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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 May 1955

Vol. 151 No. 1

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

When the House reported progress on the consideration of this Estimate I was pointing out that if the Minister for Agriculture wishes to make real progress in increasing production he should cease misusing statistics for political purposes. I indicated that, by taking a different selection of years in regard to agricultural production, one could always prove a particular case. I pointed out that it would be much the best thing for all of us if we faced the need for a great increase in production and recognised that no Government and no Party as yet has succeeded in creating the kind of growth in our production which we would all like to see.

For example, in the course of his statement the Minister chose to compare the number of cattle of under one year, taking the average of 1934 to 1938 as being 978,000. He pointed out that in 1954 there were 1,036,000 cattle of under one year in the country. One might just as well take the year 1939, after five years of admittedly difficult conditions with the hardships imposed by the economic dispute with Britain. In 1939, there were 1,029,000 cattle of under one year in the country—almost exactly the same number as in 1954. I think the people on this side of the House will not accuse the Minister for being responsible for the fact that there was only that very small increase in young cattle, when we take those particular years. Equally, it is unfair of the Minister to try and make political use of these figures.

If one wants to, one can take figures for other years and go back to 1911 when there were just under 4,000,000 cattle in the country. In 1954—44 years later—there were 4,500,000 cattle in the country. That sort of figure is much more representative of the real position than to select a figure for particular years. We could say to the Minister, if we wanted to, that production in 1945 was the same as it was in 1950 and we could ask him what he thought he was doing during his three years of office if, at the end, the production was only the same as it was after we had had to face five years of emergency. We shall never be able to persuade the agricultural community that there is sufficient safeguard for them to increase production—with all the expense involved, with all the capital investment required and with all the anxiety that will inevitably follow—if we use that kind of propaganda in this House. Let us simply say that there has been a small but heartening increase in production, compared with the year before the war, of under 10 per cent. Let us say how glad we are that that is the case and let us proceed from there and do our best to secure a a far greater production than anything dreamt of at the present time. If we can argue in that way in this House about methods and policies we shall do much more for the farming community than by playing politics with figures.

All of us recognise the difficulty of inducing an increase in production. The difficulty lies in the ease with which people can leave the land compared with countries competing with us in the British market where there are not the same facilities for emigration and migration. We have been given the facts in documents that have been approved by the present Government. They cannot deny the facts. The facts are that the people have steadily left the land under every Government so that now there are fewer people on the land than there were many years ago. They have approximately the same production but the prices have gone up. As a result, the income from farming per person on the farm has risen. I think about 150,000 persons left the land between 1946 and 1951. For those who were left on the land there was, naturally, a proportionately higher income. Let me put it in another way. Production is roughly the same to-day as it was in 1939. Prices for produce have gone up over three times while the prices of what the farmer buys in the way of goods have gone up by about two and one third times.

A very large number of people have left the land. As a consequence, there is greater prosperity for the farming community, occasioned mainly by the higher prices and the larger income per person. All these things have been admitted by the present Government. They can all be found in official Government publications. They were equally admitted by us. We published the figures year after year. No one can deny them. A number of commissions which were appointed by different Governments confirmed the same facts. It will be enormously difficult to change the system if greater and greater profits can be made through this means whereby you have what would be called in the ordinary way an extensive system of farming rather than an intensive system. It will be very difficult to convince the farming community that it is worth while farming intensively—with all the worry and anxiety that must come with it, in addition to the fear of uncertain markets for some products, the hazards of farming and all the other difficulties faced by the farming community.

I spoke also about the report of the population commission. The members of the commission were seriously perturbed by the fact that productivity seemed to have grown more from the larger farms than from the smaller farms. They pointed out the progress that was being made in scientific and modern methods and said that farm organisation in general was far more advanced in the East, where perhaps capital facilities were more readily obtainable and where farmers had many more opportunities of meeting together and of talking about their problems. That to me was a serious matter, because we all know the difficulties of the farmers in the West. We regret that the output per acre on the smaller farms has gone down but that in the case of the large holdings of 20 acres and over it had increased. We realise that that is something all of us would wish to see put right.

I think we do not have to go far to seek the reasons for these difficulties. There has been a great deal of consolidation of holdings taking place in the western areas and no Minister for Lands has ever succeeded in getting ahead of the congestion problem. It is admitted that a certain number of holdings are provided every year for migrants but we do see, as the present Minister for Lands knows, that the people are leaving the land in large numbers and that their holdings are becoming consolidated—that a farmer who has ten acres in one place will have bought ten or 15 acres in a different area, perhaps at the head of the valley where he lives. In other words there is a great deal of fluidity in the western areas which is not conducive to high productivity. There is also the fact that the larger farms are not worked as productively as they might be because there are too few people left to work them.

That picture is not a true one.

I have seen it myself, going around the country. The Minister will have to admit that there has been a lot of consolidation of holdings in the western areas. The small holdings which belonged to people who emigrated or to others who died are being consolidated and to a greater extent than can be coped with by the Land Commission. I have seen it myself when going through the areas and the facts have been pointed out to me. This problem, in the main created by emigration from the western areas, is common to all Governments; it is a problem to be faced by all of us.

It is a serious problem. But there are signs of hope for the future. A great deal of use has been made of the schemes administered by the Department. There has been a heartening, even though small, increase in production. Farmers have been reconstructing their premises and their out-offices. Land reclamation and drainage have been proceeding and I think that the greatest hope we can see for the future is that in every area and in every county you will find one farmer who will produce more than twice as much as his neighbour. That farmer is a shining example and, as I say, that situation is not confined to one county or to one area. What is needed to bring about a vast general improvement is a technological revolution in farming methods.

No one needs be despondent, because improvement can be seen; there has been very manifest and striking improvement. We know from our various constituencies that there is locked up in the soil of this country the fertility value which would amount to £100,000,000 per annum. It is being availed of to a great extent but an enormous lot has to be done if we are to achieve the best than can be achieved.

That brings me to ways and means of improving agricultural production. These do not happen to relate to anything that might be called matters of political dispute but purely to questions of organisation. First of all, I think we need a change in regard to the methods of propaganda we use.

The Department of Agriculture has many excellent schemes. Its propaganda, of a type, is excellent but because it is a Government Department, subject to the personal direction of a Minister, it is not likely to use the most modern methods of propaganda. You will never see advertisements issued by it with value and volume symbols, the difficulty being that it is hard for a Department to guarantee any figures and from the standpoint of modern public relations practices the advertising done by the Department is utterly dull and uninteresting.

You will very rarely see advertising of the kind which would be recommended by a group of public relation officers who had a first-class expert knowledge of their subject and I think myself it is true to say that without a reorganisation of the public relations side of the Department it would be hard to ask the officers to make any striking changes in their methods of propaganda.

That brings me to another matter. We are in the year 1955 and we have not yet established any number of pilot farms run by the farmers themselves with the help of the Department where accounts are published and where the progress that can be made can be seen by all the farmers. We are a conservative people and I think it would be rather difficult to get the farmers to co-operate in that way but it is my belief that if a proper effort were made and that if the farmers' organisations like Macra na Feirme and the new farmers' organisation were asked to co-operate it should be possible to run many pilot farms. I believe there are one or two already but it has been found in Holland and Denmark that the greatest benefits accrue from demonstrations designed to show the advantages of modern methods. It should be possible to have pilot farms run for farmers of every size who would be able to visit these farms and see what the results are.

I refuse to see how such pilot farms would be too expensive to run initially. The money would be well spent and I believe there should not be just a few but 3,000 or 4,000 of these farms run in this way, run by the owners themselves who would accept voluntarily in the beginning the advice given by the Department, and where accounts would be kept. The demonstration plots, of which there are many in the country, have a certain effect, but I have heard farmers say that they operate in vacuo and that it is not the same thing as if a farmer had to spend additional working capital in face of all the difficulties and the problems and the hazards of the weather. As a result demonstration plots have not the success we would like them to have.

The demonstration farm at Johnstown Castle showing the advantages of the application of fertilisers to grassland has been effective to a certain degree and the excursions of such organisations as Macra na Feirme to Johnstown Castle have been very useful but a great deal more needs to be done in that direction. I learned from the Minister that only 72 lectures were given in a year accompanied by films. I may be wrong but I think there should be a complete film unit operated by the Department of Agriculture. In Denmark the people voluntarily pay a small tax of a penny or twopence on cinema seats and they collect £135,000 a year in that way. They have four private film companies who provide films on Danish history, civics and agriculture.

They also provide technical films for agricultural use and it seems extraordinary that the Danes can have four or five film companies doing valuable work and that we have not got a single film unit to make films to assist the Department of Agriculture advisers in giving classes. My own belief is that the use of films and probably in future of television is an absolutely essential part of an instruction, that it should be a far more frequent feature of the lectures given by our advisers.

I note in that connection that, although there are something like over 400,000 people who are concerned with agriculture, the total number of persons attending classes for elementary instruction in soil mechanics, botany and so forth and farming is 4,600 in the year and that about the same number attend the rural science classes in the vocational education schools. That number is the lowest of any country in Western Europe and the very small number needs explanation. I refuse to believe that the younger community, particularly now that they have extra classes under Macra na Feirme auspices, are unwilling to study a subject which has now become so complex that one may say there are almost as many innovations in farming as there have been, for example, in the radio world starting off with Marconi and ending with television. I refuse to believe that, if a great effort was made to popularise education, both theoretical and practical, a very much larger number of farmers' sons would not attend these classes.

The difficulty seems to be to break the vicious circle of lack of incentive and a lack, perhaps, of imagination in what is offered by the Department. I believe the vicious circle can be broken and should be broken.

I suppose the Minister for Agriculture would agree with me that only about 25 per cent. of the knowledge required for modern farming can be inherited these days. The rest of it is highly technical in character and has been changing rapidly in the last 20 years and the amount a person can inherit in the way of knowledge to run a farm is far less than it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.

Of course, speaking of the public relations end of the Department's work, the Department is assisted by advertisements by private firms but, as I said, I still feel that a great deal more can be done to make the advertising interesting. To give a specific example, in my own constituency, when the urgent necessity of changing from the pork pig to the bacon pig became evident, I would say from the standpoint of modern public relations, the propaganda effort made by the Department to persuade the farmers as to what they should do was totally inadequate. I am not saying that any particular Minister was responsible for that. I am simply saying that the conception of modern public relations is not what it should be. We have very far to go before that whole conception is up to the standards which are desirable.

I am aware of the fact that propaganda must be concentrated; it must be interesting and not didactic. It can only be persuasive. The idea of telling farmers that they should do a thing— the didactic way—is hopeless. It must be interesting and sympathetic. I understand all those things. I understand that advertising and public relations between the Department and the farmers provide a difficult problem. It is not easy to do the right thing. It is not easy to prepare propaganda in the right form. Nothing would be more useless than a vast increase in propaganda of a purely didactic character. It would be utterly hopeless and the farmers would be quite right in deriding it and ignoring it. Nevertheless, the problem remains.

