad news.
We are always prepared for it here.
What about the price of sheep?
Deputy Davin should not get excited. It is very bad for him.
I thought the Deputy was losing his memory about the sheep.
I am not, I have a very good memory, thanks be to God. Reference has been made to compulsory tillage. One would imagine by the way some Deputies opposite speak that there is a clear line of cleavage between Deputies opposite and here on that matter.
Is there not?
In my opinion, the best way to encourage tillage in this or any country is by price inducement.
Hear, hear!
A Deputy
Come over and join us.
What is the present Government doing by price inducement to encourage tillage? The Minister waited until a couple of weeks ago before he announced an increase in the price of wheat—and the best brand of wheat at that. If he were serious it is not a couple of weeks ago he would have offered it, small though it is, but in September or October of last year, so as to give the farmers an opportunity of taking advantage of it. Everybody knows that the Minister is not serious about the growing of wheat here. It would mean going back on his former statements and his attitude as evidenced by his statements here and outside. That explains why he did not announce this increase until a few weeks ago. However, my chief reason for intervening in this debate is——
To stop me from getting in to-night.
——that I am thoroughly dissatisfied, as are many people, in the country, with the way in which the Minister has handled the milk question. I come from a part of the country——
A Deputy
Where all the cattle are dying.
——where there are many dairy farmers. The way in which the Minister has treated them is nothing short of a public scandal.
Cad chuige?
We remember when this present Government was formed and the Minister for Agriculture took office——
A long time ago now.
Too long.
Not to forget the 10/- calves.
The people of the country consider it a long time——
More than three months.
——and they long for the day when it will come to an end.
We still remember the 10/- calves.
A Leas-Chinn Chomhairle, am I entitled to speak here?
Acting-Chairman
Yes.
Since I got on my feet about a quarter of an hour ago, there has been nothing but a barrage of interruptions. I am entitled to make my views known in this House——
Is fíor dhuit.
——just the same as other Deputies. It is an extraordinary thing that whenever Deputies from this side speak there is a barrage of interruptions, but no such barrage from this side when anybody over there stands up.
They are afraid to hear the truth about the shocking conditions.
They are afraid I will tell them some of the truth and it may be all of the truth. When the present Minister assumed office, he went to great pains to tell the people that he was their servant, that they were his masters.
Nach bhfuil sé sin ceart?
He said that any time they had a grievance all they need do would be to come to Government Buildings in Merrion Street and they would be received with open arms. I wonder to what extent the Minister has fulfilled that undertaking. I regard the dairy farmers as the most important section of the farming community. Quite recently, as everybody knows, the dairy farmers, having organised themselves as they felt it was necessary to do, arranged to send a deputation to the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister refused to meet that deputation and, when he was questioned as to the reason why, he said that it was because they belonged to a certain brand of politics and because they were racketeers. Everybody knows, of course, that there was no foundation for that allegation, none whatsoever. Everybody knows now that that was only a smoke-screen which the Minister was using to prevent the representatives of the milk suppliers from putting their case. The Minister felt that he had no case to put up against it. Why not give those people an opportunity of putting their case? What has the Minister to fear from that? Are they not as much entitled to put their case to the Minister and the Government as any other section of the community? No. The Minister did not want to receive them because he had made up his mind, from the very commencement, that he was not going to increase the price of milk delivered at the creameries. Finally, when he met the representatives of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, he increased the price not by 1d. a gallon as some of the Deputies here have been saying——
But by £1,000,000 per annum.
I am talking about the increase in the price per gallon. There is no increase of 1d. in the gallon for milk delivered at the creameries.
£1,000,000 per annum.
Make no mistake about that. There is an increase of 1d. per gallon for six months of the year, but there is no increase for the other portion of the year. While everybody must admit that the period of the year in question is the most important from the point of view of milk supplies, still at the same time there is a fairly substantial supply in the months of April and November——
What proportion?
