Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 15 Dec 1953

Vol. 143 No. 13

Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill, 1953—Second Stage (Resumed).

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

When this Bill was before the House last week I referred to the effect it is designed to have. Because of the vociferous opposition offered on this side of the House in the course of the last four months we are happy in having succeeded in getting the Minister to withdraw his first proposal, namely, that of levying practically £500,000 on the land of this country by means of subterfuge. We are happy in having achieved the result that the present measure is considerably watered down.

Every Deputy must agree that during the past four months local authorities all over the country were considerably confused and upset and their administrative expenses considerably increased as a result of the Minister's handling of the situation. Surely the Minister should have revealed his intention to make a change long before the issue of the first circular. If something had emanated in the first half of the year which prompted the Minister to make this rapid change, one could readily understand it. The Minister, however, when introducing this measure, made a very brief introductory statement and, following on that, some of his own colleagues made some very startling revelations. Deputy Allen was quite definite in informing us that the Government had actually considered this matter very carefully some six months before the issue of the circular in May. Why, then, did the Minister issue that circular and create all this trouble, annoyance and expense in relation to every local authority in the country?

Later on, there was another change and we had the preparation of credit notes and all the rest of it. Now this measure comes before the House. The Minister throws it on the Table and calmly states, as if this were something we should readily accept, that the result of the enactment of this legisla-will be to increase considerably the numbers employed in agriculture. Not a single Deputy supporting this measure has given any concrete proof that such will be the effect of it. Infact, some of the Government back benchers have availed of this Bill to draw attention to injustices. They appear to think that these injustices can be rectified now. Reference was made to casual labour. Some Deputies are horrified when anyone mentions casual labour in relation to agriculture. There are parts of the country where farmers can employ their labour for the full 12 months but in the constituency that I represent most of the land is waterlogged during the winter months. When the farmers are engaging labour for the ensuing year the employees may say that they do not wish to start work until after the month of January. The Minister should clarify the position in relation to such contracts. The Bill provides that a man must be employed for a full period of 12 months. Will the farmer be mulcted if there is rigid interpretation of that clause?

We all agree as to the desirability of increasing the number employed on the land and of increasing production. I doubt if the few additional pounds granted under this Bill by way of compensation for the supplementary grant will credit farmers to engage additional labour for a full period of 12 months. Deputy Corry and many other Deputies were emphatic about the need for the inclusion of casual labour. Deputy Corry referred to the fact that many workers come from the West of Ireland to the South to work in the beet fields at harvest time and in thinning operations. These workers give extremely useful service at a time when labour is vital to handle crops such as beet. There are people who object to casual labour of this kind although they countenance the same people going to Scotland to dig potatoes or to beet factories in England. There is nothing wrong in recruiting labour where there may be a surplus and bringing it to another part of the country where the use of that manpower could increase production.

Administrative difficulties may arise in the assessment of casual labour. I would suggest that the local authorities should accept the wages declaration of the employer in relation to workmen'scompensation as evidence in this respect. The farmer knows that if he exaggerates the amount of wages he paid when he is filling up this form annually he will have to pay pro ratain the premium with consequent greater expense. The local authorities could accept that declaration as honest evidence of casual as well as permanent labour.

The employment of casual labour is a stepping-stone to permanent employment. A farmer whose valuation is under £35 and who employs, say, one permanent labourer, could keep more cattle, grow more crops and improve the standard of living of his family and his employee by availing of casual labour to rehabilitate his farm, to carry out drainage work and clearance work. When that land would come into fertility he would be in a position to employ an additional full-time labourer. Recognition of casual labour would be a great incentive to increased employment on the land.

Deputy MacEoin and other Deputies have made a case for recognition of female labour. I would join with them in that because I know the very great contribution made by farmers' daughters and female servants, particularly in the dairying counties, looking after young cattle, milking cows, and so on. It is only right that these women should be recognised by the State and that their employers should be given the same benefits as would accrue from the employment of male labour. The commercial insurance companies classify them in the same category as male labourers. There is a case for recognising them in this matter of rate abatement.

The Deputies of the Government Party who have contributed to the debate have given no indication that they made the slightest effort to ascertain what the results of the enactment of this Bill would be in their particular constituencies and counties. The information given to the House by Deputies in the Opposition caused some surprise to those Deputies. So far there has been no rebuttal of the claim put forward from these benches that the Exchequer will benefit as a result of this Bill to the extent of something over£100,000. That is a considerable sum in addition to all that has been levied on the land in the course of the past three years. There is the proverbial straw. The confusion that has existed in past months, which was created by the Government, will not be minimised by the declaration that the Government had reviewed this matter comprehensively in the earlier months of this year. It is on record that some 21,000 people left agricultural employment in the last full year. In view of the rapidly increasing flight from the land, there is no indication that this saving to the Exchequer will be cancelled out in the course of the coming year. If that deterioration in agricultural employment continues, in the course of the coming year, and possibly for years to come, the Exchequer will gain more than it will gain this year.

