Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 Jul 1954

Vol. 146 No. 6

Estimates for Public Services, 1954-55. Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed).

Mr. Donegan

With regard to the price of fertilisers, there are in the world to-day two main sources of fertilisers; one is the European and North African source and the other is the American source. The European and North African source is completely controlled by an international cartel. If we make the price of wheat in this country £10 a barrel, that international cartel can decide that the Irish farmer is capable of paying maybe twice or three times his present price for the fertilisers they supply.

They can thus dole out to our fertiliser factories the raw materials of this industry at a price which will enable them to provide fertilisers at this rate and not a penny lower. It is most important that the Minister should investigate all sources of supply for the fertiliser industry. It is to his credit that when in power shortly before the inter-Party Government left office, he imported a very large amount of American fertilisers although heavily criticised for so doing. He placed this lot of fertilisers at the disposal of the Irish farmer in any part of the country that required it at £9 10s. per ton. I can personally say that five weeks later North African phosphate bought from the other source at £9 10s. was bought by him at £5 15s. Therefore, in my view the Minister saved the Irish farmer a colossal sum in fertilisers by breaking the ring that then existed.

It is, I fear, to the discredit of the following Minister that when he was left to dispose of these fertilisers he did not dispose of them as they could have been disposed of at £9 10s., but— and I quote the figure given to me by the Department of Agriculture this morning—at £17 a ton. The reason given was that the price charged was the one prevailing in the country at the time. The price should not have been the one prevailing in the country at the time because the following Minister should have made the effort the present Minister made then to decrease the price of fertilisers to the Irish farmer.

I pass now to the position in relation to the production of beef, bacon and poultry products. The principal materials of these industries are obviously compound feeding stuffs and feeding stuffs of themselves. A price of £4 was given to the Irish farmer last year for wheat and he profited by it but it is a matter of very great question whether, in fact, the farmer received the whole £4.

My reason for so saying is that for nine months of the year the Irish millers were instructed by Government Order to provide brans and pollards, the offals of this wheat, at from £6 to £10 more than was being paid by our competitors for the British market. The position, therefore, was that the Irish housewife who went for the bag of bran, the bag of pollard, the bag of mash or the bag of meal, paid 6/- to 10/- per cwt. more for it. Is it not a fact that the subsidy paid by the Government to the millers to compensate them for the loss on Irish wheat is assessed from their losses on this wheat and that if the Government instruct the miller to charge more for the offals the loss is less? It is quite clear that if the farmer received £4 a barrel for his wheat, his wife paid back 5/- to 6/- on every bag of feeding for her fowl and pigs. I would ask the Minister to see that production from the raw materials for the feeding industry is not hampered and remind him that no Government has a moral right to take from one class of the community or from one productive group a right which is theirs and give it to another for political purposes. With regard to that I would like to quote what Deputy Corry said yesterday evening from the Fianna Fáil Benches. I took a note of it at the time. He stated:—

"The farmers have already contributed to the reduction of the poor man's pint by some £2,000,000. The breweries had authority to increase the price of the pint and when barley went up to 84/- a barrel the price of the pint was increased by a penny."

The Chair then indicated to Deputy Corry that he could not discuss the price of barley on the particular amendment before the House and Deputy Corry, in reply, stated:—

"I am showing how this price will not be the burden on the community that people think. Due to the reduction of the price of barley from 84/- to 63/6, there is a big gap which should definitely cancel the ld. on the pint."

The main customer here for malting barley is known to everyone. The fact of the matter is that that customer is not a free agent in relation to the price they can pay the Irish farmer. Last year, 170,000 standard barrels were produced; of that, 100,000 barrels were sold on the export market and 70,000 barrels on the home market. That firm is not the boss in the export market, but it has succeeded in capturing for the Irish farmer exactly 8 per cent. of the export market. When that firm exports a barrel of beer to Bristol, Manchester or anywhere else in the world, it is obviously in competition with its competitors, competitors mainly from Britain, but also from Denmark. The raw materials for this industry must, therefore, be provided if the industry is to flourish and continue giving the Irish farmer the wonderful opportunity it has given him in the past of disposing of his malting barley at a price well above that of feeding barley. That firm must be placed in a position, therefore, in which it can successfully compete.

If the price of barley is increased beyond that which is paid by that firm's competitors, then the firm cannot compete and two things will occur. Firstly, the quality of the brew will deteriorate and, as a result of that, we will lose some of that important 8 per cent., which represents 65 per cent. of the trade in malting barley in so far as the Irish farmer is concerned; secondly, the firm will not be able to put back the moneys necessary to enable it to remain in the front line and compete with its competitors.

It is an easy matter to give an example to illustrate the position. During the last five years, on the Vote for Agriculture, a figure of £5,000,000 has been quoted as representing the profits of that firm. Now, those are trading profits. When allowance has been made for putting the necessary capital back into the industry, the net profit is approximately £1,000,000. It is easy to understand how this £5,000,000 decreases to £1,000,000 when one remembers that in one particular instance the construction of a plant to supply electricity and steam to clean certain parts of the brewery cost £1,000,000, and that £1,000,000 has to be repaid over 20 years. That is one small item, and we are left with only £4,000,000 to use per year.

The Irish farmer must place that firm in a position in which it can compete in order to enable it to give the Irish farmer the maximum amount of support. It does not follow that that firm is looking for something for nothing. As proof of that, let me quote the year to which Deputy Corry referred when barley was 84/3 per barrel. When Messrs. Guinness, having learned from their auditors that they had paid in Britain over 80/- per barrel for barley, implemented their promise to pay 2/6 more per barrel to the Irish farmer I, as their agent, paid out many thousands of pounds one morning to Irish farmers.

Their attitude, aided by the Minister, is one of fair play and it is an attitude with which there should be no interference. Deputy Corry should remember that the firm is willing to pay the highest price it is able to pay. Messrs. Guinness have always paid at least 15/- more per barrel for malting barley than the Irish farmer receives for feeding barley. Deputy Corry can safely leave these matters in the hands of the Minister and the principals in that industry.

In conclusion, I would appeal to the Minister to ensure that the raw materials in so far as the production of cereals is concerned are provided at a price which is not one penny more than the price being paid by any other firm in any other country with which we find ourselves in competition. If that position is maintained the British market will remain open to us.

In relation to wheat, provided we get our fertilisers at the lowest possible rate we will produce our wheat at the lowest possible cost of production.

Mr. Manley

This is the most important Estimate that comes up for consideration here because it deals with our basic industry. First of all, I would like to compliment the Minister on the very exhaustive and comprehensive survey of the Department's activities with which he provided Deputies yesterday and on the amazing statistical information it contains.

The Minister's statement that live-stock prices would be stabilised for the coming two years is welcome news for every producer up and down the country. We are all aware that live stock is the foundation of our whole economy; it is the section that has always maintained our people in some degree of affluence. We are glad to know that live-stock prices are still buoyant. Deputy Walsh stated yesterday that our live-stock trade brought in £20,000,000 more in 1953. Of course, the stage for that increase was set through the medium of the trade agreement of 1948. That provided the Irish farmer with the incentive to rear every call he could.

The Minister made a statement on the introduction of measures to eradicate parasitic diseases. He stated there was a guaranteed future for the pig industry. We are all aware that the position of the pig industry is fluid at the moment, and it is reassuring and comforting to be told that the future of the industry is hopeful. We trust that when the emergency of the last few weeks passes the industry will regain its former proportions. Our pig producers will find consolation in the Minister's statement yesterday.

Rabbit pest is a matter of grave concern in many districts and I would appeal to the Minister to use every means at his disposal in an effort to eradicate that pest. I am not advocating the introduction of the new virus. I think it is too soon yet because we are not in a position to gauge its consequences. We are told in to-day's newspapers that 16 counties in Great Britain have got rid of the rabbit pest, but that should not entice us to introduce the virus here. I would appeal to the Minister to use other alternative means for the present and to examine the possibility of having the export market opened for rabbits during the summer months as well as the possibility that has been put to me by certain firms of having the rabbits exported in carcase form hygienically sealed.

The scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. is inevitable. I am afraid it is going to be a costly and difficult scheme, but I believe that, with the co-operation which the Minister has asked for, it will be effective. It is very important for us since we must compete with the farmers in Great Britain, and if certain elements of our live-stock industry are going to be excluded from Great Britain it is imperative that we should act immediately. I believe it is going to be a costly scheme, and hence I would appeal to the Minister to try and keep the cost within bounds, because national expenditure has soared to such an enormous degree that our production cannot stand any further burdens, and neither will our potential production bear any further burdens.

The matter of credits was raised here yesterday, in good faith, by Deputy Walsh. The fact that he made certain credits available reflects all the greater credit on himself, but one cannot talk of credit so long as one has to pay from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent. on the money loaned. Our agriculture is our sole economy and the land is our sole source of wealth. I believe that if we could have made available in the Department of Agriculture £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 to be loaned out, free of interest, to our farmers, or, if there was an interest charge to be made, that it would be just sufficient to cover the cost of administration, these moneys loaned in that way would give our farmers a new incentive. They would result, I believe, in an increase in production and would obviate the need for the present grants and loans which are being operated by the Department at the present time.