——apart entirely from the other months. My summing up is that if the increase of 1d. per gallon were stretched over the entire 12 months, it would amount to about ¾d. Let us be clear. The Minister has given the dairy farmers an increase of only ¾d.
£1,000,000 per annum.
Whatever the total amounts to I hold and anybody who studies the matter must hold that the increase in the price of milk is only ¾d. per gallon.
Or £1,000,000 per annum.
Side by side with that increase of ¾d. per gallon in the price of milk, the Minister did not forget to clap on an increase of 2d. a lb. on the butter consumed by the people in the country, both rich and poor alike. The Minister's former attitude was that if he acceded to demands that had been made he was going to put a crushing burden on the consumers of this country. The Minister need not have put on any such impost on the consuming public. He need not have put on an increase of 2d. per lb. on butter because a subsidy policy is already there. All he need have done was to increase the subsidy and the money could be got for that purpose.
We have heard a lot from some of the Deputies opposite and from certain members of the Government, especially the Tánaiste, about the inordinate profits that certain people in trade and commerce in this country were getting out of the people. Why not tax those? Why not tax these people who are alleged to be getting inordinate profits over the heads of the Irish people? Why not put on the excess profits tax that we have heard so much from the Labour Party about?
Would you vote for it?
Certainly. I will vote for it any day if these people, as has been alleged, are lining their pockets with the spoils that they have got from the Irish people. That is one way in which they can be made to disgorge these profits by the reimposition of the excess profits tax. If that is done, the Government need not increase the price of butter for the consuming public in this country. It was a mistake to do that. In my opinion, it was a great mistake, because it imposes a burden on the poor people. Large families, especially, can ill afford any increase in the price of butter at the present time. As it happens, they find it very hard to get butter at all in certain parts of the country at the present time. I think that the Minister has mishandled this whole problem. I think he would be far better off if he had received the deputation from the milk suppliers' association because they would have been in a position to discuss all these matters with him.
And remind me of the 4d. per gallon they got when the last Minister was in office.
The Minister made a great mistake when he mentioned that. When we got into office first in 1932, the price of milk delivered at the creameries was 3½d. per gallon. We kept on raising the price of milk down through the years up to 1946, when it was about 9d. per gallon. In 1946, we raised the price from 9d. to 1/2 and 1/4 per gallon. That is the history of the price of milk——
Fourpence per gallon.
——if the Minister forgets it. I am prepared to stand over the statement that I have made. There are Deputies in this House who know just as well as I do——
Fourpence per gallon.
——that we were the first Government to lift the dairy industry from the slough of despond in which it had been up to the time we came into office.
Fourpence per gallon.
We started to do that when we brought in the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act, 1932.
And we paid the British £4 a cwt. to eat the butter.
If the Minister looks up the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act, 1932, he will find the commencement——
Of 4d. per gallon.
——of the policy that has been pursued by the Fianna Fáil Government throughout the years.
And we paid the British £4 a cwt. to eat the butter.
Dealing again with the milk suppliers' association, I notice the Minister does not like to hear anything about that. It is our duty to remind him of it, and to remind him of the way in which he has thwarted those people, and the way in which he has mismanaged the whole problem. The point is that there probably would never have been a milk suppliers' association as such in existence, were it not for the action and policy of the Minister himself, because it was when the Minister made an attempt, and a very subtle attempt indeed, to reduce the price of milk last year from 1/2 or 1/4 to 1/- per gallon for the next five years that the dairy farmers thought it necessary to organise themselves in order to defend themselves against the policy of the Minister. The Minister held out the carrot of a nebulous five-year plan to the dairy farmers, if they would be foolish enough to accept 1/- a gallon for their milk.
Not to mind 4d.
But the dairy farmers were not so foolish as the Minister thought.
They were not given the option 15 years ago. They got 4d. a gallon and liked it.
