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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 18 Nov 1954

Vol. 147 No. 6

Purchase of Rejected Wheat—Motion.

I move:—

That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exceptional circumstances of this year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited to purchase at a fair price, all wheat rejected as unmillable.

This motion was put down by members of the Fianna Fáil Party in the past week in order to get the Minister for Agriculture, if it is possible to do so, to do his duty by the farmers of this country who have unmillable wheat on hands and who have not been able to dispose of it. At the end of the last month and early in this month Deputies from this Party asked questions from the Minister about unmillable wheat. On the 3rd November he was asked by Deputy Moher and other Deputies from this Party if he proposed setting up any organisation for the purchase of unmillable wheat. His reply was taken to be in the negative, that he did not propose setting up any such organisation or making any provision whatever to take the considerable amount of unmillable wheat which, owing to the very bad harvesting weather that has just passed, farmers have on hands over the whole country.

I submit it is the absolute duty of the Minister for Agriculture to use the machinery of his Department to make provision for relieving the farmers, at a fair price, of this unmillable wheat. On the 3rd November, he told Deputy Moher:—

"In the circumstances, I do not propose to arrange for the purchase of unmillable wheat by Grain Importers, Limited, or other central purchasing organisation."

On the same day Deputy Ormonde asked him:—

"whether, in view of the very high percentage of unmillable wheat and the prospect of much of this wheat rotting, he will set up an organisation which would deal with the problem and which would consider the possibility of part of the milling industry's equipment being used for the purpose of turning the unfit wheat into animal fodder"

The Minister answered:—

"I do not propose to set up an organisation on the lines suggested. The drying facilities of the milling industry are at present being operated with the main object of saving potentially millable wheat. Up to the present, where circumstances permitted, quantities of unmillable wheat have been accepted by the millers, and, so far as my Department is concerned, every effort is being made to ensure that such drying facilities as it may be possible to divert for the drying of unmillable wheat will be available to farmers to have such wheat dried for disposal as animal feed."

The Minister will admit, I am sure, that up to the moment, as far as the House is aware and as far as the people of the country are aware, no provision whatever has been made to take over this wheat. Various estimates have been put forward of the amount of unmillable wheat in the country. In particular areas it is set as high as 30 per cent. of the acreage grown and it is down as low as 5 per cent. in other areas. Taking it at 5 per cent. would mean about 40,000 tons of unmillable wheat in the whole country, which would be a very conservative estimate. Forty thousand tons of unmillable wheat is a very considerable amount and many farmers found themselves in the unfortunate position this year that all their wheat was rejected as unmillable by the millers. I will come to the millers later on. I have something to say about those gentlemen, too.

The farmer has grown his wheat. He probably got the seed and the manure on credit, and he may have taken conacre at a high price or it may have been on his own land. Nevertheless, he has this unmillable wheat on hands —some of it for six or seven weeks— which was sent back from the mills, sometimes over a distance of 60 to 70 miles and thrown in the farmer's yard. Neither the Minister for Agriculture nor his Department were the slightest bit concerned whether 50 or 200 barrels of wheat rotted or not.

What is to prevent such a farmer from using that wheat as animal feeding himself?

It is unmillable unless it is properly dried and dried at once. Eighty per cent. of the farmers of this country have no proper granary in which to store wheat and the Deputy is aware of that.

After so many years of Fianna Fáil Government.

Deputy O'Hara made his case last night.

Let Deputy Allen make his case himself. Other Deputies may contribute later if they wish.

With your assistance, I will make my case. Deputy Murphy will be given an opportunity of solving all these difficulties for his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture. It can be established quite clearly that there is on the hands of the farmers of this country a large quantity of what has been designated by the millers of this country as unmillable wheat. A large portion of it is undried and is fast deteriorating. It will become nothing but a heap of manure in a very short time unless something is done about it.

It is the bounden duty of the Minister for Agriculture to use the machinery of his Department and whatever agencies may be in the country to purchase that wheat, and enable the farmers to have it dried and processed into animal feeding stuffs. The nation, apart altogether from the individual farmer, can illafford to lose anything between 40,000 and 100,000 tons of grain because of the utter negligence of the Minister and the contempt he has for the farmers and for wheat-growing. On Friday last, after this motion was put down the morning daily papers came out with a big black heading: "The Minister's plan for wet wheat". He got a plan for wet wheat on Friday last after Fianna Fáil put down this motion.

He got the plan on Thursday, a day earlier. The newspapers published on Friday the fact that he had a plan for wet wheat. Wet wheat has been in existence in this country since the early weeks of September. The harvesting of wheat commenced some time towards the end of August, continued through September and up to last week or the week before. There is probably a small amount of wheat here and there not harvested yet. Wet wheat did not become available on the 12th November; we had it on the 12th September and even earlier. The Minister refused publicly here to make any provision for assembling and drying it and for paying farmers a fair price for it. He did nothing whatever about it. Several organisations of farmers approached the Minister and the Department over the last two months, but he sat back, he had no policy, he was indifferent to the problem staring him in the face. There are areas where it is claimed that at least 30 per cent of the total wheat grown has been refused by millers as unmillable — whether that is true or not. I am sure the Minister has ways and means of checking up on that. He must know from the millers and assemblers the percentage rejected. I am sure he has the figures; if he has not, he should have. This motion has not been put down in any political sense whatever.

God forbid. Perish the thought.

It is purely and simply trying to force the hand of the reluctant individual who now holds the portfolio of Minister for Agriculture — to force his hand and that of his Department, to request him, to beg him, to beseech him on behalf of the wheat growers who have a very serious problem that the Minister does not seem to appreciate. Some of them are faced with absolute bankruptcy — I am sure the Minister is aware of that—to merchants and people who have given them seed or manures and for their many other debts, to pay which they were depending on the wheat harvest. They see the wheat rotting before their eyes, yet the Minister sits back unconcerned until the middle of November doing nothing about this wheat that has been harvested over the past two months. It is his bounden duty to come to the rescue of those farmers who had the unmillable wheat on hands and take it off them and pay a fair and adequate price for it. It is a valuable product, it is as valuable dry as the maize meal we are importing, though it may be classified as unmillable. It is worth as much money to the nation as an animal feeding-stuff that we are importing from thousands of miles away.

I want the Minister to give serious consideration to this. Many members of his own Party sitting behind him are as much aware of this problem as the Deputies on this side of the House. They are moving amongst the people who have grown this wheat and who, owing to the unfortunate weather, found it was damaged and found they were unable to get a buyer for it.

Farmers are in an unfortunate position this year — a doubly unfortunate position — because they have in office a Minister for Agriculture who is hostile to wheat-growing and has always shown it; and they are unfortunate because of the tragic weather we had for the last two or three months. They are unfortunate, also, because they have millers who, in the main, are hostile to native wheat-growing. It is not to-day or yesterday that the farmers became aware that the majority of the millers who deal with the milling of wheat for flour are hostile to Irish wheat. They have shown that in no uncertain way and they have shown it more fully this year than ever before.

I suggest to the Minister that in each mill where wheat is going in he should have a representative, a man capable of knowing what millable wheat is. He could get someone from the farmers' organisations who would know what millable wheat is, but I suggest he put in an officer of his own who knows what millable wheat is. That man should act on behalf of the farmers and if a miller wants to reject any particular sample and if in the opinion of that officer it is millable, the miller should be compelled to take it. The farmer has no redress, no appeal court at the present time against the millers and against the arbitrary action many of them are taking against farmers about particular samples of wheat. We hear it all through the country. Only yesterday I met a farmer, a neighbour of my own, who told me he sent a load of wheat last week and three sacks of that lorry were all that was taken by the miller. He kept the lorry load for two or three days in his shed and did not even unload it; he put three sacks more on it and the full load was taken three days later — the very same wheat that was cast three days before. That is happening all over the country. These are things that the Minister should not allow to happen.

The farmers are very vulnerable at present and have been so for the past six weeks in the matter of what the miller may take as wheat. You have all kinds of discrepancies between one miller and another. A miller has been known to refuse wheat and another 40 miles away will take the same wheat. That should not be allowed to happen. It is the bounden duty of the Minister for Agriculture to see that these farmers are not unfairly treated. They have risked their all in growing a crop of wheat. We are asking nothing in this motion or in the suggestions that will be made but what is reasonable and what is due to the agricultural community. Wheat that is reasonable, that can be said to be millable, should be taken by the millers.

One morning newspaper last week announced the Minister's wheat scheme, but the Minister himself has made no official announcement, nor has his Department, and the farmers do not know whether a scheme is in operation or whether the newspaper was drawing on its imagination. Assuming that the scheme comes into operation, we want to ensure that the millers will not be able to take advantage of such a wet wheat scheme and designate all wheat from now on as wet and buy it at half its value. We want the Minister to ensure that. That is another reason why he should have a capable milling inspector at the mill, day in and day out, so as to prevent the millers putting it across the farmers and rejecting wheat as unmillable and paying a lower price for it. It is the Minister's duty to safeguard the farmer's interests. He has not done it up to now but has sat back, showing utter contempt for the whole thing.

We know that wheat-growing in this country has been a burden and a nuisance to the Minister. We know it has been a burden to others also. We know that quite recently the Trade Union Congress was very vocal against wheat-growing in this country. Perhaps they could throw their minds back four or five years. It is not so long since we had an emergency, when everyone was glad to see the Irish farmer, without manure and without machinery, trying to produce wheat to feed the people. They are getting very poor thanks for it now. We had hostile elements — the Minister for Agriculture, the millers, the master bakers and now the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress. They joined the ranks of the other elements hostile to wheat-growing. Things have come to a sorry plight. Certain elements of the Press over the last five or six months have been talking about the burden that wheat-growing is on the community. You have a line-up there.

The policy of wheat-growing does not arise on a discussion of this kind.

It is all linked up.

I do not think so.

It is linked up and if you will allow me for a moment——

I have given the Deputy a fair amount of latitude already.

——and if I am out of order in any way——

I cannot allow the Deputy to open a discussion as to whether a policy of wheat-growing is good or bad.

I am not going to argue that at all because it has long ago been determined that it is a good policy and it has been accepted by the people.

The Deputy might come to the motion then.

I do not propose opening up on an argument of policy. I just wanted to connect the present cost of living and the present indifference of the Minister and his Department to the problems of the farmers, with the campaign that has been carried on for the last four or five months.

I cannot allow that. I do not know anything about any campaign or about the Minister's attitude. I know it is what is on the Order Paper that ought to be discussed.

There was a campaign carried on and remarks were made in public that it was a blessing from God that the weather had been so bad as otherwise the Government would be embarrassed trying to pay the subsidy——

I am sure that the Deputy will get an opportunity of making that point but not on this motion.

It is very closely connected with the motion.

I am ruling to the contrary.

If there was a Minister for Agriculture in office at the moment who was not hostile to the whole matter, he would certainly have taken action to relieve the farmer of this unmillable wheat which is being rejected by the millers and to ensure that every sample of wheat brought to the millers and rejected would——

That is the fourth time the Deputy has made that point.

I am just summing up all the points and I am going to conclude. I will ask now that the Minister should treat this matter seriously and take even belated action so that the farmers will hear his melodious voice soon. He has been the most silent Minister in the Government for the last three or four months and people are wondering why. They love to hear his voice sometimes and like to get his opinion on things. They like him to say publicly now and again that he will defend their interests whether it be wheat or beet growing. I hope the Minister will answer the motion and announce that a wet wheat scheme is coming into operation.

I beg to second the motion.

Is Deputy Beegan going to come into the fray again.

Deputy Beegan may reserve his right to speak until afterwards if he wishes.

Any player with five aces in his hand ought to be able to play two of them.

I had rather hoped the Opposition would have approached this motion with a genuine desire to help but from the first speaker one could only deduce that not only is the motion unnecessary but that it is approached in a mischievous and unprincipled manner.

When the present Minister for Agriculture assumed office, his first action was to realise that his duty was to find for the Irish farmer the best price he could get for all his produce and get the farmer his raw materials at the lowest price at which he could buy them abroad. He has always adhered to that and in his approach to the present motion he has adhered to it also.

The motion states that it is the opinion that owing to the exceptional circumstances of this year an agreement should be made with Grain Importers, Limited, to purchase at fair prices all wheat rejected as unmillable. We must consider what benefit would accrue to the Irish farmers. What and who are Grain Importers? Grain Importers are an agency in an office in Dublin. They possess no drying facilities, no storage facilities and no staff except an official staff. They have no machinery with which to dry wet wheat and therefore they must employ somebody to dry it and the persons they must employ are those who own drying machinery and who have storage for the wheat. Those people whether we like it or not, are the people who rejected the wheat in the first instance. If Grain Importers do buy this wet wheat they must employ on commission the millers and dryers to handle it and there is a very strong parallel between the manner in which they would handle it and in which they handled — the Government having instructed them to do so — the position regarding the surplus of feeding barley last year. There was a surplus of feeding barley last year and the Government had guaranteed a price of not less than 48/- a barrel for it.

When the surplus became evident it was necessary for the Government to see the farmer got his 48/- and they employed Grain Importers as an agency to purchase this feeding barley. The barley was purchased on commission and 48/- a barrel was paid and Grain Importers also paid out to various agents, sacking commission, handling commission, drying commission and eventually storage commission. When the losses on that barley were assessed it was discovered that the barrels which had been bought at 48/- must be sold at 64/-. That loss was not borne from Government funds. It was borne — and I challenge any member of the Opposition to deny it — by the Irish farmer because that barley was married financially to the maize which is being imported, and an Order was made whereby any farmer or milling compounder who bought maize must take 50 per cent. of barley with it. The maize which was being imported at £29 a ton at the time was sold to the people at £32 a ton. In other words, every farmer's wife and every farmer who bought pig meal, layers' mash or any compound feeding stuff of which maize was a constituent, paid a levy which balanced the loss of the Government and Grain Importers on the feeding barley. Does the Opposition wish to pay an unnatural price for this wet wheat and recoup the losses from the farmers who wish to buy pig meal and layers' mash, etc.?

I come from a grain growing county and I would not be a party to taking money out of one pocket of the Irish farmer and putting it into another. I believe that each and every aspect of agriculture should be in a position to stand on its own feet after the Government has made its arrangements to deal with it individually. Therefore, I believe, Grain Importers can make no practicable contribution towards wet wheat. The only manner in which Grain Importers could make a contribution would be if the Government afforded them means to recoup their losses by giving money from the Exchequer. I would like to remind the House that the Minister for Agriculture who has just been described as being disinterested in wheat, half way through this season made a change in the moisture content deductions which has brought to the Irish farmer a sum of £150,000, or 1/6 a barrel for 2,000,000 barrels of millable wheat accepted. I would like the members of the Opposition to realise that and to remember that Mr. Dillon's approach to wheat-growing in this country is very different from what they have assessed it to be. Deputy Allen has stated that all that happened was that, in a newspaper, a statement was made that Mr. Dillon had a plan to take care of wet wheat. Certainly he has a plan to take care of wet wheat.

