Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 18 May 1955

Vol. 150 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27 — Agriculture (Resumed).

Mr. Egan

When I moved to report progress last Wednesday night, I was discussing the attitude of the Minister and the Deputies who spoke from the Government Benches towards a possible wheat surplus and I was about to tell what happened after an eminent expert had given a lecture down the country on the desirability and possibility of greatly increasing our agricultural production. When the lecture was finished, great satisfaction was expressed with the lecture and even enthusiasm at the prospects held out but when the lecturer had departed a very old man who had been listening to the lecture asked for audience of those who were left. He said to them: "Look here, boys, do not pay any heed to that boyo from Dublin telling you to increase production because you can take it from me that the more you produce the less you will get for it."

I think that the Minister's attitude towards a possible wheat surplus — let us forget about the racketeers for the moment — and the action he took to avoid a surplus in slashing the price of wheat by 12/6 a barrel is a complete justification for all that that old man said down the country. I would remind the Minister that is no yarn. It actually happened. I can get the details of the actual meeting place for the Minister if he so wishes. Is that what we want the farmers of this country to think about increased agricultural production? Is that the way we will get the increased agricultural production which we all asked for and which we all agree is desirable and necessary if we are to maintain even the present standard of living of our people? Is the prospect held out to the farmer to be that the more he produces the less he will get per unit of production?

In a country like this which pays out such enormous sums for imported feeding stuffs there should be no problem of a wheat surplus at all. In any case what becomes of the surplus malting barley? Has not that situation been met? Apart altogether from that, there was not really a surplus last year. Of course, the Minister might say that if there had been a different harvest you would have a surplus but it did not happen. I could say to the Minister that the fact that there was uncertainty in regard to the cattle trade induced a lot of farmers to increase their wheat acreage. I am sure the Minister will not deny that.

In any case there should be no problem about the surplus of wheat in a country like ours which has to import an enormous amount of feeding stuffs at such terrible cost. Apart altogether from that, the likelihood of a surplus of wheat in any normal year is very remote. It is very unlikely that in a normal year we will have any substantial surplus of wheat. The Minister seems to support the contention of Deputy Tully that there is very little labour content in wheat. At column 1358, Volume 150 of the Official Report, dated 11th May, 1955, the Minister said:—

"There is less labour content connected with wheat than there is for any other agricultural crop."

I agree absolutely with the Minister that so far as the harvesting of wheat is concerned there is less trouble with it than with any other cereal crop, or, indeed, any other farm crop. I have been preaching that for the last 20 years. Wheat is one of the easiest crops to grow; it is one of the most certain to come to fruition provided it gets proper attention and enough fertiliser. It is one of the easiest to harvest and to handle. I preached that when people said it could not be grown at all in this country; it could not be saved; it could not be milled and, even if it could be milled, one could not eat it. If any crop has vindicated itself in our time it is wheat. That has been demonstrated beyond shadow of doubt. It has been proved to the satisfaction of every expert and crank in the country.

This country has wonderful capabilities in relation to wheat growing. I think it is one of the best wheat producing countries in the world. I think that could not be better proved than by something I saw myself: I actually saw a man cutting wheat on New Year's Day with a combine and saving a very substantial amount of it. I will not say it was millable, but a substantial quantity of it was saved. Mark you, he was no bad farmer. I will give the Minister his name and address if he wishes to check up on that.

The crop is easily saved, but surely the Minister and the Labour Deputies will not try, because of that fact, to contend that the labour content in wheat starts with the tilling and sowing operation and finishes with the reaping and threshing of the crop. Are we to ignore all the other stages? Are we to ignore the labour in the baking of it? Are we to ignore the flour mills and the jute mills? Are we to ignore the labour involved in the machinery side of it? I grant you, ploughs are also used for the cultivation of oats and barley, but wheat, nevertheless, forms a very big proportion of the work they have to do. Are we to ignore all the transport involved? Are we to ignore the labour employed in the hundreds of firms and by the hundreds of merchants who handle wheat and who employ thousands of men in the handling of that wheat? Are we to go further and ignore the £13,000,000, or the £14,000,000 which the farmer gets for his wheat, or should get, and which goes back to labour in one way or another?

