Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Nov 1951

Vol. 127 No. 2

Agricultural Workers—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion and amendment:—

That Dáil Éireann considers that the minimum wage payable to agricultural workers in County Dublin should be £4 10s. a week and in all other areas £4 a week.—(Deputies Dunne and Kyne.)

Amendment:

To delete all words after "considers" and substitute the following:—

"that decisions on minimum wages payable to agricultural workers should continue to be a function of the Agricultural Wages Board."— (Deputy Davern.)

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

After the debate we have had for the last few hours about the Central Bank and the state of the country's finances, I think it appropriate that we should pass on to another matter which is not of less importance, namely, the conditions under which agricultural labourers exist in this country to-day. The motion tabled by Deputy Dunne merely asks the House to give an expression of opinion as to what would be a proper wage for an agricultural labourer. For a couple of hours on last Wednesday night we had members of the Fianna Fáil Party, led by the Minister for Agriculture, trying to evade the issue, so much so that Deputy Davern was prompted to put down an amendment to the effect that the determination of a minimum wage for agricultural labourers is properly the job of the Agricultural Wages Board. If Deputy Davern, the Minister and other Deputies supporting the present Government believe that, they believe that a wage of £3 7s. 6d. per week is sufficient to enable an agricultural labourer to support himself, his wife and family. I do not think it improper for this House to express an opinion in regard to the wages of agricultural labourers because it would not be the first occasion upon which Deputies did express an opinion on matters in which they did not actually have a function.

It is not the function of this House to fix rates of wages for agricultural labourers but I think, in view of the increased prosperity enjoyed by the farming community for the last three or four years, that we should by adopting this motion express our disapproval of the attitude of the Agricultural Wages Board to a section of the community who have in times of emergency been described as the front line fighters in the battle to produce food.

The Minister may represent a very prosperous constituency, the home of many generous farmers. I do not know whether I heard him aright or not but, in any case, in reading the debate of last week I noticed that the Minister said that there are very few agricultural labourers working for the minimum wage and that he expressed amazement at a particular statement made by Deputy Dunne in respect of wages paid to agricultural labourers in County Wexford. I must say that I was more than amazed at the Minister's statement that very few farmers were paying the minimum wage and that the majority of them were paying more. I made it my business to make some inquiries in my constituency, not alone amongst the labourers themselves but also from some farmers, and the best that I could get from any farmer in Wexford was a statement to the effect that the maximum number paying £3 7s. 6d. per week or above that amount to their labourers, would be 10 per cent.

Wexford is no different from the majority of counties in this State. I asked a trade union organiser and he told me that there were few or none paying above the minimum rate of £3 7s. 6d. On the other hand, it is a fact, as I discovered during the week-end, that there was at least one agricultural labourer working for 15/- per week all found. The Minister says that is scandalous. He says that it is scandalous that there should be two Labour Deputies in County Wexford and that that position should still obtain. He must remember that we are slightly more active in Wexford in the Labour Party than he would give us credit for and that that particular farmer has been reported. That is an example to the Minister to show that the majority of employers, not alone in County Wexford or in Ireland, but the whole world over, will pay the lowest wage they can get away with.

There is not an abundance of generosity amongst employers generally when it comes to a question of wages and the Minister knows that as well as I do. I have yet to find an employer who would voluntarily call his workers together and say: "Well, we have good times for the last two years and I have decided to give you an increase of 5/- per week". The only way by which an improvement in working conditions could be secured was by action taken through the different organisations or trade unions. The Minister need not fret for the unfortunate individual who is getting only 15/- per week. All I urge him to do in that respect is to see that the inspector which the Agricultural Wages Board has been requested to send down, is sent down immediately.

We in my constituency are perfectly well aware of the attitude of Fianna Fáil so far as wages are concerned. It is the belief of Deputy Corry and of many others on the Government side of the House that farmers cannot afford an increase in wages and that the Labour Party will have to vote for an increase in the prices paid to farmers or for an improvement in their conditions before the farmers can afford to give any more than £3 7s. 6d. per week. I do not think that the Wexford County Council would be bankrupted if they were to pay their road workers and their drainage workers something more than is being paid at present but the attitude of the Fianna Fáil representatives on that county council when a wage demand is made on behalf of the road workers is summed up in "opposition, opposition" all the time. However, they cannot say in this House that the farmer cannot afford to pay his labourer more than £3 7s. 6d. per week because the county council can afford a better wage to their road workers and their drainage workers but Fianna Fáil votes prevent them from getting it.