The correct title is "the Minister for Agriculture".

If Deputy Allen had also read the newspapers, he would have discovered that the Minister for Agriculture had expedited that plan and that it has the effect that at any point of intake where the accommodation is available wet wheat can be sold. Deputy Allen put the poser to the Minister: "Was it as valuable as maize meal?" I will not answer that for Deputy Allen, but I tell him that at the price arranged by the Minister with the buyers of wet wheat, the farmer is getting as good a bargain as can be made in the circumstances and that the Minister's pledge to get for the Irish farmer the best price he can get in any part of the world is being implemented.

I am not going to worry the Opposition with figures, but if they will take the moisture content of the wet wheat, if they will strike a fair average, find its price, put down a commission for drying, deduct the loss in weight, they will discover that the difference between maize at £27 per ton and wet wheat, when dried to a moisture content comparable with that of maize, is very little. With regard to whether or not in the circumstances Grain Importers, Limited, would still be the proper persons, leaving out the probable loss that would accrue to the Irish farmer, to handle wet wheat, I know that last year these barleys which were bought at 48/- a barrel and sold at 64/- a barrel and on which the Irish farmer bore every penny of the loss, were railed from as far as 200 miles from the point of intake to the point of milling.

Deputy Dillon's agreement with the millers and driers at the present moment leaves them holding that baby and the Opposition would be well advised to leave them holding it and not to endeavour to introduce Grain Importers Limited into the position. I therefore submit that the Minister has made a great contribution towards wet wheat. The Minister has done his best in all the circumstances and in the worst year that this country has ever experienced, he has produced a most wonderful result for the Irish farmers and his Department is to be congratulated.

I submit that the motion should not receive any hearing from right-thinking Deputies and that Grain Importers (Éire) Limited would make no contribution to the present position with regard to wet wheat.

I am very sorry that I cannot see the position through the same rose-tinted spectacles as Deputy Donegan and I would like to give briefly what I might describe as the background to this matter. I think a very great contributory factor has been the attitude adopted by the cereals section of the Department of Agriculture in trying to prevent or discourage the provision of drying facilities by farmers in this country.

On a point of order, is it not the inflexible rule of this House that the Minister is responsible for what his Department does? If Deputy Moher has fault to find, let him find it with me.

Of course, it is with you he is finding it.

I can say that the Minister has been badly advised in this particular direction by those people competent to advise him, and it is a strange situation that in this country we have an opinion expressed on this matter which is contrary to the general practice in England. We have a complaint from the British Ministry of the slowness of farmers to provide drying facilities for wheat over there. There is no encouragement whatever given here. Of course, there is a very good reason because there is a handsome profit accruing to a certain section because they are permitted to have a monopoly of storage and drying. That attitude is not peculiar to wheat-drying; it is a general attitude adopted, unfortunately, by the Department of Agriculture under various Ministers. They have here the idea that the brains trust of Irish agriculture should and must be centralised in Merrion Street. They accept the idea that farmers down the country have not the intelligence or the competence to direct and undertake a lot of matters which are directly controlled by officials and to undertake facilities which are taken over and commercialised at a handsome profit to others.

I submit that if the farmers here were given something like 11/6 a barrel for drying wheat and something like 1½d. a barrel for storing it, we would have, in addition to the large plants, a very great number of supplementary plants and a substantial increase in storage accommodation; but, since this important matter is a closed shop to the agricultural community, we are faced with an emergency like this. We have all the chaos and all the confusion associated with centralisation in this matter. If the big growers, certain people in the grain areas, were encouraged to provide drying and storage facilities, we would find that many of the contingent problems which have presented themselves in this emergency would be non-existent.

As I understand it, the Deputy is discussing agricultural policy rather than the motion.

I am discussing the problem which has led up to the emergency.

The Deputy has not spoken so far on the motion. He is discussing agricultural policy as far as I can see and not the motion before the House.

I asked a question of the Minister here a couple of weeks ago and the reply I got was what I would describe as a dressed-up negative. The Minister had no answer except to assure the farmers that on receipt of a halfpenny postcard by him he would have their wheat dried within 48 hours. I looked upon that as being absolutely no solution because the Minister well knew that at that particular time every drying-plant in the country was working to full capacity trying to salvage wheat which had not yet been rejected as unmillable. As the mills were working like that, the question arose as to whether it would be fair to divert drying-plants to the treatment of rejected wheat as against wheat in regard to which a possibility existed of its acceptance by the millers. The Minister's assurance of course implied the utilising of drying facilities far removed from the particular farmer concerned, because if the drying facilities locally were being used for the purpose of drying wheat not yet rejected by the miller, they could not be available for the drying of wheat that had been rejected. That posed an unanswerable question first of all as to the distance wheat has to be moved and secondly as to who was to bear the cost. That was the problem as I saw it and I should like to hear from the Minister in his reply some indication as to what extent his offer had been utilised.

One farmer's organ described the Minister's reply and his attitude on that occasion as that of a fiddling Nero and I think that pretty well summed up his reply from the practical angle.

Had they not been talking to the Deputy?

No, they had not.

They said they had.

Everybody in this country has associated the introduction of wheat and the wheat policy with the Fianna Fáil Party. I think what we need more than anything else—and more urgently—is a statement from the Minister as to his attitude. There is a feeling that in his innermost soul he lacks sympathy entirely with this wheat problem and there is an idea generally that——

Can the contents of my innermost soul be relevantly discussed on a motion to get me to get Grain Importers to purchase unmillable wheat?

You are on record in the House here.

I asked the Deputy to come to the motion. He is discussing agricultural policy. There is a motion in very explicit terms on the Order Paper which says:—

"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exeptional circumstances of the year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited, to purchase at a fair price all wheat rejected as unmillable."

That is very explicit.

That is the one thing they do not want to discuss.

The Deputy has not spoken on that since he got on his feet. I am afraid I shall have to ask him to come to the motion.

No, nor he will not.

The situation is, as I say, that it is incumbent on the Minister, in view of the chaos that exists, to take such action as will save the farmers from beggary and ruin. The Minister is well aware of the acuteness of the problem. He is well aware of what is happening. We all know of instances. It is no use saying that the wheat can be utilised this way or that because, first of all, a statement appeared, I think it was on last Friday, in which there was a report of an interview by the millers' representatives with the Minister and in which it was implied that 47/6 a barrel was to be paid for rejected wheat. I want to make one point in connection with rejected wheat. That is that there must be some system of grading and some purchasing authority which will decide what wheat is worth. Wheat with a moisture content of over 30 per cent. might reasonably be worth 47/6 but let us take dried wheat rejected by the millers on the glutin test. That, surely, is worth far more than 47/6 a barrel. I have consulted somebody who would be competent to give some idea of what the price should be and he gave me a figure of between £25 and £27 a ton.

That is why it is all-important that some central agency should be appointed to purchase wheat—rejected wheat—on account of the varying nature of the wheat rejected and on account of the varying prices as animal foodstuffs. It is only through a central agency that you can strike a mean price for rejected wheat. If such a thing is not done, if the farmers are left to be exploited by every gangster and racketeer that can get hold of them we know what is going to happen. We know that in many instances they will not get 47/6 a barrel because wet wheat, undried wheat, is deteriorating, constantly deteriorating, and no Minister of State can say that after two or three weeks that wheat will be worth 47/6 a barrel because the supposed purchaser may say: "I am taking a risk with it; it has deteriorated to such an extent that it is mouldy and may be poisonous."

That is the position that exists and that is the position to which the Minister has got to address himself. Again I want to bring to the Minister's notice the fact that the millers have been allowed to become and continue to be the sole arbiters as to the moisture content and as to the bushelling of wheat and as to general millability. We know of certain mills where lorry loads of wheat have been rejected on the glutin test and have been transferred elsewhere and accepted. I put it to the Minister that suppose some of that wheat which was primarily rejected in one mill and accepted in another was to be sold at 47/6 a barrel would that be equity; would it be fair? Sprouting grain, sodden grain, and wheat rejected on a glutin test are very distinct products and nobody in fairness or equity can strike a mean price. It cannot be done and it cannot be handled except by some central purchasing authority.

One particular instance was brought to my notice where two combines were working in a field of wheat and two lorries drove away from that field on the same day and delivered wheat to two different mills. In one instance the price was 57/- and in the other 74/-. That is some indication of what is going on. That is some indication also of the considerable amount of wheat which has been rejected and is at the moment, and for two weeks past, deteriorating in the hands of the farmers. Deputy Donegan made the point that this could be fed to live stock. The conacre farmers have no live stock. Then there are farmers who have live stock but have no storage facilities.

In connection with millable wheat there is 11/6 for drying and handling and something like 1½d. a barrel for storage. With rejected wheat there is nothing. There is just the bare 47/6, and that is for stuff that is unusable as well as wheat that is dried and rejected. I submit the Minister's approach to this whole problem shows a compete lack of sympathy.

Now does the Deputy really believe that?

I sincerely believe that the Minister's approach was an insult to the farmers. It was making a mockery of the serious problem affecting them, a problem which was bringing chaos and ruin about them, to merely say: "Just send me a halfpenny postcard and I will dry it and you can do what you like with it afterwards." That was very much the Minister's attitude. It did not show any serious thought or consideration of the problem. The Minister may refer to any documents he likes. I am giving him a general impression of the situation that exists from my own experience as a Deputy living in a grain growing area. In my own feeble way I am trying to drive home to the Minister the urgency of the problem. The problem cannot be solved by advising a miller to pay a certain price. The mills are already chock-full of wheat.

There is no storage shortage.

Very early in the season we were informed that the general manager of the Irish Sugar Company was offering drying facilities in the factories in the grain growing areas. An estimate of the drying facilities available there would be something like 2,000 tons per day. Those facilities were offered early in September, so far as I am informed, and were refused. They were offered again prior to the company starting preparations for the beet campaign and were again refused. Had the Minister and his advisers had the foresight then to have accepted those facilities the subsequent problem which manifested itself a few weeks later would have been rendered much less acute. But neither foresight nor forethought was applied to that offer. The offer was refused with disastrous consequences for the people in those areas in which the beet factories are located. Beet is not a perishable crop to the same extent that wheat is. Everybody knows that the progress of the beet campaign was contingent upon clearing the mess in the corn fields. The general manager of the Sugar Company was aware of that when he made his offer. It was a grave mistake to turn down that offer for its acceptance would have afforded some solution to the present problem.

I appeal to the Minister to adopt a more sympathetic approach to this problem confronting grain growers all over the country and to examine the problem with a view to finding some solution which will provide some recoupment for the labour and anxiety suffered by our farmers during this wretched harvest. There should be an end to exploitation. Statements have been made that Irish wheat is the dearest in the world and those have been taken up and hammered by two newspapers, one in Cork and the other here in Dublin. We all know the facts. We know that actually of the main wheat producing countries in Europe we produce the fourth cheapest wheat. I will submit the list: Netherlands, 62s.; Denmark, 65s.; the United Kingdom, 75s.; Ireland, approximately 81s.

Has this anything to do with the purchase of rejected wheat?

The price of wheat has nothing whatever to do with the motion. The motion deals with the purchase by Grain Importers of rejected wheat.

That is the one thing they will not talk about, but they will talk about everything else.

The explanation of the failure of the Minister to do the job he should do is, of course, his antagonism to wheat and his lack of sympathy with the wheat growers. Down through the years he has gone on record for some of the greatest indiscretions and some of the most reckless statements in connection with wheat-growing.

Listening to the debate one would imagine that all the Minister had to do was to get Grain Importers to handle the rejected wheat, and everything would be grand. I am afraid that is not the solution. Indeed, it is far from being the solution. As Deputy Donegan pointed out, Grain Importers is an office and not an organisation. They have no facilities for either handling or drying grain and, if they come into the picture, they will merely provide yet another cog in the wheel.

I think what the Minister has done so far is the best that could be done in a very serious situation. We should realise that and we should not try to play politics with the situation. It is a serious situation for the farmers. There is no doubt about that. Our farmers have passed through one of the most severe harvests ever experienced. Because of that a certain amount of wheat is being rejected. The amount is not very considerable. I have experience of an intensive grain growing area and the amount of wheat rejected in that area is very, very limited.

On the one hand we have the millers and every drying plant in the country loaded to capacity, drying and handling millable wheat. Does the Opposition want that situation changed? Is it the desire of Deputies opposite that the rejected wheat should be handled and that fit for human consumption let go bad? I do not think anyone wants that to happen. The millers will have to continue handling the wheat fit to turn into human food.

The arrangements made last week with the Minister and the millers whereby they agreed to take this rejected wheat are working out satisfactorily. I have known cases in my constituency where this wheat has been taken from the farmers and is being handled by the millers. To put the Grain Importers organisation into it will not help in the least. It will only complicate matters because it will result in a situation similar to that which arose in the handling of feeding barley. They will have to get their expenses and eventually they will get them from the pockets of the farmers. If this present arrangement works— which I believe it will—we will overcome this very serious problem.

Deputy Moher referred to places where farmers have succeeded in getting the grain dried and he asked the Minister if they would still get only 47/6 a barrel for that grain. That will not happen. I saw an offer to-day of £25 a ton for rejected grain which was dried.

All that has been said so far by the Opposition is utter nonsense—that the Minister is so prejudiced against wheat-growing. If that were the case, he would not have modified the moisture clause—a provision which has meant a great deal to wheat growers in this very serious year. If the Opposition were as much concerned with wheat-growing as they claim to be, they would have made an honest effort, before the season commenced, to see that there were proper drying facilities all over the country. No effort was made and we have the reflection of that to-day. If there had been adequate drying facilities to deal with the difficult harvest the grain would have been handled.

There has been a certain "pile-up" with grain. We were lucky to the extent that the bad weather was spread over such a long period. If we had not had such bad weather, and the grain had come in faster, the position would have been worse. There would have been a very serious "pileup" and a lot of that grain would have a high moisture content and would not stand if it were not handled within a short time. I believe that a very serious situation has been handled reasonably well and that the amount of losses in the grain-growing areas is very small indeed; that is, as far as rejected wheat is concerned, it is very small. I was speaking to a purchaser of grain in my constituency this morning and he told me that he had only two cases of rejected grain and he would be handling 40,000 or 50,000 barrels of wheat. What has happened is that in some districts where wheat should never have been grown, and where it is still standing and has not been harvested, the grain is being rejected. There is not a great deal of sympathy for some of the people concerned. They were people who thought they would get rich quick by growing grain and they rushed in and grew hundreds of acres and had no machinery to handle it. When the weather deteriorated their corn was left there. There are some people, and I am one of them, who have not a great deal of sympathy for anyone in that situation. A person who has been growing grain and who has made an honest effort to secure machinery to handle it, even in a season as bad as this, has lost very little.