Deputy Cogan claimed some credit for the fact that on a farm of £70 valuation he employs three men. Deputies who are members of professions also have to employ somebody to carry out of their work. Therefore, I will not give Deputy Cogan credit for employing three men. I give him credit for two men, in such circumstances. It is not possible for a Deputy to carry out his duties as Deputy and at the same time do a man's work on his farm. Consequently I think that the Deputy was not quite fair in setting himself up in that respect as being a remarkable employer. The facts are that it is the people with the very high valuations to whom this measure should appeal, seeing that when we get on to the higher valuations and the higher rated people the employment there would give them the full remission under this proposed Bill, but I claim that most of those farmers are already mechanised and that that determines such an employer in the numbers that he shall employ in the coming year.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Smith)

He would not get the remission so. If the man with the high valuation is mechanised and does not employ more labour he would not get the relief.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

The point I am making is that the classes of agriculturists who should be really approached with a view to getting them to employ additional labour would be in the lower valuations, that where mechanisation has occurred it is more in the higher valuations and that where manual labour is really necessary is in the farms of the £20, £25 or £30 valuation classes. It is those farmers who require the assistance of additional labour so that it may be possible for them to increase their output. A man in the higher valuation is in a position to obtain the credit to mechanise his holding and to improve it by that means. I cannot see the inducement to those in the lower valued holdings to give increased employment to agricultural workers. These, briefly, are the objections that we have to the Bill, inasmuch as it is claimed to be a Bill that will result in a large increase of employment on the land.

We are not opposing the Bill because of the remainder of the grants that are included in it, but I do say that it is unfair as it is now presented to the House that the supplementary allowance should be abolished to the smaller farmer with a young family none of whom have yet reached the age at which they could qualify for the employment allowance whereas his next door neighbour with an equal or possibly lower valuation and with a grown family, getting considerable help from his own family and in a position, possibly, to encourage labour, can reap the benefit. There is that iniquity, I consider, in this present proposal. At the outset I stated that it is merely in accordance with other measures that have gone through this House, and we really feel that we can claim that it is as a result of the revelations of this Party throughout the country over the past four months the Minister has withdrawn his first proposals and submitted this watered-down Bill to the House. Nevertheless we claim, as we are advised by the secretaries of the county councils throughout the country, that it still represents a saving to the Exchequer and consequently still another tax on the land of this country.

Mr. Palmer

I think that this Bill has been fairly well discussed, and so I had no intention of speaking on it at all until I read The Kerrymanof the 13th instant and saw there a statement made by an official of the county council, in reply to a question by a member of the county council, that the ratepayers of Kerry would lose £6,000 if this legislation were carried through. I am not in a position to state definitely if this is correct, but evidently there must be some estimate and the matter must have been looked into in some way in order that the official of the county council reached that conclusion. In fact, the incidents that have led up to this legislation at all are no credit to the Minister, and I think it would have been much better if he had left things as they were. Perhaps it is really founded on the statement of the Minister for Finance when he introduced his Budget last April or May and stated that taxation lies lightly on the land.

We remember that, even though at the time he did not impose any direct increased taxation, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs came to his relief and, by increasing charges for postage, telephones, telegraphs and so on, brought in something like £750,000. The Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, again, by the increase of ½d. per lb. in sugar, brought in something like £500,000. I suppose then it became the turn of the Minister for Local Government, and he issued a circular last May, even after the demand notes for the rates had actually been issued. If the terms of that circular were put into operation it would save £390,000 for the Government, and, in a sense, it could be regarded as a reduction of £390,000 in the profit of the Irish farmer, but because of the serious opposition offered to that circular by all local bodies, by members of county councils, no matter to what Party they belonged, and because also of the exposure by members of the Opposition here in the House and throughout the country, and especially at those by-elections in Wicklow and East Cork, the Minister thought it advisable to withdraw the terms of thecircular, and so there has now resulted this new legislation. This may be an effort to make the people in general. who may not go into the intricacies or the financial side of the question. believe that really the farmers were benefiting to a great extent by the proposals made, but when we come to examine the types of farmers in this country, and especially the farmers along the western seaboard and in particular, perhaps, the farmers in my own constituency of South Kerry, not one such farmer will benefit one penny by this new legislation. If it serves any farmer at all it will be those with high valuations and those farmers who would have a number of sons to help them on the land who are over 18 years of age.