We know ourselves that what was wrong for generations with the Irish farmers was that they had not the capital necessary to develop their resources in the way as they would think fit. They had not the capital to improve their live stock, to apply fertilisers to their lands or to erect premises to house the cattle and other animals which they produced on their farms. If they had the comforting consolation of knowing that they would now be able to get, through the Department of Agriculture, loans at a very low rate of interest they would redouble their efforts, always realising that if they met with one bad year they would have the Department to fall back on to tide them over the period until conditions improved for them.

I humbly submit that as a practical scheme. I do not see any reason why it could not be operated in this agricultural country where we pay such great lip service to agriculture. I believe that if put into operation it would be the means of bringing great comfort to thousands of our farmers and would certainly be effective as a method of increasing employment. It would also give our farmers an opportunity of getting maximum output from the land at their disposal.

Mr. McQuillan

I would like to join with the last speaker in appealing to the Minister to take active steps in the matter of dealing with the rabbit pest. I had a question down to the Minister on this matter last week. I asked him if he was aware of the serious depredations which were being carried out by rabbits on our crops and grass, and if he would take steps to remedy the situation. I must say that I was very disappointed with the reply which I received from him because he has always struck me, at any rate, as being a man who could make a constructive approach to any problem, and, if not a constructive one, a destructive one. In this particular matter his destructive qualities could be very useful indeed. He mentioned that, by exhortation and so on, possibly the rabbits might disappear. I pointed out to him that, as far as the farmers are concerned, it was not practical for the Minister himself to suggest that they should combine together for the purpose of exterminating the pest in a locality. We all know that one of the hardest things in this country is to get co-operation between any group. Many of us have had the experience, in connection with roads, drainage and other things of trying for perhaps two or three years to get agreement amongst a group of farmers—to sign perhaps for a rural improvements scheme under which they would have to help by making a contribution.

I suggest that the same thing applies when you are dealing with the rabbit pest. There is no good in the Minister saying that there is advice available in his Department. If he has advice to offer in this regard, I think that use should be made of the daily newspapers and of the local weekly newspapers in the different counties. The suggestions which he has to make for meeting this rabbit pest problem should be made in the local papers in the form of advertisements. From time to time we see very excellent information given by his Department in these local papers. Therefore, I suggest that he should utilise them as a means of outlining his views for getting rid of the rabbits.

The only other point that I want to mention is one that was dealt with very capably indeed by the last speaker, that is, the question of credit to farmers. I have heard the Minister himself in this House, both as a former Minister for Agriculture and also in his capacity as a prominent member of the Opposition, speak on numerous occasions about the need for a reduction in the cost of money. Now, if ever there was a Department where money is needed at a lower rate of interest it is the Department of Agriculture. The Agricultural Credit Corporation, I know, lend money to farmers at the present time at about 6 per cent. In giving that figure, I may be ½ per cent. out one way or the other. Even at that rate of interest, it is very difficult for farmers, in the West of Ireland at any rate, to get a loan.

It would be very interesting, I think, if we had some information as to the number of applications made to the Agricultural Credit Corporation in a year for loans as well as the number of refusals. I do not know what system the corporation adopts for the purpose of investigating the stability or otherwise of the applicants, but they seem to have their own secret agents for checking up on the reliability of many of these applicant farmers. I can tell the Minister that the information which the corporation obtains in that way is very often incorrect. Of course, I understand that the Minister has no statutory power to interfere with the Agricultural Credit Corporation. They have the last word themselves as to who should get a loan, and that even if the Minister were to make a recommendation it is quite possible the corporation may deem it unwise to agree with his recommendation. The Minister is now in a position—I hope that the Ceann Comhairle will not pull me up on this —to change the law, and all that I ask of him is that he should put into effect, at some date in the near future, the very good suggestions which he has put forward from time to time in this House in connection with the issue of credit and the loan of money to trustworthy farmers at a reasonable rate of interest.

Mr. Dillon

I agree with Deputies Manley and McQuillan and other Deputies who referred to it that the provision of credit for farmers is an eminently desirable thing and we are all at one in desiring that it be readily available at rates of interest that will make the loan economic for the man who borrows. Is there any Deputy in this House who can propose to me a reasonable method of securing such loans? If there is, he will be many thousand times welcome in my office and I promise to use all the influence I have with the Government to get such a proposal put into operation.

In countries outside Ireland a mortgage on land is deemed to be the best of all securities. It is no security in Ireland, and God forbid it ever should be. We fought the land war in this country to banish the sheriff's bailiff and we determined—or our fathers and grandfathers did—that we did not think it was a good thing that people's homesteads should be taken from them by those who lent money on the security thereof. I think we were right, and I do not want to revive in our system the proposition that neighbours should stand idly by while men and their wives and families are put out upon the roadside because they are unable to meet the interest charged on a loan that someone has made to them.

That may shock orthodox economists. If it does, then so far as I am concerned they must get over the shock. That is what I believe. The next line of defence is to invite a couple of neighbours to join with the farmer in guaranteeing the prompt repayment of the loan. We all know by our own experience among our neighbours that that is a request that a decent man in the country is slow to make on his neighbours and we all know by our own experience that if he does muster up courage enough to make that request there are many men who are slow to accede to such a request. And I am amongst them.

If a man asks me to back a bill for him my answer is that if I have the money I will give it to the man, but I will not back his bill. If a man wants me to back a bill for £100 I will give it to him, if I have the money, but if I have not got the money, I will not back the bill because for all I know, if and when that bill becomes due and I am called on to meet it, I may not have £100 then. But if I have the money then and if I am honest in my intention of backing the bill the proper thing for me to do is to lend the money myself. When I have the money I am entitled to lend it. No sensible man backs his neighbour's bill lest the day might dawn when the bill would become due and he would not have the means of honouring his signature.

Does that exhaust the possibilities? I think it does not. I have thrown out the suggestion before and I will throw it out now. There are two means whereby this problem might be overcome. One is the operation of loan societies among large groups of farmers in the country. There are ample facilities in the Department of Agriculture to help the farmers of a parish—or of three parishes—to form a co-operative loan society. Where it is a question of a small temporary advance to a neighbour the application can be considered by a committee of the society who know all the local circumstances and who can tell whether the loan is a reasonable risk or not; and if it is a reasonable risk, and the sum modest, the resources of the loan society will not be unduly strained by making the advance, and there is a reasonably strong local feeling that if the neighbours put up the money that it should be duly paid if the man who gets the loan is in a position to pay it.

But that is not all. If that will not work can we not arrange that where a farmer needs a loan of money his co-operative society will help him to get credit? I threw out those two suggestions. Maybe they will not serve the purpose. Will anyone come to me with any proposition that will provide reasonable security for small farmers other than the mortgaging of land which I do not think is good security because I do not think the neighbours would ever allow anyone to enforce it?

Mr. Walsh

Two sureties.

Mr. Dillon

I have dealt with that before the Deputy came into the House and the difficulty is that no decent man will ask his neighbours to go surety, and if he does ask, a great many men will not go sureties for the reason I have explained—that if a man comes to me to back a bill I always refuse, but if I have the money and can spare it I will lend it to him. I will not sign a bill which I may not have the money to meet when it becomes due if I am called on. And I doubt if Deputy Walsh would back a bill for anybody—rightly apprehensive that if the bill became due at a later date he would not have the wherewithal to meet the bill, whereas if he had it, he might lend or even give the money if he thought it was a very deserving case. All of us are prudently reluctant to undertake contingent liabilities.

Mr. McQuillan

Is the Minister aware that every time a man gets a loan to build a house in my county he has to get two sureties?

Mr. Dillon

If he can get two sureties his troubles are over—he will get the loan. I doubt if any man has ever gone to the Agricultural Credit Corporation with two sureties and been refused a loan.

Mr. Moher

I know one instance——

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy will give me particulars of any instance he knows about I will be happy to discuss the case separately with him, but I think he will agree with me that we should not discuss any individual's affairs within the House even anonymously. I want the Deputy to understand that it is my job and my pleasure to sit down and confidentially discuss the details of any personal case of which he knows.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Dillon

Reference has been made by more Deputies than one to the rabbit pest. I can assure them that the problem is constantly present in my mind and I do not want to minimise it in the least degree but I think I am right in saying that this is a cyclical problem and that there is a tendency for the rabbit population to rise steeply and then to go down rapidly and rise steeply again at a later date, due to a process of natural selection. In fact, I understand what happens is that when the rabbit population rises to a certain level, disease thins them out and the population sinks. When it sinks to a minimum level the high incidence of disease dwindles and the population rapidly rises.

Mr. Moher

They may be the cause of another famine before that happens.

Mr. Dillon

I am not as pessimistic as the Deputy. I believe rabbits have been gambolling in this country for the last 20 centuries and we are all here still. That does not mean that rabbits cannot be an extremely exasperating pest to a farmer whose crops, sown and growing, are being devastated by a local plague of rabbits. It does not mean that we should be indifferent, in my opinion, to the quantity of valuable herbage that is consumed or the indeterminable area that is perennially contaminated by rabbits. All that is present to my mind.