Deputy Allen, the mover of the motion, said the amount of rejected grain was as high as 30 per cent. That is nonsense. It is nothing like 30 per cent.

I compliment the Minister on his handling of the situation so far. Undoubtedly, it was very difficult because adequate drying facilities were not available. Deputy Moher referred to the fact that farmers were prevented from providing drying facilities themselves. He compared the situation here with that in Great Britain where farmers have their own drying facilities. The two countries are not comparable because in England there is a large number of very big growers who grow thousands of acres and it pays them to erect drying facilities. The average grain grower here is not in a position to provide such plant for himself and has not the storage facilities. I do not think that these facilities will ever be available here. There is a possibility that the smaller type of dryer similar to the dryer supplied by the E.S.B. may prove an attractive proposition for a farmer to dry the grain that he will keep, but it will never happen here that the farmer will dry the wheat he is going to market. I hope we will never again witness a harvest like the recent one. The farmers have been calm, in spite of their experience, and if the situation is dealt with calmly the results may be reasonably good.

Deputy Carter rose.

Deputy Carter is not one of the five aces either.

Neither am I a joker.

Nor a knave nor a fool, if you want to add some little trimmings

This is a very well furnished pack.

The Minister's attitude in this House to-day is symbolic of his attitude all down the years. It took some millions of the taxpayers' money to convert him to the idea of growing wheat in this country. Deputy Hughes let the cat out of the bag on the issue of Fine Gael policy when he said that every colleague of mine in the country could be put out of business.

That is what it amounts to.

He said nothing of the kind.

He implied it. It is on record. He can read the report of his speech to-morrow. The Minister, of course, would have us believe that there is no problem. Of course, there is a problem. There was a problem as far back as last August.

A Deputy

Before it was cut at all?

Yes, because the Government have sources of information and knowledge about even the weather which are not available to the layman and the Minister made no attempt——

Old Moore's Almanac.

Order! Deputy Carter is entitled to speak without these interruptions.

The Minister made no attempt to organise his Department or the farmers to put them in a position to deal with the sodden wheat. Contrary to whatever the Government or the Minister may assert we on this side of the House assert that roughly one-third or more, perhaps, of the wheat crop will be a dead loss this year through the incompetence of the Minister and the Government to give a lead in this matter. It is not a matter for cheap sneers or gibes in this House. I think the motion should have been put down earlier but it was not until now that the chaos that has existed in the handling of the wheat crop as a whole was revealed. The Minister is not even too sure at the moment what price is being paid even for millable wheat. In my area I have known farmers who have sold millable wheat for as low as 55/- per barrel, not to mention unmillable wheat.

There was no attempt made, as I said at the outset, to organise the various services which could have been utilised to help out in this crisis. What was to prevent the utilisation of the smaller mills throughout the country to deal with unmillable wheat? They might not have been able to handle a large proportion of the unmillable wheat but they would at least save some of it from going to loss.

I can recall to the House that at least in my area you have ten or 12 kilns which could be utilised to dry unmillable wheat and which would preserve it from going rotten. They are now closed. The kiln heads would have been quite suitable for the purpose I mention. The services of millers who are quite capable of milling wheaten meal—the very best of wheaten meal—were not called into operation. No mention of it was made by the Minister, the Department, the millers or by anybody else.

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but that is not in the motion.

We are dealing with unmillable wheat.

We have not that in the motion.

We are dealing with unmillable wheat.

That is not in the motion.

I can add to that motion. The emphasis should be on saving the wheat crop at any cost and not what is in the motion or what is not in it. There are thousands of such kilns standing idle throughout the country. The Government stood callously by all along and gave no lead. The only lead given was that some Parliamentary Secretaries and other spokesmen of the Government went down the country with false propaganda. They dragged in red herrings and raised hares of all descriptions.

Any sick rabbits?

The Deputy will destroy the wheat before he starts.

They do not want to hear the case against them. They should listen to the case and make their charge afterwards.

Deputy MacEoin knows as well as I do that there are at least ten kilns in our area which could be utilised. He cannot deny that. They are all standing idle.

Why? Would you not think that you, as a Deputy, would go around and get them going?

I play my part. I am not slow about that either.

It is blooming near time you did.

If the Minister and his Department had given a lead even to the vocational organisations early on and got them to work those kilns and keep them going, it would have contributed some solution to the problem.

Are you not a Deputy standing in the middle of ten idle kilns? What did you do to get them working?

I am not the Minister for Agriculture.

I feel that Deputy Carter should be allowed to make his statement. Deputies will be given every opportunity to make their statements.

It is all right for Deputies on the opposite benches to stand up with prepared briefs and throw out a whole lot of statistics but that is no good to the small farmers down the country whose wheat is rotten in the barn and the field. We want to see some action. That action has not been forthcoming.

If it is rotten in the fields it is no good in the mills.

If it is rotten in the fields, it is the result of your failure to give a lead in the matter.

The lead should have been given last March.

There is no lead for the coming year and the price has not been announced yet and the sowing month has gone by. Of course, there is a prejudice in Fine Gael all along because the Fianna Fáil Party were the sponsors of the wheat campaign in this country. That whole hangover is there. That should not be. The Minister is on record in this House as giving out that he would not be found dead in a field of wheat.

He would be a fool if he did.

I submit that we are charging the Minister for Agriculture with gross negligence in this matter.

The Deputy is talking about the hangover of the economic war.

The Deputy must resume his seat. We cannot have Deputies standing up to talk like that.

A Deputy

You started the wheat by accident when you could do nothing else.

The motion deals with the purchase of all wheat rejected as unmillable.

Our motion seeks to put a bottom in the market and not to let the people be exploited. I have heard of producers and growers who have sold wheat for as little as £1 a barrel in order to get rid of it.

Will the Deputy give me their names?

I will give you the reference later.

Give me their names.

Not at the moment in the House. I will give you the reference later.

There is a Deputy sitting behind me who had the same experience. I asked him for the names. He will tell you how I dealt with it.

The Deputy will talk when his turn comes.

Deputy Carter should be allowed to speak.

I am charging the Minister and the Government with gross negligence and with callous indifference in this matter. It is not a matter of politics. It is a matter of grave national concern. We had a record year of wheat but we had the misfortune to have one of the worst seasons in the century. One would assume that the Minister and his colleagues would have taken a very different line in this matter as far back as last August but even if they had taken the matter in hands last August, you would have a certain amount of confusion but certainly you would not have the confusion that exists or you would not have the losses.

A Deputy

It is the Deputy that is confused.

The Minister might be able to give us an idea of what percentage of wheat gained the full guaranteed price. I should like, when he is replying, if he could give us an indication of that. From my own knowledge of the Midlands, I should say that I know of no grower who succeeded in getting anything near the guaranteed price for his wheat this year.

I know of no grower in the Midlands who succeeded in doing so. One would think having regard to the experience the present Minister had—and he had the experience of Deputy Tom Walsh, ex-Minister for Agriculture, who gave a lead in this matter of growing wheat——

Go down and cut some of his wheat for him.

——that he would have given a lead in this matter. I think the least he might do at this stage would be to accept the terms of this motion and give a lead even at this late stage and see what can be done with regard to unmillable wheat.

Deputy Carter concluded by referring to my predecessor, Deputy Thomas Walsh, whose absence, owing to illness, from to-day's debates we all greatly deplore and whose early restoration to complete good health we all sincerely hope for. I get the impression that this motion has fallen flat. I have great sympathy with the Opposition. I have often had this distressing experience myself. A trap has been prepared, the quarry sighted and, at the eleventh hour, something has gone wrong. Then you have to face the Dáil with this infernal motion on the paper and put the best face on it you can. I do not mind confessing now that, since last Friday, I was curious to know what on earth are they up to, what is the purpose of the motion. Then, when Deputy Allen had opened the indictment, I turned to my colleague, Deputy O. Flanagan, and said: "This motion has dropped dead before it ever got walking."

I think it is a mistake to drag the unfortunate farmers of this country through the mire of political recrimination at a time when they are having an extremely rough time of it. We all know that anyone who has been struggling to save crops for the past three months here has undergone martyrdom and it does not matter very much what crop he was in face of— oats, barley, wheat or potatoes. What I should like to say in the first place is that what constantly dazzles me in the agriculture of this country is the astonishing capacity of our people to meet adversity and to struggle through it and to come out far better than you imagined it was conceivably possible for them to do.

Let me remind the House that any blame that is due must properly fall on my shoulders, as Minister for Agriculture, and any credit, for the same reason, must be attributed, within the procedure of this House, to the Minister for Agriculture for the time being. I want to say, as Minister for Agriculture, that, confronted with the season through which we are passing, I consider that our handling of the wheat crop has been a miracle of success. I ask Deputies opposite, is it or is it not true that it was confidently prophesied a month ago that the streets of Dublin would be blocked with the queues of lorries that would be outside the mills—and not only in Dublin but all over the country? Was that not prophesied? Has there been a single queue uncatered for in any part of Ireland? Is it not true that we were told that 30 to 50 per cent. of the wheat crop would be lost? I challenge contradiction upon this: that, of the 1,700,000 barrels of wheat taken in at the mills to date, less than 3 per cent. has been rejected as unmillable. I regard that as no mean performance.

The text of this motion is as follows:—

"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exceptional circumstances of this year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited to purchase at a fair price, all wheat rejected as unmillable."

But, at this moment, no farmer need contact Grain Importers. No farmer need enter into any correspondence or negotiation with anybody farther away than the nearest mill to his own farm. If he goes there with his wheat, he has the certainty that, if it is millable by any criteria, it will be purchased from him at the fixed price in accordance with the schedule and, if it proves to be unmillable, it will be taken at a price which Deputy Moher says is so good that he cannot believe the millers will ever pay it.

What price?

47/6 to 50/- a barrel according to the quality of unmillable wheat. Deputy Moher expresses apprehension that farmers will not get 47/6 per barrel for unmillable wheat.

No. I made a distinct difference between a fixed price of 47/6 a barrel for wheat rejected, with over 30 per cent. moisture, and wheat that was dried and rejected solely on the glutin test.

I understood Deputy Moher to say that he was gravely apprehensive that farmers would not get from 47/6 to 50/- a barrel according to the quality of the unmillable wheat. Is that not amazing when you consider what they have been through? Cross your heart and hope to die, did it not take the breath out of you? Listen to one another talking to-day and there are some Deputies in Fianna Fáil who are as eloquent as other Deputies in this House: did you not make a fluthering bad case for your own motion? Why? Because you know perfectly well that there is no substance in it. I ask you this question for an honest answer. Is it better to put at the disposal of every farmer in Ireland every mill in Ireland to buy his wheat at 47/6 to 50/- a barrel in the event of its being unmillable or to ask a farmer with unmillable wheat on his hands to enter into correspondence with Grain Importers to buy it from him? Which is the more convenient arrangement?

I hope Deputy Carter will not leave for a moment. He is on record as saying that he knows a number of his neighbours who had to sell their wheat for 20/- a barrel. I want to ask Deputy Carter, as a responsible public representative in this country, for the names and addresses of the men who sold their wheat for 20/- a barrel—and the names and addresses of those who bought it. It is Deputy Carter's duty to give those names. Deputy Lahiffe, who is now sitting behind Deputy Carter, will remember that on a previous occasion, in the discharge of his public duty, he honestly gave to me the names of seven constituents of his in East Galway who, he said, had difficulty in disposing of their barley. I think he will agree that, within 24 hours, every one of them was visited and received an invitation to place their barley at the disposal of an officer of my Department for prompt sale. I was grateful to Deputy Lahiffe for giving me an opportunity of testing the veracity of the complaints he had received. I think Deputy Lahiffe did what a public representative is bound to do, that is, to say: "I got these complaints. It is my duty to tell the Minister for Agriculture about them and to ask him if he is going to make good his undertaking." I think Deputy Lahiffe will confess that, in so far as it lay within my power, it was done. If he is a conscientious public representative he has a duty to tell me the names of the men who sold their wheat for £1 a barrel and what I want much more is the names of the men who bought it.

Now Deputy Carter has another tale to tell us here. He says within a few miles of his own home there are ten kilns well able to dry wheat, while there are hundreds of farmers with their wheat rotting on their hands and nobody can get the kilns to dry the wheat. Has Deputy Carter given me the names of one of these kiln owners? Has he written me a line to tell me of that dilemma? Has Deputy Carter taken out his own bicycle and ridden to the door of one of these kiln owners to say: "Will you not light up your kiln and dry your neighbour's corn?"

If the members of the Fianna Fáil Party are honestly concerned for farmers struggling with difficulties, for their own neighbours, would you not think that before coming into this House caterwauling on a Thursday afternoon, that where they knew there were ten kilns idle within a few miles of their own house which could relieve their own neighbours' difficulties, they would do one of two things: send me a postcard asking me to get them working or take out their own bicycles and cycle around ten miles and say: "Would you please light your kiln and help the neighbours whose corn is rotting in their lofts?" Deputy Carter has not used postcard, bicycle tyre or shoe leather, and yet he comes in to rebuke me.

How does the Minister know?

That is what he told me himself. When I asked: "What did you do?" His answer was: "I am not Minister for Agriculture. Why should I do anything?" I am very proud of what I have done. I did not deal with one grain grower at a time; I have been struggling to provide for the grain growers of every parish in Ireland. If Deputy Carter wants to charge Deputy Hughes with jettisoning the conacre man let me say this: when I see a gentleman come into this country, take 800 acres of conacre land, tear it all up, plant it with wheat and present a bill to our Government for the consequential product with the intention of skipping out of the country, I do not care what happens to him. I am not going to break my heart about what happens to that fellow. He came in here to make a speculation and to get rich quick at our people's expense. If his speculation has not come off, the devil mend him, as far as I am concerned.

I have spent the last six weeks day in, day out—and I will ask Deputies in this House to remember that when I say "I have spent" I mean the Department of Agriculture has spent, and when I say "I am proud of my achievement" I mean that I am proud of the achievement of the Department of Agriculture—in that sense I have worked 15 or 16 hours a day for the last six weeks to see that wheat was handled and taken off the hands of farmers, not in one parish but in every parish in Ireland, and I dare any Deputy in this House to say we failed. The wheat was taken, the wheat was dried and now we are in a position to say, millable or unmillable, it will be taken and paid for from anyone who tenders it to any mill in Ireland.

I could go into a much wider field if I chose to-day but you have ruled and the Ceann Comhairle has ruled that we are to deal with the motion put before us, that is,

"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exceptional circumstances of this year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited to purchase at a fair price, all wheat rejected as unmillable."