I should also like to ask the House and particularly members of the Fianna Fáil Party why should we have these groups into which agricultural labourers are segregated. An agricultural labourer in Wexford is no different from an agricultural labourer in Wicklow, Laois, Offaly, Kerry, Limerick, Cork or any of these other counties where the Agricultural Wages Board have laid down a minimum wage in excess of £3 7s. 6d. per week. Agricultural labourers in Wexford have to feed and clothe their families just the same as agricultural labourers elsewhere and I cannot understand why they should have to suffer a reduction in their wages, as compared with labourers in other counties, varying from 2/6 up to 10/- or 15/- per week. Prices in Wexford are no different from prices in the counties I have mentioned.

Every farmers' representative who speaks about the wages of agricultural labourers thinks he has brought off a great coup when he talks about perquisites.

I have never seen an agricultural labourer coming home loaded down with what the farmer gives him in the way of potatoes, cabbage, milk or any other produce. That may have happened when there was a scandalously low wage, when wages were as low as 25/- or 20/- per week, as they were not so very long ago.

Mr. Cunningham

Was it not the Fianna Fáil Government that brought about the increase in wages?

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

The Fianna Fáil Government gave the credit to the Agricultural Wages Board.

Mr. Cunningham

The Fianna Fáil Party set up the Agricultural Wages Board.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

I am speaking about the perquisites which farmers' representatives, not alone in the Fianna Fáil Party, but in other parties, say they are giving to the labourers—sacks of potatoes, gallons of milk, loads of cabbage and free horses to a large extent. That has gone entirely. Let nobody imagine that if an agricultural labourer gets £3 7s. 6d. a week it is made up to the extent of another 5/-, 10/- or 15/- per week by way of perquisites. The Minister admitted, not directly, that there is a case at the present time for an increase in the minimum laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board when he declared that a majority of farmers are paying more than the minimum. If the conscience of any employer has touched him to the extent that he is paying more in wages than is laid down, then there is a clear case, in my opinion. If the Minister were honest with himself he would admit directly that there is a case for an increase in the wages of agricultural labourers.

Deputy Corry tried to give us the farmers' point of view. He talked at length, as he is wont to do. He was asked a few direct questions from this side of the House. He was asked what the farmers wanted to put them in a position to pay the agricultural labourer a decent wage. He went to Korea, he went to Ceylon, he travelled the globe, but never once did he make a case for an increase in the farmer's lot.

May I qualify my remarks by saying that I am not anti-farmer as many non-Labour representatives in this House would have one believe the Labour Party are. I have heard farmers speaking in this House but I have never heard a case made by them that their position would not allow them to pay a little more than they are paying at the present time. They mumber about costings, about the increased price of machinery and feeding stuffs, but we have not had the case put in black and white or in any clear or simplified manner by any farmer representative in the last two or three years. If the Minister or any farmer representative can prove a case for the betterment of the lot of the farmer, for better prices, for increased profits, he will have the Labour Party's support.

I am not a statistician. I made investigations at the week-end which prove conclusively that the farmer has prospered since 1938. There is hardly any necessity to quote figures to show that the farmer's lot has improved. The farmers admit that their position has improved through increased prices, through Government aid over the last number of years. The number of cars that one sees in rural areas, while not absolute proof, is an indication that the agricultural industry has been greatly helped in the last three or four years. All we ask, all we have ever asked from the agricultural industry or any other industry is that, when it prospers, some measure of that prosperity should be handed on to the men who have to work in that industry week after week, in this case the agritural labourers.

The income of farmers and the members of their families increased from 1938 to 1950 by 181 per cent. The further increases in prices that have been announced lately by the Minister would increase that percentage. Bearing in mind that the number of farmers engaged in agriculture has decreased, as we are often told, the increase in income per capita is much more than 181 per cent. If we relate that increase in income to the increase in retail prices, we find that the average standard of living of farmers has increased by from 60 to 70 per cent. since 1938. These figures might be misleading if we were to take them alone. Let us consider the position of the agricultural labourer, remembering always that the agricultural labourer, as far back as 1922, has been treated like a slave.

I am not saying that the farmer had an easy life. The farmer worked as hard as the farm labourer but I suggest that he got a little more in return. When I say that the wages of the agricultural labourer have increased by 123 per cent. since 1939, that does not represent the increase rightly due to him having regard to the fact that in 1939 the average wage of the farm labourer was 27/6. That is not so very long ago. In 1939 the average rate for women workers was 31s. 6d. At that time they were not as well organised in their trade unions as they are now. The average wage for the farm labourer was 27/6. If we relate the 123 per cent. increase to the increase in retail prices, we find that the standard of living of the farm labourer has increased by only 20 per cent. from 1939 to 1950.

