Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (15th Dáil) – Wednesday, 18 Apr 1956

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

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Walsh.)

Mr. O'Hara

When I was speaking on this Estimate last night I was stressing the importance of bringing soil testing facilities nearer to the people in the rural areas. I was pointing out that for a considerable time past the farmers in Mayo, and probably in many other such counties, had to wait for periods of six, eight and ten months after having sent in their soil samples to get a report on them. Accordingly they were not in a position to take the necessary speedy action that is desirable in a matter of this kind.

Deputy Hughes referred to the problem of the smallholder. I am particularly interested in the smallholder. The Deputy referred to one difficulty in relation to the smallholder as compared with those who possess larger tracts of land; he pointed out that many of these small farmers are hampered in their efforts to increase production, thereby improving their own position, due to the smallness of their holdings and to the fact that they cannot employ modern machinery on their little farms. That is a problem which exists in many parts of the country but more particularly in the West of Ireland. It is a problem that calls for special consideration and special attention because it is from these areas there is the greatest migration of people. It is from these areas the people flee the land. We should bear in mind, too, that it is not the old people who are going; in the main it is the youth from these smallholdings who are going.

I would suggest to the Minister that he should introduce a scheme in these congested areas whereby artificial manures would be made available to the small farmers in the same way as the ground limestone scheme is operated at the moment. I believe that it is in these smallholdings that there is the greatest deficiency of lime and phosphates. Anyone who is honest will admit that there is no longer any excuse for any farmer going short of lime; in the matter of phosphates and artificial fertilisers, however, many of the smallholders are unable to purchase fertilisers at their present prohibitive price. If the Minister could introduce a scheme in the congested areas whereby the farmers could purchase fertilisers more cheaply, that would have the effect of encouraging those who reside in such areas to remain on the land. Many of these smallholders have no capital. They have not the cash to pay for fertilisers on the nail. It is true that they will get credit to a limited extent in some cases. If we intend to correct this serious problem, and I submit it is a very serious problem, a bold stand will have to be taken; and I think the present Minister is the man who is best fitted to take that stand.

I have on previous occasions pressed the Minister to do something about this. I am sure he has considered the matter. What I am concerned about now is that so far nothing of a practical nature has been done, with the exception of making phosphates available on a credit basis to farmers and spreading the cost over a period of years. Many farmers have taken advantage of that and have purchased fertilisers. There are many others who are reluctant to avail of it and it is in order to help these that I am now advocating such a policy. I am satisfied that if such a scheme is implemented it will bring most beneficial results to those of our people who live in the congested areas.

Another difficulty the farmer has in relation to increased production is that whenever he goes to purchase farm machinery or equipment of any kind, he is always compelled to buy in the dearest market. The whole world has become modernised and geared up for increased production in so far as agriculture is concerned. It is a serious matter that the farmer, when he goes to purchase machinery or implements, must buy in the dearest market while, when he goes to sell his produce, he must dispose of that produce usually to middlemen. In both directions the farmer is penalised.

In the case of some farm machinery, such as tractors, ploughs, reapers and binders, there are agents who receive commissions or discounts ranging from £10 to a couple of hundred pounds and, in the final analysis, it is the farmer who has to meet these discounts. I concede that a man who is in the motor business, the tractor business or the reaper and binder business is entitled to some profit, but I think the Department of Agriculture should consider setting up an agency of its own to help farmers to purchase such machinery at reduced prices. The humblest tractor one can purchase costs around £1,000. For most small farmers that sum is quite impossible and they are, therefore, forced into hire purchase. Such farmers rarely receive as much as £1 off the article while a more wealthy neighbour, who can pay cash, can walk in and bargain his way through and invariably succeed. There is not the slightest danger that a farmer might default. Private inquiries are made about the individual who wants hire purchase and there is not the slightest danger he can default. I fail to see why such people are being victimised and hampered in their efforts to produce food, so as to keep the nation going.