We have done much more than that and we are proud of the result of our labours. Let us remember—and all Deputies will agree—that we encountered probably the worst harvest weather in living memory. Our prime concern must be for genuine farmers and not for speculators who are in a racket to get what they can out of it. On that basis I await to hear from any Deputy in this House an honest challenge to the performance of my task in helping farmers who grew wheat or any other cereal this year to get their crop disposed of at the best price obtainable in the circumstances.

The case has been made that when the question of millable or unmillable wheat comes to be determined there should be some arbiter other than the miller and the farmer to determine what is millable or unmillable. I want to say quite frankly that in logic there is no answer to that claim and, in evidence of that, I am free to say that I sent for representatives of Macra na Feirme and said, and I think I said it to the representatives of the grain growers' branch of the Beet Growers' Association: "Turn this matter over in your mind and consider this question as to whether you want to undertake the installation of an arbitrator at every point of intake for wheat in this country, but bear in mind what it involves." I reckon that, taking into account wheat agents, licensed millers and licensed wheat dealers, there must be between 300 and 400 points of intake for wheat. If all these are to be furnished with an arbitration officer it means you have to have between 300 and 400 of them. Bear in mind that in a shockingly adverse year of this kind lots of fellows will feel they would have done better if they had a third party there to arbitrate between them but recall that over a very long period wheat was being delivered into the mills in this country and the number of complaints were very few. What will happen if arbitration on these lines is established? The farmer will bring his wheat to the mill and the licensed dealer or miller will estimate its moisture content, and so forth.

There is a difference between the farmer and the miller and they cannot reconcile it. Then the arbitrator comes in. What can he do? He must take a sample, a representative sample to the satisfaction of farmer and miller and then the wheat passes into the mill and the price to be paid for it ultimately to the farmer will be deter mined by a test of the sample. A third of the sample will go to the farmer, a third to the miller and a third to the Department. That last third will have to be tested by experts in the seed-testing department for moisture content and other relevant points. They are scientists and they will be bound by no rule but the rule of objective, literal scientific test. They will apply the letter of the law of moisture content, millability, maltose content and glucose content. They will report on that and on that report the farmer will be paid.

I think farmers would be well advised to consider well whether in the average normal year they would do better under that system or under the system which has obtained heretofore. Think of this. In a normal year a licensed wheat agent or a wheat dealer gets his living by handling the farmers' wheat. He does not want to acquire the reputation in his district of being a stiff, cranky man. On the contrary, he wants his neighbours and the farmers from further afield to say: "If you go and deal with Pat So-and-so he will treat you fair; if the wheat is good he will take it and give you full credit for it." He does not want to get the reputation: "If you go to Pat So-and-so he will always say your wheat is 1 or 2 per cent. damper than any other miller would say."

The licensed wheat dealer or agent wants to handle wheat; the more wheat he handles the better off he is. The interest of the dealer and agent is to give the farmer the best price he can afford to get for it, because if he does not the farmer will go elsewhere. Remember, this year we had cases of farmers being offered a price by a dealer far less than he thought was fair and taking his wheat elsewhere and finding another mill which treated him much more leniently.

If, however, you set some system of arbitration—and in my opinion the claim cannot be resisted if it is pressed upon any Minister for Agriculture—the arbitration will have to be based upon the cold, objective, scientific assessment of the sample submitted. I will leave it to the farmers themselves to determine whether under that system they would do better than under the system which obtains at the present time. Wheat in great quantity has been accepted this year with moisture contents over 28 per cent. and up to 33 per cent. Do not let us forget that when the Beet Growers' Association, Grain Section, was discussing this matter with my predecessor — and bear in mind they had in contemplation a normal year — their view was that they were not interested in what befell wheat which was tendered for sale with more than 28 per cent. moisture content. I think that for a normal year that is a reality.

Now, I am charged with having treated the wheat growers with contempt, with indifference, with harshness; and the facts are that their own representatives are on record as stating that in their judgment wheat with a moisture content in excess of 28 per cent. was not fit to mill and ought not to be bought by any miller. That was the view of their own representative. The Minister for Agriculture, who is supposed to be the enemy of wheat growers, who is supposed to have treated them with indifference, harshness, and callousness, in fact required and secured that the millers would buy a very large percentage of the total volume of wheat tendered with a moisture content of between 28 and 33 per cent. I have told you the percentage of wheat which was rejected as unmillable — less than 3 per cent. I am not going to tell the House what my estimate is of the percentage of the total volume of wheat which was accepted at between 28 and 33 per cent. moisture content, but when the whole crop is in, if anyone wants to check on that we can go into it. I would ask the House to remember that, applying the criterion of the wheat growers' own representative, that should not be regarded as millable wheat at all. I insisted that it should.

I want to tell the House this, and it is as well you should know, as I believe in telling you everything. The point was put to me that if these grades of wheat were taken, unless there was dilution of the bulk by wheat of a lower maltose and higher glutin content, the resulting bread would be inedible and would create a prejudice against the whole policy of wheat growing. I agreed to permit the miller to bring in a certain percentage of wheats whereby to dilute the Irish wheat purchased with a moisture content of between 28 and 33 per cent., so as to ensure that the quality would be reasonably good for the bread users of the country and that the Irish product would not come to have a shocking reputation amongst those who were ultimately required to eat it.

As I understand the job of any Minister for Agriculture, when he is on the hustings he places his policy before the country, he asperses the policy of his antagonists and he abides the judgment of the people when the polls are taken. But once he is Minister for Agriculture, he is Minister for Agriculture for every farmer in the country. My duty was, whatever a farmer's problem, to help him to sell his crop for the best possible price that he could secure. I challenge any wheat farmer in Ireland in public now to prove that there was anything left undone, night or day, since the first sheaf of wheat was cut last September which could have been done to alleviate the distress under which he had to labour as a result of the appalling weather with which we all have had to contend.

I want to repeat that every single small or large farmer who is growing wheat or any other crop on his own land had a right to call on me for all the help that I could give to get him through his difficulties. Every Deputy had not only a right but a duty to call on me to help any farmer whose circumstances they knew of. Some Deputies did call on me and I do not think they called in vain. I think it is true to say that some Deputies on the other side of the House called on me and I do not think they called in vain. I deplore the action of those Deputies who knew distress amongst their neighbours and would not call on me. They knew perfectly well they had no need to call on me personally if they did not wish to do so; they could call on the Department without reference to me at all. But they were equally certain that if they wanted to call on me personally they were as welcome as the flowers in May; their right to do so was most readily conceded and their representations were most welcome, if they were a contribution to put anything right that was wrong.

I want the House to bear this in mind — Solomon himself could not claim that no mistakes were made, that there was no miscarriage of our plans in any part of Ireland. Of course there were; there were cases in which farmers were getting a raw deal; but I like to make the boast that no single such case was made to me without his grievance being redressed within 24 hours of my coming to know of it. Bearing in mind my corporate capacity I want to say I am proud of that performance. I am proud to be able to claim that no single case was reported to me of a farmer getting a raw deal, or being left in the lurch where help was not brought to his door within 24 hours of the information coming to me.

Pride is your deadly sin.

Before you came into the House, Deputy, I qualified that, when I said that when I spoke here I took the blame for what the Department does. Therefore, I am bound to take the praise for what it does, too. I want to issue this invitation to all Deputies on all sides of the House: if you hear of anybody who is getting a raw deal or less than his rights, you know where to come, and I would say to Deputies of this House that you have not only the right but the duty to come and let me know. But I cannot put right what I do not know about and, even when I do know about it, the best I can do is my best to put it right. That will be done, and it is as true in the case of the smallest farmer with his rood of wheat as it is in the case of the largest farmer with his acres of wheat. But I am bound to add this: that when the speculators come rambling into me to ask me what I am going to do to help them to salvage 800 or perhaps 1,000 acres of conacre wheat which they planted in the hope of making a kill — and they are now afraid they will not be able to make a kill — my inclination is to tell them to go to blazes. But I have not done so, because I think that when you are in the public service you ought not to give way to your natural inclinations as frankly and as fully as a private individual may, but I have no sympathy with these people. I have great sympathy with the man struggling with what he believed to be a sound business proposition when he sowed his crop and through no fault of his, he is now in grave jeopardy of sustaining grave loss. The entire resources of my Department are at that individual farmer's disposal to minimise that loss and, if possible, convert it into a profit for him.

I do not understand Deputy Allen. Usually when I hear him speak in this House, although I never — or very rarely—agree with him, I can always follow the trend of his discourse and understand at least what he is asking for even if I do not agree with him. But what does Deputy Allen mean in moving this motion by saying "hundreds of farmers have large quantities of unmillable wheat on their hands and they are not able to sell it?" How are they not able to sell it? Let me quote from the Irish Independent of the 12th instant:—

"Mr. Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, met representatives of the flour millers in Dublin yesterday and asked that a special effort be made to deal with non-millable wheat by taking it from the farmers, drying it and storing it for conversion into animal feeding.

The millers, it is understood, expressed willingness to come to the aid of the farmers as speedily as possible but a large quantity of wheat suitable for milling has not yet reached the mills although much of the grain requiring urgent attention has been dealt with.

The millers are prepared to reserve portion of their drying equipment for the non-millable grain and farmers could help by not rushing to the mills wheat which has not been gravely damaged. The mills would wish to give preference to grain known to be rain-soaked.

A price of from 47/6 to 50/- per barrel will, it is stated, be paid for the grain, which is said to be reasonably good in the circumstances."

What is the matter with the hundreds of farmers that Deputy Allen knows with unmillable wheat on their hands that they will not bring it to the nearest miller——

At 47/6?

From 47/6 to 50/- according to the condition of the grain, but if Deputy Allen is complaining about the poor men who cannot dispose of it at any price, would not Deputy Moher think they would go to the nearest miller——

It is a salvage price.

I know Deputy Moher has his tongue in his cheek when he says that. Indeed, I think the price "took the breath of him". In any case what I am querying is why Deputy Allen says he knows hundreds of farmers with unmillable wheat and they are not able to sell it at any price.

I honestly came in here with every conceivable aspect of the situation examined from stem to stern and I could not foresee what case the Opposition were going to make and I was rather at sea in trying to prepare to answer them, but the truth is they have said nothing. I want to give this House an instance of some cases where I do not believe, to say the least of it, the approach is conditioned by uberima fides. This case comes from County Wexford. It was a telegram which said:

"Mr. Dillon, Department of Agriculture: Have 100 bags of wheat, no drying facilities available—your suggestions, please?"

I am not going to read out the fellow's name or address, but if Mr. X of County Wexford would go 25 yards down his own street there was a man there who would dry all the wheat Mr. X could bring him.

My inspector went down the following day and this fellow's wheat was dried and returned to him. He was living within 50 yards of a dryer that we knew was in a position to dry the wheat. Does he walk 50 yards to inquire if he can get his wheat dried? No, he sends me a wire:—

"Mr. Dillon, Department of Agriculture: Have 100 bags of wheat, no drying facilities available — your suggestions, please?"

Now, I hate to be uncharitable but I wonder who wrote that telegram? I know the man who sent it. Those are the words that are in it and it was from County Wexford and if he challenges the authenticity of it and gives me permission—but only if he gives me permission—I will be glad to give his name and address. Those are the facts. I would like to ask Deputy Allen who wrote that telegram?

I do not know what all the argument is about.

I do not blame you at all.

I want to say this much: I had to phone the Minister for Agriculture one evening fairly late. He very kindly told me he would have the information on the following day and he went to the trouble of phoning me in Cork City and giving me the information. I think that is due to him. I would also like to say, from my experience this year — and we all know what the season was like: I do not think we have ever had a season like it before for the harvest and I hope we never again will — that in so far as the Department of Agriculture could help out, they helped out and they did, in my opinion, a damn good job. I have no hesitation at all in saying that. I am not concerned with the gentleman who gambled and of whom the Minister has been speaking. I am concerned with the very large number of my constituents who have millable wheat and who have got it dried and who now have it on their hands. I remember reading an article — by Professor Sheehy — at the start of this bad season, in which he stated that unmillable wheat for animal feeding was worth £27 a ton. That was the value he put on it.

We had an experience of this description once before — I admit it was not one-tenth as bad as it was this year— but we had a bad experience in this regard. Winter wheat in particular will shoot when growing, and we had that experience some years ago. I remember coming here to the then Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Ryan, with that problem and that was the reason why I phoned the Minister recently, because at that time there were certain regulations and prohibitions on the use of wheat for animal feeding. I consulted some local millers who said: "If we get a licence to convert that wheat into wheat flakes, we can get a market for it and we can pay a fair price for it." The difference in price then between millable and unmillable wheat was £4 per ton. We came up to Dr. Ryan and he said: "Yes, I will give the licence." He gave the licence and the wheat flakes sold like hot cakes; they disappeared off the market in the course of about six weeks. We have a far larger quantity this year of that type of wheat.

We were informed here recently that because we had to bring in foreign pollard and foreign bran the price of the pig ration went up by practically £5 per ton. I saw questions by Deputy Allen on that matter and I saw the replies given, and I am suggesting to the Minister — as I said, I am not concerned with the gentleman who came in and drew 800 acres — that I am concerned with the farmers in my county, the tillage farmers who have been growing wheat, beet, potatoes and root crops, and who now find the bulk of their harvest left on their hands, not through their own fault.

What was the Deputy saying about wheat flakes?

The millers at that time got a licence from the Minister for Agriculture to convert the unmillable wheat into wheat flakes and found a ready market for it.

The Deputy knows that there is a general licence to do that this year, too.

As I said, I phoned the Minister with regard to it and he immediately informed me that there was no prohibition. I like to give credit where credit is due and I was thankful to the Minister for the manner in which he treated the matter. But I am coming down to this point: what should be the price paid for unmillable wheat dried? I am suggesting to the Minister that these people should not be thrown to the wolves with a price of 47/6 per barrel. I am making a straight suggestion to the Minister, and I have told him the class of people with whom I am concerned — the man who is dependent on his harvest to pay his merchant and to pay his rates and who now finds himself with a loft full of grain, or with grain in bags in his haggard, with no market for it, unless he accepts the market offered to him which, to my mind, is not a case of robbing the rich to pay the poor, but of skinning the poor — the men who find themselves in this awkward position and of whose financial circumstances advantage is being taken.

Has it not to be bought if it is sold as feeding stuff to some other farmer?

That is what I want. I want the Minister to see to it that, instead of Grain Importers, Limited, purchasing foreign bran and pollard and bringing it in here, they will use this material which is to hand and which will give better bran and pollard than they will get abroad.

Grain Importers do not buy bran or pollard. That is a free article which any co-operative or anybody else can import, but it is intended that the unmillable wheat will be incorporated in compound feeds and manufactured into wheat flakes, of which the Deputy has spoken, for animal feeding.

Will the Minister state what is the value of dried wheat which is unmillable?

Bearing in mind the fact that the farmer feeders have ultimately to buy and to pay for it, I do not think that 50/- is an unreasonable price for unmillable wheat, provided that a generous and lenient attitude is adopted in determining what wheat is millable and what is not.