Therefore this House should place on record its opinion that the rate of wages laid down by the Agricultural Wages Board does not represent a living wage. There should not be any necessity to try to prove a case in this House for an increase in a wage like £3 7s. 6d. in 1951. Regardless of who is to blame for an increase in prices, I do not think any of us would like to look at a wage packet of £3 7s. 6d. every Friday or Saturday night. We do not have to go into the details of the family budget to discover where £3 7s. 6d. would go. Remember, there are a good many labourers who are forced to work for less than £3 7s. 6d. a week. Take the case of the man who is receiving 15/- per week all found. This "all found" business is supposed to cover a multitude. The inspector from the Agricultural Wages Board may call on that particular farmer and inquire the rate of wages he is paying to the agricultural labourer and will be told that the labourer is getting 15/- "all found." The inspector may point out that that is not enough and may tell the farmer that he will be prosecuted unless he pays the minimum wage. In some cases the farmer will take it out of his employee and on the following Monday morning the labourer will get his national health insurance card and will be told to go about his business. That has happened. It has happened in the case of agricultural labourers in my constituency who asked that the benefits of the Weekly Half-Holiday Act and the Agricultural Labourers (Holidays) Act be applied to them. I appreciate that the Minister does not condone such action.

The reason we tabled this motion in respect of agricultural labourers was not for the purpose of distinguishing them from industrial workers who are protected and, thanks be to God, well protected by the trade unions. The unfortunate agricultural labourer has some protection in some counties where he is catered for by the Federation of Rural Workers. Everybody appreciates how extremely difficult it is to organise agricultural labourers into a trade union because of the fact that they are so scattered and because it is very difficult for them to meet regularly in their branches. Consequently, we ask this House, if you like, to condemn the attitude of the Agricultural Wages Board in their wage policy.

That is not a Party matter. It is not an issue on which the Government can stand or fall. It is an issue on which we in this House should have the courage of our convictions. If we vote against this motion it means that we condone the action of the Agricultural Wages Board in laying down £3 7s. 6d. per week as agricultural wages. If the House accepts this motion there is the possibility that it may bring the Agricultural Wages Board to heel.

What I have to say now does not apply only to the agricultural industry. When increased prices are granted to an industry—in this case the agricultural industry—there is, I suppose, a move by the Agricultural Wages Board to increase the wage of the farm labourer by some few shillings. However, there is a big time lag. I think that in my county the agricultural labourers received their last increase about six months ago: I am not absolutely certain of the period.

Even during that six months, the farmers of this country have received higher prices in respect of the crops that were harvested in the last month or so. We wonder when the Agricultural Wages Board will move and pass on some of the prosperity that the farmers have enjoyed and are enjoying at the present time to the agricultural labourer. We wonder how long it will take the board to pass on some of that prosperity to the agricultural labourer.

An Ceann Comhairle

Before I call any other Deputy I should like to remind the House that this motion will automatically terminate at 10.5 p.m. I assume that the mover of the motion may desire some time to reply.

Mr. O. Flanagan

I rise to support the very reasonable case made by Deputy Dunne, which was ably supported by Deputy Corish. It is quite true, and I hope the House realises it, that for three years we had banshee wailings and groans from the present Minister for Agriculture and from Deputy Corry when they were in Opposition on this side of the House concerning the plight of the agricultural worker. On one occasion I saw the present Minister weep when he was appealing to the former Minister for Agriculture to come to the rescue of the man who, he said, was as important as the farmer himself. The present Minister is now in a position to bring about the realisation of his dreams.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Walsh)

The Minister has no function whatsoever in this case.

Mr. Cunningham

Deputy Flanagan is wrong.

Mr. O. Flanagan

The Deputy was not here. He was on the hills of Donegal. I say here and now that the present Minister for Agriculture wept bitter tears because of the plight of the agricultural workers when he was on this side of the House. He is now shirking his responsibility. He now tells the House that he has no power —and he is right. But he is in a position to get the power to remedy the grievance of the agricultural workers.

Mr. Walsh

Surely Deputy Flanagan was in a better position for three and a half years to do so than I am now, because he was such a friend of the previous Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. O. Flanagan

If the Minister for Agriculture comes to this House and asks for powers to regulate the wages of the agricultural worker he will get the support——

Mr. Davin

He appoints the chairman.