Passing to the whole question of the agricultural advisory services and the proposed initiation of an agricultural institute for research, I would say the agricultural advisers do excellent work. We all of us recognise that. Farmers are the first to pay tremendous tribute to the work they do. Some of them go far beyond their ordinary hours in giving farmers advice and helping them with the many problems they have to face. But, there again, in relation to their work, the agricultural committees, however well they may perform their functions, are mainly administrative bodies and there is not the element of creating competition between the advisers as to the amount of good they can do in an area in a given year.

That element does not exist. There is never any suggestion of a target to be achieved in a particular area. The advisers have never yet been given any kind of approximate survey of the conditions of their area and the amount that requires to be done to improve the grass land, to alter conditions, to improve production. There is not an atmosphere of competitive incentive in the advisory world of the Department of Agriculture and that, again, is because the agricultural advisers work to departmental rules under agricultural committees. While that is perfectly all right in its own way, it does not conform to modern and up-to-date conceptions of public relations.

It is my view and the view of many of my colleagues that the time has come to indulge in an act of faith in the farming community and to give them far more personal, immediate, direct and day-to-day interest in the advisory work done by the Department, to give them the responsibility of knowing what the problem is from the Department's point of view and of having a personal interest to a far greater degree in the work of every adviser and particularly in the work of the new institute that is now to be formed for research.

I see no reason why the institute should not be administered by a corporation consisting of farmers and experts and others. I see no reason why the present Minister should not consider separating in the Department the purely advisory services from the policy services and the services in connection with various schemes, why he should not consider giving the agricultural community a far greater immediate power and interest in the work of research and in the work of providing advice.

I think that in every county the farmers' organisations should be given an indication of the target to be achieved, that there should be some sort of survey conducted in every county where the local farmers' organisations would know the complete problem facing the adviser, the number of acres of grass requiring complete re-cultivation, the difficulties encountered in connection with diseases of animals. They should be given an idea of the kind of target that could be achieved, the work that requires to be done, the difficulties to be met, and they should feel that they themselves had an immediate and direct part in administering the work of the adviser. The adviser should be, so to speak, run by them rather than by the Department in the immediate sense. The feeling that the Department was in some way apart from the agricultural community, that it was run under the aegis of the Minister and that it was rather apart from their immediate lives seems to me to be something which it is time we should end.

I believe that if the present farmers' organisations were given the direct responsibility for the research institute, for directing the work of field advisers on special subjects, who would go down from the Department to the local areas, and in, as I have said, the formation of targets to be achieved and the problems to be overcome, it would be the greatest thing that could be done in the last quarter of a century to bring about an increase of production.

I believe that the farming community would do this work effectively. In other countries, for example, where industry is pre-eminent, the industrial organisations do their own propaganda for increasing productivity. In Great Britain there are a dozen organisations all working towards increased productivity. I refuse to believe that there are not enough intelligent farmers in the whole of Ireland to do this work and to take immediate responsibility for the work, to administer the services through a grant aided association of experts with the professors of agricultural colleges and, if necessary, nominees chosen by the Minister in the various fields to help them.

I believe they should take an immediate part in the work and that if they do, the work of the advisers would be enormously speeded up, and the effective work of the advisers would be greater; in every county and in every area the farming community as a whole would have a far better idea of the kind of target that can be achieved; there would be far more co-operation with the advisers, and the advisers themselves would find their work all the easier.

I think also that, due perhaps to the incidence of the civil war, followed by the economic dispute, followed by the Great War and for other reasons, there is a hopeless inadequacy of research stations in this country. I have made a comparison with conditions abroad and it would seem to me we need far more research stations in every area for every type of soil and in particular for the utilisation of grass after tillage. We need far more research in order to give correct information to the farming community on the results of various mixtures of grass, the extent to which the grass will endure in a particular time, the type of grazing that should be effected in connection with any grass land rotation.

There is a vast amount of research to be done and there again it would seem to me that no matter what the expenditure, this expansion is worth while. I see no reason why the kind of research that is being done in Aberystwyth and in a dozen other areas in Great Britain of a most concentrated kind is not just as essential for this country. Even though we have research stations they are not sufficiently extensive. The grass mixture and strains are not sufficiently varied in number and a vast amount of work needs to be done in that regard. I am willing to admit that there has not been the demand for it for the reasons I have outlined, but my own feeling is that it is very essential indeed.

One objection that has been offered to me in connection with this suggestion that the farming community should take a more direct part in the advisory work, is that it would be almost impossible for the Government to separate policy from advice. I refuse to believe that. If there are differences of opinion on what is the best thing to do under given circumstances in a given area the adviser should be entitled to give his advice for both alternatives in respect of any one thing and there should not be any need to have the policy-making activities of the Department interfering with the general advisory service.

There are an enormous number of objectives in farming policy on which we are all agreed in this House. We are even all agreed about the general value of tillage in spite of the distortions on the other side on subjects such as wheat, and so forth. The present Minister, when he is making a formal speech at a committee of agriculture and on any other occasion, repeats the identical words of the previous Minister in regard to the desirability of tillage in various areas, and it is only when the present Minister differs with us about the value of wheat and when it would appear a great many of his followers are not so keen on tillage, we disagree with him.

However, as we have told the House, he has learned the Fianna Fáil policy of encouraging tillage and we have faced a long struggle to achieve that end. As I have said, there is so much that everybody believes in in regard to agricultural policy that it should not be difficult for the advisers to have a general pattern of work which they can follow and on which they could co-operate, as I have said, with the farming community of this country, and the farming community should be, week after week and month after month, interested in the administration which guides the advisers.

Another reason for the kind of research which would seem to me to be needed here is the fact that you can go down and talk with farmers in any area and on certain matters they cannot give the answer because the facts have not been presented to them. You have, for example, the question of the profit that can be made on cattle at various ages, the profit that can be made on cattle of different breeds, and so on. It seems to me we need research of that kind on a greater level than we have at the present time. I see no reason why, if the British, Dutch and Danes need research of that kind, we do not need it. The conditions here are different; climatic and grass conditions are different.

In that connection, I would like to ask the Minister what steps have been taken in connection with the bull conversion factor testing which is now beginning in Great Britain, in connection with which from the point of view of beef, a beef bull's progeny is tested for the conversion factor, the amount of weight put on to a given intake of food. I would like to ask the Minister whether that kind of experimental research is beginning here.

There are countries abroad where an agricultural adviser can go to a farmer in a given area and if the farmer is a dairying farmer, a mixed farmer or a farmer of any kind, the agricultural adviser can tell him the maximum profit being made on farms of similar size, of similar type and with similar soil. He can tell him the maximum profit that is being made in the area without mentioning names, the medium profit and what constitutes a low profit. Sooner or later we will have to get down to work of that kind. In Great Britain, one example where that information can be given, a man can go and look at a farm of 50 acres and find out from the adviser the actual costings, what is the maximum profit of that farm, the medium profit and so forth. We need far more research in regard to costing for farms of different sizes, different soils and different types and that should be one of the extensions of the work of the advisers, providing costings for farmers in regard to these matters.

One of the principal reasons why the output per acre of small farms of the West, according to the Population Commission, has not shown the same advances as in the East is that, as everybody knows, a great many of the measures for increasing production in the case of small farmers require co-operation. There are co-operatives in the creamery areas but co-operation is a thing which it has always been said is not natural to our temperament. I very much doubt if that is fundamentally true. I believe more can be done to stimulate co-operation and I understand that in the 12-point programme of the Government mentioning the needs of increasing agricultural production the word "co-operation" was actually used.

There, again, it is impossible for the Government to act didactically, but I hope that the Minister would consider various methods of stimulating co-operation. He might, for example, consider offering some help at the initiation of a new co-operative outside a creamery area and not related to the creamery business. He might offer some help at the initiation of a co-operative provided certain conditions were observed. He might help in the matter of credit. Every Deputy here says that the small farmer is unable to get credit to increase his production and sooner or later that fact will have to be faced by the Government of the day. If credit is required, the whole question of farming credit must be investigated.

We hear various stories from both sides of the House. We have heard from the Minister himself; he has told us he has no evidence that the farming community as a whole is seeking credit which is not available to them under the present organisation of the State. We hear others say there is a woeful lack of credit among the small farmers and that something should be done about it. There are various ways in which the Minister might give incentives to co-operative organisations, such as offering them special terms in connection with the machinery loans scheme or in connection with schemes for giving grants for farm improvements. This might induce farmers to form co-operatives, farmers who otherwise would feel that the difficulties and risks in connection with the formation of such co-operatives would not be worth while.

I also learn that there are a great number of creameries which for one reason or another are not willing to act as credit organisations. They may have their own good reasons for that. Some creameries advance credit to farmers for machinery or fertilisers and for various improvements, such advances being collectable by subtraction from the milk cheque. There are other creameries whose credit facilities are extremely limited. I think the Minister should investigate how it is that so few of the creameries have yet become what they should be in my view—cooperative banks as well as creameries.

I know that takes organisation. It takes faith. It takes courage. It seems to me to be inevitable in the future and if, on both sides of the House, it is now agreed that the small farming area will fall constantly behind the big farming area unless co-operative methods are used, both in the marketing and in the purchasing of the more essential requirements and in the use of machinery, it seems to me that is a challenge to any Government. We all of us know that challenge is there and we none of us can avoid it.

Both sides have expressed the view that it is impossible to envisage a large-scale increase in production in the western areas without co-operation between the farmers; both sides have expressed the view that that job somehow has to be done or we will continue to see greater progress made in the big farming areas in increasing output and the use of modern scientific methods and less output in the small farming areas. The 12-point programme of the Government clearly states that and makes it a point at issue. But I accept the difficulties in bringing it about.

There are quite a number of branches of Macra na Feirme which have started a system of veterinary insurance. I am not sure whether there are enough veterinary surgeons in the country to take part in any extended scheme of veterinary insurance and I would like to ask the Minister—he has already been asked by both sides of the House —whether he has considered any form of veterinary insurance or any kind of aid that can be given either to co-operative societies or others to initiate veterinary insurance so as to encourage farmers to make use of veterinary surgeons more immediately thereby encouraging the growth of veterinary services on a very large scale.

I have spoken to veterinary surgeons in various parts of the country and I am aware of the fact that, although great progress is being made in the use to which veterinary services are being put, a great deal more still remains to be done. I think in the case of the co-operative society which either provides an adviser for their members or provides veterinary insurance or facilities for the co-operative use of machinery or the purchase of machinery co-operatively, the Minister should consider taking further steps over and above those which have already been taken to encourage such societies either by way of some kind of initial grant or some sort of premium upon the facilities that are available from the Department generally in relation to such societies.

It is obvious that the task of increasing the extent of co-operation now will be less difficult than it was before. One has only to look at the number of cattle marketing organisations starting up in the country to realise the change that has taken place and realise the fact that the old fashioned fair is gradually being killed in some areas. The farmers are now coming together to run their own auctions. That is an indication of what can be done and an indication, too, that there is a fermentation of thought on the whole problem. It does not seem impossible to imagine that, if the farmers can come together and run their own auctions, they could equally begin to think about the co-operative use of credit and machinery.

I think the Government will have to give some stimulus to that. There is an obligation on their part to give some stimulus if they possibly can. I have tried to speak as far as I could in a non-political way because it seems to me that a great many of the problems we face are not political but technical. I would remark again that the Minister would do far better to start from scratch at the point he has now reached and not try and take credit for something for which credit is not due to him. He should simply regard the present year as a base line for all future increases in production.