We have got to the point now at which millable wheat has gone. We are away from that point.

There is a lot more millable wheat to come in.

I am dealing with the man who found himself having to dry his wheat and whose wheat was unmillable after drying and is now on his hands. I am looking for a market for that man.

If the Deputy is really in the spirit in which I believe him to be, my advice to that fellow is: if his wheat is dried and safe, let him shop around with it for a while. I believe he should certainly get 50/- and he may get more for it.

Did the Minister ever hear of a rate collector?

Nobody is going to "ate" the farmers this year.

We, as farmers, have to face facts and it was only at the last meeting of the Cork County Council——

The Deputy, as a county councillor, will not issue writs.

——that we had to issue an appeal — because we have no power over them — to rate collectors.

Between yourself and Deputy Moher, your voices will carry great weight.

Perhaps the Minister would have patience. I do not wish to do anything that would be unfair and I am not trying to do anything that is unfair. I am suggesting to the Minister that he has a machine in Grain Importers, Limited, who are, I understand, a non-profit-making concern, which he can use to purchase from all farmers, who have it on hands, their unmillable wheat. I see no reason why it is not done.

It is being done.

I do suggest to the Minister quite frankly that his price is ridiculous. It is after all the price of what is a superior article to either bran or pollard or maize meal. A very distinguished professor, Professor Sheehy, has stated that it is worth £27 a ton. That was the price he put on it in the Farmers' Journal last month. I suggest that the Minister would buy it at £27 a ton, and I suggest also that he will find himself, with God's help, in the same position as his predecessor, Dr. Ryan, when he bought the oats, and when he gave out instructions with regard to wheat. Let us get into this problem quite frankly. The Minister will not get unmillable wheat by offering 47/6 a barrel for it. I wonder what Professor Sheehy would have to say to the gentleman who puts up that argument or who tells him, as the Minister has said, that if he holds the wheat for a while he might get 50/-a barrel. If that is the remedy the Minister has to offer I would suggest that he would change it and consult the officials of his Department on that particular matter and announce that Grain Importers, Limited, are prepared to purchase all unmillable wheat at such a price. I suggest that Professor Sheehy hit about the right price.

Which was?

£27 a ton. Surely it is as good as maize, or maybe a lot better.

You are getting more than £27 a ton.

If you are selling wheat with 33 per cent. moisture content for 47/6 you are getting better than £27 a ton.

I am talking about dried wheat. I am talking about dry unmillable wheat that is at present in the farmers' hands.

47/6 for wet wheat.

The Deputy is right.

What is the price for dried wheat?

Did you not agree with me that the man who has dried unmillable wheat which is perfectly safe, has, in his holding, the best feeding stuff he could have if he could use it. Surely some of it could be sold to a neighbour if he is not satisfied with the price of the mill.

The Minister has suggested that if he held it in his loft for a few months he would get 50/- for it.

That he would get anything he could for it.

When I asked recently if there could be a market found for this wheat, the Minister said the farmer would do far better by keeping it in his loft and getting 50/- for it.

No. No. He can get up to 50/- for any unmillable wheat now, according to quality. If he has it of such a fine quality as the Deputy described I am amazed that it has not been deemed to be millable but if it has not been deemed millable is it not the best feeding stuff he could have if he can use it himself?

Therefore, the Minister will lose nothing if he does what is suggested in this motion. Let us get rid of the camouflage and get down to what the people want. I have explained the position here as a farmer and as one coming from a very heavy grain district. I am asking the Minister—I suggest he should hold the consultation, in which he is now engaged, afterwards——

I am only saying that the Deputy is as cute as a Christian.

Let us have the Minister's straight reply as to whether he is going to do it or not. The suggestion I am putting up is a reasonable one. It was a proposal that was adopted previously with great success by the Minister's predecessor. I remember a period here when oats could not be sold. It was unsaleable, and was left in the farmers' hands. We appealed to the then Minister, Dr. Ryan, and he issued instructions immediately to Grain Importers, Limited, to purchase the oats at a certain price. The oats was purchased and the State financed the purchase and there was not 1/- lost. I remember in later years when the Minister was over there. He had told the people of the country to grow oats, and no market could be found for that oats. The following harvest, we had to wait until nearly Christmas until the Minister was sent to America and the acting-Minister came along and bought the oats and did what we asked him to do. We do not want that to happen in this case. The farmers, as I said, want the money to pay their accounts. They have lost enough — the difference between £27 a ton and the price which in the ordinary course they would get. Thank God the farmers in my area always grew oats and wheat that fetched top price and bushelled top, and they have lost enough this season. I am asking the Minister to come to the rescue; I am asking him now to do his job.

If the Minister is so anxious to rescue the farmers, as he pretends, he can rescue them by paying them a fair price for the wheat that is unmillable. Is it not better to pay them than to pay the foreigner for muck? In the ordinary course the supply of bran and pollard produced here is only sufficient for a couple of months and, when it is exhausted, we have to import. This year when the time came for importing the price of the ration jumped £5 per ton. I do not know what the price was that was paid for foreign bran and foreign pollard brought in here, but surely dried wheat is superior to either and is worth a better price than either.

Despite all the Minister's manoeuvres I do not believe he is turning a deaf ear to the case I am making. I believe he will do what I have asked him. I have faith in the Minister; I think he will do what I have asked him. I think it is the natural and reasonable thing to ask the Minister to do. I do not think I am asking him to do anything unreasonable. I am sorry the Minister has not announced the price for next year's wheat. He promised he would do so in October, and we are anxious to get it. I come from a grain growing area in which a large quantity of wheat is being left on our hands. Some of us were lucky and got rid of the lot. Others were not lucky and they are being left with wheat on their hands, through no fault of their own but merely because of adverse harvesting conditions. What is the position? Will the Minister sit quietly by whilst unmillable dried wheat is bought at 47/6 per barrel?

That is not true.

Do not confuse the issue. The farmers are entitled to bring their unmillable wheat to the mill and they will there get 47/6 per barrel for it. Do not spread the word throughout the country that any miller has the right to turn a farmer away if his unmillable wheat has not been dried before he brings it to the mill. The wheat will be taken from the farmer if it is unmillable and, if it is in any reasonable condition at all, he will get 47/6 a barrel. That does not apply only to dry wheat.

I do not give a hang for the Minister's 47/6. The farmers I am dealing with are the farmers who have paid through the nose at the rate of 3/6 a barrel to get their wheat dried.

Let us not confuse the issue. All farmers bringing unmillable wheat to the mill can now have it taken off their hands at a minimum of 47/6 a barrel. Let me repeat—unmillable, not dried millable wheat.

I have asked the Minister to fix a price for unmillable dried wheat. There are farmers who, helped by the Minister, have rushed all over the country and got the wheat dried. The wheat is now dried wheat. They will not sell that wheat at 47/6 a barrel. They will not put it in the loft, as the Minister has suggested, and keep it for a couple of months and then sell it at 50/- a barrel. They will not do the one or the other. I suggest that that wheat is far better for animal feeding than any bran, pollard or maize. Even if the Minister comes down to the jokers with the foreign barley, native wheat is still far better as a feeding stuff for animals.

The problem that the farmers have to face is the fact that they want an immediate market. Neither the merchant nor the rate collector will wait. I am asking the Minister to provide that market. I think it is his duty to provide it. I go further and I say that, even if it was never his duty, I believe he will provide it. For pity's sake, forget the fellow with the 800 acres. Forget him for the sake of the decent farmers who have answered the request of the Government to produce more. After all, it was a request from the Government that they should produce more. They have produced the wheat. Unfortunately, through no fault of the Government but merely because of forces over which we have no control, we had here a harvest this year unparalleled in the history of this country. The farmers have lost enough. Do not rob them. I hold they are being robbed when the Minister suggests that if they hold that dried wheat for a couple of months they will get 50/-a barrel for it.

I did not say that.

Deputy Corry knows that you did not say it.

It is never any harm when a mistake — I use the word advisedly — is repeated sufficiently often to correct it. I did not say what the Deputy thinks I said.

The question I asked the Minister was what he intended to do with the dried unmillable wheat on the farmers' hands.

That is about the tenth time the Deputy has said that.

The genius back there may know how to add two and two and make five out of it. Let him stick to that.

The Deputy might change his tune. On a point of order. Is the Deputy entitled to repeat the same statement over and over again?

It is not in order.

Is a Deputy entitled, when a Minister states that he wants to correct something, to find out exactly what the Minister did say? That is all I am anxious to find out.

After the Minister has corrected it ten times for the Deputy; the Deputy is not a bit slow in the up-take at all.

If Deputy Morrissey had been listening to my friend there at the back when he was speaking he would know what we are talking about; when we came down to business, I repeated the statement to the Minister and the Minister admitted it was true. Now he realises the hole he has got into and he is trying to dig himself out. I do not grudge him trying to dig himself out if, in digging himself out, he will answer the question I put: namely, what is a fair price for dried unmillable wheat? That is a fair question. Will the Minister answer that? When I asked that question before, the Minister said the farmer need not sell that wheat for 47/6; if he keeps it a couple of months he will get 50/- for it.

I did not say that.

I will go with the Minister to the Official Report and see what he has down before the Minister corrects it, if the Minister accepts my invitation. Will the Minister even now state, if he did not say that, what is a fair price for dried wheat which is unmillable?

That is a fair question.

That is a perfectly fair question. I spoke here to-day and I have no intention of speaking again.

You did not answer that question though.

It will be answered all right.

That is the point.

Deputy Corry is in possession.

I have given the Minister a price named by Professor Sheehy, a person who is an authority. I do not know if he is still an official of the Department but he says £27 a ton. If the Minister will give instructions to Grain Importers Limited to purchase the dried wheat that is unmillable and left on the farmers' hands, at £27 a ton, and if he will stand up here and give that guarantee, then the purpose of this motion will have been served. We want that. We want the Minister to do that and to do it now. I do not want my friends over there to be put in the awkward position that they were put in before of having to ship the Minister to America while somebody else was doing the job. I do not want that to happen again.

A Deputy

I am sure you do not.

I do not. I am very fond of the Minister. He may not know it.

The Deputy might get fonder of the motion and deal with it.

I would suggest, a Cheann Comhairle, that what I have said has been strictly to the motion, that I have kept far more strictly to the motion than the Minister has. I did not deal with what has happened here, there or elsewhere. I am dealing with the position in which we find ourselves. The motion before the House asks the Government to make an arrangement with Grain Importers to purchase at a fair price all wheat rejected as unmillable. I would suggest, a Cheann Comhairle, that I am keeping strictly to the motion. I am not going into what happened at the mills. What happened at the mills has passed and, please God, it will never happen again, because next year we will have a man in every mill who will see the load weighed, who will see the wheat bushelled and who will take the moisture content, the same as we have in the Sugar Company, and there, thank God, things are working out amicably. We will have the same thing in the mills next year and there will be an end to this condition of affairs.

The problem that we are faced with is a serious problem for the agricultural community. It is a serious problem for the men who have had their harvest, as I said, thrown on their hands. Surely it should not be beyond the resources of a Government and a Department to find a cure for this problem. That is not asking too much. That is my appeal here. I promise the gentlemen who speak for the farmers or who were so anxious about the farmers last night that if they evaded trotting around last night they will trot around to-night.

It was you who evaded.

You would dodge anything. It is customary in this House when a motion of that type is put down for a Minister to state what he will do. We hear a lot about what the Minister did. We give him credit for doing a fair lot and we give his Department credit for working hard and working overtime on that job. There is no doubt about that.

That is not what your colleagues said, Deputy.

There is a motion on the Order Paper. The Minister has not stated if he is prepared to carry out the terms of the motion or not. We have been accustomed in this Dáil, when a motion is discussed, to hear the Minister concerned saying whether he will accept the motion or not. Will the Minister say that he is prepared to have unmillable wheat purchased? I do not know for how long he was speaking before I came into the House but he was speaking for a long time after I arrived and he rambled around every subject under the sun, every kind of wheat under the sun but did not answer the particular question that we wanted an answer to. I am prepared to give way to the Minister, even now, if he will state that he is prepared to have the unmillable wheat purchased and a price fixed for it. I am not concerned with wet wheat.

That is what the country are concerned with down our way.

If this is a serious matter, Deputy Corry ought to stop play-acting. He has been play-acting for three-quarters of an hour.

It is not play-acting.

It is absolute play-acting.

The Deputy is very fond of talking of play-acting when he finds he has not a reply to an argument.

I will reply to you when you sit down.

I often heard you replying — half an hour of abuse and nonsense.

Wind and fury.

Deputy Corry on the motion.

We have had three-quarters of an hour of repetition.

I am not prepared to allow the question of whether the Minister will fix a price for unmillable wheat repeated. I have heard it four or five times from Deputy Corry since I came into the House. I rule that that is repetition and the Deputy will have to pass from it and deal with some other aspect of the motion, if there is another aspect.

I shall not go back on it but I wish to call the attention of the House to the fact that the Minister has not answered it. I am quite satisfied to leave it at that. There are reasons why we should have an early decision on this matter, very definite reasons. I wish that the Minister, before he leaves the House, would give us that answer. Apparently he will not. He can dodge around the corridor for another bit. I hope he will not go to America this time.

I do not wish to delay the House, I have put the case as clearly as I can in the time at my disposal, and I only hope that we will have some definite decision on it.

Every Deputy who has spoken in this debate — I was going to say on this motion — I hope Deputy Corry will not do the usual thing and run away.

I would not waste time listening to you.

The Deputy can give it out but never take it. The Deputy ought to wait.

Wait for what? I am prepared to wait and listen to any farmer.

I know more about wheat and have handled more of it than many of the Deputies in this House.

Deputy Corry is speaking outside the barrier. He ought to know sufficient of the Rules of the House to know that that is not allowed and should not be done.

I am sorry.

He can afford to play act because he told us he was fortunate enough himself to get the top price for his wheat. The motion is:—

"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should, in the exceptional circumstances of this year, make an arrangement with Grain Importers (Éire) Limited to purchase at a fair price, all wheat rejected as unmillable."

Deputy Corry did not tell us what he thought a fair price would be for it. Other members of the Opposition wanted to know what we thought was a fair price. They did not tell us what they thought was a fair price. Deputy Corry quoted a professor who said that a fair price for unmillable wheat would be £27 per ton. That is a difference of roughly 15/- a barrel between the minimum price which has been arranged with the millers and what Deputy Corry's professor said would be a fair price. Deputy Corry did not tell us — I hope some of those who are yet to speak on this motion will tell us — from where or from whom is the additional 15/- per barrel to come. Who is to pay it?