By the way Deputy O'Sullivan and I think some other Deputies also referred to the fact that it would be only fair that female labour employed on the land should also act as a recognition to farmers for gaining any benefits under this Bill. After all, females help on the land where possible just as much in their own way as the male labourer, milking cows, feeding pigs and poultry, and even on the domestic side of it they are helping. So if it were meant at all to give real relief the terms of this Bill should apply to female as well as to male labour.

This Bill really cannot benefit to any great extent the farmer with a high valuation, because it is known that in this country there is really no labourer employed all the year round. Even if for some reason the farmer is actually anxious to have a labourer for 12 months of the year the labourer will hardly agree to such terms. In fact, this question of casual labour may be regarded as being responsible to some extent for emigration. I do not know why it is that while workmen are willing to labour all the year round in industry or anything else they do not seem anxious to work on the land especially during the winter months. So while it may seem that the terms of the Bill may be beneficial to those of over £20 valuation, in actual practice only very few will benefit, if any at all. The real crux and the real matter thatraises opposition amongst farmers with a valuation of over £20, is the abolition of the supplementary grant, as a result of which they lose one-fifth of the amount that was allowed to them hitherto. Certainly the increase allowed for labour up to £17 cannot in any way make up for that abolition.

This Bill is really a sort of political eyewash. It is meant only to save the Minister and the Government from the reaction that took place after the issue of his circular. There are very many ways by which the Government could benefit farms big and small besides the introduction of this legislation. I think it was Deputy Norton who suggested that if the £1,000,000 that was supposed to be used in this way were spent in fertilising the land, even by spreading fertilisers from aeroplanes all over the country, it would confer a greater benefit on farmers. Whilst I would not agree that the indiscriminate distribution of fertilisers in that way would benefit the farmers, I would certainly hold that greater benefits would be conferred on them if the grants for the drainage of their lands were increased and if the cost of fertilisers were reduced. That would enable farmers to improve their land, extend their production, improve the quality of their live stock and put them in a position of being really prosperous. This is really a fraudulent proposal. In so far as it can be made out, it will mean that the ratepayers will lose £100,000. Virtually all counties will lose and the gain in the case of the few who will gain will be infinitesimal. It has been estimated that one county will save £1. Fancy that! On the whole, because it confers some benefit on a certain section of the ratepayers, we cannot vote against it, but we are certainly entitled to expose its provisions and let the farmers of the country see that in it there is no real effort to improve their conditions or lighten the terrible load of taxation and rates for which this Government is principally responsible.

Mr. Dillon

Is it not a fact that the partial derating of the land of this country through the agricultural grants, the supplementary agriculturalgrant and the employment grant, depends on annual legislation? If we did not pass some Rate Relief Bill in Dáil Éireann in this financial year, the agricultural grant would cease to be payable altogether. It is in order to ensure that the agricultural grant in relief of rates will be paid from the Exchequer to the local authorities in this financial year that we propose to allow the Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill to pass unopposed, as it has passed unopposed in every Dáil in every year since the relief of rates was first provided for by annual legislation. But the point that it is very desirable to make is this. When last May two by-elections were proceeding in East Cork and Wicklow a circular issued to local authorities from the Minister for Local Government explaining to the local authorities that the Government proposed by legislation of a retrospective character later in the year to amend the basis on which the agricultural grant would be distributed in the financial year 1953-54 and that therefore he required the local authorities to amend their rate warrants so as to give effect to the amendment he intended to make in the law as soon as Dáil Éireann was reconvened in the autumn.

Many of the local authorities had already made out their rate warrants. Some of them had already issued them; others had them ready for issue and they had to cancel that rate warrant and, where it was possible, to make out a new rate warrant on the basis of the Minister's circular letter. The basis of the circular letter was that he proposed to withdraw altogether the supplementary agricultural grant and to grant each ratepayer in respect of each labourer employed permanently for the full 12 months of the financial year, an allowance of £13 per annum instead of £6 10s. Now, when the effect of that circular and the provision made in it was studied, it transpired that that would have resulted in a reduction of the total relief granted by the Exchequer to local authorities of £500,000, spread over the Twenty-Six Counties.

I well remember speaking in Blessingtonat a meeting during the Wicklow by-election campaign and saying that—knowledge of the circular had reached me the day before—I wanted to warn the people that when that circular came to be interpreted, it meant that the words of the Minister for Finance in introducing his Budget, when he said that taxation pressed too lightly on the land, were being given effect to and that this circular of the Minister for Local Government was designed to collect from the land, through higher rates, £500,000, which would relieve the Exchequer and form some part of the £3,500,000 economies which the Minister for Finance said he intended to make in order to balance his Budget in 1953. The Minister, the Government and the Fianna Fáil T.D.s read the writing on the wall provided by the results of the Cork and the Wicklow by-election. A further instruction was then sent out to local authorities to withdraw the amended rate warrant they had prepared because the Minister had changed his mind.