So long as he continues to talk politically in the way he has done, then we shall have to repeat endlessly and continually the tremendous work done by those who are now on this side of the House to stimulate production. We shall have to spend our time contradicting the propaganda of the Government, which would suggest that practically every scheme to assist the farmer was started by them rather than by us. We shall have to contradict the propaganda of the Government side of the House making use of the worst weather year in our history, 1947, for the purpose of trying to prove some enormous increase in production as compared with that year when, in fact, the main problem in regard to productivity is still there.

When production increases by a very small amount exports rise and there has been a very heartening increase in exports both in our time in office and in the present Government's. But, of course, the real problem can be concealed by the fact that the Irish people themselves are very big consumers of their own foodstuffs. An immediate increase in exports, which is most valuable and helpful, will take place the moment there is a slight increase in production; but that still leaves the main problem untouched and I would, in conclusion, ask the Minister to do the utmost he can to give farming organisations, Macra na Feirme and the National Farmers' Organisation, a more direct interest in the work of the advisers and in the part that is played by the research organisations, particularly in relation to the new institute, the conception of which is now, I understand, under consideration by the Minister.

While I give credit to the last speaker for the type of speech he has made, at the same time I would say that in order to speak about farming one must be a farmer living on the land. In my opinion, the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture is more or less interwoven with the debate on the Budget. What is said on one is said on the other. I sat here and listened to the debate for the last three weeks. I refused to speak on the Budget because I heard such a lot of highfalutin nonsense from the other side of the House. The principal speakers of the Fianna Fáil Party —the ex-Taoiseach, Deputy Vivion de Valera and Deputy Briscoe and a few others—all said this was a good Budget and I was quite satisfied that that should be an end of it.

The Deputy may not discuss the Budget on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.

All the long-winded, highfalutin nonsense spoiled the whole tone of the debate. It would sicken any ordinary honest man sitting in this House to listen to what goes on. Statistics, so far as I can see, can prove anything and we have far too much of them from all sides of the House. I am sick of hearing figures bandied about and I hope this practice stops. I am also sick of seeing bundles of papers and cuttings brought in both by front and back-benchers. If they would put them in a cart and bring them to Clondalkin Paper Mills where we would never see them again, it would be far better. I prefer a man to come in and speak as a man. Let us give up the nonsense of going back on what such a man said last year or last month. It is time that was cut out and that realities were faced.

Speaking of the prosperity of the farmers, I believe the country is in good shape; things are doing well; money is turning and farming appears to be on the upgrade, but as one who looks ahead with a common-sense view I believe we are in a dangerous situation. Our prosperity now is based on one line of agriculture, the main line that has carried this country for 200 or 300 years, perhaps, that is the cattle trade. We all know why we have that prosperity and I agree that the Minister by his efforts and his policy over the past few years has greatly contributed to it, but in the main the prosperity of the cattle trade depends on the armaments race in Britain. So long as a war situation looms ahead our cattle trade will hold a very significant and happy position but if anything happens and if five or ten years of peace can be seen ahead I believe we would be made sit up in this country and we would find ourselves in a very serious position, perhaps overnight.

I would like this House to define a genuine, absolute agricultural policy for the country irrespective of what Government is in power. I am sure the agricultural policy which suits Fine Gael also suits Fianna Fáil but we are not sincere about it. I find the Fianna Fáil farmer who lives beside me sows wheat as I sow it, keeps a few cows as I do, and tills his eight or ten acres as I do. We carry on the same type of agriculture irrespective of who is in power. Therefore, I ask that this House should give a decent line of agricultural policy so that when there is a change of Government we will not have this bickering and barneying and so that we can agree on the fundamentals of agriculture.

In the first place, we must agree that the cattle trade is our main industry and that we must make it better if we possibly can. As one who knows the cattle trade over a long number of years, I am satisfied we have the best type of cattle in the world—I am not saying we have the best type of milch cow—but the cattle trade has carried the country for hundreds, if not for 1,000 years. The clearances in Munster by the British during the conquest were for the purpose of advancing the cattle trade, and right down to this day the cattle trade is carrying the country.

But I am not happy about the Irish cattle trade because I feel we are in a dangerous position. What about the people on the land? Is it more important to have cattle and bullocks or people? I hold the people come before anything else. The land in this country is being depopulated, and while we may have the cattle, the people are going. That is where the leakage is, and I want to see that problem faced. It may cost millions of pounds to do that, but it has to be done.

I want to see the cottage industries of the past revived. We have these cottages all over the country in which live men with their wives and six or eight children. Thirty years ago, these men did not live solely on their wages: each of them also had a pig or two in his pigsty and a weanling calf in an outhouse and, perhaps, two dozen hens or turkeys that he was able to rear. To-day there is hardly a hen, let alone a pig or a calf, in the cottier's plot or byre.

Something must be done about the pig industry immediately. I have seen too many changes in it. I saw the country flooded with pigs, then I saw no pigs at all. I saw it flooded with pigs again and I saw a short while ago pigs going out of the country and a scarcity developing again. Now, I see there is a boom and up goes the pig again. That is not agriculture. I believe there is a ring to be broken somewhere and there is no question about that. If we produce our own cereals, barley and fodder beet with skim milk and our own potatoes, we do not need to import anything so far as pigs are concerned. I rear a fair amount of pigs but I never bought a stone of any type of meal except what I was able to produce myself and I can challenge anyone to produce better pigs or produce them more quickly than I have done on fodder beet, skim milk and potatoes.

I hear too much talk about importations of maize and other stuffs. Deputy Corry will be on that subject one day and somebody else the next. There is very little need for that. We should put the small man in a position to produce pigs. It is the large producer who is carrying the country at the present time and who is making the big money because the small men are not in as good a position to feed pigs. I want to see something done for them. As a rule the big producers have or can get plenty of capital but the small man with ten or 15 acres, or with a cottage plot, would not get capital even to the extent of £20 to-day.

We are happy to hear the farmers of Ireland are organising to join together as one body. I hope they do. I would like to see the farmers and the agricultural workers blended together in one body because the farmer is nowhere without the worker. If we start organising farmers on one side and workers on the other we will end as we did in 1920 when the farmers could not cut their wheat and had to open the gates and let the cattle in on it, destroying the fertile crops of that period. These things happened before and will again. Let us bring the farmers and the workers together and promote a spirit of peace and Christian charity between the two sections. I saw, perhaps, 40 different types of organisations in this country and saw them all break up for the same reason —no charity and no give-and-take. A few big windbags got to the top and burst the whole thing. I hope that will not happen again.

I heard Deputy Childers say the old type of fair was gone and he seemed to be glad of that. I am very sorry to see the old type of fair going; it was the life of the country. There was no question about that. You may have streamlined ways of buying and selling to-day but the old system was much more satisfactory to the ordinary country person. In the old days, they bought and sold and money changed hands. The butcher and the baker did well and perhaps the ice-cream man at the corner of the street did well too. That is all being departed from.

Now we have the middle-man, the jobber in his high-powered car. He makes big money in a short period. He buys the cattle on the land—not one or two at the time but scores. He exports direct to the port and nobody gets a penny on the way. We are depriving the country of the happiness we enjoyed when we had our little fairs and markets, our little sense of humour and our little prosperity. That has been killed and now we have an artificial type of middle-man who should not be allowed to operate in the country. My view is that these big things always burst a country. What is wanted is the turn of money in local areas.

If we do not look after our little villages and towns then, no matter what we may do for agriculture, it will be of no use. There is big money floating around but very little of it is being ploughed into agriculture and very little of it is being saved for the stormy period that is not far distant. The money is being spent on luxuries, on good times and on gambling. It is being spent on everything that goes for grandeur and big things. If we had a bad set-back and if conditions across the water were so unfavourable that hundreds of thousands of Irish persons who are now employed in Britain had to return to our shores then indeed we should be in a sorry plight. I believe that what has happened in the past generally happens again, and I warn every person to be on his guard. When a person thinks he is on the crest of the wave, there is always danger around the corner.

I dread to think that this country is being carried along on the back of the bullock. The bullock's back is strong enough, but if you build your agricultural economy on that one single aspect of farming you will crash. Such prosperity does not reach down to the agricultural worker, to the little man who is trying to rear a few store cattle and who must sell them at six or eight months, at the wrong time for making profits, to the bigger man who can put them on the broad acres and leave them there for one winter or two winters, and perhaps sell them for £100 or £120 and does not worry if he does not sell them. That is not the type of prosperity I want to see.

I want to see this country alive with industry. I want to see the cottier on his feet and not having to exist with his wife and children on £4 7s. 6d. or £4 10s. a week. In the past, he was able to have a few pigs in his byre, maybe two dozen hens and maybe two dozen turkeys. He had a small garden and there was grazing at the side of the road. We want to get back to that again. I hope the Minister for Agriculture, who is a realist, will get back to it. We spent millions on the industrialisation of this country and I feel that that money was spent unwisely in a great many instances. If half of it were spent in laying a decent foundation for agriculture, how happy we should all be now with a proper balanced economy.

What is the position to-day? The agricultural worker is up to his knees in dirt and mud and is earning £4 7s. 6d. or £4 10s. a week. In the past, he got his money, a few drills of potatoes, perhaps the skimmed milk and perhaps the old clothes from the homestead of the big men who employed him. There is none of that to-day. The agricultural worker must live on the few pounds he gets on a Saturday night. In the bigger towns where there is industrial development you will find boys of 16 or 17 years from the adjoining countryside and from the town itself earning anything from £6 to £10 a week on an easier, cleaner and nicer job. Is it not only fair to ask why should any man stay on the land under present conditions? This House is responsible for that position.

There is a mad craze for industrial development. If, in that industrial development, we made sure we would absorb the unemployed in our big towns and villages there would be something to be said for it but we have done no such thing. We brought our people from the rural areas and used some of them in the industrial drive. We should have stabilised agriculture. The task which the Minister has before him is very difficult because we have not that co-operative effort and spirit of Christian charity which is needed. Big men, whether they be industrialists or farmers, have a one-track mind; they want money and more money. They have neither a national nor a broad general economic outlook. Their whole theme is their own personal future and their own personal advancement. That has been the way since the beginning of the world and they are the type of persons who have this country in the sad plight it is in at the present time.

There has been a big controversy about wheat in the House for some months back. The Minister has given us a reasonable hope of a balanced agriculture. The Opposition talk about the price of wheat but everybody knows that if Fianna Fáil were in office their Minister for Agriculture would have had to do exactly the same thing as the present Minister for Agriculture. The Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture would either have had to cut the price or to cut the acreage. He could not cut the acreage because that would be interfering with the rights of the farmer and therefore he would have had to cut the price.

The present Minister for Agriculture had to endure all kinds of abuse from Fianna Fáil because he did the one thing which was necessary to give this country a balance in our agricultural economy. He wanted to get rid of the racketeer—the big man who was trying to rake off big profits in a year or two and who did not care about selling out after getting the swag. Now, people are doing as much tillage as they want themselves and a little more to put on the market.