What then must we do? The first thing no doubt that occurs to the minds of some Deputies is: "Why not introduce myxomatosis, and suffer a plague of myxomatosis, to destroy the rabbit population?" My answer to that is that every veterinary authority in the world will tell you that fortuitously and gratuitously to introduce a new animal disease into an island country, which is free from it, is to take a risk out of all proportion to the benefits that one can reasonably hope to derive from such a procedure. We have no reason to think that myxomatosis would eliminate rabbits.

We do know it would reduce the number but we have a virtual certainty, from experience gained in Australia and on the Continent of Europe, that there would emerge a small immune surviving population of rabbits which might then multiply again and, while we might be no worse off at the end of the cycle, we would be no better off and in the course of the cycle there might appear a disease in some other variety of animals which veterinary science might not promptly associate with the myxomatosis in rabbits because it might have an entirely different symptomatology in another genus of animal.

Let us remember the case of the fowl pest commonly known as Newcastle Disease. In turkeys, Newcastle Disease or fowl pest is practically symptomless. Its presence can only be detected by a skilled veterinarian who observes the slow tremor in the turkey's head, its failure to put on weight and by applying the blood test which is the only diagnostic procedure for detecting the disease. But introduce turkeys suffering from that practically symptomless condition into domestic fowl and they will die in thousands. It will wipe them out as quickly as you bring them into contact with the diseased turkey. Here you have a disease which is practically symptomless in turkeys but which is absolutely devastating amongst domestic fowl. When the disease of myxomatosis first became popularly known, it was stated authoritatively that hares were immune to myxomatosis. It was alleged that exhaustive experience had shown that they were immune to the disease but it has become abundantly clear in the last 12 months that they are not immune, because hares suffering from the disease have been found—a position which up to 12 months would not have been regarded as possible.

I am not going to be responsible for bringing the disease into this country for the purpose of eliminating rabbits and run the risk of coming to this House in three or fours years' time to have to inform Deputies that I found in dogs, cattles, sheep or pigs a devastating disease, of the existence of which I did not know and of the existence of which nobody else knew. Therefore I, as Minister for Agriculture, dissociate myself from any proposal to introduce a disease of which we are at present free because I do not know what the result of its introduction may be.

That leaves us with the rabbits. What, then, must we do? I invite any group of Deputies in this House who have influence with their own county committees of agriculture to get the county committees of agriculture to come to me and propose to me that we delimit an experimental pilot area and attempt the extermination of rabbits in that area by a method of intensive gassing of rabbits in their warrens. We may say certainly, if we have only one restricted area, all we can prove is that we can materially reduce the rabbit population in that area and that unless we go all out from there, the rabbits will come into it again, but we could determine, if we had an experimental project in a limited area, whether the concerted effort of all could not make a real impression on the rabbit population at these periods of the year when they reach their maximum numbers.

Some people will say that the method of election is to seek new markets for rabbits and to export them in as large a number as possible to these markets. If I had to choose between exporting no rabbits and having no rabbits, on the one hand, and having to have rabbits and increasing our exports, on the other hand, I would be in favour of having no rabbits and no exports. There is always the danger of our getting an increase in the population of rabbits through this traffic in the export of rabbits which would counterbalance any possible profit we might derive from them. Deputy Moher has referred to the hen as being the bankrupt live stock of the farm. Well, there is no doubt that the rabbit is the bankrupt live stock of the Ireland. Whatever price we get for them is never going to produce a profitable economy here at home.

However, I do not believe in sitting down and saying that we can do nothing. Some Deputies will come to me and say: "Well, in any case it would help in some way, though it might not help very much, if the exports of rabbits were prohibited for only a very brief period and if we were allowed to export rabbits a little earlier than we have been heretofore." Very well; I have given that close consideration. Ordinarily, the export of rabbits is prohibited to the end of September. I am prepared to take a risk on that and to permit the export of rabbits from 1st september.

Some Deputies may think that that may not help very much but every little helps, as the old lady said when she spat into the sea. It is some contribution but we are not going to make any really effective constribution unless we get a concerted effort and collaboration from every county committee of agriculture or anybody else who can help to make concentrated attacks on exceptional numbers of rabbits in particular areas with the purpose in view of exterminating them, not only when they emerge but in their burrows and from every other angle whence we can launch the attack upon them.

If anybody else has any better plan to propose to me I will be delighted to hear him. That is all I know about rabbits except that they are a scourge and a persecution and are at this moment eating me out of house and home in the parish of Kilcolman in the County of Roscommon and devil a much I can do with them because the rabbits that are eating me out of house and home live in the local graveyard and I cannot go in there to gas them out.

I am grateful to Deputy Manley for his gracious reference to the White Paper which the Department of Agriculture takes pleasure in circulating for the better information of Deputies every year. I think I can claim the credit for initiating that departure. I think I can compliment my predecessor, Deputy Walsh, in so effectively carrying it on and passing back the tradition to me. In fact, the White Paper which it was my privilege to circulate on this occasion was prepared very largely under the direction of Deputy Walsh and in presenting it to the House I invited the House to accept it subject to whatever correction he thought it necessary or proper to make in it. I gather he has perused it and found it contained no heterodox view.

Deputy Donegan says that the cost of fertilisers is too high. The more he says that the better pleased I am. I invite the help of his strong elbow to bring the cost of fertilisers down and the more Deputies from every side of the House, whencever they may come, will raise their voices with mine and as I have no doubt, with that of Deputy Walsh, in seeking to bring down the cost of fertilisers, I think we should find certainly amongst all those Deputies here who represent the agricultural industry, a common cause over and above the political allegiance of us all.

Mr. O'Hara

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

I thought that came from the Labour Benches and my heart rose high. Now I want to turn to Deputy Moher's speech. First, I want to compliment him. It was a very valuable contribution to an agricultural debate. Secondly, I want to say to him that in so far as he dealt with genetic questions, I find myself in almost entire agreement with the genetic theories that he proposed to the House for acceptance. He will have to forgive me if I allow the degree to which I was impressed by the speech he made to persuade me to deal with that speech as though it were made by an old hand in this House. It is the custom, as the Deputy probably knows, when a new Deputy intervenes for the first time, that the Minister concluding the debate confines himself to courteous banalities in referring to what he has said, lest he seem discourteous or unduly ready to scout the propositions put forward by an inexperienced Deputy. I cannot look on Deputy Moher as an inexperienced Deputy. His contribution was that of a seasoned performer equal to all the emergencies of debate. Therefore, I dare to say to Deputy Moher, when he spoke so trenchantly of the failure and shortcomings of agricultural policy in this country over the last quarter of a century, did he ever stop to ask himself who guided agricultural policy in this country over the last quarter of a century.

Mr. Moher

Theoretically the Minister does, but I question that.

Mr. Dillon

I am afraid Deputy Moher must have that out with Deputy Walsh. I can assure Deputy Moher that nobody directs me. So long as I am Minister for Agriculture I direct the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Moher

And accept the status quo.

Mr. Dillon

I direct the Department of Agriculture. I make policy and the policy operated by the Department of Agriculture is my policy under the direction of the Taoiseach and the Government to which I belong. I can certify that. Now for the rest of the 25 years, I invite Deputy Moher to imparl with Deputy Walsh, Deputy Smith and Deputy Dr. Ryan and, if they have fallen short of his ideal of what a Minister for Agriculture should be, there is plenty of room in these benches, Deputy Moher, whenever you want to sit behind a real Minister for Agriculture.

Deputy Moher dwelt on our failure adequately to pursue the progenytesting of cattle. I am in entire agreement with the Deputy, and I have said again and again and again that the whole business of trying to choose good dairy bulls by breeding from a pedigree is as irrelevant as listening to The Waring of the Green and taking whatever bull turns up at the fifth bar of the refrain. All I can tell the Deputy is that we have men out now looking, not at the pedigrees of the bulls, but at their progeny to try and see if we can locate amongst the leased bulls in the country or any other bulls in the country evidence that there is a uniform tendency to improve amongst their offspring over their dams, with a view to capturing these bulls which, remember, will be in their seventh, eighth or ninth year, and draw them into the artificial insemination centres so that in the remaining years of their lives the maximum use may be made of them to propagate their stock.

Haggedoorn, the famous Dutch geneticist, says in his book that if he went to an agricultural show to pick out a good dairy shorthorn bull, the first thing he would ask for is a good thick sheet wherewith to cover the whole bull except its tail, that the one thing that did not interest him was what the bull looked like. He liked to put the bull in a tent and then say: "Bring out its progeny and let me judge on its performance."

The trouble is that most bulls at an agricultural show are ten months old and bulls do not have any progeny at ten months old. You have to wait until the bull is five, six, seven, eight to nine years old before you can get a comprehensive sample of its female progeny to determine whether it has the quality of increasing the milk yield of its progeny over that of the dams. I quite agree with the Deputy that if we had busied ourselves about that task years and years ago—it is a slow, difficult, tedious task—we would have got bulls by now which were proven bulls but, ad interim, I and my successor did the best we could. While we were short of proven bulls, we went into the market and bought the bulls that we thought had the greatest likelihood of developing into proven bulls. What else could we do? Remember, you bought Tulyar.

Mr. Moher

Let you buy a bovine Tulyar now.