Mr. Smith

That is not so.

Mr. Dillon

It is true that the Minister had not got the honesty to send out a letter to that effect. What he did was to circulate a Bill. When that came to be read, the local authorities discovered that the Bill did not correspond with the terms of the circular. At first, very naturally, the secretaries of county councils down the country said: "This could not be. There must be some misunderstanding. We could not have reduced the local government administration to so grotesque a farce that you can have a Minister ordering us to withdraw our rate warrant in May, and authorising us to issue a rate warrant in August at very great cost, and then, without sending us a letter of apology for the fact that he was going to change his mind for a third time in one year, he produces a Bill." That Bill, as the Minister himself now says, was heralded by no letter to the local authorities. But, when they read what was in the Bill, they discovered to their own amazement and to the amazement of the ratepayers that the second rate warrant was wrong and had either tobe recalled or appropriate credit dockets issued to the ratepayers.

When we come to examine the Bill we discover that the new alteration is to increase the allowance for each labourer from £13 to £17, and that means that we have restored to the local authorities about £400,000 that it was hoped to take from them. That is the history of this transaction. The set-up prior to this brilliant brain-wave of the present Minister was your first £20 of valuation was, in substance, relieved of rates in so far as agricultural land was concerned. In respect of the next £5, I think it was, you were relieved of the agricultural rate so far as agricultural land is concerned to the extent of two-thirds.

Mr. Smith

I never heard of that.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know how the supplementary grant was distributed but in addition to the derating of the first £20 of valuation, over and above the supplementary grant which gave you a further relief after the first £20, you were entitled to a relief of £6 10s. in respect of every agricultural worker whom you employed for the full 12 months of the rateable year. Everybody got the benefit of the supplementary grant but the employer of labour got the employment allowance.

It is now proposed to remove the supplementary grant altogether and to substitute therefor £17 in respect of each agricultural worker, and the case made is that this Bill will encourage farmers to employ more men. In the present state of the rural labour market for agricultural labourers, every farmer who employs a man must pay him £5 a week if he wants to get £17 per annum, which means approximately 7/- per week. What farmer is going to employ a man for 52 weeks of the year for £5 a week in order to earn 7/- per week for himself? Will this device induce any farmer to employ another man? Unless Dáil Éireann solemnly comes to the conclusion that the farmers are all daft, we are not going to legislate to induce a farmer to employ a man he does not want at £5 a week by offering him 7/- a week.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Beegan)

It applies to family labour also.

Mr. Dillon

If that is what the Parliamentary Secretary wants, let us go about it the right way. If we want to subsidise family labour, will anyone tell me, if a farmer has five daughters instead of five sons, why is he fined 35/- a week because Providence did not send him five sons? Here is Deputy Mrs. Rice now and let her take the field. Surely she has something to say for the farmer who has five daughters and whose daughters are helping about the farm.

Mr. Beegan

Would you like to have the daughters working on the land?

Mr. Dillon

Let us not get sentimental about the daughters. I do not want to see any daughter working on the land, driving a plough or sitting on a tractor, although some of them might not be averse to that. I do not wish to see women employed in that sense. I may have hard things to say about the Parliamentary Secretary, but he knows the atmosphere in rural Ireland. There is no slave driving of farmers' daughters, but will a daughter not help to toss hay or milk cows or wash the dairy without in any way compromising her femininity or her modesty in that task? If she looks after the fowl and keeps them on deep litter, she may be making a very valuable contribution to the income of the farm. If the Parliamentary Secretary wants to subsidise agricultural labour, why should the girl working beside her father and brother be excluded? Come now, Deputy Mrs. Rice and Deputy Mrs. Ryan, have you a word to say? Did they regard themselves when they were young as a useless burden round their parents' necks? I bet that their parents did not think so. They helped in their own sphere just as effectively, as loyally and as suitably as their brothers. I doubt if the lady Deputies have any reason to look back on the help they gave their parents in their youth with shame or with reluctance to boast of the fact that they considered it a privilege to help in their appropriate sphere, as their brothers helped in their appropriatesphere about their own homes.

This is what is important to grasp about this Bill. Administration is being brought in this country under Fianna Fáil to a degrading confusion unprecedented in our times. Can you imagine a Minister and a Government that come out to the country and say: "For the country's good, we propose to levy on the land £500,000," and then find two agricultural constituencies that had an opportunity of considering that, telling them, with no lack of emphasis, that that cock will not fight? Can we imagine a Minister announcing that he claims the privilege of being the instrument of collecting this levy from the land, which in his day, he had the compulsory right of controlling from the Department of Agriculture? Shall we forget that the Minister who made the proposal to levy £500,000 on the land is the Minister who gloried in his intention to line the farmers' ditches with Civic Guards, to recruit ten fields of inspectors, and to provide them with all the machinery they required to burst open their gates and down their ditches?