We need more and better production from the land if we are to solve any of the problems which face us at present. There is no use in saying that we will carry on under the present system of production because it just will not work. We have prevented the cottier and the small farmer from being able to keep pigs, poultry, and so forth, because the cost of feeding stuffs is so high that they cannot buy them. If we could produce 20 to 25 barrels of wheat from an acre which at present produces ten; if we could produce 30 or 40 barrels of oats from an acre which is at present producing 15, and similarly as regards barley, then we should be able to sell at lower prices and we should be able to put on the market for the small man the feeding stuffs he requires at a cheap rate so that he could go back to his cottage and live as he lived in the old days.

I want to see the parish plan pursued in this country because without it we cannot get down to the people. As a people, we are inclined to be individualistic. Every man wants to go his own way. I fear we do not co-operate very well. There is great spirit in the parish plan and the spirit is what we want—not money, but a change of heart and spirit. If the farm workers and the people from the villages and towns and the farmers mix together then we can make progress and have a new type of agricultural effort in our countryside. If we got that going then the next thing we would require would be cheap credit for the small man. Some people will say that the banks are there if you want them but they are not there for the small man. Any man from 20 acres down who tries to get a loan of a few hundred pounds from the bank has to drag in two or three other farmers with him when he is asking for the money. I want to see a farmers' bank and I want to see the members of Macra na Feirme and Muintir na Tíre able to go into that bank and get seasonable credits at reasonable rates of interest.

We all know that the type of agriculture engaged in by the small man is very haphazard. He never takes his crops in in time because he has got to wait until his bigger neighbour has finished his work first when he can borrow the big man's horse or his machinery. But he can get the machinery or the horse only when the other man does not want it. The small man has to scrape in his crops when he can and the results are very poor. Where he could get 15 or 20 barrels of wheat to the acre he gets four or five, and by the time he pays the mill and the man whose reaper and binder he used he has nothing for himself. He is the most miserable man in this country. He has got to till his land in order to live and with the exception of the few barrels of oats or wheat he gets out of it to feed his family and the few pigs and cattle he keeps he has nothing, while at the same time the big man of the money can go into the bank and command £1,000 or £10,000. He can write to England or to Europe and get the most expensive type of machinery which he can use in a big way and make something out of it.

Surely, that system is all wrong. We must get down to the small people who are the foundation of the nation—the people with the big families who stocked our countryside for hundreds of years and who are prepared to stay on the land whether times are good or bad. These are the people who deserve our attention, but we are deliberately driving them off the land. We are here talking about statistics. I say "Damn the statistics". There is nothing I hate more than to hear the figures coming from both sides of the House here. The figures are put forward from the angle that suits the Deputy who gives them on either side. Deputy Walsh, if he wants to get a dig in, will delve for a week until he gets something to suit him and then he will trot it out here.

Deputy Corry will come up from Cork and go straight into the Library with his hacks behind him to get something to throw at the Minister for Agriculture. At one time they quoted the Minister as saying that he would not be found dead in a field of wheat. Would anybody like to be found dead in a field of wheat? But do you not see how they put their twist on it?

I would say to the present Minister: "Do not mind what you hear from the far side or from this side of the House. You are a balanced man, a man of brains and courage, a man well-versed in so far as agriculture in concerned. Get down to a properly balanced economy. I believe you will be there for the next five or ten years if you live."

If he does not die in a field of wheat.

Fianna Fáil would like to see you cock your toes but I hope they will not be able. Since the civil war and during the economic war we had too many ups and downs and they taught us what the small farmer is made of. He has been there for hundreds of years. He has met the lowest ebb and yet he comes up again, not due to the credit given to him by the banks but to his own hard work and perseverance. Let us on all sides of the House get down to a foundation that will bring back peace and prosperity to the country. I would ask the Minister not to mind the big industrialists or the big rancher but to get down to the problems facing the smallholders.

I would ask him to get after the pig industry and get a committee of experts to help him to see what is wrong with it. We want pigs to become a reasonable proposition at all times. We should be able to make their rearing pay. They have been the friend of the poor man and they have carried him over many ups and downs. We should never be without pigs and we should be always able to buy from the men who produce the pigs. There has always been something wrong with that branch of our economy and I hope the farmers, with the Minister, will find the solution. I think that the middleman who goes around the country in his car should be got rid of. All these fellows are after big profits.

I remember one time when Deputy Smith came in here and had a smile on his face a yard wide. Man alive, was not he about to get the poultry industry on its feet? He had got £1,000,000 from England and he was going to pack the whole countryside with coops and poultry stations and what not of all kinds. But when the people tried to sell, the English market flopped and the Irish people had to bear the huge loss and England recouped her £1,000,000 in a few weeks. It was a man with the Fianna Fáil mentality who would be proud to scrape together £1,000,000 of England's money. We do not want England's money. We are able to get it ourselves. It is a sad day when we would fall into such a trap again. And they said that the present Minister for Agriculture was to drown England with eggs, and they quoted that from their platforms. But Deputy Smith tried to do it before that.

Whatever we do in this country let it be done on Irish lines, with Irish money and Irish effort and let us do it in the interests of Ireland and always look to ourselves first. If we do that I believe that the pig and bacon industry and the poultry and egg industry will be saved but we must also put the small man in the position of being able to earn a little more money to help him to bring back prosperity and plenty to the nation. We must bring back our little fairs and markets and put out the middle-man— the man going around with the big car and buying cattle from the big ranchers and exporting them. They are ruining the whole economy of this country and we must curb them. In that way we will be bringing back the traditions and the prosperity of the past.

Why can we not have our fairs, our bargaining, our bartering and our happiness of the past? We see the position of many of our villages to which these fairs brought a reasonable amount of prosperity. Everyone to-day wants the big money and when he gets it he wants to float it and he keeps nothing for to-morrow. It is a sad day when nobody thinks of to-morrow. Everybody nowadays is living for to-day and that is a most dangerous thing.

We are proud of our cattle trade and proud of the fact that our cattle carried us on their backs but we must remember that dependence entirely on the cattle trade would be a dangerous thing. If a flop occurred in the cattle trade and tens of thousands of our people were sent back home to us from emigration where would we be then? It would not be just a matter of the few hundred people who sat down in O'Connell Street in the days of Fianna Fáil. You would not have a few hundred then but 10,000 marching and you would have the bridgehead of communism. We must face all these facts and I would say to the Minister not to devote too much attention to the big industrialist and the big rancher who are able to fend for themselves but to consider the small man who has carried the nation for years. They were in every war and in every fight; they have built up the old Irish tradition but that is fast going and if it goes entirely the whole of Ireland will say: "My curse on Leinster House."

I do not want to detain the House but if possible I should like to say a few words from a different angle to that to which we have been listening during this protracted debate. Farmers and farming have been discussed as such at great length but many people, when they talk of farmers, forget that there are various types of farmers.

There is not a county in Ireland which typifies every class, with the exception of the rancher, as does County Donegal. There, there is the smallholder with the few acres, the small plot; the man with the mediocre farm, in South-West Donegal; the hill or mountain grazer; in East Donegal, the man who goes in for intensive cultivation, who is easily the best tillage farmer in Ireland. In fact, we have every type of farmer with the exception of the rancher or the big grazer. Unfortunately, we have more of the smallholders and that is the type about whom we have heard rather little in this debate apart from what Deputy Giles has said.

I am all with Deputy Giles when he says that the present measure of prosperity, if we could refer to it as such, which the farming community in general are looking forward to or are enjoying over a period, does not apply equally to the smallholder, if at all. I could not quite follow Deputy Giles' reasoning when he praises the present Minister for being the most perfect man—his description of him would lead one to believe that he is the most perfect man alive—and at the same time did not point to anything he had done of which Deputy Giles approved as being even useful, apart from being perfect.

Deputy Giles condemned quotations made by Deputies on this side of the House with reference to what other Ministers or Deputies had said in the past. He said that these things should be forgotten but he was quick to refer to Fianna Fáil's reference to the British market being gone and to other things in respect of which we were equally misrepresented in this House.

I do not want to say anything about that misquoted statement by Fianna Fáil except that I was not a member of this House at the time but I am sure that when we were fighting a war with England, let it be an economic war or otherwise, it would not be very patriotic for any member of this House to say that we were beaten, that we would have to yield, that we could not go on. When the war of London was on in 1942 I do not think Churchill cried that they were beaten, that they could not go on. I am sure the Fianna Fáil Party were not going to squeal at any time during the economic war which they were fighting. If anybody from the Opposition did so at that time, to their shame be it said. If we did say that we could live without the British market—I was not in the House at the time—it was the right thing to say because we had our backs to the wall on many occasions and we never squealed.

I am not personally interested in the controversy with regard to wheat for the simple reason that every Deputy speaks from his own point of view and there is nobody in West Donegal, or there are very few at any rate, interested in the production of wheat on their own farms. I am interested to this extent that we believe, and every patriotic Irishman should believe, that the production of the food which is most necessary for the life of the people is a first charge on those who are capable of producing it.

I am proud, and every Deputy on this side of the House has a right to be proud, when we cast our memories back to the days when there was a fight to get the people to believe that wheat could be grown in this country at all or should be grown and when we remember that the people who told us then that it could not be grown successfully and that it should not be grown, are now telling us that we are growing too much of it. That is one of the many outstanding achievements which we have a right to be proud of and which we have lived to see in our time.

I do not want to say any more with regard to this controversy with regard to the growing of wheat than that I am glad to see the time when those who said that we could not or should not grow it are telling us that we have been growing too much, that we were likely to grow too much of it. That is a very satisfactory situation.

I am interested in the type of smallholder to whom Deputy Giles has just referred, the man who may go fishing for a day or two in the week in his small boat as an inshore fisherman, or the man who may work with the county council on the roads for a day or two, who will till an acre of land, keep a couple of cows, a pig or two, a few dozen poultry—the smallholder. I doubt if the smallholder will agree that he is getting at the present time the co-operation or assistance or encouragement which the Labour Party or others seem to think are unnecessarily extended to the farmer.

A spokesman from the Labour Benches yesterday said that if we are going to carry on with the incentives and grants which are being given as inducements to the farmers, if we were going to carry on at that rate, the farming industry would soon be, instead of a national industry, a national charity. The farmers of this country never wanted charity from anybody and do not want charity. All they want is a chance to live and produce in order that the people of this country may live because on the farmer they live. If the farming industry was organised to the same extent as other branches of industry are organised and strikes became as frequent amongst farmers as they are in other branches of industry, many of the people who are crying out about the farmer getting too much for his produce would then realise how indispensable he is to the life of the nation.

Unfortunately, the farmer is not in a position to use the strike weapon to the same extent or with the same facility or efficiency as it is used by other organised sections of our community and for that reason he is merely the person about whom everybody talks nicely but at the same time expects that he should work for nothing to provide cheap food for the cities and the industrial workers and he should go around in drudgery and export his surplus labour to England and America.