I would appeal to the Minister to give the question of providing cheaper and better implements for our small farmers serious thought. He should consult with the Minister for Finance, I know the Minister for Finance is a generous man but he has a lot of other Ministers after him, all, no doubt, looking for extra money for their particular Departments. Here is one Department on which the success or failure of this nation depends and nobody in this House appreciates that fact better than the present Minister. I feel certain that he will do everything possible to get as much money as he can from the Minister for Finance for the various schemes under his Department. However, I am appealing to him in a particular way to use the strength and the will that is in him to try to improve the position with regard to this whole question of providing cheaper machinery for our farmers. The question of credit comes into it there. I have heard many complaints about the delay, even in our present scheme, in providing facilities for the purchase of machinery for creditworthy farmers. Even in the last few days I heard about long delays by the Agricultural Credit Corporation in sanctioning payments for machinery intended for use on the farm. That is very bad, nationally and otherwise, and I believe that it has something to do with the present position of our balance of payments.

Nobody will attempt to deny credit to the present Minister for initiating a scheme that is now in full operation in this country, one of the finest schemes that was ever introduced here, namely, the land project. Nobody will try to deny him the credit for what he has done in that regard in trying to help the Irish farmers. I think the people of this country appreciate that it is one scheme that will go down in history to his credit. I know he is very proud of it himself and he has good reason to be. He knows as well as I do that there are some little growing pains there all the time, some little flaws. As far as we can, as Deputies, it is our duty, where we know any of these flaws exist, to point them out, and I am sure the Minister will do his best to correct them where they exist, if it is humanly possible.

In a major scheme of this kind I fully appreciate it is not possible at all times to have everything watertight. You have the land project operating under two main headings, Section A. and Section B. Section A. is where the farmer does the work himself by his own labour, gets a price for the reclamation of his land and is paid for the work he does himself. In addition, he is recouped to a certain degree for lime and phosphates. That section of the scheme is a very important one because at the end of the year, in the winter months, you have, in some congested areas in any case, a surplus of labour. Through the operation of that scheme, it is possible for the small farmer to drain his own land, take scrub off the land, remove rocks and other obstructions, and be paid for doing it.

In addition, if he has a son or two in the house he can take on a greater acreage of land. The man who has to try to reclaim an acre or two of his land by himself is up against a big problem but if he has help in the house, particularly from members of his own family, he can do a useful job of work for himself, for his family and for the nation. Quite apart from any large-scale operation by the Department or by contractors who undertake greater tracts of land, this is affording to the individual smallholder an opportunity of going ahead with the work himself and not waiting for machinery to come along for which he may have to wait eight or ten years.

When I introduced this subject of land project activity into this debate I mentioned that certain flaws might exist and I propose to mention one here now. It is generally appreciated and recognised that it is in the West of Ireland, and in Mayo in particular, that the land is poorest and most difficult to reclaim. In the case of Section A. of the scheme, where the farmer does the work himself, you have a ceiling of £42 per acre, that is, inclusive of lime and phosphates. In recent times, the Minister was generous enough to increase the amount of grant payable, in other words to increase the sum of money made available under this heading for Section A. work, but he did so by making a provision that over the sum of £42 per acre the farmer would be liable for half the cost.

When it is considered that it is in these areas that you have the most people fleeing the land, that it is in these areas that the high estimates for land project work are due to the difficulties of scrub, drainage and so forth, I think it is setting our people at a serious disadvantage in the matter of land reclamation work when they are called upon even to bear 50 per cent. of the cost above the estimate of £42. It means they have to pay to live in such areas, while the man in Meath, Westmeath, Louth perhaps, and many other counties in this country where the good lands are can have his land reclaimed within the estimate without having to pay anything.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that in my native village where once there were 26 happy homes we are now down to 14 because the people were treated in this way? It can be argued that some of this land should be used, perhaps, for afforestation or other purposes. Perhaps some of it should be used for that purpose, but I know of many holdings that could yield good crops, could rear good cattle which would help to contribute towards the national pool of exports in a big way, provided it was possible for the individual farmers to undertake land project work and get it financed. That is the great difficulty, to meet this increased estimate.

I am putting it to the Minister, therefore, seriously, as a man who understands that problem as well as I do, as a man who has contributed more to relieve the difficulties of such people and has done far more than I could ever hope to achieve as have those who have gone before him—go ndeanaidh Dia trochaire ar a n-anamacha—to go a little bit further and bring that ceiling up to at least £50 without putting any levy on the smallholder in such an area.