An Ceann Comhairle

This is totally irrelevant.

Mr. Smith

Do not be exposing my ideas in the past or you will ruin me.

Mr. Dillon

I did not say that.

Mr. Smith

I am a traitor to-day and a patriot to-morrow.

Mr. Dillon

Let us remember the source from which that proposal comes. Let us remember the words of the Minister for Finance in introducing his Budget, that he wanted economies for the Exchequer of £3,500,000 and that he called to mind that taxation pressed lightly on the land.

Mr. Smith

Be easy on me, James.

Mr. Dillon

Let us recall——

Mr. Smith

Be easy on me.

Mr. Dillon

——that the pressure of public opinion has forced this Government from the ground of its first circular to the text of this Bill. We will support this Bill, because we know what this Bill is designed to do.

Mr. Smith

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

It is the annual instrument for providing the agricultural grant for the relief of rates in Ireland and if it were not passed there would be no agricultural grant at all. It has been passed in identical terms for the last 20 years. So long as I have any voice in the matter, it will continue to be passed, whatever Minister for Finance considers that taxation presses too lightly on the land.

The only amendment in this Bill which differentiates it from any previous Bill is that the supplementary agricultural grant is withdrawn and in lieu there is £17 provided for each agricultural worker. The net result of this Bill is to collect about £100,000 from the land of Ireland more than was collected heretofore, for the benefit of the Exchequer. It is, however, a very much less objectional proposal than what was first attempted in the circular. Let us rejoice that the due functioning of the Constitution and of the by-election provisions in the Constitution has brought an insolent Executive to heel.

I want to remind the House of one serious defect here in the Minister's amended approach. Under the law as it stands at present and will continue to stand unless and until this Bill is passed, all farmers were entitled to benefit from the supplementary agricultural grant. Hereafter no farmer has that benefit. The point is being made here, and rightly made, that in hundreds of cases throughout this country the failure permanently to employ the agricultural worker for the full 52 weeks of the financial year is not due to any reluctance on the part of the farmer to employ him. The farmer wants to employ him, but the man does not want to be employed for the full 52 weeks of the year. For some personal reasons of his own, he wants to busy himself about other work for a month or two months. The farmer is in the position that labour is so difficult to get, particularly if you want skilled agricultural workers, that nolens volenshe must fall in with the agricultural worker's arrangements. The fact that that agricultural worker absents himself from his permanentemployment for one or two months, to attend to personal affairs, deprives the farmer of access to employment benefit envisaged under this Bill. Surely, if any pretence at equity is to be observed, there ought to be some amendment to this new agricultural employment allowance, providing that where the farmer is ready, anxious and willing to employ the worker for the full 52 weeks of the year, he will become qualified to the relief—that it is only when the farmer seeks to casualise agricultural labour that he should surrender his claim to this benefit.

I would say, be it popular or unpopular, that so far as the employment allowance operates to prevent the casualisation of agricultural labour in rural Ireland it is a most benevolent and desirable departure. There could be no greater evil than that agricultural employment in Ireland should permanently assume the character of casual employment. An agricultural worker ought to have that security which would permit of his marrying and raising a family in the neighbourhood of the land where he is permanently employed. As some Deputy said here, there is no use saying to the agricultural worker: "I only want you for nine months" if the alternative is for the agricultural worker to go three months hungry. In so far as this grant encourages the farmer to keep the man for the three months—when he will not have such full measure of employment as would indicate that he should retain him on purely economic lines, as opposed to the prudent social considerations to which he ought to have regard—this agricultural employment grant may be of value in that respect. It is inequitable and unjust, however, to substitute this employment grant for the supplementary grant unless there is a provision inserted in it to cover these two contingencies.

One contingency is that domestic labour—the son or daughter of a farmer who is helping in the place— shall be acknowledged—the son or daughter—for the purpose of qualifying their parents for the benefit of these grants. The second point isthat where the interruption of employment is the result of the worker's express wish rather than the employer's, that should not operate to prevent the employer enjoying the benefit of the relief provided in this Bill.

That is all that requires to be said so far as I am concerned in regard to the Bill. I know that if I were a Minister and got authority from a Government to launch out on the purpose of robbing the agricultural community of £500,000 and if I sank so low as to make myself a party to that contemptible assignment——

Mr. Smith

Be easy on me, James.

Mr. Dillon

——and was then forced to uncover myself in public——

Mr. Smith

Be easy on me, James.