Mr. O. Flanagan

He appoints all the representatives. I have repeatedly made appeals in this House both to the Minister and to his predecessor and to the former Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture to do away with two disastrous institutions in this State concerning agriculture—the Agricultural Credit Corporation and the Agricultural Wages Board.

Mr. Cunningham

Why does the Deputy not put down a motion?

Mr. O. Flanagan

Deputy Dunne has asked that the wages of agricultural workers in County Dublin be increased to £4 10s. 0d. a week and that they be increased to £4 a week in other areas. I accept Deputy Dunne's word when he says that if the agricultural labourer in County Dublin had £4 10s. 0d. a week he would consider it a reasonably good wage.

Mr. Dunne

He would not.

Mr. O. Flanagan

That might have been a good wage when the inter-Party Government was in office, but how far will £4 10s. 0d. a week go to-day? The agricultural worker finds that, as a result of having a Fianna Fáil Government imposed on him, the price of his sugar has increased. If he has to go to the country for his work he will find that the price of his coal has increased substantially. So has the price of his coffee, his cocoa and his cheese. His butter has gone up by 2d. a pound. Eggs have reached almost 6/- a dozen, if he cares to purchase them. His cigarettes have now gone up in price, and if he smokes a pipe his tobacco has gone up. If he lives in the country, the cost of his paraffin oil has gone up and if he lives in the town or in the city his electricity charges have gone up. Any worker who imagines that, with the rising cost of living, he can eke out a mere miserable existence on £4 10s. 0d. a week must think he is a magician. I trust that the Minister will make a statement on this issue.

Mr. Walsh

He has already made it.

Mr. O. Flanagan

I hope he will make a further statement. I hope he will tell this House that he is prepared to recommend Deputy Dunne's motion to the Agricultural Wages Board and, furthermore, that he is prepared to bring legislation into this House to compel them to accept it, if necessary.

It is not correct to say that all the farmers are well off to-day. That is where I disagree with some of the previous speakers.

Mr. Dunne

They were well off.

Mr. O. Flanagan

They were well off before Fianna Fáil took office. The Minister now finds himself in the position that the milk producers are pressing him for further increases in the price of milk. Wicklow farmers are disgusted and disgruntled with his new price for wheat, and every section of the farming community are completely disillusioned because what he promised them did not come to pass.

Mr. Walsh

What an escape you made.

Mr. O. Flanagan

The Minister has appealed to the farmers to work harder and to produce more. In that appeal to the farmers, he is appealing indirectly to the agricultural worker to work longer hours and to put renewed vigour and skill into his work—to walk between the handles of his plough with skill and industry from sunrise to nightfall.

When he wants increased production is it not only right and reasonable that he should respond to the reasonable appeal of this House that the unfortunate man who has to do the spade work in that production—the agricultural labourer—should get all he needs, a decent wage to enable him to live in a Christian manner?

A practice that was in this House for the three years during which the inter-Party Government was in office— a good and simple practice—was that of a free vote. I was wondering whether the Fianna Fáil Party will be Party-tied on this vote. I am wondering whether the practice which gave every Deputy who supported the inter-Party Government the option to vote what way he liked, when he liked and how he liked will be adhered to. I hope and trust that the Minister or whoever is responsible for the Whip on the Fianna Fáil Party will give the Fianna Fáil Deputies freedom to vote on this occasion not against their conscience but with their conscience, if they have such.

Mr. Cunningham

Have you a conscience?

Mr. O. Flanagan

I believe that the vast majority of Deputies from rural constituencies will vote in favour of the motion proposed by Deputy Dunne. The reason they will do that is because they were impressed by the Taoiseach's speech in Galway when he referred to emigration. He, too, gave banshee groans in Galway when he cried for those who emigrated. What is responsible for emigration from rural Ireland? Is it not the state of affairs outlined by Deputy Dunne, Deputy Corish and by every Deputy who speaks his mind as to the conditions of agricultural workers in rural Ireland? I say there are as many farm workers in Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Hull and Burton-on-Trent as there are on the farms of Ireland to-day because they got no encouragement to remain at home. They got no encouragement to work on the land by way of a decent wage to enable them to marry or bring up their families. The reference made by the Taoiseach would have been a good reference if it had been made about 17 years ago. It was 17 years too late.