Mr. O'Leary

Would it not be substituted by barley and oats?

Mr. Egan

I suppose the Deputy would like foreign wheat. He may be interested in foreign wheat. Wheat has become and must remain the foundation of our tillage. Who will deny that it is the farmer's best cash crop? It provides the kitty from which he draws the money to pay for the steps the Irish farmer has taken into the 20th century — a phrase the Minister used and one with which I do not disagree. We would not have one tractor for the ten that are there now, were it not for wheat.

Mr. O'Leary

Taking away labour from the land.

Mr. Egan

I have already explained the labour content in wheat. Evidently it did not sink into Deputy O'Leary's brain. He is prepared to ignore the flour mills and the jute mills, the machinery, the fertiliser plants and the £13,000,000 or the £14,000,000 which goes to the Irish farmer for wheat and, to-morrow or the next day, he will say that the Irish agricultural labourer is not getting enough and it is the Deputy who would take the money out of the agricultural labourer's pocket.

I spoke earlier about cattle breeds. I said I was convinced that the best foundation for our stock was the dual-purpose Shorthorn cow. But I said I was not a doctrinaire Shorthorn man. Neither am I a doctrinaire wheat man. My views on wheat are based on conviction as a result of experience, long personal experience plus the experience of those who went before me. If the Irish people develop a taste for oaten bread and we do not require any more wheat, that will be all right with me. I will change my views accordingly and lose no sleep in doing so.

Similarly, if after a fair trial the Dutch Friesian is proved to be a superior dual-purpose animal, superior to the Shorthorn, I might be rather surprised and somewhat sorry but, again, I would not get a nervous breakdown over it. I would accept the inevitable.

My views on wheat are not political. They are no more political than the Minister's views on the dual-purpose Shorthorn cow. We all know they are not political. I agree that after we have sufficient land under the plough, sufficiently well fertilised for tillage crops, the best possible attention should then be given to our grass land. I agree our aim should be to have good grass at the back end of the year, as near as possible to Christmas, and good grass again as near as possible to Christmas at the beginning of the New Year and fill up the hungry gap between with good hay and silage, as the Minister said, supplemented of course with cereals and roots. Deputy James Tully would not agree with that because he has a new theory on farming economy. He would not agree there would be any labour content at all in that policy because he does not understand it, just as Deputy O'Leary does not understand the wheat policy.

Mr. O'Leary

It was your Party who called the present Minister for Agriculture the Minister for grass.

Mr. Egan

I do not care what he is called if he does his job. I am talking obviously about something which the Deputy does not understand and I have no time now to enlighten him. Perhaps some other time I may be able to do it by appointment.

Mr. O'Leary

I come from the best tillage county of the whole lot, and that goes for ploughmen and everything.

Mr. Egan

There is one point I want to make in relation to the land project. It is quite a common experience — it has certainly been my experience — to meet people who have applied to have drainage work done under the land project. It is quite usual for these applicants to be told by the inspector that there is no outfall and, therefore, nothing can be done; in other words, the main river in the locality is choked up and is not able to take any more drainage. I appeal to the Minister to use his good offices in that direction. These are rivers which should properly come under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, and I appeal to the Minister to implement that Act.

I appeal to the Minister to use his good offices to have the operation of this Act extended over the whole country as quickly as possible because at the rate we are going on we will all be dead and gone and they will be draining the rivers by nuclear energy or something like that. I would appeal especially to the Minister because I am sure he understands as well as I do — perhaps better — the terrible hold-up there is as regards drainage which is so necessary and important to agriculture. I said to his predecessor and I say to himself that I thought it was a pity that so much money was spent initially on the land project.

I agree that very good work is being done, but I thought that some millions of pounds, say, £10,000,000, should have been put into arterial drainage and that the rivers Boyne and Suir and Barrow, and so on, would be dealt with. I think to have acted otherwise was to put the cart before the horse. It is a great pity that the drainage could not have been tackled first, and the drainage system of the country looked upon as being almost as important to agriculture as the main roads are to commerce. It is as important to the country as the trunk road is to the citizens of Dublin.