Mr. Dillon

——and to crawl back into public favour by denying for the third time in one year the purpose to which I had put my hand, I would seek employment in a sewer before I would face my fellow-countrymen.

Mr. Smith

Some people we know in Irish history rejected a leader four or five times on a voyage from America.

Mr. Dillon

I do not complain if Ministers of Fianna Fáil desire so to prostrate themselves for the retention of their office. But I do say this. The public life of Ireland is degraded, and those of us who are proud to participate in it are humiliated——

Mr. Smith

Easy, James. Easy, now.

Mr. Dillon

——to see such conduct. I like to think that, hereafter, public men who attain to the high honour of membership of an Irish Government will have that sense of personal dignity which would require them to resign rather than to be made——

Mr. Smith

Be careful, now.

Mr. Dillon

——a doormat for their colleagues to wipe their boots on. That is what this Bill means. The Minister for Local Government has been dragged through the mire of public humiliation by the Partymachine of the Fianna Fáil organisation. It is a humiliating spectacle but it is one with which we are becoming regrettably familiar in this country. The less that we have of it hereafter, the better for us all.

Mr. Smith

Hear, hear!

Mr. Deering

I only want to make one point. It concerns the position when two or more brothers jointly own a farm. I think the Minister should consider bringing in an amendment that would ease such a situation. Cases of that nature, both in Kildare and Wicklow, have been brought to my notice. I could have tabled a question about this matter but I hope that the Minister will take notice of it now.

Mr. O'Donnell

I am reliably informed that, during the recent war, 50 per cent. of the land workers of Britain were of the female sex. Unfortunately, a considerable number of those lady workers on the lands of Britain were Irish citizens. While in Britain, they became adapted to employment as farm labourers. Some of them have returned to this country. Some of them have acquired farms here and some of them are employed as farm labourers here—driving tractors, driving threshing machines, and, as Deputy Dillon said, in charge of piggeries. I think that the farmer who employs such female workers is entitled to some relief. In all the legislation introduced in this country, there has never been discrimination, so far as I know, between male and female citizens. Here, however, we are definitely discriminating in favour of the male. I think the Minister should seriously consider amending this situation. Very little amendment of this Bill would be required in the Committee Stage to place female employees on a par with male employees, in so far as farming is concerned.

The point raised by Deputy Deering deserves serious thought, that is, where you have joint owners of a farm or, as he put it, where two brothers are the joint owners of a farm, either registered land or land held in fee simple. Surely it is right that if these two brothers find they can work the farm themselves—one of them or, possiblyboth of them, doing the work of a farm labourer—they should be entitled to some relief in respect of at least one employee. It is indeed a point which should be seriously considered by the Minister. I represent a constituency which is comprised mainly of small farmers—farmers who will derive no benefit whatsoever from this Bill. They are people who could not be described as farmers in the proper sense of the word. The Minister has a number of them in his own constituency. They will derive no benefit under the Bill because their poor law valuation does not exceed £20.

Mr. Smith

They will derive more than anybody else.

Mr. O'Donnell

I am referring to the Bill.

Mr. Smith

Even according to this Bill. They are getting three-fifths on their rates.

Mr. O'Donnell

I am referring to relief in respect of employees—and that is the principal relief granted under this Bill.

Mr. Smith

But it is less than they are getting. The employment relief is less than the three-fifths.

Mr. O'Donnell

We have a number of small farmers whose poor law valuation just exceeds the £20. We have very few farmers whose valuation exceeds £30. We have quite a number of small farmers whose valuation exceeds £20. They will derive no benefit whatsoever from this Bill. In the first place, in my opinion, this Bill is framed to benefit the grazier and it is not framed to benefit in any way the mixed farmer— the man who goes in for mixed farming. The man who grazes his cattle requires to employ a herd: the herd is employed the whole year round. The dairyman must employ a number of milkmen: they are employed the whole year round.

Mr. Smith

Is he to be classified as a grazier in the accepted sense?

Mr. O'Donnell

He represents another class that will benefit under this Bill. The mixed farmer will not benefit under the Bill.

Mr. Smith

I am afraid the Deputy is making a mixed case.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not care. A mixture is sometimes good. This Bill will not benefit in any way the small farmer who goes in for mixed farming. The Minister knows as well as I do that the small farmer of £20 or £30 poor law valuation who crops, say, ten or 15 acres of his land, must employ five or six hands during the spring and again during the harvest. I submit that the aggregate number of days, if they were totted up, of all his employees during these periods of spring and harvest would total more than 365 days of one labourer's employment on the farm. No provision is made in this Bill for the mixed farmer: he will derive no benefit under sub-section (1) (a) of Section 1 of this Bill. I recommend to the Minister, in calculating the qualifying period under the 1946 Act, to consider seriously the matter of taking into account the aggregate number of days worked by the employees of a particular farmer. If the Minister does that, he will give considerable benefit to small farmers in West Donegal and South Donegal who will derive no benefit whatsoever from the Bill as it is at present framed.