Deputy Giles said that the industrial drive in this country was putting the cart before the horse, that it was precipitated, that it was done before the farming industry was properly developed. One of the problems which the smallholder has to face, because he has not capital to spare or even sufficient to enable him to run his business free of debt, one of his great problems, for which no solution is yet in sight, is what he must do with the three or four sons whom he brings up on the farm, or the three or four daughters as well, when they grow up. He is not in a position to give them a secondary education and he may not have the convenience of a technical school within reach of them. They must go to England when they are 14 or 15 years of age and one may remain at home or may return at some later stage with a few pounds which he has earned abroad to carry on the drudgery on the small farm.

It is very easy to remind the House of these things but it is not so easy to suggest means by which that position can be remedied. We acknowledge that fact but somebody will have to tackle it and I think the ex-Minister for Agriculture recognised, as did his predecessor in the Fianna Fáil Government, the difficulty of the smallholder and brought about many schemes which were very much to his benefit and schemes which I would like to see enhanced and extended in relation to the smallholder's difficulty.

The farm improvements scheme was one scheme which is a credit to whatever Minister brought it in here, but it is inadequate in funds and in the scope of its regulations to give the fullest benefit to the thousands who have been and are yet prepared to avail themselves of that scheme. We had at one time a similar scheme which applied to the making of fences and I do not think it is in force now.

It is, in the congested areas.

It was suspended for a time anyhow and I would very much like to see that scheme developed fully because one of the greatest problems of the smallholder is the making of fences between himself and his neighbour. Not merely is it the cause of friction frequently but it uses up much of his time yearly and it is the cause of much bad husbandry on his land as the result of improvised or inadequate fencing being carried out. I take it the Minister is correct when he says that there is a scheme in operation and I hope it will enable a farmer to have fencing of a suitable type, wire or otherwise, on his holding and to receive a grant out of Central Funds or a loan to cover the cost of fencing of that sort.

Sub-head I of the Vote.

I have had occasion to ask the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture on many occasions to pay attention to the fencing of various holdings in a town-land. I received a reply stating that there were no funds at their disposal out of which they could make grants available for such a scheme. Therefore, I take it that the scheme is not as generous or at least is not known to be the type of scheme which I have in mind and which I would like to see put into force in the farm improvements scheme in relation to the making of wire fences or any other type of fencing on the land.

Many of the difficulties of the smallholder result from the instability of markets as referred to by the previous speaker, fluctuation due to supply and demand. That is the position which will have to be remedied if such industries as poultry, pigs, and so on, which are the mainstay of the smallholder, are to be made profitable. The propagation of the pig population over a short period can set the industry at a stage where it is not profitable to keep pigs at all. The farmers go out of pig production; there is a shortage and the price goes up again; then they all go into it again and, due to the quick propagation of the pig population the price fluctuates again and it goes on in a see-saw fashion year in year out.

The same applies to poultry. The fact that there is no stability in the market regarding these two particular things is one of the reasons why many people have ceased to keep pigs or poultry at all, and others only take a chance on going into them haphazardly and make a guess as to what the outcome is likely to be.

I fully agree that a shortage of credit is one of the greatest difficulties that the smallholder has to face. Anyone can get extended credit, an overdraft or a loan from a bank except the small farmer; yet he is held to be the backbone of the nation and we are told by everybody that he is the most important man on the land. However, when he goes into the local bank he finds himself a very unimportant person indeed. When he asks for accommodation and offers a first charge on his little holding he is told: "That is not good enough. We want two personal sureties as well." He then has to humiliate himself and go to his neighbours in order to obtain the personal sureties. When they are sent off to the bank he gets a further reply to the effect that for undisclosed reasons they cannot see their way to grant him the £50 loan to buy a cow and a few head of sheep, and there is no further explanation. Nevertheless, we are still told he is the most important person in the country.

Now that cattle have become so expensive those people are unable to re-stock their holdings and I often thought that it would be of immense benefit if any Minister for Agriculture would initiate a scheme whereby each smallholder whose valuation was under £5 or whose valuation did not exceed £6 could get a loan, free of interest, to buy one cow. Not merely would that be a good scheme for the farmers but for the nation and it would help to build up our cattle population because the smallholder is the man who does really contribute to the increase in the cattle population. As Deputy Giles said, he sells off his cattle when they are six months or a year old and he is continually providing stores for the man who has the grass. The only reason why we have not a greater increase in our cattle population is that we are not able to get sufficient cows due to heavy cost and if one dies I doubt if he is able to replace her.

Many Deputies who are familiar with the conditions on the western seaboard know of hundreds of cases where, if the farmer loses a cow or any other beast for that matter, as the result of disease or in any other way he is unable to replace it due to the fact that it is going to cost at least £40 and he carries on with a depleted stock. That is the type of person who would need and who should get some credit facilities. That is the type of person who finds it most difficult, if not completely impossible, to get the credit facilities that would be necessary to enable him to carry on.

I asked the Minister a question recently regarding the establishment of an A.I station in Donegal. I do not believe he was being quite honest or frank when he said the indecision of the Sligo conference was a bogey in having an A.I station started in that part. Donegal were completely agreed on the matter and should get full encouragement to have an A.I station of their own. It is a serious position as it stands and I hope the Minister will take steps in so far as it lies within his power to give the necessary incentive to any co-operative society prepared to establish a station. It is a want that is much felt and the reasons are well known to the Minister. The farmers of Donegal have suffered grave losses recently.

Through what?

Through diseases in cattle which will only be eradicated through the establishment of A.I stations.

In Donegal?

Yes. This disease can only be eradicated by the establishment of A.I stations and I would appeal to the Minister——

To what disease is the Deputy referring?

Trichimoniosis.

In Donegal?

Yes, and I asked in the House recently if the Minister was aware that the Donegal County Committee of Agriculture had drawn to the attention of his Department the serious outbreak of that disease in the county.

May I ask the Deputy where in the county?

In the Mountcharles area of my own constituency. At least one veterinary surgeon found it necessary to report it to the county committee of agriculture, of which I happen to be chairman. We, in turn, passed the information on immediately to the Department and we asked them to expedite the establishment of an A.I station. I hope the Minister will take note of that now. The veterinary advice is that A.I alone will eradicate that disease.

This debate has become very protracted and perhaps the problem of derelict farms in the congested areas would be more germane to the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Lands. It is in order, however, to refer to it on this Estimate. It is a matter which is causing much concern in the congested areas. Apparently these derelict farms are not the responsibility of anybody. In some cases they have been offered to the Land Commission in exchange or for purchase so that they might be consolidated with adjoining holdings but no action has been taken. I hope to raise this matter on the Vote for the Department of Lands.

I appeal to the Minister to give more consideration to the smallholder. We heard a good deal of talk about the possibility of a Minister for the Gaeltacht being appointed. Even if we had an active Parliamentary Secretary to the Government on whose shoulders such work would rest, something might be done. We believe it constitutes a separate problem and the Minister will have to delegate authority to some committee or individual to deal specifically with the Gaeltacht and the congested areas, particularly in relation to smallholdings, and ensure that the many pursuits which go to make up the livelihood of these people are properly co-ordinated and assisted. They will not become wealthy merely because cattle prices increase. The cattle they sell are negligible, but they help. They will not become wealthy by an improvement in the poultry industry, but that again will help considerably. If the bacon industry improves, that also will be a help.

The cultivation of vegetables and root crops requires intensive personal attention. If more co-operation could be established between the small-holders that would go a long way towards solving many of their difficulties. Co-operation in the purchase of machinery is the most important of all. Farming machinery on a smallholding is more or less redundant but if neighbours combine together to purchase and use that machinery that would be one of the best types of co-operation they could have; and co-operation on that basis is essential.

Some speaker here said that co-operation was something which the Irish people did not readily fall in with; they were not easily adaptable to a co-operative system. That is nonsense. In the congested areas there has always been a co-operative system of necessity from the days when they were first pushed into these unreclaimed holdings by the plantations. To this day every important job is done by co-operation between neighbours. The hay is stacked on that system. The turf is still cut on that system.

If that system could be fostered and introduced into the purchase and use of agricultural machinery that would tend ultimately to eradicate many of the evils which beset the smallholder whose life is one of drudgery and frugal living, a job which begins at sunrise and in many cases does not end until after the sun has set. Yet, we are told by some people here that his life is a life of luxury and that he should produce more things more cheaply in order that other people may have a lower cost of living. That farmer is an important individual in any community and I think his plight is not generally known very often by those who should be fully aware of it.

This Agriculture Estimate has occupied the attention of a good many Deputies. Nearly every aspect of agriculture has been debated at some length. I gather from the remarks of Deputies on both sides that we are at last in agreement on one thing; that is that agriculture is the main industry in the country and that every person depends for his or her standard of living on the farmers' ability to export profitably. If we are to raise the standard of living of all our people it is generally agreed that the only way we can do that is by increasing in volume and in value the goods we can export at a profit.

I think it is generally agreed now that practically the only thing we can export from this country at a profit is live stock and live-stock products. It is, therefore, the duty of any Government or any Minister for Agriculture to increase the number of live stock and also to try to put the land of the country into such a state of fertility that it will not alone be able to feed the extra live stock but feed them better.

We should give credit where credit is due and I can safely say that the present Minister for Agriculture has done more to increase the numbers of live stock and improve the fertility of the soil than any other man. By the introduction of the land rehabilitation scheme, the ground limestone scheme and the making available to the farmers generally of modern soil testing facilities, he has put thousands of acres into production which would otherwise be lying derelict and of no use whatever to the people who own them or to the State.

The Minister's latest addition to the land rehabilitation scheme—the raising of the ceiling to £60 per acre—is one that will be much appreciated by the small farmers in the West whose applications to have their little farms reclaimed had been turned down on the grounds that the cost per acre was too great. These men will be glad to know that they can now go ahead with the reclamation of their little holdings.

In relation to increasing the number of live stock, the Minister's action in saving the lives—if I may put it that way—of the 80,000 calves that would have perished either by slaughter or disease has gone a long way towards bringing the live-stock population up to its present satisfactory level. The Minister not alone saved the lives of those calves, but ensured they would fetch very good prices when they reached maturity as they are doing at the present day, by the foresight he showed in negotiating the 1948 agreement.

I am in entire agreement with the Minister in his belief that the whole future of the cattle trade depends on the dual purpose Shorthorn cow. To my mind, it is only through this type of animal that we can hope to maintain the foundation stock. I am greatly afraid that in the not very distant future we will experience a very serious shortage of suitable store cattle and what is infinitely worse, a very serious shortage of suitable cows and heifers to breed that type of cattle. I would ask the Minister to take serious notice of what is happening throughout the country regarding the breeding of cattle at present.

The farmers, particularly the smaller farmers, are refusing point blank to bring their cows to Shorthorn bulls and it is very hard to blame them in view of the fact that a Shorthorn calf is worth at birth at least £5 less than an Aberdeen Angus or a Hereford crossed calf. At two or two and a half years there is at least £10 or £15 difference in their values. It is very hard to blame small farmers for breeding the type of cattle that pays them best; at the same time I think it is definitely the duty of the Minister and the State to see that the foundation stock is preserved.

I suggest to the Minister that every farmer under a certain valuation who breeds a Shorthorn calf should be paid a suitable subsidy to compensate him for any loss he may sustain by breeding that type of beast. I would also suggest to the Minister that a number of farms should be acquired throughout the country by the Department and used for the sole purpose of breeding Shorthorn cattle, so that an adequate supply, if I may put it that way, of Shorthorn heifers would be available at all times.