The dairy farmers were wide awake and they knew very well that the Minister had no five-year plan, because if he had had such a plan, he should have explained it and should have told the people exactly what it was. It was only when he proceeded to reduce the price of milk delivered to the creameries that the people heard of this five-year plan for the first time. It was, of course, a matter of expediency then to talk about a five-year plan, but the five-year plan hoax did not fool the farmers. The dairy farmers organised themselves and they have a strong organisation in the country now, and, even though the Minister may stand up and call them racketeers and their movement a Fianna Fáil ramp as he did here recently, I can assure him that the organisation is composed of people of different political opinions. If the Minister has read the correspondence that has appeared in the Press and the resolutions and pronouncements from these farmers——
From all the Fianna Fáil hacks in Ireland.
——he must have now come to the conclusion that they are no such thing, that they represent the dairy farmers, that they represent the farmers who supply milk to the creameries and that they are not actuated by any political motives whatever.
Broken-down Fianna Fáil wheel-horses.
They must be powerful, because the Minister is afraid to meet them.
Demosthenes from Cashel has arrived.
The Chair desires to have order and asks Deputies on both sides to allow Deputy Kissane to make his speech.
He has been speaking for the past 35 minutes and has not been given a chance by the Opposition.
I am not referring to the length of time but to the disorder consequent on interruptions.
I do not mind the interruptions at all.
The Chair does.
The difficulty is that some of the Deputies opposite do not want to hear the naked truth. I have been trying to give the House a résumé of what has happened to the dairy farmers and I hope that, apart from interruptions or anything else, the Minister will bear my remarks in mind. I might as well finish my discourse on the topic of the price of milk by saying that the dairy farmers consider the Minister's offer of ¾d. per gallon increase in the price of milk——
Or £1,000,000, per year.
——an insult.
It is a dear insult. I wish someone would insult me with £1,000,000 a year. It would be heartily welcome.
Deputy Bartley mentioned the Gaeltacht. Representing a Gaeltacht constituency as I do, I think the Minister does not appear to realise what the requirements of the Gaeltacht are. There has been much discussion and much has been written about what the Minister is going to do for the people of Connemara, and everybody knows that the scheme the Minister has in mind is quite impracticable. This proposal to remove the rocks from the soil would not deceive anybody who knows the country, who knows the lie of the land in the Gaeltacht, and, as Deputy Bartley said, it would be much better if the Minister would consider reintroducing the tomato scheme. I was surprised, and, I must say, shocked, when I heard the Minister challenging that proposal on the ground of economy. There is one thing we must make up our minds on: if we are to do something practical and something worth while for the Gaeltacht, our criterion must not be whether it is going to be economic or not.
I thought that was the reason for your condemnation of my plan.
The reason I condemn the rocks scheme is that it is impracticable and fantastic.
And what about the nylons scheme?
I am not dealing with that. I am trying to impress on the Minister that, if the Government have any scheme in mind for an improvement of the economic conditions of the Gaeltacht, they must not consider it in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, because the people of the Gaeltacht, situated as they are in the barren parts of the country, are entitled to special consideration from the other people of the country who are in better circumstances. I hold that, instead of condemning the glass-house scheme for tomato growing as an exotic scheme, as the Minister did, he should have given it every encouragement.
It is a futile fraud.
He should have seen to it that it was extended to other parts of the Gaeltacht instead of closing it down.
Slandering the people of Connemara again.
There are other ways in which the economic conditions of the Gaeltacht can be improved, because, as the Minister is aware, certain experiments have been carried out in my constituency, in some of the barren parts, and it has been discovered that it is possible to produce the best of beet from reclaimed bog.
There is nobody stopping you.