Mr. Smith

I do not know how to begin to deal with the few points that I feel I should speak about in concluding this Second Reading discussion. There is scarcely much purpose in my refuting the allegation that has been made by a number of Deputies on the Opposition Benches that this Bill had its origin in a statement made here by the Minister for Finance on the occasion of his Budget speech.

I have here before me the official report of my speech when introducing this measure in this House last year. In my statement in this House and also in my statement in the Seanad I clearly forecast my intentions regarding this whole matter of the relief of rates and the amount of money being provided for that purpose and the method of distribution.

At column 638 of the Official Debates of 14th February, 1952, I made the following statement:—

"I have had the whole matter of this form of rate relief under preliminary review recently. It is my intention to pursue this examination, with a view to considering whether this comparatively large subsidy might be applied to a greater extent to assisting those land owners who are engaged in those forms of agricultural production which afford the maximum employment, and who in present conditions are best serving the needs of the community as a whole in regard to agricultural production."

I made that statement in order to give to the House and to the country an indication of the line along which my mind was running and to give Deputies interested in the matter an opportunity of letting me have their views in this connection. The strange part of it is—it was a surprise to me at the time—that, I think, only two Deputies took any notice of it or made any contribution whatever either for or against what it was clear I had in mind. It was clear from the statement I have read and also from every statement I made in this or the other House in connection with the investigation I had on foot at the time that my mind was running along the line of the probable use of a larger portion of this huge sum being provided by the taxpayers to encourage those farmers who, as I put it, were engaged in a form of agricultural production that was most beneficial to the community as a whole, and who, as a result of following that system, were giving most employment.

The argument is made here by several Deputies that a mere contribution of £17 per man is not likely to effect any substantial change in the employment position in agriculture. At no time did I make the case, either in introducing the measure or on any other occasion, that I looked forward to an increase in the employment given by farmers as a result of increasing this contribution. Nobody could, in fact, say if it would have any such effect at all, but surely if a farmer is employing labour to-day and if he were entitled under the law as itwas to relief to the extent of £6 10s. per man, who would contend that he would not prefer to get £17 instead of £6 10s.? Even on present agricultural rates of wages £17 is almost the equivalent of a month's wages for a man and if an employer was prone in one of the slackest months of the year to leave off an employee whom he had employed for the other 11 months, would it not be some inducement to him in order to qualify for this allowance to know that he was going to get the equivalent of a month's wages by way of relief?

I was very pleased indeed with the reception these proposals received in the House because of all the forecasts made here and outside as to the opposition that would be tendered to them. It is true that I have been twitted because I have changed my mind. I was often twitted because I refused to change my mind. Certainly I have been more often twitted for refusing to change my mind in order to meet a particular form of criticism than I have been applauded. This is one instance in which I changed my mind and instead of making the allowance of £13 per man I agreed to make it £17 per man, and those who have laboured long to establish that I was one of these rigid people who could not be induced to change have now set about trying to discover what was the force which resulted in bringing that state of affairs about.

Two by-elections have been cited. Why not cite the third? There were three by-elections, and, although the Government decision to increase the allowance from £13 to £17 per man was on record long before the election in South Galway, I refused to make that announcement, in spite of the fact that much political play was being made out of the whole situation. Rate collectors were being accused of alleged Fianna Fáil tendencies, of failure to distribute the demand notes and every effort was being made to create confusion and misunderstanding in the public mind and especially in the minds of those who were ratepayers in the affected constituency; but in spite of all that, although I was free to makethis announcement, I refrained from doing so and refused to do so, so that when Deputies on the other side try to make it appear that it was because of two by-elections that I was induced to change my mind, I want to remind them that there were three by-elections and the three by-elections were fought on the understanding that the allowance would be only £13 per man for every man employed for the full year, although, in regard to the third contest, I could have made the improved position known if I wished to do so.

All sorts of estimates have been given here as to how the different county councils will be affected and I have been accused of failing to cooperate with those members of the Opposition who were anxious to get from me information on this matter. A number of parliamentary questions were addressed to me on the subject, and, while I admit that I had then and have now, as a result of the calculations made by my officials, an idea of how the new position will affect the different counties, I have not that sort of clear-cut information which a Minister would want to have and should have before setting out to give accurate figures. I think I can say, however, that irrespective of how Deputy Sweetman who led off this discussion came by the figures he quoted, the Deputy will find, with the passage of time—and the passage of time determines many things about which we often have fairly strenuous discussions —that the figures which he gave here were completely and absolutely misleading. I am not saying that he just made up these figures for the purpose of misleading the House or anybody else. He made use of whatever figures he got and, naturally, the more unfavourable they were the better. They suited his purpose from a political point of view. I have no complaint to make about that. While I am not prepared to give the figures which my officials made out as to the manner in which the different counties will be affected by the new method of distributing, I wish to state that it is not intended that the Exchequer will save a penny as between this method of distributing the agricultural grant andthe amount that would be spent if the previous method had been applied this year. That is the over-all position.