I do not think any Deputy who is a member of a county committee of agriculture and who has seen the advantages to be gained by having an expert technical adviser on agriculture, can sit down without saying a word or two about the parish plan. I think this idea of putting within reach of every farmer a highly-qualified technical adviser is one that will be much appreciated and availed of by young farmers of the present time. These young farmers are fully alive to the necessity of being educated in modern methods of agriculture. They know it is only by having their soil tested, applying suitable manures, devising proper rotation of crops and by proper reseeding that they can hope to increase the output of their farms and in that way raise their standard of living and the standard of living of the country as a whole. I think if those parish agents work in close co-operation with the county committees of agriculture and with our experienced officials they will play a very important part in greatly increasing agricultural output.

In regard to the scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. I would like to compliment the Minister on his efforts in that direction. I would also like him to know that the farmers are fully alive to the necessity for such a scheme and that the faster he pushes on with it the better they will be pleased. I think the Minister was very well advised when he doubled the grants for farm-buildings to participants in this T.B. scheme because everybody, I think, will admit that proper housing is an important factor if we are to have healthy live-stock population. I am also glad to know that participants in the T.B. scheme may now get grants for piped water supplies to their farms because every farmer will agree that a proper water supply is almost as important as proper housing if you are to keep live stock in condition.

I do not intend to waste the time of the House discussing the merits or demerits of wheat-growing. To my mind too much has already been said on that subject. All I wish to say is this: nearly everybody agrees that we should not aim to produce a surplus of any commodity if we cannot export that surplus at a profit. We now know we cannot export our surplus wheat at a profit and we have reached the stage when we had a surplus. There was only one thing that any sane Minister or Government could do and that was to curtail the acreage under wheat. There were two ways to do it and one was the sensible, obvious way of cutting the price. The other—I do not know whether it would have been the Fianna Fáil way or not though they certainly objected to cutting the price—would be to put wheat on a quota basis and if the farmer grew an inch over his quota send in the inspectors.

There was a third way.

That was not a method which the Minister or the Government or any sensible person would stand for.

I will be very brief.

Every Deputy who stood up said that.

I will give you my word, because I am anxious to hear the Minister.

To hear me?

You will not hear me for a week, as far as I can see.

In County Dublin during last year tomato growers found that a disease came into their glass-houses and they are now anxious to have in the north and south of the county a research or soil-testing laboratory, if that is possible. Their complaint is that when a disease comes either into the land or into the glass-houses, they have to send the soil away to be tested and while there are trained inspectors available there is nevertheless a long delay. In County Dublin, as the Minister knows, they go in for a good deal of this work and I have been considering the problem for some time and I have discussed it with the people affected.

I have been considering the matter for some time and I have discussed it with the people affected. I wonder if the Minister would consider giving permission and a grant to county committees of agriculture to erect small soil-testing laboratories. I understand that in Cork a number of enterprising farmers have already started and carried out such a scheme successfully. The big delay involved in soil-testing is in having to wait for the soil to come back and to find out whether it is the soil or the plant that is at fault. That is especially so where glass-houses are concerned. One man had four glass-houses which would cover, perhaps, half an acre of ground under glass. The problem is serious and it can mean a big loss for people who are affected.

Has the Deputy ever mentioned this case to the Department?

The people concerned did. I was asked to raise the matter on this Estimate.

Will the Deputy give me the names of the people?

I will, gladly. I am just making the suggestion, through the Chair, that the Minister should consider the feasibility of a research laboratory or soil-testing station of that kind. I understand that we are short of trained personnel to deal with this type of work. On the subject of research to deal with all these classes of disease, I believe we could get over that difficulty possibly by giving more power and more money to the county committees of agriculture. Furthermore, it would be an opportunity of decentralising the work. If you have trained personnel in different counties the farmers would become more interested in the scheme. They would become more interested because they would have a research laboratory or a soil-testing station in their own county.

If we had soil-testing stations put up in every parish in Ireland, we would be in a queer state.

Not in every parish, in every county. I will gladly give all particulars to the Minister.

I shall be glad to have them.

The shortage of eggs and bacon in this country seems to be a national problem—not a ministerial one—at the moment. We will exonerate the Minister to a degree——

I am not aware of the shortage of one or other commodity.

There must be a shortage because they have become very dear. Certainly, bacon is.

Does the Deputy wish to see the price cut down?

Everybody else who spoke here to-night referred to the shortage of bacon in this country—and the Minister knows that very well. Another problem which has been mentioned is the number of people leaving the land. That is a national problem but the Minister for Agriculture will have to give all possible encouragement to our tillage farmers and horticulturists and ensure that they get a market for their products or else the drain of people from the land will continue. It is most essential to establish confidence in the minds of those people. With these few remarks I will keep my word about being brief and sit down.

Excluding agriculture, the greatest heritage this country possesses is its green fields and its soil. On its proper utilisation depends our whole national life. The maintenance of financial stability should aid the programme of agricultural development. It has been established that good grass produces the greatest number of food units per acre and it is the only crop that raises soil fertility. The farmyard plays an important part in live-stock production. If we are to get rid of the little stagnation in Irish agriculture the State must invest a large sum in essential capital equipment.

The Opposition are in a good mood about our export market. Some of them referred to "conversions". I think the boot is rather more on the other foot and that they should think of their own conversion. I remember —long before I came into this House, which is only two years ago—attending meetings at which people were told, when they asked what they would do with their cattle, to run them at point-to-point meetings. I do not want to be uncharitable. Some of the recent speeches reflected great Christian charity and I do not want to upset that. The cattle-raising industry should be encouraged and it is being encouraged because of its round-the-year employment content by comparison with some of the other industries.

With regard to wheat, I want to say that if it only put a stop to the gallop of the gentlemen who took considerable acres in Meath and Dublin and, when they had the crop sold, went to the Continent, then the action of the Minister was worth while. They may be isolated cases but I know that they happened. These gentlemen then went to Paris and Madrid and the only interest they had in cattle was in the bulls in the arenas there.

There are some small matters in connection with the land reclamation scheme that might be overlooked. For instance, the big advantage in ground limestone is that it removes some of the hazards of a late harvest. Possibly, that is not too well known. The right quantity of lime encourages the ripening of crops anything from ten to 14 days earlier, other things being equal. Again, with regard to the land reclamation scheme—and this is where the parish agent might work—I think that a plan of the scheme should be kept in the archives of the respective farmers' houses. The drains have to be gone over after ten or 15 years and it would be very wise if succeeding generations knew the set-up and the plan. A fairly decent plan is given but I do not think sufficient care is taken of it.

I am a bit late in talking about pigs. There has been such a stir in the price of pigs that what I have to say now may be a bit late. One of the leakages in the gap between the price of pigs to the producer and the price to the consumer is the fairly heavy transport costs involved. I know cases where lorries have gone to small fairs, manned by two or three people and getting as few as a dozen pigs. In addition you will get a private car, complete with chauffeur, with a head or boss coming down to see that everything is in order. All told, there is nearly a man for every pig that is bought. I want to refer to these things with regard to Wicklow because Wicklow bacon is just as famous as Wicklow rabbits and is in very great demand. Coming after the two Deputies Burke, who promised to be short and sweet, I shall finish now by saying that this country and its farming are safe in the colourful and able hands of James Dillon.

I think it would be a peculiar mentality that would approach a debate on agriculture with the idea that either the Minister for Agriculture or his Department will manage everything for everyone.

Hear, hear!

In the first place I would say that the people who make that approach do not understand the hard headed person they are dealing with in the Irish farmer who has, through the years, built up a tradition of husbandry which has become the basis of our national economy. Changes of Government are inevitable in a democracy and the one disturbing thing is that even though a Minister cannot influence the whole scheme of things throughout the whole country, he must at the same time remember that there are such things as differences in policy and plans and ideas and expressions and that the basic tenor of the agricultural community in some regions is so upset that you have shortages and surpluses, scarcities and high prices and all the rest following certain principles of policy.

With such a variety of seasons as we have here, the productivity of crops alters from year to year as do their quality and we must be prepared for these things. I presume it is part of the work of a Minister to try and provide in emergencies for the saving of crops as it is part of his duty to advise farmers on fertilising and growing and getting the best from their soil.

When travelling throughout the country one cannot fail to notice that the amount of waste land is simply immense. I do not think it would remain for long in any other country but until our drainage has got further ahead there is the difficulty sometimes of bringing about the reclamation which is so necessary and which one realises could so easily be done under normal conditions. One thing that has emerged from this debate is, to my mind, that the industry must be dealt with on a regional basis—that what suits the west or the north west or the south west will not suit the Midlands, at least as far as the production of crops and the rearing of cattle are concerned. So many different plans are advocated, and these have so many different purposes, that it is hard to come to a general national decision of the best type of beast to produce in the country, but if one considers it in regions one must consider the type of soil, marginal land and the type of beast best suited perhaps to the roughness of the region, to its climate and all the rest.

On that basis one would be able to form some decision on the matter. For instance beside the big cities like Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway and in the Midlands where they finish off the stock that are produced in other parts of the country, you must have the supporting dairying industry because otherwise you will not have the young stock and as the third last speaker said the number of cows in this country will go down. If they go down the whole mixed dairy industry is in jeopardy.

The same does not apply to the bacon or sheep industries nor does it to the poultry industry because on these matters there can be some kind of national system of production and marketing. Very often we see fluctuations of prices occurring in these three industries. That should not be so because if there is a proper scheme of production and marketing it would tend to bring about a certain stability in the industry which would provide against these fluctuations. Also, you have people going around trying to turn the people of the cities against the country people on the question of prices, forgetting that they are interdependent—that what is produced on the land must have distributors and consumers in the cities and the towns, or, as an alternative, that in the cities must be produced some of the things needed in the country areas.

But agriculture must be treated always as the basic industry and we should try and get more initiative, more co-operation and more capital into it so that there may be better production from the soil, more workers to produce it and, in consequence, more consumers and a better home market as well as a more profitable export market. I would recommend to the Minister when he is setting about the establishment of the agricultural institute that he would not consider having just one central campus but that he would deal with the dairying area in one way, the small farmer out on the coast lines in another way and on a completely different basis so that we would not have in the institute just something that would suit the Midlands or Dublin but that the whole scheme would be one of encouraging our farmers to remain on their land and develop it in a way that will get the best out of the soil. If we tackle the problem on these lines our economy will be founded on a firm basis.

With regard to production from the soil I have often thought myself that we have two good men in this country, Lieutenant-General Costelloe and Mr. Todd Andrews. General Costelloe has made a great job not only of the sugar beet industry but also of encouraging land reclamation. Mr. Andrews has made a great success of turf production. Both of these industries have been giving employment in the rural areas at a reasonable wage, even if that wage has not yet come up to what it is in other industries. As time goes on, there will be more productivity in that way from the soil. Other countries have mineral deposits more readily available than they are in this country, but in this country peat and the fertility of the land can be the backbone of the national economy.