Of course, it would be much more than 15/- per barrel if it were bought by Grain Importers, Limited. Anybody who knows anything about the organisation in this country for the purchase, delivery, the storing and the drying of wheat, even in a normal year, would laugh at this motion. Earlier one of my colleagues said that as far as Grain Importers were concerned all they had was an office. What machinery would Grain Importers use to implement this motion if the House were foolish enough to pass it? Would they not have to get the agents and the buyers the millers employed throughout the country? Would they not have to utilise the storage and the drying facilities that are available? Would they not have to use the whole of that machinery? This year, when time is a vital factor, the only suggestion we can get from the people on the opposite side is that in regard to the great delaying factor and that this additional cost should be planked on.

The motion is absurd and unreal. There is not a Deputy here but knows that. Deputies will themselves admit that this whole debate was unreal. The fact of the matter is that the Deputies have been completely bewildered by the fact that the Minister made an infinitely better arrangement for the farmers than either we on this side of the House or Deputies on the opposite side thought it was possible to make. Let me repeat what has been said and what everybody knows. This has been the worst year in living memory. There was not a Deputy in this House or a farmer outside it who lived in or came from a representative grain-growing county but thought that we were going to have the most disastrous year from the harvest point of view that probably ever struck this country. In a year when we were having bumper crops and an unprecedented acreage of wheat in particular there was not a Deputy who, if he was not saying it, actually felt that 25 per cent. of the crops would be completely lost and that it would be unfit either for human or for animal feeding.

Will any Deputy who knows anything about grain growing or about the trouble of trying to save grain in a year like this try and be realistic about it? I come from a grain-growing constituency and I know something about the handling, drying and testing of grain. I spent years at it. In the light of what we have had every fair-minded farmer will agree that to get an arrangement made that all dried or undried millable wheat will be taken from the farmers at no less than 47/6 per barrel was an achievement. It was something which every single Deputy in this House would have said a fortnight ago would be impossible. There is not a farmer in this country growing grain but knows it is an achievement.

There is not a Deputy in this House, particularly those on the opposite side who had ministerial responsibility themselves, who believes for one moment that Grain Importers could put up from the farmer's point of view a better deal or a fairer price than the millers have already secured.

When you talk about moisture content that denotes not merely the water but also dirt and chaff and everything else, and for a farmer to-day, going through what he has gone through, to be guaranteed that, irrespective of the moisture content of his grain, whether it is 25 or 35 per cent., he will get a minimum of 47/6 per barrel is a good bargain. I am perfectly satisfied that every Deputy on the opposite side is as conscious of that as I am. Every Deputy believes it is a good bargain. Every Deputy knows that what has now been arranged will get the farmers out of this disastrous harvest in an infinitely much better way.

Deputy Moher, who is too intelligent to believe what he was saying, sort of sneered at 50/- per barrel as just a salvage price. What are we trying to deal with this year but to endeavour to save everything possible? It is more than a salvage price. A salvage price is a price for a part of something that has been saved from either the disaster of water or fire, but the price is not for part of the crop. It is for the whole of the crop.

The Minister gave figures for the grain which has already been delivered to the mills. Between 1,750,000 and 2,000,000 barrels have already been delivered. Is there a Deputy who was not pleasantly surprised to be informed that out of those 1,750,000 to 2,000,000 barrels more grain delivered this year less than 3 per cent. of it was rejected as unmillable? I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves to be talking the way we have been talking this afternoon. We ought to be ashamed to be posturing — and there was a certain amount of posturing — at being displeased with the situation. I think we ought to thank Almighty God that the farmers are not going to be broken financially this year as it was feared that many of them would be.

I know, of course, that the farmers would like to see — so would all of us like to see—every barrel of the crop millable and every barrel of that crop bushelling the highest. That does not happen even in normal years. This motion is impracticable. It could not be put into operation unless, I would say — and I am putting it very mildly — we were to take Deputy Corry's price of £27 a ton for unmillable wheat and add on the additional cost per barrel which would be incurred by using Grain Importers as a fifth wheel to the coach. The difference to be found is somewhere between 20/- and 22/6 a barrel over the price that has been arranged with the millers for unmillable wheat. I want some Fianna Fáil Deputy to tell me where the difference between 47/6 and 65/- a barrel for unmillable wheat is to come from. Who will pay it? Is it the consumer of bread or the purchaser of animal feeding stuffs or is it to be another £1 a barrel from the Exchequer by way of additional subsidy? As far as I know, these are the only three sources from which they can be got. Will the Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches tell us which of the three sources they suggest it could be got from or where it could be got from? Let us be realistic about this. My constituents have suffered as much as grain growers in any other constituency. I know them as constituents and I know them intimately as grain growers. I am confident that they will be perfectly satisfied the Minister and his Department have left nothing undone this year to lessen the blow which the terrible weather has inflicted on them.

As I have already said, I think that any fair-minded man who looks at this impartially and without any desire to play politics with so serious a matter must come to the conclusion that a very good job has been done—far better than anybody believed could have been done a fortnight ago.

The job was done by the farmers.

I do not care by whom it was done so long as it was well done.

It was done by the farmers.

Apparently, the Deputy's friends did not know that a drying yard was 25 miles away from them. The Deputy had to wire to the Department.

He had to wire to the Department. There were telegrams too.

What telegrams are you talking about?

Innocents abroad!

Will Deputy Allen tell the House or tell me how Grain Importers are going to give a better service or a better price to the farmers who have unmillable wheat on their hands than has been arranged with the millers? What machinery has Grain Importers to pay? How are they going to buy it?

The motion asked that it be done at a reasonable price. That was all we said. That is all that is in the motion. Did you read the motion?

Will the Deputy tell me how it is to be done?

The Minister says he is doing it now.

Will the Deputy tell me what machinery is at the disposal of Grain Importers to purchase, to take delivery of, to store, to dry, to weigh or to bushel wheat? Will the Deputy answer that question? Will the Deputy answer a second question — and in my opinion the whole motion hangs upon these two questions. Will the Deputy tell us who is to pay the difference between 47/6 per barrel for unmillable wheat and the 62/6 per barrel suggested by his colleague, Deputy Corry. I see that Deputy Carter wants to answer me. I shall be glad to give way to hear the Deputy's answer.

I suggest that Deputy Morrissey continue with his speech.

I thought Deputy Carter wanted to give me the answer to my questions.

I have made one speech already.

Deputy Allen is the mover of this motion and he has the honour and privilege of replying to this debate. I challenge him, when he is replying, to answer the following questions. Will he tell us what machinery Grain Importers, Limited, have at their disposal to enable them to purchase and handle the unmillable wheat in this country? If they have not the machinery at the moment — and they have not, and the Deputy knows that better than I do and so does Deputy Harris know that they have no machinery other than a few typewriters and fountain pens — where are they going to get the machinery? From whom are they going to get the machinery? When are they going to get the machinery, and how much longer will they have to delay the taking from the farmers of the undried unmillable wheat? I might say that there is more undried unmillable wheat in the country at the moment than there is dried unmillable wheat. Deputies know that too. Will some Fianna Fáil Deputy also answer this question? Who is going to pay the difference between 47/6 and 62/6, as suggested by Deputy Corry? You cannot answer these questions. You could not. It is impossible for you to answer them because the whole motion is impossible. It is cod —and I venture to suggest that it is not worthy of a Party that was so long privileged to govern this country to put down a motion like this dealing with such a very serious situation — a situation which is still serious but no longer disastrous.

I have listened to a number of speeches on this motion. I am one of the signatories to the motion. All the motion asks for is that the farmers will get a fair price for unmillable wheat. Anyone who lives in the country and who is familiar with the conditions that have existed there since the beginning of the harvest knows that the position is pretty bad. Since the harvest started, the weather has been continuously bad. We cannot blame the Government for that. The cutting of the corn is hardly completed yet. A large amount of wheat has been cut with the combine. I know wheat growers who were in a desperate plight with their wheat. When they took it to the mill at first the millers refused to accept it. I know one man who put up an electric drier in order to try and put his wheat into condition. This man is a young enterprising man who took a considerable acreage of conacre, ploughed it, put in his crop, treated it well and bought a combine. Of course, the year was not a suitable one for the combine. All he could do was to snatch every hour he could to cut and dry it. This was in the beginning of the season and I understand that, at that time, the miller refused to take it. He said he would not take combine wheat at all. Although I agree that this was not a suitable year for the combine, nevertheless, if it had not been for the combine I think a lot of the wheat could not be dealt with. The man provided himself with an electric drier. He dried the wheat and I understand that he was then told by the miller that he would not accept wheat that was dried by the owner because it was a skilled operation which required experience and knowledge and the wheat might not be suitable for milling.

I was very interested in what Deputy Corry stated here. I am sure a number of farmers were in that position, that where they could not get their wheat into the mill they got it dried in order to preserve it and keep it from rotting. I believe that dried wheat, if it is considered unmillable by the miller, is really a first-class animal feeding stuff, and I think that the price of 50/- a barrel offered by the Minister for wheat of that quality is very low. Perhaps some farmers who have wheat in a very wet condition and of very low quality, so that they could hardly put any value on it at all, would consider themselves lucky to get 50/- a barrel for it.

However, there must be a large amount of really good quality unmillable wheat in the country. I understand, from reading the Young Farmers' paper, that wheat has been rejected where sprouted grains have been found in the sample. In many cases where wheat was cut — not with a combine — and stacked, the sheaves grew on the heads of the stacks or stooks. In the threshing of that wheat, where a great portion of it is very good, it would be impossible in many cases to keep the growing grains from mixing with the corn. In that instance, if the miller rejected that and considered it unmillable, I would consider 50/- to be a very low price for it. Fifty shillings is all right for unmillable wheat of the very worst quality, but there is plenty of wheat in the country that could be considered unmillable and probably will be rejected as unmillable this year by the millers but which I am convinced would be of equal value to maize as animal feeding.

I understand that the price of maize coming into the country is about £28 a ton. That is much higher than the price the Minister offers for unmillable wheat of good quality. The farmer is in a very weak and vulnerable position. There is a lot of corn still to be threshed; the season is not yet finished and a lot of that corn may be rejected as unmillable, unfit for flour. We are not asking anything unreasonable in our motion. I understand the import price of pollard at the present time is £27 a ton. The Minister said that this wheat is to be used in compound mixtures. If that unmillable wheat were not there to put into the compound mixtures this year and we had to buy foreign grain to substitute for it, the Minister would not get it for the £19 a ton he offers the farmers for their wheat. The farmers are entitled to the import price of pollard or maize for unmillable wheat of good quality.

Deputy Morrissey asked here who was going to make up the difference. After all, if the consumers of animal feeding stuffs want to buy it, they should not ask the wheat growers to produce animal food for them at a cheaper rate than it could be imported. All this motion asks is fair play for the farming community. Despite what the Minister says about the difficulties of putting an arbitrator into the mills, I think something should be done about it to look after the farmers. All farmers know very well the difficulties to be faced. The same thing happened at the time of gluts in the sale of store cattle. It happened with barley and oats in the past and there was not very much sympathy for the farmers when they were weak and disorganised. We put down this motion because we want to speak for the farmers who are disorganised and in desperate difficulties due to the weather. They should receive more consideration from the Government in this matter. There was no lead given to them during the whole year and I think it is almost too late now to be making any suggestion to remedy the situation. In my own county it is only a few days ago that the military were released to give assistance. I have heard of their being out in fields of corn where the stooks have grown trying to pull them asunder. If they were there three weeks or a month ago——

They would be grown, too.

They would not. I know as much about corn as Deputy Hughes.

About one that is on your toe.

What kind of a joke is that?

It is a very cheap one. We can expect nothing else where it came from.

Deputy Harris without interruption.

The farmers did not get the lead they expected, particularly in view of the statements made by the Minister for Agriculture about the growing of wheat. We heard Deputy Hughes speaking to-night about the big speculators and the big growers. I would not like to see any wheat lost, and some consideration should be given to the younger men who had not so much experience but were enterprising, paid big prices to land owners for their land to grow wheat and paid up to £30 an acre for it in my own county. These people should be helped out. If we do not sympathise with people who want to get rich quick, we should not ask the whole farming community to suffer on account of them. Something should have been done and nothing was done. The price offered by the Minister for good quality wheat that is not fit for the making of flour is not sufficient. They should get at least its value. It is very easy to calculate its value. Professor Murphy told Deputy Corry that good quality unmillable wheat, dried, was worth £27 a ton. Deputy Corry pressed the Minister to buy dried unmillable wheat. Why not give the farmers a reasonable price for it dried and give them a chance of drying it where they can do so?

This motion was not put down for political purposes but to draw attention to the condition of affairs in the country. There are people suffering silently. The farmers are not grumblers — in the past we heard they were grumblers — but they are depressed and disheartened at present and they have no encouragement from the Minister or the Government.

I regret very much indeed to hear Deputy Harris say that nothing was done by the Government in relation to the problems the agricultural community have had to meet over the past two months. I could draw many examples of things that were done in response to messages from the country, to assist people in overcoming the serious difficulties that arose as a result of the extremely bad weather. According to all reports, we had a record bad harvest; in living memory it has not been recalled that the people have undergone more privations in trying to save the harvest than they have undergone this year.

I would just mention one compliment, in tribute to a former Fianna Fáil Deputy from my own constituency who is now chairman of the committee of agriculture in the County Cork. He complimented the present Minister on his action in regard to the regulations on moisture content in wheat this year. I am sure Deputy Harris has read the comments of Councillor Meaney on that occasion. It was a very fair tribute from an opponent of the present Minister, but it was one which he felt was demanded by the action of the Minister in meeting the situation at that time. We must be reasonable about it. The grain growers are deeply appreciative of the action of the Minister so promptly taken at that time in giving them that assistance. Therefore, it is very dishonest and unfair to state that nothing was done. In fact, Deputy Corry—despite his claim to have a particular affection for the present Minister, in opening his remarks— would have made an epic contribution to this House if he had sat down five minutes after he got up, for at that point he indicated clearly and rightly that the Minister had responded to information which he had submitted, where prompt action was taken and good results came about from the supply of the information. That was indicative that if other Deputies who have come in and tried to avail of this motion for political purposes had been as active as Deputy Corry was on that occasion, perhaps their efforts would have been more fruitful than they have been here this afternoon.

The Government were sufficiently conscious of the importance of saving the wheat to provide a forum to the members on all sides to present their contributions at some length this afternoon. We awaited with some interest the suggestions that were to emanate from this motion before us. Quite reasonable questions have been posed from this side as to what the movers consider to be a fair price. First of all, we had some suggestions that the machinery to be employed should be different, that Grain Importers should be utilised to handle the unmillable wheat. However, since it was pointed out that their machinery was more or less limited to the extent of their office furniture, we have had no comeback so far. In their reply, I am sure some one of the movers of the motion — perhaps Deputy Allen — will indicate how he considers that organisation could handle the unmillable wheat. It has been pointed out that there is a parallel comparison in what happened to barley on a previous occasion and the impact that it had on the consumers. After all, who are the consumers in this instance but the smaller farmers who have not land capable of growing wheat? I represent a constituency which is practically evenly divided between land that is good, capable of carrying a certain amount of live stock with a very short winterage, and these farmers also grow a considerable amount of grain as a cash crop. On the other hand, one half of my constituency, containing two-thirds of the farmers of the whole constituency, would be called on, if this motion were given effect to, to provide the additional £1 or 22/6 per barrel that the Opposition claims should be paid for this unmillable wheat.