Let us now appeal to the present Minister to ensure that in that industry for which he is responsible and which is the major and primary industry of the country, namely, agriculture, he will give special consideration to the question of the wages of the unfortunate farm workers. I call them unfortunate. It is quite true to say that human nature, being what it is, we all strive for all we can get and we want to give as little in return as we can. It is also quite true to say that this year, last year and the year before farmers had good times. There is no doubt about that. There was never a better price for barley in the history of the country, no thanks to the Minister for that, who told the Wexford County Committee of Agriculture that he was not responsible for the price of barley. Fianna Fáil cannot claim that, but it is a claim which can be rightly and justly claimed outside this House.

When farmers reaped such a golden harvest from their barley it was an unexpected gift, but no steps in the meantime were taken to give an unexpected gift to the agricultural workers who ploughed the land for that barley. The agricultural workers reaped and threshed the barley, and surely that state of affairs cannot but be fresh in the mind of the Minister for Agriculture. I do not know in what manner the Minister sleeps. I do not know whether he is a sound sleeper or a good sleeper, but surely the ghost of every agricultural worker must appear before him in the dead hours of the night! For that reason, I would ask the Minister to accept the reasonable motion which has been placed on the Order Paper. I trust and hope that it will be accepted.

Deputy Corish said that 27/6 was paid to the farm workers in 1939, the golden year of Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil were in their height and prime in 1939, and 27/6 was paid to the agricultural worker at that stage. The continued increase in the cost of living affects the agricultural labourer equally as seriously as any other citizen. Deputy Corish referred to the fact that industrial workers, clerical workers and civil servants have their unions to protect them but, unfortunately, the agricultural worker in most areas has not his trade union. If he attempts to introduce a trade union into his area the influence and the powers of the influential farmers in the area will squeeze him out of that area, and he will have to join the bread queues in Birmingham about which the Taoiseach wept in Galway a few weeks ago. Hence, the agricultural labourer finds he cannot organise, and when he is not organised his voice is very feeble. I say to Deputy Dunne, who is in the House, I hope to see the day in this country when every agricultural worker will be organised as strongly as the industrial worker, the clerical worker, the civil servant or any other well organised section of the people. If they were organised, the state of affairs that prevailed in County Wexford, where Deputy Corish stated that certain farmers did not pay the rates prescribed by the Agricultural Wages Board, would not exist.

I say that the agricultural worker is entitled to more consideration than he has got. For that reason, if Deputy Dunne challenges a division on this motion, I am prepared to vote for it. As far as my constituents are concerned, not every agricultural worker voted for me. I get a fairly extensive farmers' vote, as the Minister will admit——

Mr. Cunningham

Do you use it?

Mr. O. Flanagan

——and the big farmers in my constituency will still vote for me because I believe I am exercising my parliamentary duties in this House in the interests of the agricultural worker and I will not apologise to any farmer in my constituency, be he big or small, for the act I am about to do in voting for an increase in the agricultural labourers' wages. I seriously appeal to the Minister to take the bull by the horns as far as the Agricultural Wages Board is concerned and scrap that useless body. I urge him to do so with the least possible delay because if he delays he may not continue to be Minister for Agriculture. I have not seen where it has served any useful purpose in the past. The members of the board are appointed by the Minister and it cannot but be that he can whisper into the ears of his appointees on that board the advocating of Government policy as members of the board. That is what the present wages board is doing under the present Minister's policy. The Minister is prepared to ignore the reasonable request of the hardest type of worker in the country, the farm worker. I hope and trust the House will accept the reasonable and genuine plea put forward by Deputy Dunne and so prove really sincere and genuinely interested in increasing production and putting agriculture where it should be. For that reason, I hope and trust the Minister and the House will accept the motion.

Deputies Cogan and Dunne rose.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would remind Deputy Cogan that the mover of the motion, Deputy Dunne, would require at least 15 minutes to reply.

Mr. Cogan

I intend to be very brief. I would not intervene at all if Deputy Dunne had not seen fit to drag my name into the debate. He referred to my opposition to the Half-Holiday Bill. May I remind him that the fiercest opposition to it came from his own side of the House, from his own leader, Deputy Sweetman, who challenged a division on that Bill on the Fifth Stage, after I had indicated that I did not intend to challenge a division and after I had admitted that Deputy Dunne had made reasonable concessions in the hope of securing agreement on the Bill. Yet at that stage Deputy Sweetman, Deputy Dunne's own leader——

Mr. O. Flanagan

Deputy Sweetman is not Deputy Dunne's own leader.