I admit a lot of drainage has been done — I am not referring to the arterial drainage. The Parliamentary Secretary knows about that in my county, and all who travel from Mullingar to Banagher and who see the work that has been done on the Brosna scheme and tributaries on either side know the wonderful benefit that this drainage has bestowed on the people of that area. What I wish to refer to are the smaller drainage schemes that have taken place under the Local Authorities (Works) Act and so on, quite good schemes, and the greater part of the jobs done were excellent jobs, but it is only piecemeal drainage without a general plan and above all without maintenance, and drainage without maintenance is a cod and a fraud. In ten or 15 years' time if we look at drainage that has been done without maintenance the last case will be as bad as or worse than the first with the difference that a lot of public money will have been wasted in the meantime.

It is just as absurd to do these jobs, to make a new drain, to drain the land for a few years and then leave it there, as it is to make a new road and give it no service or maintenance afterwards. One knows the kind of a road there will be in 20 years. But the road will be better than the drain — in 20 years' time the drain will be choked up. That is why I make a special plea for the general application as quickly as possible of the 1945 Arterial Drainage Act.

There is just one other matter to which I would like to refer and it is an important matter on which agricultural policy is based to a great extent. That is the question of agricultural statistics. The system by which these statistics are collected at the moment is hopeless and the returns that are obtained are most unreliable. The garda goes to the farmhouse and he usually turns up when the farmer is very busy and when he is anxious to get rid of him as quickly as he can, the more so if one of the children is holding an unlicensed dog behind the house. I am giving a typical example. Under those circumstances and conditions a reasonably accurate return is a most unlikely thing. Of course, the question of family pride is also an important consideration and "pride attends us still".

I knew of a man — I could give the Minister particulars, if he wishes, in confidence — who returned ten acres of wheat when he had none, five acres of barley when he had only one——

Mr. O'Leary

Was that under Fianna Fáil?

Mr. Egan

It does not matter who it was under — and 40 cattle over two years old when he had only 13.

Mr. Sweetman

Was he applying for a loan?

Mr. Egan

He was not. I am developing my point about pride if the Minister understands. Then on the other hand it is quite usual for a garda to go to a locality when he is on his rounds and sit down on a block, or at the pump, and take the returns of the whole district from one man. I am not making an attack on the Gardaí but on the system. It is not the work of the Gardaí and they were never trained for it. As I say, this garda goes in and takes the return of a whole neighbourhood from one man and that man gives him those returns which he may know nothing about. Sometimes a man would have stock that the neighbours might not know anything about but usually the farmer gives the returns and makes them big or small according to his likes and dislikes for a particular man.

I think this is a very serious matter. The Minister and his Department draw their conclusions from these returns and act on them and the action taken as a result of the analysis made has a great bearing on agricultural policy. If the object of the collection of these returns is to get an accurate account of what every farmer has in stock, poultry and tillage, etc., and finally an accurate total for the whole country, it is a perfect farce. The farmers do not take it seriously. They think it is not sufficiently confidential and they have a suspicion that the returns they give may become the subject for discussion in the "local".

The Minister said earlier that he did not want Deputies to get up and tell him what should not be done but rather to suggest what should be done and he might ask me a fair-enough question: "What do you suggest?". I make a suggestion for what it is worth. It is this: that the return forms be handed into each household or farmhouse in much the same way as the population census returns and that the farmer be given a reasonable time, a reasonable number of days, to make his return.

I suggest it should be completed and signed before a peace commissioner and forwarded by a certain date to the Department of Agriculture and I suggest that there be a stiff fine for failure to make a return or for a grossly inaccurate return. Perhaps the Minister can devise a better system but, in any case, the present system is bad, unreliable and a farce — and every farmer knows that.

If a system such as the one I have suggested were established I believe the farmer would sit down, take his time and make an honest and reasonable return. I think that that would be a great help to any Minister for Agriculture and to his Department instead of having to depend on a collection of unreliable figures which, in most cases, bear no relation to the facts.

Mr. Beegan

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.