Mr. Dillon

I wish I could but who here knows what Tulyar may be going to be worth? He may breed nothing but a cab horse. Is not that so? It is a risk inherent in the breeding of blood stock because, by the time it is demonstrated that he will breed champions, all the money in the world would not buy him; no money would buy him because the person who had him would not part with him. Fortunately, that is not so in regard to cattle. If we can find, locate and determine the identity of the proven bull he will have a price and where we are operating artificial insemination centres, where we can use them on a scale on which the private owner could not attempt to use them, I think we can afford to pay the price and, instead of saying to the farmer who has had him for four or five years and finds him no longer amenable or getting too heavy that he ought to take him to the butcher and have him slaughtered for meat, we can go in and say to him that that bull's record, judged by its progeny, makes him worth money and, instead of taking the butcher's price, we can tell him that we are prepared to pay a breeder's price.

I can assure Deputy Moher that all the resources which the Department of Agriculture disposes will be devoted to that end and that it intends to locate these bulls and bring them into the artificial insemination centres for the user of the greater number of our farmers.

I ask Deputy Moher, who manifestly has an informed and public-spirited interest in this problem, to get it out of his head that the Department of Agriculture has the slightest desire to interfere if a man wants to have Friesian or Jersey or Ayrshire or any other kind of cattle. But Deputy Moher surely will not ask Deputy Walsh and me, when I am Minister for Agriculture, to foreswear our right to form a judgment on the same matters as Deputy Moher has formed his judgment. He is entitled to his view that the Friesian is the best breed of cattle or the Ayrshire. Suppose Deputy Walsh is made Minister for Agriculture or I am made Minister for Agriculture, have not we the right and the duty to apply our minds to the problem just as Deputy Moher applied his and testify to the truth as we see it?

Deputy Moher would appear to imagine that the Department of Agriculture is indifferent to the progeny test of bulls. He went on to tell the story of how the Department's officials went to Reading and bought a bull called Napoleon and that his progeny proved disappointing and the bull was withdrawn.

Mr. Moher

How many have not been withdrawn?

Mr. Dillon

I cannot answer for what Deputy Smith or Deputy Dr. Ryan did I am answering for what I do. Is not that evidence to Deputy Moher that the Department applied to that bull, expensive as it was, the very test that Deputy Moher charged them with not applying? They were not afraid, because they were backed both by Deputy Walsh and myself who said they were perfectly right, having used the best judgment they could, to pay two thousand guineas, I think it was, for the bull. They discovered that he was not producing the kind of progeny it was hoped he would produce and, instead of showing moral cowardice and persisting in using him, he was withdrawn.

Mr. Moher

That is one isolated instance, but you still operate the Livestock Breeding Act.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Moher must develop the tendency of looking for the virtue in his neighbour and not seeking for the mote in his eye. He will remember what happened the man who always saw the mote in his neighbour's eye and overlooked the beam in his own. The Deputy should rather see the flickering flames of virtue which fitfully gleam through the windows of the Department of Agriculture now and again. Deputy Moher will agree with us that the Department was right about that bull in any case. If I did not think Deputy Moher was serious in what he was saying and had given a good deal of thought to what he said, I would not bother answering him. It is because I think what he said was worthy of discussion that I stressed this by referring to it at such length.

I notice that Deputy Moher referred to my old and valued friend, David Gray, the former American Ambassador here. It is very interesting that Deputy Moher said that everything that man said was wrong except the one thing, and that was when he said: "Your cattle in this country are robber cows". At that moment he was a Daniel called to judgment, but in everything else there was neither sense nor meaning in what he said. Why does Deputy Moher think that everything that man said was inimical to the interests of this country?

Mr. Moher

I was referring to a particular interview.

Mr. Dillon

Everything he said in that interview was wrong.

Mr. Moher

I did not say everything.

Mr. Dillon

The majority of the things he said were wrong, but one thing he said was right when he said: "The Irish Department of Agriculture had helped to populate this country with a population of robber cows." I ask Deputy Moher to sit back and have a look at himself and examine his conscience. If the man was wrong about everything Deputy Moher knew about and he heard that man say one thing which suggested that everybody in Ireland except himself was wrong, why does Deputy Moher plead to that declaration and say: "In this Mr. Gray was an enlightened sage?"

I was very fond of Mr. Gray. He was one of my best friends, but he was talking through his hat when talking about Irish live stock. He knew as much about them as my foot. He did not know one end of a bull from another. He was none the worse for that. Like many another decent man, he was asked to give an opinion about something he knew "Sweet Fanny Adams" about and gave it and it had neither sense nor meaning. I do not believe the man ever saw a shorthorn cow before he came here. The first ones he saw, I do not think he knew whether they were cows or what. There are not any shorthorns to speak of in the United States of America. It is the Friesian and the Hereford they have there. I bet you that all the American advisers who came here would tell us we should have Friesians or Herefords. If Deputy Moher goes to the Dublin Cattle Market next Wednesday and inquires what is selling best, the Aberdeen Angus-shorthorn cross or the Hereford, he will find that we know as much about Irish agriculture in the Department of Agriculture as even the American ambassador did when talking in New York.

When Deputy Corry rose, I duly wrote down "Deputy Corry" and I am damned if I wrote down another word because I did not know what he was talking about. But Deputy Walsh was good enough to intervene in the debate and he said that he deplored the fact that we were not starting in Limerick with the eradication of bovine T.B. He had only come into the House and I had just been getting my tea in a mug from his colleague, Deputy Cunningham, for even thinking of starting in Limerick. "You pays your money and you takes your choice." Deputy Cunningham said he was greatly distressed that I did not go further west to inaugurate the scheme. I ask, how much further west could I go than County Sligo unless I took to the sea? I am doing the best I can. Clare, Sligo and part of Limerick—East Limerick to begin with and, as fast as we can get it cleared, spread on out over the county.

Mr. Walsh

Is it not much easier to control Limerick than Sligo?

Mr. Dillon

I am told not. My advice is that it is best to start in Clare and a county like Sligo and that we should tackle Limerick "with and with", as we say in the West of Ireland and if unexpected success attends our initial effort we can push out into Limerick as fast as our effort prospers; but if we try to bite off Limerick, Clare and Sligo at one bite we might bite off more than we can chew. If we find that our resources are more than equal to our initial assignment, I can assure the Deputy that there is no one more anxious than he and I are to press on in Limerick and in every other county in Ireland. Do not let us forget that, in addition to the intensive areas of eradication which we are about to schedule for the 1st September, we are eager to get any farmer in any individual farm in any part of Ireland——

Mr. Walsh

Naturally.

Mr. Dillon

——or where there is a group of farms, to come forward and collaborate with us in raising those farms to attested status.

Mr. Walsh

Quite a number of them said they were anxious to do that.

Mr. Dillon

Well, we are anxious to help in any way we can. Now, we do not pretend before we start at all that we know all the answers. We are going to start out with a concerted plan but we are not going to be one bit abashed or ashamed or apologetic if we find that we have to mend our hand as we go. Our purpose is to give the best possible service to the farmers who will collaborate with us, to help them to the maximum of our capacity and to make whatever burden the revelation of disease on their particular farm threatens them with, as light as we can make it. I have no doubt that we have the cordial goodwill of Deputies on every side of the House in doing that task. That we may make mistakes is certain: that we should seek to correct them as quickly as possible I can guarantee to the House. More than that at this stage I cannot say.

I desire to record again my intense sense of obligation and gratitude to the veterinary profession for the utterly admirable spirit of co-operation they have shown and for their anxiety to help in every way they can. The same might be said of the voluntary organisations like Muintir na Tíre and Macra na Feirme and, as I have no doubt, will be said by the Irish Countrywomen's Association, when I have an opportunity of laying the problem before them. The more help we get the more grateful we will be. I can say quite honestly to every Deputy in the House, to whatever Party he belongs, that he can give us in his public capacity invaluable help by reassuring his constituents and anyone else with whom he has influence that it is in their own interest and in the country's interest that they should collaborate with their Department of Agriculture, and with the servants and friends of the people who will come out from that Department, in expediting the eradication of this disease.

Deputy Walsh, I am happy to say, has declared himself as agreeing with me in the eminent desirability of the parish plan, and he says that if it were possible to put it into operation he would have done so. Well, I am delighted to hear that, because I hope to give him a very early opportunity of rejoicing with me.

Mr. Walsh

We asked for it in 1949, actually, in Kilkenny, apart from everything else, but we had not the personnel in the past few years.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to introduce, at this stage of a most agreeable debate, a suspicion of a note of acrimony, but I may say—perhaps it is reckless—that I am going to have a shot at it before the end of this year.

Mr. Walsh

I wish you success.

Mr. Dillon

I thank you. As we go, we will make the provision that our resources will allow. If I can only do it in one county or two counties, I will do it in one or two counties, but I want to do it in one diocese or two dioceses and I want to get it on the basis of the parish. What I propose to do is to provide one instructor, to be the servant and friend of the farmer, in every three parishes. If we do that in the diocese of Killaloe, in the diocese of Elphin and in part of the diocese of Cashel, I know I will have the Deputy's sympathy and understanding if we do not cover a wider area in our initial departure and his encouragement to press forward into the wider area as the personnel becomes available to us.