Mr. Cogan

He was the Chief Party Whip of the Government, which Deputy Dunne then supported.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Was he not the Deputy's Whip also at the time?

Mr. Cogan

I think Deputy Dunne has been very unwise to have introduced this motion. The speech we have heard from Deputy Flanagan should convince him on that point. He is endeavouring by the introduction of this motion to take the fixation of minimum agricultural wages out of the hands of a body that has achieved very substantial gains for the agricultural workers and place it in the hands of political playboys who will simply seek to make Party capital out of the agricultural workers' needs and difficulties.

When the Agricultural Wages Board was established, agricultural wages were undoubtedly very low. Agricultural prices were also low. From that stage agricultural prices began to increase, but step by step the board forced the wages upwards and upwards year after year. Never since the board was established has there been a reduction in agricultural wages. Every year there has been a progressive increase. That is a tribute to that body and it proves that the board has achieved a revolution in agriculture. It has fixed a basis below which the standard of living of those engaged in agriculture cannot be forced. There are people in the Labour Party, I am afraid, who would rather see an increase of only 1/- as a result of bitter political or trade union agitation, than see an increase of 10/- or £1 as a result of reasonable negotiation around a conference table at a board meeting.

This is a Christian country. There is a Christian way to settle difficulties as between farmer and worker, and the Christian way is by representatives of each side meeting around a table and discussing their problems. They must weigh up the prices that the farmer is getting for his produce and the costs that the agricultural worker has to incur in order to support his family, and then try to strike a balance.

Over a period of years, since the board was established, it has done very useful work on behalf of the agricultural community — and, incidentally, on behalf of the farmer's own family, since their standard of living to a certain extent is influenced by the wages paid to the worker. Therefore, if Deputy Dunne had the workers' interests at heart, he would withdraw this motion. If he thinks that the board is not as representative as it should be in its membership, he will seek to improve it. I am sure he will not accuse the present Minister of having had any say in the personnel of the present board. I think the present members were appointed by the Minister's predecessor, who was described by Deputy Dunne as a farmers' man. But Deputy Dillon went out of his way to call the farmers, in my constituency at least, "beggars" and no farmers' man would have done that; but the farmers of my constituency dealt with him in their own good time and their own drastic way and they put him out of office.

Mr. O. Flanagan

The farmers of Wicklow did not put him out of office.

Mr. Cogan

It is true that since we got rid of Deputy Dillon there has been a substantial increase in agricultural prices. Wheat and butter prices are better than ever before and there has been a slight increase in milk and also in barley; but agricultural workers have also got an increase in wages.

Mr. O. Flanagan

There has been an increase in the price of tobacco, cigarettes and butter.

Mr. Cogan

I do not want to encroach on Deputy Dunne's time, but he is not doing any service by this motion to the people he represents and particularly to the unorganised workers to whom Deputy Flanagan has referred. The wages board may need some improvement, perhaps it should be made more representative—I do not know exactly how it is constituted—but, if so, let us do that. Let us adhere to the peaceful and Christian method of settling agricultural wages, rather than make them the target of political rancour and conflict, or of trade union rancour and conflict, which would be worse.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Dunne, to conclude.

Mr. Dunne

One would not think, from the paucity of attendance in this House at the moment, that this motion affects the lives of over 100,000 farm workers, not to mention their wives and children—yet it does. It has been sadly amusing to see the puerile efforts made by the members of the Fianna Fáil-Deputy Cogan Coalition to justify what they are going to do in voting against this motion. It does not matter what they say here—and some have said some peculiar things, notably the Minister—what happens here will be told outside. The question is whether or not agricultural workers are to be given £4 a week to live on, and any Deputy who votes against that should hang his head in shame and should not stand up again—as everyone here has done—outside the chapel gate and ask for the votes of decent, honest, hard-working men.

Mr. S. Flanagan

This motion will not give them a penny extra.

Mr. Dunne

Some other time the Deputy can give us his contribution. The Minister adopted a line which I did not think he would adopt, he descended to a level which I did not think he would be capable of—we could describe it as the Corry level—when he said that Deputy Dunne and Deputy Corish did not know anything about agricultural workers.

Mr. Walsh

I never said any such thing.

Mr. Dunne

The Minister did and I will recite it from the Debates for him.

Mr. Walsh

Get that one.

Mr. Dunne

Amongst other things ——

Mr. Walsh

Get that one.