No doubt the Minister knows that. It is a scheme that was introduced by one of the agricultural instructors down there. When he went to experiment on it everybody laughed at the idea. They said that beet could not be produced from the red bog, but such has been the case. I commend the scheme to the Minister. In my opinion, not merely can beet be produced from bog, when it is properly cultivated, but other things as well can be produced from it. I remember that some time last year we had a debate in this House on the Gaeltacht. I pointed out some of the possibilities—one of which was the production of early potatoes. I do not know whether the Minister and his Department have given any consideration to that possibility. In some parts of the Gaeltacht, in the constituency which I represent, these crops come in earlier than they do in inland parts of the country. It would be worth while to make the experiment. I have in mind the individual effort or efforts of one small farmer in South Kerry who actually produced potatoes as early as the people in Rush and Swords and who actually sent them to the Dublin market.
The Deputy is aware of the existence of Castlegregory?
Of course, and I am aware of the onion industry there.
And why it is there? Why?
Because the soil is suitable for it. The sandy soil is suitable for the production of onions.
Did the Deputy ever hear of an eel-worm?
I did, and I know something about it. I was reared not too far at all from the land. However, I am just trying to point out that it is possible to develop the Gaeltacht in ways other than by attacking the deep-seated rocks.
It is a wonder your Government did not do it during the 16 years they were in office.
We did many things for the Gaeltacht. During our term of office we set up industries in the Gaeltacht. We expanded the activities of Seirbhisí na Gaeltacht. We established factories in Donegal and in Mayo—toy factories, and so forth.
And you forgot Kerry?
Only agricultural industries, in relation to the Department of Agriculture, are relevant now.
It is very difficult to separate the Gaeltacht——
I am sure the Deputy will succeed if he tries hard enough.
It is very difficult to separate the Gaeltacht—the agricultural needs of the Gaeltacht and the economic needs of the Gaeltacht— from any discussion on the Department of Agriculture. I imagine that, if the individual efforts of an ordinary private citizen would succeed in a case like this, surely the Department of Agriculture—with all its technical advisers and all the information that it has at its disposal—would be able to make a greater success, given the will and the wherewithal to do it.
It does not get much thanks when it tries.
I come now to the land rehabilitation scheme. This is a scheme which received the benediction of all Parties in the House.
What did you say?
Deputy Allen and Deputy Harris both objected to it to-night.
I am referring to the time. Do not be so hasty.
There is a nigger in the woodpile.
Listen and learn.
I am referring to the time when the legislation was being passed through this House. When the legislation providing for the carrying out of this project was passing through the House all Parties supported it. There is no doubt about that.
They were afraid to vote against it.
That is what you think.
Of course.
If Deputies opposite try to suggest that any of us on these benches want to condemn the scheme they are making a mistake. For my own part, any scheme that is likely to improve the fertility and the productivity of the land will have my support. But it is one thing to support a scheme and another thing——
——to go on supporting it.
——to examine the way in which the scheme is being administered. Deputies on all sides of the House have complained of the delay that had been evident in the administration of the scheme. In fact, the other night I happened to be at a meeting and one of the members present asked me if such a scheme was in operation at all.
Where was that?
I tried to tell him, to the best of my ability, that there was.
Where was this, Deputy? On the top of Carrantuohill, I suppose?
I do not travel as far as that. I just want to say that at the present rate of progress it will take a long time before the £40,000,000, which the Minister envisaged, will be expended on the scheme. I notice that no less a sum than £600,000 has been taken from it in the Estimates this year. If Deputies will look at the Book of Estimates they will see that there is a reduction of £600,000 in the amount of money being made available for the administration of the land rehabilitation scheme. I do not know the reason for that reduction.
Because when you have bought machinery you do not go on buying it and buying it and buying it. You buy it once and you use it.
The Minister might want to purchase more machinery. It may be that some of the machinery which was purchased is not suitable at all.
That may be, but I do not think it is so.
How about the glacial rocks?
And the green grass?
Deputy Davern is talking to himself.
At the present slow rate of progress at which the land rehabilitation scheme is being carried out——
Deputy Davin should keep his hair on.
Deputy Kissane, on the Estimate.