Mr. Finan

Is the Minister serious?

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister said "however I got the figures." The Minister knows that I got them from the county councils concerned.

Mr. Smith

I said Deputy Sweetman made a statement——

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister said "however I got them." It is perfectly clear that I got them from the county councils concerned.

Mr. Finan

I asked whether the Minister really meant that the Exchequer would not save one penny.

Mr. Smith

That is what I mean. In order to help the Deputy to understand, I will put it another way. I prefaced what I said this way—that time will establish whether the claim made by Deputy Sweetman or my repudiation of it is right, that no one could now be certain just what the position is but that the method of distributing the sum of money involved is designed by us to absorb every penny that would have been spent if the previous method of distribution had been continued. Time will establish whether or not we are right in that. Having said so much, I will leave it at that.

Mr. Sweetman

The fact that you said that makes it crystal clear that the basis of your circular would have meant a very substantial loss.

Mr. Smith

Not a very substantial loss.

Mr. Sweetman

£300,000?

Mr. Smith

It would have meant some loss.

Mr. Sweetman

£300,000 or £350,000. Is that a fair figure?

Mr. Smith

It would have meant some loss. After all, even if that were to take place it would not be such a terrible crime where the employment allowance was being increased from £6 10s. to £13. It was a fairly decent gesture and, as I said, in my openingremarks when the Deputy was not present——

Mr. Sweetman

I was listening to every word outside.

Mr. Smith

——if I showed myself so weak and liable to give way to the amount of pressure brought to bear on me here and in the country, does not that show that democracy is working to perfection?

Mr. Sweetman

Hear, hear! It shows that democracy is working against the Minister.

Mr. Smith

There is one thing with which I am very pleased. In fact, I am delighted for this reason. I genuinely felt that when a sum of £5,000,000 was being provided for the relief of rates, surely to goodness those upon whom is the onus of imposing the taxation to provide that sum are entitled to look around and ask themselves whether they are getting value for the money.

The one just case that was made here, and it is one for which I have some sympathy and a good deal of understanding, was that made by Deputy Norton when he questioned whether or not we were getting value at all for the amount of money that was being spent in this way. He expressed a point of view with which I, as an individual, would have a good deal of understanding and that was that if we could make use of some of these huge sums for the purpose of encouraging some of our farmers to lime, fertilise and improve their land and increase its production, and if some scheme could be devised whereby the employment allowance, which will amount to between £1,250,000 and £1,500,000, could be applied in a positive way, we would, as a community, get much better results. I do not contend that it would be easy to devise such a system. In fact I do not believe it would be possible at the present time to devise it but if one could be devised I would certainly agree with him and with those others who think along the same lines that the community as a whole would be better served by such an approach.

I am delighted to notice the change of heart that has taken place on the part of the Opposition, who were going to tear me asunder. First of all they spent the whole summer looking for this Bill. They wanted to know when I would introduce it. They wanted to know why I did not introduce it. They pestered me to introduce it. The Order Paper was full of questions although the Bill appears at the normal time and is being dealt with by this House in the normal way. All the Bills which subsequently became Acts have been introduced by this House around this time of the year and some of them were not disposed of by the Oireachtas until the following year, so that it was strange to watch the Opposition pressing me to introduce the Bill. When they thought we showed a reluctance to introduce the Bill they wanted to give me the impression that I was going to have a rough time of it. I had no sooner completed my Second Reading speech—it was a short one—than they were all on their feet to criticise but at the same time all of them said they did not mean to vote against the Bill. Of course they did not, because this measure proposes to confer benefits that are defensible and justifiable in the fullest sense.

Political Parties, especially some of those political Parties in opposition these times, have not a tradition for proposing things that would prove popular in the country. I am very pleased at the change of front. I am very pleased to learn that this measure is going to receive a Second Reading without any division in the House at all.

Mr. Sweetman

The change of heart is all with the Minister when he changed the circular.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Committee Stage?

Mr. Smith

Will you take it now, Deputy?

Mr. Sweetman

No.

Mr. Brennan

Christmas Eve!

Mr. Smith

The Seanad meets on Thursday and I would like to get the Bill through.

Mr. Sweetman

Put it down to-morrow for a consultation with the Whips.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 16th December, 1953.