Mr. Dunne

The Minister also said that the wages of agricultural workers in County Dublin were increased by 2/6 early this year as a result of negotiations. That was incorrect. I will not go so far as to say it was an untruth. The Minister must have been misled. It was incorrect. Agricultural workers in County Dublin had their wages increased by 10/- by trade union action and subsequent to that the Agricultural Wages Board came along on the heels of the trade union—as it has done for the last five or six years— and increased the wages by 7/6. The Minister also said that very few men were working to-day for the minimum wage and he says we know nothing about agricultural workers. In the years I have been dealing with them— I make a present of this to the Minister, and if Deputy Corry were here I would make him the same present, but he is never here for a reply; he is always here to make an attack and then run away—I have dealt with more agricultural workers in those areas than the Minister and Deputy Corry will see in their lifetime, and I have talked with more of them and been in their homes, and I know as much as anyone about the problems they have to face.

We find Deputy Cogan talking about Christianity. There are very few people, there is nobody in this Chamber and very few within earshot, who would like to be trying to live on £4 a week in any part of the country or on £4 10s. 0d. in County Dublin. While we have 150,000 men and their families living below that level, not even living on that level, we are talking of Christianity in the hypocritical humbugging way that one learns in this House after a long period of residence.

Thank God, some of us are not here long enough to be so hypocritical. I think there devolves upon the Parliament of the Republic, upon this sovereign Dáil, a responsibility to see what our duty is in relation to any section of the population, not alone so important a section as the section to which we are referring here, where 150,000 people are concerned, but even where one man is concerned. If injustice is done to just one citizen of the Republic, we are entitled to bring that matter here and have it discussed and, if necessary, get the opinion of this House on it. I am not dealing with one man but with those who were led like sheep to the slaughter by Fianna Fáil in the last election. Everyone loved them on election day, sent their cars for them, ushered them into the polling booth, almost wrote down the 1, 2, 3 on the ballot paper for them.

Mr. O. Flanagan

And did do it.

Mr. Dunne

And probably did do it; but here they are now, telling them: "Sure, we have an Agricultural Wages Board to deal with these things; why should we be discussing such a small increase?" The increase asked for by this particular motion is 12/6 a week— 6/6 in some cases and 12/6 in others, the highest being 12/6. Efforts are being made by the Minister and Deputy Corry to justify what is going to happen. But let what happen may. There will be a division on this and every Deputy will be entitled to decide as best he can. I would like to see happen what happened here in the régime of the last Government, when Deputies were entitled to make up their own minds, and did so, and voted according to their conscience. There must be Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party, especially young Deputies who have not got the same hidebound, archaic, out-dated, softened-up outlook that some of the older members have on such an important question as this. Some of those Deputies at least must be imbued with the idealism of youth, the idealism which says to a man: "Everyone is entitled to a fair deal." I am sure some of them will feel like voting for this motion.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Does the Deputy suggest that if we vote against the motion we do not want agricultural workers to have £4?

Mr. Dunne

The Deputy can have no doubt in his mind that that is what he is doing.

Mr. S. Flanagan

That is not so at all.

Mr. Dunne

This is going to be a test. This will be a test for all those opposite. They can vote whatever way they like. The agricultural workers will know how to judge them when judgement day comes—and judgment day is not very far off here, by the look of things, for a lot of those opposite.

Mr. Cunningham

This motion will not put a penny piece in any working man's pocket.

Mr. Dunne

When the Deputy has harrowed all that I have ploughed for agricultural workers, he can begin to talk.

Mr. Fanning

They voted for us last time; try and get them to vote back for you this time.

Mr. Dunne

The Minister asked me to refer him to a question and I now refer him to column 188, of the 31st October, wherein he said:

"Of course, I would say in passing, that it shows how far Deputies Kyne, Dunne and Desmond are representative of the agricultural workers of this country. Having regard to the statements made here to-night, I would say that they actually have no knowledge whatsoever of the conditions of the agricultural worker."

The Minister asked for that quotation. There it is. The Minister should not forget so easily what he says on these matters.

Mr. Walsh

I repeat what I said.