Deputy Morrissey suggested there were three means by which the money could be found, and it was implied that there was a parallel in the history in relation to feeding barley. If so, the movers of this motion feel that the burden is to be carried by the people who buy the feeding stuff, to convert it into meat, to feed it to poultry, to produce eggs and bring them to the market. These unfortunates, remember, have also difficulties to meet, arising from the extraordinarily bad harvest this year. We must not forget that these people are facing a very severe winter, as a result of the impact of the bad weather on the fodder for live stock that they must carry over for the winter. If it is intended to give effect to this motion, will it overcome all the burdens that they will have to carry? Surely it is accepted that the Minister, in the result that has come from his recent arrangements, has found what must now be regarded as an extraordinarily low proportion of wheat which is regarded as unmillable, when you compare it with the estimates of some weeks past? Surely it must be conceded that, in relation to that small proportion of the entire wheat crop, the Minister has gone a long way in resolving the difficulies which the farmers had to meet in this season?

I do not propose to speak at any great length on this motion but would like to say, that, as is typical of the Fianna Fáil Party here, on many occasions when events which gravely concern the well-being of the farming community are being discussed, you find that politics are dragged in. The Fianna Fáil Party seem to avail of any opportunity to adopt these tactics. It is indeed regrettable that that should be the case. They are prepared to stoop even to the tactics we have had to-night; they are prepared to avail of the deplorable conditions of the farmers in recent times in order to try to reflect on the present Minister for Agriculture and on the manner in which he has discharged his duties.

I would like to say at the outset that I fully appreciate the difficulties with which the present Minister was confronted when this emergency arose. We were waiting from day to day in the hope that the weather would improve and no improvement came. Suddenly we discovered that the harvest in the fields was being destroyed. Any fair-minded person must agree that, having regard to the serious conditions that prevailed, the Minister went about the whole thing in a business like way. I think it is up to me to say, on behalf of the farming community — I represent a rural constituency — that though the people were downhearted and despondent on account of the weather they are not without appreciation of the Minister's efforts to do everything humanly possible for them. Even Deputy Corry, though he is very often critical of the present Minister, had to admit that. I was surprised that he did. Other Deputies on his side of the House did not agree with that viewpoint. There were conflicting statements from gentlemen on the far side.

I think I have already stated that the farmers do appreciate that the Minister has done everything humanly possible under such conditions and, furthermore, I feel that the farming community have the greatest confidence in the present Minister in this or any other matter that may arise as far as they are concerned. Deputies from other constituencies, I could not help noticing, referred to holdings of 500 or 700 acres. We have no such holdings in my constituency. People who are fortunate to have such big holdings of land have now evidently turned to letting it in conacre. That, I submit, is a very bad policy and a bad practice for the nation as a whole. I think it is something that should be very strongly condemned. I am aware you have people at present coming across the water from England or flying over in planes buying land for conacre.

I think it was Deputy Harris who said they were paying up to £30 an acre. I do not suggest that the people who bought the land in Deputy Harris's area were foreigners—that may not apply in his district but it does apply in some parts of the country. These gentlemen come along from foreign countries and are actually buying up the land of Ireland or taking it in conacre and sowing wheat in it and I seriously suggest that the Minister should take some steps to see that that is discontinued. We all know and appreciate that where land is taken in conacre, the people who do so have one purpose only and that is to knock everything they possibly can out of it and when they have robbed and plundered it they leave it. That means that the national income here is suffering seriously as a result. I would ask Deputies to appreciate that the one thing we have got in this country is the land of Ireland. I am sure the present Minister appreciates that as much as anybody and to think that we have foreigners coming in here robbing our lands of the very important minerals that are there, lining their pockets——

Are we still on the motion?

I am trying to direct attention to the motion.

In a debate of this kind it might be suggested that what I am saying is irrelevant but I think at the same time it is a matter that has a big bearing on the whole question of this motion. My area is not a big wheat-growing area, as the land there is not really suitable for wheat. We are bigger producers of oats and other crops than we are of wheat but I am aware of instances where wheat has been turned away from mills in certain parts of the country. It was actually delivered by lorries and rejected by the mills because it was not up to the standard required. Then the lorry was driven away to another mill 25 or 30 miles away and the wheat was accepted there. That would seem to suggest to me that there is something shady about the type of mill owner who would do business in that way and I can well understand that a farmer who has quite a lot of trouble and expense and time spent tilling, reaping, and looking after his crop who is treated in that way when he offers his crop for sale, will feel very disappointed and it is unlikely that in the following year he will go in for tillage particularly of wheat.

The cases to which I refer concern wheat transactions and I think the Minister when an emergency like this arises should consult with the secretaries of the various county committees of agriculture in the counties concerned and enlist their support and cooperation. I know that he has adopted that practice in the past and in matters of this kind I would suggest to him that he would enlist the support of the various county committees of agriculture to help him over these difficulties. I feel strongly on this having regard to the abuses which I know have occurred in recent times and I feel that the Minister should take some steps to have a representative of the farmers at these mills — if not in a permanent capacity — at least to have an inspector or representative of the Department of Agriculture to look after, say, three mills, so that a farmer who delivers his wheat to the mill and has it rejected can telephone the Department representative and ask him to come along and inspect the stuff and see if the mill owner is giving a fair deal. I think it is only due to the farmer that something like that should be brought into being. Deputies from different sides of this House have said that these things are happening in their constituencies and if that is true — and it is true in my constituency — there is something that needs remedying at once.

On the question of the prices paid for inferior quality wheat I am sure the Minister with his own Department officials has gone very thoroughly into the whole question. He and his officials have worked hard and late to do everything humanly possible in such an emergency as we unfortunately experienced and I am sure in the matter of fixing prices he has had due regard to all the factors involved. I believe that he has had the matter of price fixation under consideration and that he will strike a fair balance taking into account that inferior wheat must in the main be fed to animals.

I would ask the Minister to consider seriously the few points I have made on behalf of the farming community. I have gone around among them in recent times and met scores and scores of people who have suffered very severely as a result of the weather and I can truthfully say the farmers are not without deep appreciation of what the Minister has done on their behalf in most difficult circumstances.

Earlier this evening Deputy Corry asked what price was the Minister prepared to pay or recommend as the proper value for dried unmillable wheat, and he suggested that it was a matter of life and death to the farmers of this country. Personally, I believe that the quantity of dried unmillable wheat available for sale is very small —"none"— I hear one of my farmer colleagues say. In answer to Deputy Corry's query, I can give him a little piece of information: this morning, there was an offer of £25 a ton at a Dublin mill for dried unmillable wheat. It all depends on what percentage of moisture is still left in it, and it is one of the questions to which there can be any number of answers. If Professor Sheehy has said that it was worth £27 a ton, it may well be that my price of £25 a ton is just as good for a certain quality of wheat as his price of £27 a ton is for another quality.

Earlier this evening, we had a lot of rodomontade and "cod" talked on the opposite side, and it looked at one stage as if the motion was not going to get going at all. Deputy Allen said that the Minister has sat back showing his contempt for the growing of wheat in this country, and my colleague Deputy O'Sullivan has dealt with that, and it is not necessary for me to repeat what he said. Deputy Moher made an attack on the Department of Agriculture and wanted such action as will save the farmers from beggary and ruin. If these words have any relation to reality, I think we should not be here in this House but should all be out helping with the harvest. Deputy Carter suggested that one-third of the wheat crop is going to be a dead loss this year and the Minister has answered that. I had made a note and "not one-tenth as much" is what I had put down. The Minister duly confirmed that by saying it was about 3 per cent. What is that 3 per cent. worth, taking it at present prices which the Minister has arranged with the millers? It is worth about £250,000 in a crop which is worth something around £15,000,000 or £16,000,000.

I thought at one stage that the Opposition Party would not go ahead with the motion. The Minister had seen the millers on the morning of the day on which they put it down, and I thought that surely they would not go ahead with it. It looked to-day very much as if they realised that they should not have gone ahead with it, but it seems to me that, when they decide on a course of action, be it right or wrong, they bullheadedly proceed in a stupid fashion, if I may so with respect, to put it into effect. This House would have been much better employed this evening in dealing with the legislation it has been discussing recently.

Question.

That is a matter of opinion and I think there is no question about it. The operation has been put into effect by the Minister already. The job has been done and there is, to the best of my knowledge, no serious problem left. Deputy Moher and Deputy Corry, both from East Cork, suggested that there was a major problem, but I have been told by people who live in East Cork that the harvest on the whole has been saved there for some weeks. That is a question of fact also.

Listening to Deputy Allen, one would think, from the way he behaves, that the Minister was the greatest enemy the farmers ever had. When the Deputy from Kildare, Deputy Harris, was concluding, there were almost tears in his voice when he spoke of his concern for the farmers. Would the Deputies cast their minds back a few years to the period when the land of this country was handed over to the inter-Party Government, which was in office from 1948 to 1951. Who handed it over to them in that condition? I am not going to dilate on that subject, but I think it is a very shabby business that this serious problem should have been made the subject of a motion like this.

I consider this motion, first of all, to be useless and I regard it as a mean manoeuvre on the part of the Fianna Fáil Party to take advantage of the unfortunate situation in which the farmers find themselves. If we examine the terms of this motion we will see that the only effective part of it is that they suggest the purchase and management of the unmillable wheat should be put into the hands of Grain Importers, Limited, who, as previously stated, have no organisation at their hand except a few typewriters and office furniture. They would have to refer the purchase of this unmillable wheat to the organisation of buyers and agents and millers, who are in charge of this problem at present. I heard Deputy Corry suggesting that a price ought to be made for dried, unmillable wheat. I would like to point out that unmillable wheat at 33? per cent. moisture content—and there is quite a lot of wheat at that figure and a great deal of it at more than 33? per cent — is worse value to the compounder than maize at £27 a ton because the maize has approximately 11 per cent. moisture. But still we have that kind of case being bandied about by Deputy Corry without giving figures or any constructive approach.

This motion appears to be just an excuse for a debate on the rather unfortunate situation in which the farmers find themselves. It is a week late. This matter has been dealt with in a very satisfactory way by the Minister already. Supposing this scheme was not adopted, what would be the position of the wheat growers who would find so much of their wheat unmillable and unsaleable? We have a situation now where there is a scheme whereby they will be able to get cash for unmillable wheat that is capable of being used as a feeding-stuff.

The problem that we are facing at the present time and which we are discussing has deeper roots. We must remember that the growers were, if you like, bribed or stampeded into the growing of a very large acreage of wheat and no attempt was made by the previous Government to ensure that the wheat would be properly handled when it was harvested. There were no handling facilities, particularly in this difficult harvest, but last year, when there was a fairly large acreage of wheat and a good yield, there were considerable difficulties in the handling of the large quantity which was offered, owing to the system of combining wheat instead of the old system of stacking and threshing. In spite of that, the wheat grower was encouraged to put in a very large acreage this year, but in spite of the problems that arose last year, when there was a favourable season for the harvest, no attempt was made by the previous Government to handle the larger acreage on this occasion. Added to those difficulties was the bad weather and the farmers had a double problem to deal with.

Now we have the Fianna Fáil Party shedding crocodile tears. They will not even accept a scheme which has been made to compensate the growers of that large quantity of wheat who did not get these facilities. We can imagine, if there was a good season, the manner in which that wheat would have been handled and the long queues of loaded lorries that would have been waiting, not alone one night but several nights continuously, for their turn to have the wheat handled. There is the situation which would have faced the farmers, if it was a favourable season. On this occasion, we did not get a favourable season. There was a slower delivery of the wheat to the mills, but still they had not got the machinery to handle it. We have the Fianna Fáil Party crying about the farmers, but omitting to refer to the fact that they left the farmers completely without any kind of equipment to deal with the very large crop which they implored them to plant this year.

The attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party in relation to wheat growing appears to have been one designed to adjust the trade balance, but let us remember that the economics of wheat are these, that 20 years ago, when there was only one ton of wheat grown here for every 15 tons of wheat imported, there were four times as many men working on the land as there are at present.

Similarly we have the situation where growers of wheat are not satisfied with the manner in which the millers have dealt with the corn taken in. The millers apparently did not give the results of the test for approximately two weeks after the wheat had been delivered and then there arose a dispute as to whether it contained 24 per cent. or 30 per cent. moisture. There is no way of proving it because apparently there is no referee or third party to decide the condition of the wheat on delivery. The discretion appears to be with the millers at the present time as to whether they will accept wheat as being millable or rejected as unmillable. It is unsatisfactory but I presume it is impossible at this stage to find a solution for that problem. At the moment it is at the discretion of the millers to decide whether wheat is millable or unmillable. I presume it has been already suggested in the course of the debate that arrangements be made in future to ensure that wheat delivered to the mills be dealt with in a proper manner. Producers are in difficulty in regard to the result of bushelling until such time as they are in a position to dispute the figures given them by the miller.

I think the Minister has done a very good job in devising this scheme when we realise that, if it had not been devised, there would be a large quantity of wheat unsaleable. Wheat is saleable now but the difficulty that presents itself is whether the millers will accept it as millable wheat or unmillable wheat. I heard Deputy Corry make a case in regard to unmillable dried wheat. Most of it is unmillable, although saved in the normal way, and offered to the millers in that condition, because the drying facilities are not there which would enable a large quantity of it to be dried, even though it is unmillable before being offered to the millers.

I do not believe this motion will do any harm at all, but it is a childish motion. It is unfortunate that it should be brought forward, but these are the usual tactics of Fianna Fáil—cashing in on the nation's distress. Certainly the motion has shown Fianna Fáil in a very poor light indeed, because they have made no case for it at all. It has shown also that the nation has a strong, able Minister, a Minister capable of handling the task in the national crisis that we have gone through. It has shown him to be the right man in the right place. There are no queues outside the mills waiting for prices to be arranged. Everything that could humanly be done is being done. I am certainly satisfied that our farmers have undergone untold hardship. They have the sympathy of the entire nation, of the people in town and city, and they deserve that sympathy. I am proud of the fact that the farmers stood up to their job. They accepted the crisis with true Christian resignation. They were always prepared to accept God's holy will. Anything that is bad could be worse. We have had a wheat crisis, but is it not far more easily endured than the human holocausts which have occurred in other parts of the world and in which, not hundreds but thousands, of people have been hurled into eternity. Here we have had nothing worse than a bad harvest. That is only a small sacrifice in comparison with the human holocausts that other countries have had to endure. Perhaps this crisis will be a blessing in disguise if it shows that single-line farming will always throw a nation off its balance. Indiscriminate wheat growing is a dangerous experiment. That has been proved, not to-day or yesterday but over many years. There would be no national crisis if we had a fixed national economy. Balanced farming will stand up to any crisis, big or small.