This much I can say, in any case, that there is no better profession for a young man to embark on in Ireland at the present time than the service of the land. The faculty of agriculture is yawning for under-graduates and if there are any bewildered parents in this country scratching their heads to ask themselves what profession they can find for their son, that holds out the prospect of useful public service in his own country at a remuneration which will be acceptable to a man who does not aspire to riches but rather to security and dignity of occupation, he has it on the record that Deputy Walsh was only deterred from launching the plan I am about to launch by scarcity of personnel, that both sides of the House are firmly resolved to press forward with this project but there is an acute scarcity of personnel at the present time. Here is a chance for calling the emigrants home or ensuring they will never have to go.

Deputy Walsh is very anxious to know about the milk costing report. Is it not a very remarkable thing he was not a bit restless while he was Minister for Agriculture?

Mr. Walsh

Yes, it is on the record.

Mr. Dillon

I cannot find a single letter addressed by the Minister for Agriculture to the Milk Costings Committee, as long as it has sat, asking them to hurry up with the report.

Mr. Walsh

I think if the Minister searched for it——

Mr. Dillon

The Milk Costings Committee was set up and since then there has been deathly silence.

Mr. Walsh

——he would find it.

Mr. Dillon

Urging them to hurry up?

Mr. Walsh

It is on record.

Mr. Dillon

Then I will look again.

Mr. Walsh

I wonder would you.

Mr. Dillon

I found tumultuous and panic-stricken haste to set it up, but once it was set up there was silence.

Mr. Walsh

It was their job.

Mr. Dillon

And it was left to them. The whole Fianna Fáil Party are making a novena now that the committee will report to me.

Mr. Walsh

They are bound to. I was very anxious to have it before you had an opportunity of seeing it.

Mr. Dillon

I am sure you were, in the confident belief that you were going to be defeated in the general election and could pass it over to me then. When it comes you will get it, for all the good it is likely to do you. You will get it, for whatever it is worth, and cross my heart and hope to die I feel the Deputy will agree with me that it is largely cod. No one knows that better than Deputy Walsh.

Mr. Walsh

Go out and tell the manufacturers that.

Mr. Dillon

When the report comes, you will get it and you can sharpen your teeth on it, but if any Fianna Fáil Deputy thinks he can stun me by hitting me with it, he will have to think again.

Mr. Walsh

We will see. A lot of people were stunned on milk before.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know that Deputy Walsh has any reason to complain about our record in the reduction of calf mortality.

Mr. Walsh

Yes, it has been considerably reduced.

Mr. Dillon

That is what I say. There is no reason to complain. I think it is true to say that the average calf mortality from 1930 to 1948, one year with another, was 80,000 calves per annum.

Mr. Walsh

And up to 1951.

Mr. Dillon

I think that in two years it is true to say we had reduced that annual mortality to 12,000 a year.

Mr. Walsh

Oh, oh! You did not.

Mr. Dillon

Let us be ruled by the Statistical Abstract.

Mr. Walsh

Produce it.

Mr. Dillon

It is below in the Library. I quote it. That is my authority, and I will be bound by what it has to tell. Is that a fair authority to quote?

Mr. Walsh

The ones that were manipulated.

Mr. Dillon

I will be bound by the Statistical Abstract published during the last three years while Fianna Fáil were in office. I will let my claim be checked by that record—none other. I am not blaming Deputy Walsh or the Ministers who were Ministers for Agriculture before me for the simple reason that the drugs we had used and popularised were not available. I am not claiming that there is any special credit to me. All I am saying is that Deputy Walsh has no reason to asperse his predecessors or mine for their failure to reduce calf mortality in those years.

Mr. Walsh

I am not.

Mr. Dillon

The fact is that when these drugs became known to the much-despised Department of Agriculture we got them more widely used in Ireland than was the case in any country in the world and we made a greater inroad on calf mortality in Ireland than, I think, was made in any country in the world. Instead of taking feathers out of one another's tail, let us all stand up and give three ringing cheers for the Department of Agriculture. We are losing cattle from aphospherosis, we are told. What is aphospherosis?

Mr. Walsh

Complete waste. I did not say that. I said the losses—actual losses—are there from aphospherosis.

Mr. Dillon

Yes. What is aphospherosis?

Mr. Walsh

Do not ask me.

Mr. Dillon

That is not the correct approach. The first thing to do is to find out what is aphospherosis. Aphospherosis is a disease which occurs in cattle who are grazing on land which has become bereft of phosphates. How long does it take ordinary land to become bereft of phosphates?

Mr. Walsh

And what is the cause?

Mr. Dillon

Five to seven years— and the cause is inadequate fertilisation with phosphatic manure.

Mr. Walsh

There is something more. Add a little more to it, and you will get the answer. There are other factors.

Mr. Dillon

What are they?

Mr. Walsh

What are they? They are there.

Mr. Dillon

I will tell my story as I know it. Deputy Walsh can tell his later.

Mr. Walsh

We are not on rostrums here.

Mr. Dillon

What created the shortage of phosphates in the soil of Ireland? When did the shortage turn up? When did it develop? The disease became manifest and ubiquitous in 1944, 1945 and 1946. When did our land begin to get starved of phosphates? I am afraid I should have to say in the thirties of this century. Do Deputy Moher and Deputy Walsh know who were in control of the agricultural policy of this country in the thirties of this century?

Mr. Walsh

The problem was there for years before that. In the forties of the last century, the problem was there. What about basic slag?

Mr. Dillon

I am talking about the thirties and forties of this century. Of course, we have made much progress in many fields in this century. Perhaps it is forgotten that it was the Irish farmer who first discovered the value of the slag heaps of Britain.

The British threw basic slag away because they did not know its value. We bought it—our fathers and our grandfathers—and spread it on the land of Ireland. Then, when the Economic War made live stock uneconomic, and when you had to sell a four-year-old bull for £4 15s., our people gave up putting phosphates on the land of Ireland. For 13 years, practically no phosphates were put on the grass land of Ireland. Then we started putting them out again. As the cost of fuel went up, we stopped burning lime and there was no ground limestone on the land. Then we put on the ground limestone and released the phosphate that was in the soil.

I quite agree with Deputy Walsh that the more phosphate we put out the better for the land of Ireland but it did not help us to get the phosphate out by agreeing to put a tariff of 20 per cent. on superphosphate.

Mr. Walsh

On how much?

Mr. Dillon

All except what was brought in——

Mr. Walsh

"Except".

Mr. Dillon

——by the selected gentlemen who wanted to mix it and sell it as a compound at an enhanced price to the farmers of Ireland. But the man who wanted to buy super to put on his own land would not be let bring it in. I returned to office to find that an ordinary farmer of this country cannot bring it in to put on his own land but that selected gentlemen in the fertiliser business can bring it in and mix it and sell it as a compound and make a fat profit. They can make a fat profit out of mixing fertilisers in this country and they can bring it in free under licence. Only one class of person can bring in super free into this country under licence and that is the fertiliser manufacturers. The small farmer must pay 20 per cent.——

Mr. Walsh

Quite true.

Mr. Dillon

It was not true when I was Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Walsh

What quantity came in under that licence?

Mr. Dillon

To whom? To the mixers that mixed it and put a fancy name on it and sold it as a compound?

Mr. Walsh

Do not get vexed. That will not get you anywhere. It leaves you just where you were before.

Mr. Dillon

That vexes me. I do not deny it. I do not apologise to the House. I must admit that it vexes me.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister.

Mr. Dillon

Does Deputy Moher think it fair to levy 20 per cent. on the super to be brought in for direct sale to the farmer—and to let it in free when it is to be sold by a mixer who will mix it and sell it to the farmer as a compound fertiliser? I do not think that is fair. If the mixer is not prepared to pay it, then you should not ask the ten-acre farmer in the West of Ireland to pay it. I do not deny that that makes me angry. I live in too close contact with the small farmers of the West of Ireland not to resent most bitterly the fact that I must levy on them 20 per cent. in respect of the super they buy while I know that the mixer who is charging a fancy price for compound fertilisers can bring it in free. So long as that is true, it makes me angry and I cannot help it. I was born and reared amongst small farmers. I know what one bag of super means and what it costs a man who is trying to live out of ten acres of land.

Mr. Walsh

You will find next year there was no sale on 35 grade super, only in compounds.

Mr. Dillon

Whist now, for fear we should all get vexed. Deputy Walsh spoke of the desirability of the expansion of veterinary services and made reference to research into oedema disease in pigs. I do not think the Deputy has any reason to apologise for our research into oedema disease in pigs. I think we were one of the first countries in the world in that field of research and I may say that the research is going forward. I was at a research station in Washington and I visited all the research centres of the United States. I must say that I could not find in their research stations any more advanced work on oedema disease in pigs than we have here. Let me tell the House a story. When I went into the Director of the Research Laboratory in Washington I was introduced to him as the Irish Minister for Agriculture. I told him we had come to seek his aid and assistance in the matter of research into oedema disease in pigs.