Mr. Dunne

Deputy Corry, in his usual bench-hopping fashion, tried to make the case which I am sure he has made since he first saw the Dáil— which was before some of us came to the age of reason—he tried to make the excuse of the agricultural worker, to use him to get higher prices for the farmer. He would agree that he should be paid £6 a week, provided the farmer would get very much higher prices and had what is known as a fair profit. As Deputy Corish said, you could not pin Deputy Corry down to say what a fair profit is. As long as he lives, it being his nature, he will be dissatisfied with the prices paid to farmers. It is a despicable and low thing that any Deputy, or any pretended representative of farmers, should try to make a lever of the workers to force up agricultural prices. Can anyone deny that farmers to-day are relatively better off? Does not everyone who knows the countryside know they are better off? Was it not part of the bargain that set up this present Government that they would be made a little bit better off? Deputy Cogan got another penny a gallon for milk. Is not that correct?

Mr. Davin

And put 2d. on the butter.

Mr. Cogan

The worker got 7/6.

Mr. Dunne

That 7/6 was won as a result of industrial action in County Dublin. If we take the 1939 level as 100, the agricultural price index shows that it stands at approximately 290 now, as far as can be estimated for the present year. The index of agricultural wages stands at 250 as against 100 in 1939, as far as can be estimated for the present year. These figures mean little to the ordinary people throughout the country. High finance means very little to them. What means a lot is the pay packet at the end of the week. If the Minister believes— and I am loth to think he is so foolish as to believe—that there is a majority of agricultural workers getting higher than the minimum rate laid down by the board, then what reason in conscience has he or any other member of the Fianna Fáil Party for voting against this motion? What harm is it doing?

Deputy Davern put down an amendment regarding the Agricultural Wages Board. My motion makes no mention of the Agricultural Wages Board— none whatever. I will deal with that board on another occasion. Deputy Davern, in the course of his introductory remarks, said that the democratic way was the right way to do things. He referred to the board. Is it democratic that a Minister of State should have the appointment of everybody on that board? Is that democracy? Is it the position that the Minister is not going to appoint his political henchmen as was done in the past, as was done by Fianna Fáil for many years? Is that democracy? Is it democratic that the chairman of that board can constitute a quorum and, where there is disagreement among the members, take the decision himself in defiance of the whole board? This board is a farce and the Minister should know it.

Mr. O. Flanagan

And the Minister is a farce.

Mr. Dunne

He will not be long with us, so let us be as charitable as we can. Any Deputy here who has relied to any extent upon the goodwill and support of agricultural workers knows as well as I do that, no matter what facetious remarks may be passed, the finest types in this country are the agricultural labourers and the best citizens and the most hard-working. That is not said for effect; it is the truth. The most decent people in this country are the agricultural workers, the most humble, the most hospitable and the truest of the Irish race. I am asking that they should get a few shillings, not very much, 12/6 to lift their wages in Wexford from £3 7s. 6d., and 6/6 in other areas, in order to give them a better chance to deal with this skyrocketing cost of living as well as everybody else.

That request has been suggested by inference by Deputy Cogan to be unChristian. If that is a lack of Christianity I embrace it, and any reasonable man will. Christianity means that a man should get a fair return for his labour, that the labourer is worthy of his hire. That is my concept of Christianity, and in that light, in the light of the terms of the motion, I ask the House to accept the motion and pass it, and by so doing to ease ever so slightly the burden on the backs of 350,000 hard-working citizens in this country.

Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."

The Dáil divided: Tá, 21; Níl, 65.

Tá

• Belton, John.
• Byrne, Alfred.
• Cafferkey, Dominick.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Davin, William.
• Desmond, Daniel.
• Dunne, Seán.
• Everett, James.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Flynn, John.
• Hickey, James.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Larkin, James.
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• Norton, William.
• O'Donnell, Patrick.
• O'Hara, Thomas.
• Spring, Dan.
• Tully, John.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Brennan, Thomas.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Butler, Bernard.
• Carter, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Colley, Harry.
• Collins, James J.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Crowley, Honor Mary.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Michael J.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• de Valera, Eamon.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Duignan, Peadar.
• Fanning, John.
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Gallagher, Colm.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Dan.
• Brady, Philip A.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Lehane, Patrick D.
• Lemass, Seán.
• Lynch, Jack (Cork Borough).
• McCann, John.
• MacCarthy, Seán.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Patrick J.
• Maher, Peadar.
• Moran, Michael.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ormonde, John.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Rice, Bridget M.
• Ruttledge, Patrick J.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Mary B.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Walsh, Thomas.

Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Dunne and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Ó Briain and Killilea.

Question declared negatived.

Motion, as amended, declared carried.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is Deputy Dunne moving any of the motions Nos. 3, 4 and 5 now?

Mr. Dunne

I am not moving any of them now.

An Ceann Comhairle

Then they will go to the end of the list.