I was just pointing out that at the present rate of progress the £40,000,000 which the Minister is getting from Marshall Aid funds will not be expended until the Minister is a very old man.
Me?
Yes, in fact he will be nearly a centenarian.
Me? Now?
I said: "until the Minister..." I notice that the amount in the Estimates—I have not the book with me here—is £2,700,000.
Deputy Walsh is missed to-night. He usually carries the statistics for his Party.
He is always sent out for them. Send out Deputy Davern and he will get them for you.
The Minister for Agriculture is much more like a runner than I am. I was never sent to get the secrets of the British Budget either. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Do not draw me out—for your own sake and for the sake of posterity.
In order to bring this debate into some state of order——
It is to those behind you you should talk.
No, you are the cause of it over there. You are not prepared to listen to us.
I should like to refer to one item that came up for discussion some time before Easter. A Supplementary Estimate was before the Dáil and reference was made, I think by Deputy Major de Valera, to the 10/- per ton allowance which was taken from the wholesale flour merchants.
I never heard of wholesale flour millers in my life.
I mean wholesalers dealing in bran and pollard. Even though the Minister went to great pains to explain the reason for the reduction I cannot say that his explanation satisfied me fully. If he could point out to my satisfaction that the 10/- per ton allowance which used to be given to those wholesale merchants and which was taken from them by the present Minister was going back to the consumers everything would be all right, but the Minister did not point out any such thing. I read the debate afterwards and I could not find any evidence in the Minister's statement that the consumers were getting any concession or relief as a result of the withdrawal of that allowance. I think he endeavoured to explain that it was being utilised to keep prices at a certain level. If it is being utilised for that purpose the point is whether it will succeed; will the Minister succeed and will the withdrawal of that 10/- per ton ensure that the prices will not go up?
If it means that the price comes down will the Deputy agree with me that it is wise?
Yes.
The Deputy will approve of it?
Yes.
It is coming down
That is what I wanted to know.
You will get that gratifying news very shortly.
If I get an assurance from the Minister that the withdrawal of the 10/- allowance on bran and pollard will benefit the consumers then everything will be all right.
Seeing will be believing.
How soon will that be seen, could the Minister say?
Sooner than you expect.
A Daniel comes to judgment. Tá an ceart agat.
I did not address my question to Deputy Davin because Deputy Davin knows nothing at all about it. I addressed my question to the Minister.
I adopt Deputy Davin's visionary reply.
The Minister should not be misled by Deputy Davin's reply. I should like to get a definite reply from the Minister when I ask when the effect of the withdrawal of the allowance will be seen and felt by the consumer. Could the Minister tell me that?
I adopt Deputy Davin's formula: Sooner than you expect.
How soon is that?
I think the Deputy knows that better than I.
Even if I knew it it would be well that the other members of the House should know it——
I suggest that the Deputy should tell them.
——because other Deputies are just as interested as I am.
This cross-examination shall cease.
I am not the Minister for Agriculture and it is not my duty to tell them any such thing. It is the Minister's duty to tell Deputies and the public how soon this reduction will come into operation.
The Deputy has asked that several times.
If I have I have got no reply.
The Minister need not reply, so the Deputy should continue.
In fact, Sir, you have suggested that there should be no interruptions.
I must say that the suggestion has not been adopted very generally.
I would not consider the answering of a pertinent question an interruption.
We are not discussing interruptions—but interrupting the discussion.
Deputy Dockrell speaking on this Estimate rebuked us on this side of the House for being very severe on the Minister in our criticisms. Our business in this House is to criticise and to encourage also if we can, and I am inclined to think that this debate on agriculture has been conducted on very moderate lines.
I thought you were going to say on very tedious lines.
If we sometimes use harsh expressions it is because we feel rather strongly on certain things.
Hear, hear!
Even Deputy Davin sometimes indulges in very harsh language.
And I must say that Deputy Davin indulges in many interruptions.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25th.