He was gracious enough to say: "Mr. Minister, it surprises me that you should come to us for advice. You must not forget that it was from Dublin we learned the history of the warble fly." It transpired that it was in Dublin the life cycle of the warble fly was first discovered and described, and a method for its prevention determined which is being followed by every nation in the world. We have not discoverted all that needs to be known about oedema but we have learned as much in Dublin laboratories as they have learned in any other laboratory in the world. Let us not make extravagant claims as to what we have done. When we have done good work, let us claim with all modesty that we have done as well as everybody else. In the meantime, let us go on doing our job. If others resolve that problem before anybody else we will be glad to learn from them but if we resolve the problem before anybody else all we know will be placed freely at our neighbour's disposal for their information. More than that we cannot say.

Then Deputy Walsh really began to go to town and said he would like to see an extension of the demonstration plots and advisory schemes. I hope to establish the parish plan which will provide demonstrations and advice not only in the use of lime and fertilisers but in every other branch of agriculture and bring to every farmer not only all the information we have on those two problems but on every other topic in regard to which the Department of Agriculture is informed.

Mr. Walsh

The Minister cannot do more than two counties with the personnel available.

Mr. Dillon

Watch me going.

Mr. Walsh

Three at the most.

Mr. Dillon

They are coming up already.

Mr. Walsh

You have 14 men available.

Mr. Dillon

Think again.

Mr. Walsh

Only 14.

Mr. Dillon

I think we will be able to astonish the Deputy.

Mr. Walsh

I am talking about the pilot demonstration plots in every county.

Mr. Dillon

We hope to do all that and more.

Mr. Walsh

I hope so. You will need more money to do it properly.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy thinks we ought to rebuild all the schools run by the Department of Agriculture and all the other agricultural schools in Ireland.

Mr. Walsh

No.

Mr. Dillon

He also thinks we ought to rebuild Dublin Castle, the law courts, all the Garda stations in Ireland and most of the Garda houses in Ireland. The Minister for Finance will give a short list of the other buildings the Deputy thinks he ought to tackle forthwith.

Mr. Walsh

I think the Deputy ought not to laugh at our agricultural schools but if he wants to make a laugh of them that is his business.

Mr. Dillon

Let us pull down the whole country and rebuild it from the bottom up.

Mr. Walsh

It is a pretty good joke.

Mr. Dillon

Not half as good a joke as building Dublin Castle from the butt up, but that is not half of what Deputy Walsh wishes me to do. With regard to the pig progeny station——

Mr. Walsh

There is one at Grange also.

Mr. Dillon

We have one at Grange. We have a progeny testing station being built at the Munster Institute or about to be undertaken.

Mr. Walsh

Before I left office I was making arrangements to have the progeny testing station at Grange. I hope the Minister will not stop that.

Mr. Dillon

I will get around to that as soon as I have time to examine it. We have a good deal of building. Do you know an extraordinary thing about Grange? The Department bought a farm at Grange.

Mr. Walsh

And sold another one to pay for it.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy will agree that it is a nice farm. I think we paid £39,000 for it.

Mr. Walsh

It is a fair price, too.

Mr. Dillon

There is a nice house on it and a steward was put in to live in the house. In the last 12 months, the Deputy spent £10,000 on repairing the roads through the farm. I would like to ask any rational farmer in Dáil Éireann or outside it if he bought a farm for £39,000 and had £10,000 after doing it would he spend it on building roads? Upon my word, if I were fortunate enough——

Mr. Walsh

I should like to see all the roads the Minister is talking about.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy is most heartily welcome to come down and bicycle on them. All I can say is that we will not have to pedal now, because the roads are as smooth as a billiard table. If I am to be rebuked for not tearing down all the buildings in Ireland, I think discrimination ought to be used. May be the Deputy was right. Cross his heart and hope to die—if it was his farm and it cost £39,000, would he spend £10,000 repairing the roads?

Mr. Walsh

That draws an answer but I do not wish to give it now. I think the Minister spent a lot of money on other people's farms before. However, we will leave it at that.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy can think that one out. The Deputy said he wanted to make £1,000,000 available for credit to farmers to buy lime and fertilisers. My recollection is that that proposal was submitted by the Deputy, and reference was made to the announcement that had been jointly issued by himself and the ex-Taoiseach relating to the credit funds. Is not that correct?

Mr. Walsh

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

I turn anxiously to the relevant page and discover a cutting from the Irish Press which reported “that the Minister for Agriculture and the then Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, had met a standing committee of the joint stock banks yesterday and after a protracted discussion were now happy to announce that the joint stock bank would be prepared to advance money to credit-worthy farmers for the purchase of fertiliser and lime.” That epoch-making declaration does not seem to me to have got the farmers much further than they were.

Mr. Walsh

They were all credit-worthy at that time.

Mr. Dillon

How does that provide £1,000,000 extended credit for the farmers of Ireland? What is a bank there for but to lend money to credit-worthy people? Anyone who is declared by a bank to be credit-worthy manifestly does not want credit. They would not think him credit-worthy if he did. That, so far as I know, is the only credit scheme the Deputy contemplated— that they should apply to the bank and if credit-worthy they would get the money.

Mr. Walsh

The Minister had better look up the files.

Mr. Dillon

I should like to remind Deputies that, under the land rehabilitation project, any farmer who wants to get his holding fertilised in its entirety can apply to the land project and enclose 1/- per acre and for every acre tested he will have advice from the land project as to what fertilisers are required on every acre of his land.

Mr. Walsh

I do not mind telling the Minister that that has been there for three years and there was a very poor response.

Mr. Dillon

I wonder if that is the cause? Let us tell them now that they can have, without limit, 60 years' credit if they want it to pay for lime and fertilisers, potash, super and whatever else the land requires, not on one acre or on one quarter but on the entire area. What better credit provisions can we make for the farmers than that they can get all the fertiliser their land requires to bring it to optimum production without the deposit of a penny piece and they can have 60 years to pay it? Can I do better than that? If I can, I will be very grateful for any suggestions that any Deputy cares to make to me.

The reclamation of hill grazing. Deputy Walsh said that more work of this kind should be provided. I think that comes unkindly from Deputy Walsh. I initiated a pilot hill grazing scheme under the direction of Mr. Moses Griffiths, director of the Otto Kahn Research Station in Wales. We took two areas west of Ardara which were reclaimed by the officers of my Department under his direction. I think that the Deputy will agree with me, if he ever inspected them, that they were converted from heathery hillside to relatively luscious grass. Is not that so? The Deputy agrees with me that that is so. Will Deputies of this House believe that I visited those two areas of converted hill grazing two months ago and discovered that it had been suffered to revert back to a rushy swamp simply because the necessary work for its maintenance had been abandoned?

I do not think that that was a farsighted thing for a Minister for Agriculture to do if he intended to get up in Dáil Éireann and say that he wants more work done in the reclamation of hill grazing. There was a further area reclaimed just over Gweebarra Bridge in Donegal, but the astonishing thing is that, while the two areas which were reclaimed west of Ardara were abandoned, a new area has been started out in Glencolumbkille. I do not know why the two areas west of Ardara were jettisoned. I think it was a mistake to let them go. It may have been that if the work had been carried out to its conclusion in those areas we might have been proved to be mistaken in our hopes, but at least we ought to have tried it out to the end. I wonder were those areas conceivably associated with the Deputy's predecessor in office and he thought it better to have them remembered as "Dillon's rushes" rather than as "Dillon's fields"? Certainly it ill becomes the Deputy to exhort me to undertake more hill grazing experiments when I have to tell you how those that were undertaken between 1948 and 1951 fared while he was Minister for Agriculture between 1951 and 1954. I invite any Deputy of this House driving west from Ardara to see these areas. One adjoins the road and one is on the hillside visible from the road. Let them judge as to whether Deputy Walsh exerted himself to the limit of his capacity to maintain and develop ground that had been gained in those two hill grazing experiments.

Certain it is that, whatever work is put in hand in Glencolumbkille, I will follow it up with all the resources of which I dispose in the Department of Agriculture, and if at any time Deputy Walsh wants to go and inspect them and advise me of any failing on our part I will deem it a very great kindness on his part if he will direct his attention to any failure on my part rigorously to follow up what he started. I shall regard it as my duty to continue and persevere in whatever scheme he initiated until we are both satisfied that the optimum result has been achieved.

Deputy Walsh says that the amount now available under the farm buildings scheme is not nearly enough. Does he forget that it is his Estimate I am producing?

Mr. Walsh

No, and I have increased it already.

Mr. Dillon

Why did you not say that?

Mr. Walsh

I would like to put more on it.

Mr. Dillon

Why did you not say that if you are convinced that the amount is not nearly enough?

Mr. Walsh

I did not have the advantage of being able to turn out £5 and £10 notes as you have.

Mr. Dillon

So long as the Deputy apologises for finding fault with me for the shortcomings of his own Estimate I have no desire to quarrel, but I think that the Deputy might have added that under the bovine eradication of T.B. scheme he and I both intend to double the grant——

Mr. Walsh

That is right.

Mr. Dillon

——in respect of persons participating in bovine T.B. eradication scheme areas.

Mr. Walsh

I have already raised the grant by 50 per cent.

Mr. Dillon

More power to your elbow!

Mr. Walsh

That has been done but it is not enough.

Mr. Dillon

All I am decrying is that Deputy Walsh should find fault with me because there is not enough in this Estimate that he himself prepared.

Mr. Walsh

I am suggesting that you should consider raising it.