Criticism is essential and the expression of opinions is useful, but criticism for the purpose of criticism is useless. It is wrong to adopt the attitude towards agriculture that one should disagree with a policy because it is being operated by one person, whereas one would agree with it if it were operated by another person. We must try to get some stability in agriculture so that there will not be variations, which are so harmful. The production of essential food for man and beast in this country should be our main objective. We should try to secure balanced employment so that people will not fly from the land. Old muddy laneways into farmers' places should be improved. Everything should be done to brighten life for the small farmer and farm workers and they should be given a decent living on the soil of their own country.

I was glad to hear Deputy Giles on the Fine Gael side and Deputy J. Brennan on the Fianna Fáil side trying to advance the cause of the small uneconomic holder. It is nice to think that in this House there are a few Deputies from the various sides of the House who appreciate the difficulty of the uneconomic holder and who are prepared to stand up here in his defence. Far be it from me to doubt the sincerity of either of these gentlemen. Knowing them as I do, I am satisfied that they are both very sincere men and very honest in their approach, regardless of which side of the House they come from.

I am also concerned with that problem as representing a constituency where there is a very considerable number of small landholders and where there is so much emigration. Emigration is one of the reasons why agricultural production in this country is so low. We must appreciate that it is not the old people who are leaving. It is the youth who are leaving this country and that has its serious effect on agricultural production in general, on our total output of agricultural produce.

The Minister in his opening remarks laid great emphasis on the importance of agriculture in the life of the nation. Many Deputies, perhaps with less emphasis, referred to the same matter. Agriculture, as the Minister and others have said, is the backbone of the country.

The Minister invited criticism. While I am prepared to compliment the Minister on the things he has achieved and on the many other things he has tried to achieve but perhaps has not achieved to the extent to which he would like, I feel that honest and constructive criticism is always useful. Therefore, I was glad to hear the Minister appealing for constructive criticism from either side of the House.

Taking the debate by and large, the Minister has got that criticism. Some of the criticism, as is inevitable, I suppose, was founded on the usual political basis but, in the main, there was quite an honest and sincere approach to the Estimate from both sides of the House and I am sure the Minister has listened carefully.

This evening I listened to Deputy Childers. I listened to practically the whole of his speech. He made an exceptionally good argument and gave good honest criticism. His speech was excellent. I am not trying to defend Deputy Childers: he is well able to defend himself, but somebody suggested that he is not an agriculturist. From my knowledge of agriculture, I can say that Deputy Childers' speech on this Estimate was as good as, if not better than, most of the speeches and that it was constructive. The unfortunate thing is that you cannot always get that type of honest suggestion and criticism. That tribute is due to Deputy Childers for his speech on agriculture this evening.

The Minister has pointed to the fact that we have priced ourselves out of the British market and other markets in the matters of beef, mutton and other farm produce. Again going back to the problem of the small uneconomic holder, having regard to the fact that many holdings in the West of Ireland and in other parts of Ireland are small and uneconomic, rocky or, in other cases, waterlogged or overgrown with shrubbery, one can appreciate the difficulties of these holders. Naturally, their costs of production are substantially higher than those of farmers on better lands, such as the counties from which Deputy Giles and other Deputies come. Therefore, in the West of Ireland there is a very difficult problem.

Although agricultural prices in the main have increased substantially for some years past, the people in these areas have not gained as a result of these increases. When the people of Meath and Westmeath, Cork or elsewhere had thousands of pounds to collect on the sale of farm produce, in the form of beef or any other commodity, the people in the western districts did not share their prosperity. There is one thing they did experience the same as every other citizen of the State— they had to bear the increased cost of living.

One of the most serious things that have happened to the people of the West of Ireland was the fall in egg prices. On this occasion that matter has not been made the political plaything that it has been made heretofore. It is a serious loss to our people in the West of Ireland that the price of eggs for the greater part of the year fell to £1 a 100, which is the present level and which is approximately what has been paid in the country areas. Anyone who is conversant with conditions in the West of Ireland knows very well that eggs cannot be produced to-day at that figure, particularly when you consider that a large number of these people depend on the local shop for the feeding stuffs for poultry. Apart from egg production, the same argument can be advanced in respect of the price of table fowl. The price is not sufficiently high to compensate these people for their labour and the money involved.

In connection with the increased cost of production with which people in the congested areas are faced as compared with the people on the better land of this country, we should all appreciate that a man who has to go into the field with a spade or a loy—there are not many nowadays who are anxious to use these implements—has a substantially higher cost on his stuff than the man who can take out his tractor, his plough, and so on. I feel we are faced with a serious problem in the congested areas and I was glad to hear Deputy Giles, Deputy Brennan and others acknowledge that fact.

On the subject of egg production, I am speaking with some experience because I exported eggs for a long number of years from this country not alone to Great Britain but to continental countries. I do not now engage in that line of business although I engage in business as an egg dealer. However, I want to say this for the information of the House and for the Minister, that while I found that quite a number of people engaged on egg inspection, and that some people in Merrion Street, the head office of the Department of Agriculture, were conversant with this line of business, I did find sometimes a particular man who claimed to be an egg inspector and who was paid as an egg inspector was a person who was taken from the butter department and transferred to the egg department and perhaps vice versa.

People engaged in dairying have had the same experience. Perhaps there is a seasonal falling off in egg production and inspectors are transferred from one department to another. They would all be working under the Department of Agriculture but the majority of those engaged in the butter marketing business would not be conversant with the egg marketing side of it and you often found—I will not say it was deliberate—a person engaged in the work of inspecting eggs, say, at Sligo or Westport, who knew precious little about it. There is no doubt that the people exporting these commodities suffered as a result of this and the industry suffered also.

It will be hard, unless something extraordinary happens, to get the egg industry back on it feet again having regard to the high cost of food production at home and the low prices prevailing outside the country. I am saying that having had some practical experience of having exported to such countries as Spain and Germany in my time. The world price of eggs seems to have fallen considerably and that is something in connection with which the city people might say: "Thanks be to God, that is great."

As Deputy MacCarthy said a few minutes ago, it would be a good thing if the city people would appreciate that agriculture was the main industry of this country, that if any particular line of agricultural produce fell below the economic level that it was bad news for the country as a whole and that the pinch would be felt sooner or later by those people in the cities. In his opening remarks the Minister pointed out, and laid stress on the fact, that industrialists should appreciate, as should professional people and other classes in the community, that the whole fabric of this State could only remain intact if the basic industry was to be successful and was to thrive.

I do not think I have heard any Deputy referring to our potato industry and particularly to the question of the exportation of seed potatoes. In my constituency a big percentage of our farmers engaged in that profitable business for a number of years. In recent times the alcohol factory at Curroy, near Ballina, which was used for the manufacture of alcohol over a period, is now being changed to the production of glucose and steps are being taken at the present time in my constituency to change the variety of potatoes that are being grown by the farmers so as to encourage them to sell to the Curroy factory at a later date for the manufacture of glucose.

Over a long period our farmers felt they had a serious complaint in regard to representation on the Potato Marketing Board and repeatedly brought it to the notice of successive Ministers for Agriculture, the former Minister, Deputy Walsh and, I think, on one occasion to the present Minister, Deputy Dillon. It is very easy to make sweeping statements and to condemn people or condemn boards but what I did feel was wrong about the whole set-up of the Potato Marketing Board was that farmers had not sufficient representation on that board.

The representation on that board was mainly given to the merchants and when the farmers sought representation and when they were told that they had one farmer on the board while there were four or five merchants, they felt there was something strange about the whole set-up and they were naturally suspicious of it. In recent times I think the Department of Agriculture have yielded to a certain extent on that point and have given one other member to represent the farmers, but conduct such as that is not conducive to increased production of potatoes or anything else. The people who are really competent, in my opinion, to be on that board and to have a majority of members are the producers. I do not suggest that the merchants or the exporters should be denied representation on the board but they should not dominate it. They may be all very nice men. I am sure they were quite decent men selected for some very good reason. Nevertheless, it has had the effect of making the farmers believe that something strange is happening behind the scenes because they will not get proper representation.

For a considerable time there was an organisation in existence here called Eggsports (Eire) Ltd. They had their headquarters at 65 Lower Gardiner Street. From my own personal experience I can say that they gave very good service to the nation. That body was not established because the Irish people wanted it. It was because there was a demand from across the water; His Majesty's Government was at war and naturally could not afford time to deal with individual exporters. That body gave satisfaction to exporters and producers alike. It was dissolved when the need for it no longer existed. Eggs went on a free market and there was no longer any use for the organisation. While that body was in existence egg prices remained high and the farmers were quite satisfied.

This Potato Marketing Board is not giving the same satisfaction. I suggest to the Minister there is one way in which he can help the people in the poorer areas, and I am thinking now not only of my own county but of Donegal and other counties as well. I have heard those who represent the potato interests in Donegal making the same point. I suggest to the Minister that he should go into the representation on the Potato Marketing Board with a view to giving the farmers the representation to which they are entitled on that board. Naturally when the farmer sells his potatoes at £12 per ton and then reads in the papers that they are £24 a ton in England he is inclined to forget the overheads; he subtracts the £12 from the £24 and he decides that the other fellow has made at least £10 profit per ton. Some information should be given to the farmers by way of tabulated statements setting out the different expenses. Those tabular statements should be circulated through organisations like Macra na Feirme and Muintir na Tíre. I think that would encourage the farmers to increase production because they would then realise they were not being done.

With regard to the land project, I took what might be described as a political risk on one occasion. Deputy Walsh, when he was Minister for Agriculture, increased the amount under the A. scheme by £10 per acre and I went into the Division Lobby with Fianna Fáil and voted for that. I did that because I checked the figures of applications from my own county and I found that most of the people there were interested in the A. scheme as against the B. scheme. Looking back now I am satisfied that while I did a lot of good to a number of people in my constituency, I may have done a little harm to others; but, of course, the thing would have gone through no matter how I voted.

However, one must take responsibility, and I am not introducing any apologetic note this evening; I take full responsibility for that stand. While I admit the Minister then gave increased benefits to the farmer who was prepared to do his own drainage, in reducing the ceiling figure of the B scheme, he certainly did more harm than good. I have no doubt that he had the usual battle with the Department of Finance on that occasion. The Department of Finance was concerned in the main with saving on a particular item in a particular Estimate, and I am sure they advanced every argument they could against increasing the figure. To-day I can see the present Minister for Agriculture battling it out, too, and I know he has his own difficulties. That sort of thing will happen irrespective of what particular Government is in office.

Looking back now, I think Deputy Walsh, as Minister for Agriculture, made a serious mistake when he reduced the maximum figure under the land project to £42 per acre in relation to the B scheme. The present Minister has increased that sum but he has also done something upon which I cannot compliment him. He has invited criticism and I am going to offer a little criticism here. Like everybody else, I know he is not infallible and he cannot have it all his own way with the Department of Finance. Deputy Beegan referred to the matter I am now going to raise and, perhaps when I add my weight to Deputy Beegan's appeal, if there is anything the Minister can do I am sure he will be both willing and anxious to do it.