The county from which I come, royal Meath, has suffered severely. Many large farmers have been severely tried, some of them broken for ever more. Many more have had their hands very badly burned. We have every sympathy for all these farmers, the unbalanced farmers, whether they sowed large areas or small areas of wheat. A farmer of that type is no gambler or chancer; he is the type of man the nation needs. We had, however, many speculators growing wheat in the last few years. I come from one county where speculators have run rife. I am sorry for them, but I have not much sympathy with them. They are nothing more than a crowd of racketeers who blew into this country from all parts of Britain and other countries in Europe. Some of them even came from Dublin and tried to cash in on a handy way of making easy money. It was not the hand of man that struck them down, but the hand of the Almighty Himself. We have very little sympathy with that type of man. I, unfortunately, am in the position that I see the fertile land of Meath being utterly destroyed by this type of speculator who comes in and tries to get rich overnight.

I want to see a balanced farming economy. I want to see the fertile land preserved and conserved in my county where we have some of the richest land in Europe. It is unfortunate to see it being turned into nothing more than a dust bowl such as you find in the American prairies.

The Deputy is getting away from the motion.

We do not want that type of farming. We want our farmers to have a balance, to provide a proper solution for the problems of our nation's economy. If this thing were allowed to go on——

How does this arise on the motion?

I know the motion is concerned with wheat undoubtedly but I am touching on wheat. However, I bow to your ruling. I say that the Minister and the Department deserve the nation's thanks for their action in the crisis we have gone through. They have done everything that was humanly possible. They have allayed many fears. They have alleviated much of the distress by their promptness of action and by the manner in which they dealt with the millers. I am not a strong supporter of the millers but I say they have done a good job in this national crisis. Had it not been that we had a strong and able Minister, the countryside would be strewn with wheat rotting in the stacks and in the sacks and a national disaster would be upon us. Have we a national disaster to-day? No; we accept the will of the Almighty and we are proud of the fact that we have a strong Minister and an able Government to deal with an unprecedented situation. They tackled it in a bold and big way and, thanks to them, many of the farmers have been saved from utter distress. I am satisfied that in the future, as in the present situation, the Minister will stand up to his task and he will overcome the difficulties in the way of bringing into this country a balanced economy. The Minister is a strong man who knows his job and who will do his job. Thanks be to God, we had a man of that type to deal with the present crisis. What would have happened if we had the late Minister in office, or Deputy Dr. Ryan? Would we not have floundered over the job?

That certainly does not arise. The Deputy will keep to the motion.

It is in now.

I did not hear the Minister objecting to that.

I think it is fair hitting. I think it is fair enough to say that if my predecessors were there they would be floundering, and it is very true. That is not offensive, I think.

The farmers should be organised in their own defence. Only one man is trying to do that, and that is Father Hayes.

Is that relevant?

Let us blow away all the ill-feeling and get down to work in peace on behalf of the nation. The Irish farmer has done his job. He has got all the help the nation can give him. In turn, he has the thanks of the nation for what he has done. According to the daily papers it was prophesied that we would have queues three and four miles long outside every mill, with the men on the lorries sleeping on sacks in the roadway waiting their turn. Thanks to the Minister, there was none of that. The situation was settled overnight because he had strength in his hand and the orders he gave were carried out. The farmers are not fools. They know what they are up against. They are grateful to the Minister and an Irish Government for helping them.

I would like to join in this debate as one who has been growing wheat for upwards of 30 years and who knows all the ins and outs of it. The first year I tilled the ground was the best year. It is the same everywhere. The soil deteriorates, and despite artificial manures, rotation and everything else, the continued growing of wheat will eventually turn the soil into desert. That is what will happen if we go on too long.

The Deputy might keep to the motion.

I want to compliment the Minister on what I consider is a wonderful achievement. At one time I thought 50 per cent. of the wheat would never see the mills. To-day it has almost all been taken. This is the worst harvest year in living memory. I grew wheat in 1946 and I took a cut of 10/- a barrel on one cargo and a cut of 6/- on another, and there was no weeping or wailing or shedding of tears: poor Pat had to take his beating. To-day we have a different situation and, even though it is the worst year in living memory, we have a good sound man at the helm, a man who utilised his brains and stood by the farmers of Tipperary and elsewhere.

Short and sweet.

I am sure the Minister is delighted I gave way to Deputy Crowe because of all the bouquets presented to him. It has been suggested that this motion was introduced for political purposes. My word is as good as that of any Deputy on the benches opposite and I can assure the House that this motion was considered over a month ago by the Fianna Fáil Party and it was decided then not to put it down lest it might be represented, as it was represented here to-day, that we were taking advantage of the misfortunes suffered by the farmers owing to bad weather in order to make political capital. The motion was deferred for a month. If it has done nothing else it has achieved an authoritative statement that something is being done. But nothing was being done until the motion was put down last Thursday and it is a strange coincidence that in a Dublin newspaper circulating all over the country a statement was made the following day. How that coincidence came about I leave it to people to judge for themselves.

Was it not a strange coincidence that the motion went in the evening I made the statement?

I do not know whether it was in the evening or in the morning.

It was not in before the arrangement was made.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Beegan concluding on the motion.

There was an article in a Dublin paper; that did not come as a supplied statement. It was not stated that it was a supplied statement. I believe that, the problem being of such major importance, there should have been an announcement on the radio that night. There was no statement from the Government Information Bureau that such arrangements had been made. We had nothing authoritative until this evening. The unfortunate part about this evening is that the arrangement does not go far enough. It has been suggested we should accept it. I shall try to explain why it is not possible for us to accept it and why we should not accept it without putting it to a division.

I would be more than pleased if this whole question of agriculture could be taken out of the whirlpool of politics. I hope the day will dawn when the agriculturists will formulate their own policy and leave it to the Government of the day to amend that policy or indicate where it is either inadvisable or impracticable. That is not the position. For a number of years agriculture has been played about with.

Is this relevant?

It was played about with particularly by the Fine Gael Party. Those who represent the farmers have been absent from the House to-day with the exception of Deputy O'Hara who uttered a few words in condemnation of the motion while, at the same time, admitting there was something wrong with this question of wheat purchases.

Is this relevant?

The Deputy must come to the motion.

We decided this was a very serious problem for the farmers, added to the many other problems with which they are confronted. It has been stated by the Minister and many others that this was the worst harvest in living memory. What steps were taken by the Minister to meet that situation? That is one of the greatest grievances I have against the Minister: although it was the worst harvest in living memory not a word of encouragement was given to the farmers who found themselves faced with a dilemma.

What was done in 1946?

We know what was done in 1946 and if the same steps had been taken this year it is doubtful if there would have been any need to put down this motion. We needed the weather but, above all, we needed a pool of labour so that the farmers could utilise their ordinary reapers and binders. That is why many of them waited to use a combine and almost lost their crops because they got no hint from anywhere or no suggestion as to what would be done. Even though suggestions were made by various vocational organisations of farmers, there was no hint given that the Army or anybody else would be available until last week, when it was too late.

I have cut 16 acres of corn with a scythe and have put my hand deep in my pocket to pay the men and took 10/- a barrel in one case.

If Deputy Crowe cannot behave himself I will ask him to leave the House.

On a point of order. Is Deputy Beegan being relevant to the motion?

It is very difficult to answer that question because there are so many interruptions. I am trying to deal with the interruptions and then I will deal with Deputy Beegan if he is out of order.

I simply want to direct the attention of the Chair to irrelevance.

It is my right and privilege, if statements are made in this House, to answer them. If they were related to this motion, then I should have the same right to reply.

Without interruptions.

The farmers require sympathy and encouragement because everybody knows that, apart even from the wheat, farmers' incomes have deteriorated very considerably as compared with the same period last year and that their incomes from live stock or any other form of farm produce have decreased from 12½ per cent. to 17½ per cent. The fact that wheat was rendered unmillable and unfit for human consumption by the elements, of course, and also by lack of cooperation and assistance from the fount where it should be expected, made their hardships and difficulties doubly difficult.

Now it comes to this question of the purchase of unmillable wheat and how this motion was worded and we have been asked how does Fianna Fáil believe that Grain Importers, Limited, could handle the unmillable wheat of this country. That question was posed by the Minister, by Deputy Morrissey and several others. How did Grain Importers, Limited, in a similar situation of a difficult kind last year, handle the barley question? Had not they machinery to do that?

The mill.

Have they not got machinery to import from the ends of the earth for cereals to be used by the various mills in this country? We were also asked the question: if the suggestion of Deputy Corry and others as regards price were conceded, who would pay for it — how would it be paid for? Would not that money circulate within the country? Is it a crime to pay to the Irish farmers the equivalent of what has been paid to the foreign producers of maize and pollard and the rest of it?

When it comes to the question of values, I understand that pollard is an offal of wheat and it is being sold at £27 a ton. The whole grain must be better than its offal and in my opinion, must be of higher feeding value. To the layman, without bringing in an expert or professor, the whole grain certainly has a much higher feeding value than its offal, pollard. There is nothing wrong in what was suggested by Deputy Corry and others on this side of the House that the farmers should be given at least that price for their unmillable wheat. But, when it comes to the question of fixing the price at any level for unmillable wheat or getting the millers to take it, perhaps, the easing or solution of one problem may create another. That is the big danger in this whole question and one that, in my opinion, the Minister should take serious cognisance of. The question is how the millers will deal with the problem.

We know very well that there are thousands of tons of what would be regarded as unmillable wheat that is very close to the border-line. Without supervision or a check of some kind there is a danger that people who have millable wheat of good quality could lose and that the price of their first-class quality millable wheat that is suitable for human consumption could be cut and that the millers in that way would try to even up matters. That problem is difficult enough to solve. In the present year I believe the only way in which you could solve it is a rough and ready way, not by sending an inspector to every mill and keeping him there all the time but by having surprise visits and surprise tests and taking from farmers samples of rejected wheat and of wheat for which they expected to get the millable wheat price.

The Deputy knows that surprise visits are going on every day all over the country to every mill.

There are no checks on the wheat that is being rejected.

Surprise visits are going on all the time.

I would like checks on the rejected wheat and that samples would be taken.

And accepted in other mills.

Are you sure it is not the other way around?

This conversation must cease.

I am not saying that millers are not conscientious people. I am sure there are many conscientious people amongst the millers as well as in every other section of the community. Perhaps there are certain of them who would try to take advantage of a situation like that.

There are.

It is often easy to ascertain the doubtful ones from the reputable ones and attention should be paid to such people. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, Mr. O'Donovan, said this evening that it would be much better for this House to discuss some useful type of legislation than to deal with a motion of this kind. No Opposition in this House have ever facilitated a Government to the same extent as the present Opposition have facilitated the present Government. What Bills have been introduced that are of any special significance or importance that should be given priority over a motion of this kind? Are they not all clarification or codification of existing laws? None of them deals with any important subject. That is my answer to Deputy O'Donovan on that point.

Another question is dried unmillable wheat versus undried unmillable wheat. That also is worthy of consideration. It is too bad that the careful, thrifty farmer who went to the trouble of drying his unmillable wheat in an effort to preserve some of it should be placed in the same category and offered the same terms as the careless man or the man who, perhaps, was not careless but who lost hope in the situation and left the wheat there untidy and uncared for, and who is now going to produce wheat much inferior both in moisture content and in general condition. He will get the same benefit in the scheme the Minister has outlined to us as the person who took the trouble and went to the expense of having his unmillable wheat dried and brought to a safe condition. I am sure something can be done. There is no justification whatsoever for paying only 47/6 and at the same time giving the same benefit to the neighbour who has either through discouragement or carelessness failed to tend his wheat at all or take the steps his neighbour has taken.

There were many points raised on this whole question of the motion we have put down. It was suggested that the handling of the wheat in this particular type of season was something akin to a miracle. There was nothing very miraculous about it. I want to emphasise that again because I believe that it would be only a very simple problem if the proper steps had been taken at the proper time. Thoughts have been expressed here about the wheat rancher and all the rest of it and the get-rich-quick fellow. Perhaps, we have certain people of that mentality in the country who believe, when something comes along in which they see an opportunity, they can get rich quick. Perhaps we have land owners in this country in the same position.

My opinion is that there should be no ranchers in this country. If there are ranchers who are not utilising their land properly, who are going into land and who are letting it to other gentlemen, whether they be natives or foreigners, there is an institution in this State to deal with them. It is, perhaps, an institution which does not carry on its work in a very speedy fashion. Nevertheless, that is the type of person in my opinion to whom they should direct their attention instead of directing it towards some person who is an uneconomic holder and take his holding from him in order to relieve the other uneconomic holder. If that happened we would not have so many ranchers of any type, whether beef ranchers or otherwise.

I think the way this motion has been treated from the Government Benches shows callous indifference to the whole situation. That is the position. That callous indifference was represented here this evening, particularly by the Clann na Talmhan Party. There was never more than one of them in his seat, and only one came in to make any contribution to this motion. We are insistent in putting this motion. I hope that the farmers on every side of this House — if they are interested in the farmers as they pretend they are — will vote to give the farmers a fair price in the situation in which they now find themselves. I hope they will vote to the farmers of this country a price equal to that which they are prepared to give the farmers in outside countries in respect of imports of animal feeding stuffs which, I hold, are not of nearly so great a feeding value as the unmillable wheat we have been discussing here.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 56; Níl, 69.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Breen, Dan.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • arter, Frank.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kelly, Edward.
  • Kenneally, William.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Lahiffe, Robert.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • Lynch, Jack.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Michael J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • de Valera, Eamon.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maher, Peadar.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Malley, Donough.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.

Níl

  • Barrett, Stephen D.
  • Barry, Anthony.
  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, Thomas.
  • Carew, John.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Coburn, George.
  • Collins, Seán.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, Declan.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Crowe, Patrick.
  • Davin, William.
  • Deering, Mark.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry P.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Esmonde, Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finlay, Thomas A.
  • Flannagan, Oliver J.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Glynn, Brendan M.
  • Hession, James M.
  • Hughes, Joseph.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, James.
  • Lynch, Thaddeus.
  • MacBride, Seán.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Madden, David J.
  • Manley, Timothy.
  • Morrissey, Dan.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, Michael P.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Carroll, Maureen.
  • O'Connor, John.
  • O'Donnell, Patrick.
  • O'Donovan, John.
  • O'Hara, Thomas.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Palmer, Patrick W.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Joseph.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Tully, James.
  • Tully, John.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Briain and Hilliard; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and James Tully.
Question declared lost.
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