Mr. Dillon

I will consider it, and the more the Deputy presses for it, the better pleased I will be.

Deputy Walsh suggested that the water supply scheme should be extended to cattle houses and through the farm. With that suggestion I am in the greatest sympathy, but the Deputy will remember that, when we were engaged in the plan of bringing water to the farmers' houses, we sought to get some kind of uniformity between one farmer and another. If you give a general promise to bring water anywhere on the farm for any farm you will be up against the dilemma that for the man with a very large farm you have to bring the water beyond his kitchen all over the farm, whereas with the fellow with a very small farm you only require to bring it out to one field. It therefore seems more equitable to say to every farmer: "We will bring it to your kitchen. From that point on let every man take care of himself."

Mr. Walsh

Will the Minister consider making it available in the farmyards?

Mr. Dillon

I think that at least in those areas of intensive bovine eradication we should consider whether we could not extend the supply to the farmer who is seeking to promote improvements and taking measures to improve the facilities for an attested herd, and see if we could not devise a plan that, as an added inducement, such farmers could be facilitated in bringing the water beyond the point where it is brought to their kitchen, into their byres and wherever else it might be required for the better treatment of the cattle and their future protection from disease.

The Deputy and I are both of the same spirit in facilitating farmers to bring it to any point on the farm where they would wish to bring it; but you must try, in the distribution of public money, to maintain something approximating to equity between one beneficiary and another. I would feel a certain scruple about presenting a scheme to Dáil Éireann which would allow a man of 500 acres to be paid 50 per cent. of the expense of bringing water to 40 fields while on the other hand the man with 15 acres would get 50 per cent. of the cost of bringing it to two fields. I do feel that where we are grappling with the question of T.B. in the intensive eradication areas that is an inducement which is well worthy of consideration and I shall certainly have it closely examined.

Yes, I quite agree and have already communicated with the areas engaged in onion growing in the County of Kerry, in Castlegregory and the Maharees, that if they will form a co-operative society for the handling and marketing of their onions the Department of Agriculture is not only willing but eager to help them with advice and financially, provided that the scheme that they put up on a co-operative basis has in it the prospect of producing good onions that can be sold under the label of Castlegregory onions. I want to say this, and I am sure that Deputy Walsh will confirm it, that the quality of the onions produced in Castlegregory and the Maharees is as good as any onion in the world. Their method of saving and marketing them is deplorable, and unless they are saved and marketed in proper condition there is no future for the onion growing industry in this country. It would be a tragedy if that valuable crop were thrown away when all that is necessary are certain technical measures in the saving and marketing of the crop about which there is no difficulty whatever. So far as I know, and on this I believe Deputy Walsh agrees with me, the only real prospect of getting them effectively taken is through some form of co-operative society representing the growers; and if the growers will constitute such a society forthwith they can look to the Department and the I.A.O.S. for generous and effective help in getting their products on the market in proper condition and the confident prospect of commanding on that market as good prices as are obtainable for any other variety of onion being sold in this country.

When Deputy Walsh was talking, he said he was puzzled by the fact that there was a reference made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department and by myself to the fact that the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in Seanad Eireann had advocated a cattle tax.

Mr. Lemass

That was not the statement.

Mr. Dillon

I do not think Deputy Lemass was here when he was speaking.

Mr. Walsh

That was not the statement. He made the statement in this own constituency last week.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Lemass is now trying to correct Deputy Walsh. He did enough correction of Deputy Walsh when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce and Deputy Walsh was Minister for Agriculture. I am sick of Deputy Lemass trying to run that unfortunate man. He will not run me. I heard what Deputy Walsh said here to-day and I propose to comment on it now, and, if Deputy Lemass does not like it, he can lump it. If Deputy Walsh had said that to Deputy Lemass more often in the past three years, I would have fewer headaches than I have at present in the Department. Deputy Walsh said he was shocked that the Parliamentary Secretary or I should have alleged that the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Seanad had advocated a tax on cattle.

Mr. Walsh

On a point of order——

Mr. Dillon

Come now——pluck up your courage and tell him you said it. Do not get the jitters because he tells you you did not.

Mr. Walsh

In my reference to this question of a cattle tax, I accused the Parliamentary Secretary of going down the country and stating that Fianna Fáil were planning to impose a tax on cattle.

Mr. Lemass

That the Government had so decided.

Mr. Walsh

And from there we get going.

Mr. Dillon

One of the great advantages Fianna Fáil have is that the Irish Press says something and everybody waits to see if it will ring a bell. If it does, they all clamber on the bandwagon. If it does not, everybody says in the Dáil: “Who says the Irish Press speaks for the Fianna Fáil Party?” Then, the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in Seanad Éireann is put up as a bell-wether. He says something and everybody sits down and waits to see if it is popular. If it is, everybody gets on the bandwagon and, if it is not, everybody says here: “Who the hell is he in the Seanad? What does he know about Fianna Fáil policy?” Deputy Lemass will get up here and say: “I think such and such ought to be done by the Department of Agriculture,” and sit back to see if that is going to be popular. If it is popular, everybody gets up on the bandwagon, but, if it is not, in comes Deputy Walsh to ask: “Why does he talk for the Department of Agriculture?” I used to hear great lectures being given about the unity of the Fianna Fáil Party and about the of the Fianna Fáil Party and about the weakness of an inter-Party Government, with its conflicting views, dissension and disagreement. I thought Fianna Fáil were like the Rock of Gibraltar and that when one pebble spoke all the other pebbles joined in.

Mr. Walsh

Does the Minister remember the experiences we had in 1951 with regard to the price of milk?

Mr. Dillon

I am not talking about the price of milk but about a tax on cattle.

Mr. Walsh

I saw the solidarity of the Coalition then.

Mr. Dillon

The Official Report of Seanad Éireann, Volume 40, column 1574, contains a speech by Senator Johnston. I think Senator Johnston was nominated to Seanad Éireann by Deputy de Valera.

Mr. Walsh

And he is now nominated by the Fine Gael Party.

Mr. Dillon

It is the first I heard of it, if he is, but I do know that he was nominated by Deputy de Valera as one of his immortal 11 to Seanad Éireann. At column 1574, Senator Johnston was heard to say——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It has not been usual to discuss in this House what goes on in the Seanad, unless the remarks the Minister is about to refer to were made by a Minister.

Mr. Dillon

May I rebut the allegation that these remarks were not made?

Mr. Lemass

Deal with the statement that the previous Government had decided to do it. That is what was alleged.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Walsh said that this had never been said.

Mr. Walsh

No.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not concerned with what remarks were made. I point out to the Minister that it has not been the practice to discuss here statements made in the Seanad.

Mr. Dillon

It has been alleged that we said a certain statement was made and that there was no foundation for the allegation that such a statement was made. I merely want to draw the attention of the House to the statement and have it recorded on the Official Reports. I intend to make no comment.

Mr. Walsh

That it was planned by the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Lemass

And decided.

Mr. Dillon

Here are the words——

Mr. Walsh

Planned and decided.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to comment on it or argue on it. I will leave it to Deputies to decide whether it was said or not. Is that not fair enough?

Mr. Lemass

Is it true or not true that it was decided by the previous Government to do it? Is it true or false?

Mr. Dillon

You are going to hear it and you will not like it.

Mr. Lemass

Senator Johnston is not a member of our Party.

Mr. Morrissey

Is Senator Quirke a member?

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Lemass will not browbeat me.

Mr. Lemass

He was not a member of the Government.

Mr. Dillon

Senator Johnston said:—

"The present enormous price of cattle is a major factor in the high cost of living in the towns. That is a problem which the Government is constantly faced with and has not been able to do very much about. If the Government had put a tax of £5 or even £10 a head on every animal exported on the hoof, it would have encouraged the development of the very desirable dead meat trade that is now taking place, and at the same time, reduced the price to the native consumer...by something like £10 per head.

At column 1594, Senator Quirke, who, I understand is leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Seanad, said:—

"On the question of raising the taxes, a suggestion has been made that a tax should be put on the export of cattle. That suggestion was made, I believe, by Senator Johnston, and I am entirely in agreement with him. I believe that cattle being exported from this country would stand at least some tax, and that a certain amount of money could be collected in that way."

Mr. Lemass

To put it on the record, it is not Fianna Fáil policy and was not decided upon by the previous Government or any Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Dillon

Fight that out yourself with Senator Quirke.

Mr. Walsh

There is no fighting about it.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to get between you. We who were reared in the West of Ireland know well that it is always wise to keep out of a certain kind of fight on the side of the road when we come across it. Do not draw me into it. Fight it out between yourselves.

Mr. Walsh

Are we to assume that Senator Baxter in the Seanad lays down the policy of Fine Gael?

Mr. Morrissey

Why did you not repudiate Senator Quirke before now?

Mr. Walsh

Are we to make that assumption in regard to Senator Baxter?

Mr. Lemass

That did not stop Deputies going around repeating a falsehood and they are still at it.

Mr. Morrissey

It is there in the book.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Cunningham was kind enough to join in the debate and the only thing I can remember him asking me was why I did not go further west with the inauguration of the T.B. eradication scheme than Sligo or Clare. If he will show me any place further west to which I could go, I will go with him, but it will not be within the jurisdiction of the Irish Republic and will seriously embarrass my activities.