I understand that if the estimate exceeds a certain figure the farmer must then bear a percentage of the cost. Probably that is the reason why Deputy Beegan was so much concerned about this because he is a westener, and it is there that we will be faced with the particular problem. We have very poor land in the West. I ask the Minister who will be the loser under this? The Minister has improved the scheme substantially but I am disappointed to a degree because our people will now have to bear a certain proportion of the extra cost if the estimate exceeds a certain figure. In the main the estimates in our area will be higher than those in counties like Westmeath and so forth, where the land is better. Land in Meath, for instance, can be done at £20 per acre. Land in Mayo will cost £60 per acre, and if Farmer Brown wants to get his few acres done under the B scheme, he will be faced with the problem of meeting a certain proportion of the cost. That will place him at a disadvantage.

I bring this matter to the Minister's notice because I appreciate that he has the courage and the foresight to initiate a scheme such as this. He has admitted that mistakes were made under the land project scheme even in his own time. With the passage of time he hopes those mistakes will be corrected. I consider that the present position is placing our people at a serious disadvantage in the West of Ireland in so far as land reclamation work is concerned. It must be appreciated that this land reclamation is most important because it will have the effect ultimately of increasing the national income. It provides what our people badly need in the West of Ireland. It provides a week's wages for the sons of small farmers. On Saturday night the housewife has a wage packet holding £5 or £6 and she can go down to the local shop and provide the ready cash to meet the necessaries of life. Sales of cattle are so small on these small holdings that it is impossible for these people to exist during the period when they have nothing else to fall back upon, and that period sometimes lasts for three or six months. That is why I consider these schemes of such vital importance to our people.

The Minister has asked for criticism of the operations of the scheme and I offer that little bit in relation to the land project scheme. I realise there will be certain obstacles in the way but the Minister is a strong man and I am sure he will be able to crush those obstacles and get over the difficulties.

There is another matter that I come up against in my travels around the country. I have heard reports from land project contractors in different parts of Ireland, men who have engaged in land project work in one part of the country or another, in Mayo, Meath or Kildare, all around about as some of these moved from one place to another. I have made it my business to discuss with these people their problems. I had some personal experience of land reclamation going back long before the present Minister or any other Minister offered 1/- for doing that work because my family were evicted into a mountain holding and my late father and myself often carried out reclamation work without 1/- payment, so that I have some experience about particular land work. For that reason, I am always happy to discuss such undertakings with land project contractors now. Of course there are many aids available to people nowadays such as bulldozers, explosives like gelignite and many other things that were unknown in the olden days.

These land project contractors have expressed the opinion that the district officer in such a county was much easier to get on with than the district officer in certain other counties. One might be prepared to let them get away with a certain bore of pipes and overlook a lot of things, while another would be very strict as to the class of work he would want. I have a suspicion, and my suspicion is strongly founded, that there is a racket in this work both in the time of the present Minister and in the time of the previous Minister. It is hard to track these things down. Take the case of a man who undertakes 30 or 40 or 50 acres of land under scheme B—that is the Department of Agriculture offers that land to the contractor—and who decides he is going to get all that work and get hold of his cheque as quickly as possible. It may be down a long byroad quite a distance from the head office of the Department and he knows very well that between them the land project contractor and the district officer can bring off a deal and get over the work pretty easily.

I do not like to suggest that anybody is dishonest, but I have been told in certain parts of this country a good deal of work being done under the land project is not being done as it should be done and there are strong suspicions that some of our officers are not entirely blameless on this score. I would suggest that the matter be given serious consideration. It is a serious thing because, quite apart from the money involved, which is not the point, if an attempt is made on the part of some land project contractor to do 30 acres of land in a slipshod way, it is not a matter of just the amount of money but also of the loss in production to individual farmers and to the country as a whole if that class of work is to be allowed to continue.

I am deliberately saying this in the House so that it will be published and so that these people concerned will know that we have discussed it here and it will serve as a warning to them. So far as I am concerned, if I got concrete proof of it I would have no hesitation in telephoning to the Minister or a senior officer of his Department, because no matter who is Minister for Agriculture if we fail in our duty in these matters we are failing in a very serious way. I refer to them—I have not invented these things—because I have very strong suspicions, but one knows how slow people are to come forward and give information on such subjects.

Another matter in connection with the land project is this: I raised this matter in the Dáil recently and I can assure you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that I shall not dwell on it at any great length. We have a big deposit, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce admitted, of clay suitable for the manufacture of drainage pipes. I am not making this speech on Industry and Commerce but I do want to say that our people are faced with increased charges for clay pipes, and for concrete pipes, but particularly for clay pipes, in connection with land project drainage work. I think the figure is something like £4 10s. per 1,000 over the figure in adjoining counties. That is a serious handicap to our people.

It will be appreciated that concrete pipes, while they are made in Ballina —which is adjacent to us—in certain cases in such work these pipes are not always suitable, as, if you have too much acid in the land the concrete is known to decay in the ground after a long period. But I have this on the most reliable authority that the clay to which I am referring was tested across the water and subjected to pressure and other tests and proved absolutely suitable for the manufacture of clay pipes. If there is anything the Minister could do through his Department to make it possible for this deposit to be used I think it would be a very desirable step to take and would have the effect of reducing the cost per acre of land reclaimed under his Department.

I shall say a word on soil testing. Deputy Childers spoke at length on that subject to-night and I was really delighted to hear his speech on that although he was described as a non-agriculturist. He certainly spoke with as much knowledge of agriculture as anybody else. He referred to soil testing and my experience is that quite a lot of our farmers here, particularly the small farmers, who have rightly been described by Deputies in this House as the backbone of this country, are in the position that although they know their soil is deficient in something, they do not know what that something is. What they do in most cases is put down a crop in the spring adding phosphate where lime is needed, or vice versa. They take a shot in the dark and put perhaps barley where oats should be.

It is a serious thing from the national point of view that farmers should be carrying out their work in a haphazard fashion like that. I am not reflecting on the farmers. We have had over 30 years of native Government now and we seem to be advancing and progressing but it is a rather bad business if you have such a state of affairs here that while it is vitally important that farmers should know what their soil is suitable for, they have no means of testing the soil within a reasonable time. Admittedly, samples of soil have been taken due to the efforts of the county committees of agriculture or the Department of Agriculture, but if one sends away a sample of soil to Johnstown Castle it is ten or 11 months afterwards before one hears about it or what should be applied to it—it is just a waste of time.

I think it was Deputy Burke who mentioned that there should be regional soil-testing stations. Even if they are not the last word in accuracy if we got a reasonably good test it would be a help to our farmers and would indicate to them whether field A was suitable for barley and field B for potatoes and so on. I think it would tend to increase production, which should be the aim of everybody. To judge by the speeches made here, one would get the impression that everybody is all out to obtain increased production. In my view, if we adopt these methods they will tend to increase it.

Another matter which, perhaps, might be more relevant on the Estimate for the Department of Education concerns the desirability of laying an emphasis in our rural schools on the importance of agriculture. In my view it would be a good thing, even in the text-books, to bring out the importance of agriculture. I know that teachers have to work to a programme but I think that if more emphasis were laid on agricultural life it might do our young boys and girls in the country a lot more good than some of the things which they are now learning at school and which do not come in useful to them afterwards. In particular, I think it would be a wise step to lay an emphasis in the higher classes on the importance of agriculture.

I come now to the subject of pig prices. To-day, bacon pigs are worth roughly £10 a cwt., live weight. That is what the suitable type of pig will fetch. Only a short while ago, the same type of pig was worth only £8——

That type of jumping backwards and forwards in prices has a very serious effect on pig production

It is a good thing the prices jumped up, in any case.

It is a good job that the price has jumped up but do not forget that it had to jump down before it could jump up.

After crying because they had jumped down, let us not now cry because they are jumping up.

A couple of months ago, small pigs in my home town of Foxford fetched only £3 or £4 each. On the other hand, a couple of days ago they fetched as much as £7 each. I admit that the same uncertainty in regard to prices obtained under previous Governments and that it seems to be a thing which it is difficult to get rid of.

I do not know how to solve the problem but it would be well if the Minister would take steps to try and cope with it. I believe it would benefit the whole pig industry, which is a vital factor to the agricultural economy in the West of Ireland. The small landowner depends on the money he receives for his pigs to pay his rates and his taxes, to buy shoes and clothing for his children, and so forth. When they are forced out of the production of things which are part of their economy, it is no wonder that they leave the country and seek a livelihood elsewhere.

It is no wonder that our young boys and girls go to Britain and America and Canada to seek a livelihood, perhaps never to return again, when they have nothing but an uncertain way of living at home. I do not suggest that, by coping with the prices problem, the Minister would cure for all time the flight from the land but certainly it would remedy that problem, too, to some extent. The Minister is an active, able and energetic man and I hope he will deal with this matter of fluctuating prices now—a matter which should have been taken in hands many years ago.

There has been much talk of the parish plan. Rumour has it that a new parish agent will operate from Merrion Street in Dublin. I appreciate that the Minister is trying to do his best to make available to our agricultural community, through the parish plan, the best advice they require. However, the Minister should realise that if the parish plan is to be operated from Dublin or from an address in Merrion Street our farmers will look on it with suspicion from the very outset. As well as being Minister for Agriculture, the Minister is a rural Deputy and I am sure he must be aware of the truth of what I am saying. For instance, if a parish agent comes along to a farmer in my county and tells the farmer that he is from Merrion Street, Dublin, or that he is operating under the Department of Agriculture in Dublin, he will be looked on with suspicion.

I suggest that the scheme be operated through the county committees of agriculture. I am chairman of the Mayo County Committee of Agriculture. While I realise that things are not, perhaps, always as good as we should like them to be in our county committees of agriculture, I believe they have done a very good and useful job down through the years. Frequently they succeed where the Department of Agriculture have failed —principally, as I have already said, because our people have the traditional outlook that anything that comes from the Government must be regarded with a certain amount of suspicion. The county committees of agriculture have succeeded to a great extent in breaking down that type of attitude and, in the main, our farmers are now willing and eager to learn—and they have learned a lot through our county committees of agriculture.

It can truthfully be said that county committees of agriculture, which represent the voice of people elected to county councils, are very important and it would be wrong to operate the parish plan from Merrion Street. Furthermore, if the plan is operated from Merrion Street we shall have two sets of agricultural advisers in each county. One group would be working under the county committee of agriculture—that is, unless they are abolished and I should not like to see that happen—and the second group would work under the Department of Agriculture. I submit that there would be a conflict between the two groups and I fear that things would be much worse than they are at the moment. While the man coming from Merrion Street would know as much, perhaps, as the man working under our own county committee of agriculture, it is obvious that friction would be bound to occur and that difficulties would arise. I am afraid, also, that men might come to each county and be unaware of the habits and customs of the people in the difficult localities and that they might not appreciate the different types of difficulties in each locality.

In the course of this debate, some Deputies suggested the zoning of agriculture. I think it was Deputy MacCarthy who suggested the zoning of certain areas as milk areas, other areas as grain-growing areas, and so forth. If a representative of the Department of Agriculture who was conversant with milk and dairying came into a part of the country such as mine he would find himself up against a certain mentality and our farmers, once they found that the man had a certain leaning towards milk production, would object to him and would not co-operate with him. I do not think that much progress could be made in such circumstances. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 26th May, 1955.
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