Mr. Walsh

I did not ask the Minister to go further.

Mr. Dillon

I think I have dealt with every point raised by Deputy Walsh and I am referring now to Deputy Cunningham's contribution. Deputy McGrath has a word to tell about the milk supply in Cork, but before I deal with that, let me turn back for a moment to Deputy Moher, who said that he deplored that the 20 years' policy of the Department of Agriculture had made us uncompetitive in the markets of the world for butter. I pointed out to him that his colleagues were responsible for a long part of that period and I do not think that, in normal conditions, we are necessarily uncompetitive for butter. He then elaborated the theme that we would be much better off if we had, instead of dual purpose shorthorn cows, Friesians, Ayrshires, Jerseys and Kerrys, and that, if we had, we would be ready to take advantage of the world market for dairy produce on a competitive basis.

Did he advert to the fact that at present the United States of America have 220,000,000 lbs. of butter which they cannot sell anywhere? He knows that butter does not keep indefinitely. You can put butter in cold store and keep it for a certain time, but, after the lapse of a certain time, butter will deteriorate in any kind of store. The United States of America hold 220,000,000 lbs. of butter in excess of their entire domestic requirements and of any foreign market they can contact. Denmark is selling butter in Moscow. New Zealand is selling butter in Moscow or anywhere else she can get a market. Great Britain can buy butter anywhere she likes.

Would we not be a nice case to-day if we had in this country nothing but Jersey cows? What would we do? The fact is that while New Zealand and the United States and Denmark cannot sleep at nights trying to sell their butter, we are selling beef and live stock to a market of 50,000,000 hungry people whose buyers arrived in Dublin on yesterday morning in greater numbers than at any time since 1939. There is no one in the world who can compete with us on quality in that market and a large part of the agricultural community of Great Britain depends on us for its survival for the raw material of its own agricultural industry.

If we had taken the advice of the people who told us 20 years ago to reject the dual-purpose shorthorn cow in favour of the Jersey cow, where would we be now? We would have butter in abundance for sale; we would have dried milk, cheese and chocolate crumb in abundance for sale, but we would be faced with the fact that New Zealand and Denmark were combing the world for markets in which to sell these commodities, and that the United States was sitting in its citadel of Washington with 220,000,000 lbs. of butter over and above what was required for its domestic consumption and what it would sell in any market it could find, plus approximately the same quantity of dried milk and cheese. And when that flood was let loose would we not be sitting pretty if we had Jersey cows, the calves of which you hit upon the head and bury when they are dropped? Or are we better in having a dual-purpose shorthorn cow that is producing enough butter to feed our own people and every calf of which when it is dropped is worth anything from £7 to £15, and instead of plummeting downwards is turning upwards. Go and ask the Danes, the Dutch, the New Zealanders which they would prefer. Go and ask the American Minister for Agriculture which would he sooner have, his 200,000,000 lbs. of butter, his 200,000,000 lbs. of cheese, his 200,000,000 lbs. of dried milk in cold storage or Ireland's dual-purpose cow?

Thanks be to God for the live-stock breeding policy of the Irish Department of Agriculture. But for it the farmers in this country to-day would be confronted with disaster of a character that no Government from whatever Party drawn could save them. The cow that put blue suits, boots and fedora hats on the farmers of this country in the course of the last 50 years is standing to us well. I will tell the House a story. I spoke at a meeting in Ennis in 1951 at the foot of the O'Connell Monument. I met a venerable cleric in the town of Ennis when I went there. He said to me: "What are you going to say to the people to-day?" I said: "I am going to tell them to keep a firm grip on their holdings because their holdings are worth keeping now." In a flash he understood what I was referring to, and he said to me: "I was in the square when he said it." He referred, of course, to the fact that it was at the foot of the O'Connell Monument in 1881 that Charles Stewart Parnell told the people to keep a firm grip on their holdings. I was speaking to this man who was standing in the square when Parnell spoke those words, and he said to me: "Do you know what struck me that day when I saw him walking at the head of the people? Parnell in those days was a dandified kind of man. He dressed very well and he had beautiful side whiskers and his hair was carefully brushed. What struck me was that the people had such love and confidence in someone whose appearance was so different from their own because," he said, "in those days the people were terribly poor. Half of them were in their bare feet."

When I went down that afternoon to speak at the meeting and I looked down on the sons and grandsons of the men whom that venerable cleric had seen 70 years ago in their bare feet in the square of Ennis, I saw that they were all dressed as well as I am; they were dressed as well as any body of young countrymen in any country in the world. As I sat there I asked myself: How? What changed them from barefoot, hungry peasants into the prosperous independent farmers that stand around me now, and I was proud to remember that the answer was— there were two parts to it—the Land League and the shorthorn cow. Think on that.

I apologise to the House if I have trespassed too long. I have tried to answer every Deputy who spoke and if I have been too detailed the fault was mine. I will conclude by referring only to what Deputy McGrath had to say. I cannot make out what Deputy McGrath wants. Does he want pasteurisation of the Cork milk supply or does he not want it? I want it and I have written in that sense to the milk suppliers of the Cork urban area.

I want to tell the House what the position is in Cork. First, Deputy McGrath made some inquiry about the appointment of a veterinary surgeon and said he could not understand why that veterinary surgeon was withdrawn.

The answer is that the Cork County Council agreed in 1952, after being urged by our Department for a considerable time previously, to appoint a wholetime veterinary inspector. Specially necessary in this respect was the adequate performance of public health duties in the environs of Cork City. The post created in 1952 was a temporary one and was filled through the Local Appointments Commissioners. The appointee was one of the wholetime veterinary inspectors employed by the Cork Corporation, and he got leave of absence from the corporation to take up the post. When that veterinary surgeon's term of office was expiring the Department induced the county council to make the post a permanent one and the council agreed. The corporation also agreed to extend their veterinary surgeon's leave of absence for a further six months until May, 1954, to give the council a further opportunity of making a permanent appointment. At the end of February, 1954, the county council made the appropriate statutory request to the Local Appointments Commission to fill the post on a permanent basis, and this Department has cleared with the commissioners the qualifications for, and particulars of, the office in connection with the advertisement of the permanent post. Meanwhile, the veterinary surgeon whom the Cork Corporation had loaned to the Cork County Council has had to return to his normal duties and the county council has asked for a wholetime veterinary surgeon for a short period until the permanent appointment is made. But the county council recently told the Department that they had not got a single answer to their advertisement. However, when the advertisement for the permanent post appears in the daily Press the applications will probably turn up and the status quo ante, to which Deputy McGrath referred, will be restored.

The plain fact is that the Cork milk supply is dirty. Deputy McGrath may take the soothing unction to his soul that some improvement was made when veterinary surgeon was appointed, but the bulk of that improvement was the removal of visible dirt only from the Cork milk supply. Usually, and here I venture on a paradox, visible dirt is clean dirt. It is the invisible dirt that kills. What one can see in milk one can usually take out of it; it is what one cannot see that poisons those who consume it. Surely we do not want any better proof of the quality of the Cork milk supply than the fact that we have the perennial lamentation in this House that the people cannot drink the milk because it goes sour.

I have got the particulars to which I referred in the Department. I have got there the report of the city medical officer for the year 1952. Let any Deputy who wants to know the true facts read that report from page 74 to page 78. There he will find material to make parents' blood run cold at the thought of their children being asked to imbibe freely of that milk. Now all I want is for the producers of milk for liquid consumption in Cork urban area to form a co-operative society to pasteurise the milk which they intend to distribute in Cork City. I am prepared to help them, if needs be, by erecting the plant. They have the money to go ahead with the work. They will get every facility the Department or the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society can give them. I am not without hope that we have at last arrived at the end of a long and tortuous road in our endeavours to get the Cork milk supply pasteurised. I must make it clear that I cannot go ahead at my end as expeditiously as I would like unless I have the help of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Deputy McGrath, and of the chairman of the Cork County Council. I can say, however—and it is my duty to say so— that if the Cork milk supply is not as good as the milk supply of the City of Dublin within two years from to-day the fault will lie at the door of the Corporation of Cork City and of the County Council of Cork County.

I am not without hope that both these bodies will now give their co-operation in achieving the end we all want, namely, a clean and healthy milk supply for Cork City. If they do that, we will have the supply within 12 months; and we will have nothing but pure, pasteurised milk going to the people of Cork City within two years.

I suppose I ought to apologise to the House for detaining Deputies for so long in replying to this most useful debate on the Department of Agriculture. I do not apologise. I think the Department of Agriculture is of supreme importance. I think certain Deputies, notably Deputy Moher, have made contributions to the debate of material value to any Minister for Agriculture who had the pleasure of listening to them. I heard contributions from my own side of the House full of valuable suggestions and providing me with the opportunity of asking the Department to increase its activities in certain spheres. Deputy Donegan, Deputy Manley, and others intervened most effectively in this debate and they have helped me materially by their contributions. When these Deputies were kind enough to help me, I thought I owed them the courtesy of answering them to the best of my ability. I have done so at some considerable length. I think the time has been well spent. I hope my colleagues think as much.

Vote put and agreed to.