The Department of Finance comes into that again, the Minister will say, and they will argue that if we do that it means more and more money. Certainly the Minister does not begrudge it for that purpose—I know that very well—and I am putting that point to him for his sympathetic consideration. I am asking his sympathy for the descendants of people who have served this country well in time gone by, who resisted the landlords and so forth, and who were available when good men were needed to fight in defence of this country in the days of the Land League and down through the years. I think from a native Government they are entitled to every consideration that this House could possibly give them. I am asking for some consideration in stepping up the amount from £42 to £50 without any charge on the individual smallholder. I think it is one of the best things that could possibly be done to help to solve the problem of emigration and to encourage our people to stay at home.

When you have the land project officers coming around, they have a real educational value because the farmers immediately start to put them questions about this, that and the other. They ask: "If I have this field reclaimed what should I do with it? Should I till it, graze it or do this, that or the other?" On the roadside or perhaps in the farmer's own house he gets the best advice the Department of Agriculture can give and so the plan has an educational value apart from anything else. It gives that farmer an importance he had not hitherto; it shows that the Irish Government has an interest in helping him, and his neighbours in turn can see the benefits that are brought about by such activity. He also has his soil tested.

Last night somebody mentioned about pilot farms; these are very desirable and important. They help to demonstrate to our people the importance of treating our land properly and they, too, have a great educational value. They tend in a big way to help our farmers to produce more. Anybody who goes to the agricultural shows at Ballsbridge will see there staring him in the face sample plots where he can see for himself what it means to have his land properly limed and to have sufficient phosphates and other artificial manures applied. He need not be an expert on farming to understand it. Therefore, I put it to the Minister that he cannot but consider these people, people whose forefathers, as I have already said, have served this country and have stood by Faith and Fatherland in the dark and difficult days for 700 or 800 years. The Minister should not be niggardly with the descendants of these people and we should not treat them as they are treated at present. It is natural, of course, that during the early years—after all this is a comparatively new scheme—there should be some defects, and I am pointing out this as one that militates against the smallholder, the man whose estimate exceeds £42. So much for Section A of the land project.

A lot of useful work has been done also under Section B. That is where the Department undertakes the work itself directly or where a contractor is engaged under the Department of Agriculture to undertake it. I got myself a good deal of adverse publicity for saying a lot in connection with this scheme. Much of what I said, I am sure, did not meet with the approval of the Minister and perhaps he did not like some of it. That is not what I am concerned about. Newspapers do not always quote people exactly and perhaps we are not always deadly accurate in our phrasing; sometimes there are exaggerations.

I was always of opinion, and I am still of opinion, that a private contractor in this country, let him be farmer, businessman or anybody else, is quite entitled to buy his own machinery and equipment and engage in the work of reclaiming land, provided he has the means and the will to do it. Personally, on principle alone— I make no secret of it—I repeat, whether the Minister agrees with it or disagrees with it, that for the Department of Agriculture, as a State Department, to go into competition with our own people in matters of this kind is wrong. I will concede that the direct activity by the Department can be justified on the one ground that they feel it is necessary to reclaim the land by any means in order to increase production. We must have a little bit of give-and-take and I am inclined to forgive them for that. In the early days when we started operations under Section B of the land project few of our people knew anything about how to operate machinery or the work of land reclamation. It was a good thing, it had great educational value, that the Department undertook some of this work, using drag-line excavators, field ploughs, bulldozers and other modern machinery and implements.

The proof of that is that, in various counties, farmers' sons and others purchased modern machinery and implements for the purpose of carrying out Section B of the land project and have rendered excellent service to the nation. I am glad that these people are in a position to do that. It is now proved that they are in a better position than any State-owned concern. It is understandable that, if a farmer's son pays £400, £700 or £800 as a deposit on machinery, realising that he must pay for it by hire purchase or easy payments, he is not likely to sleep late in the morning or to watch the clock in the evening. He has set a target for himself. He has committed himself to the extent of £2,000 for machinery and he knows that he must get his coat off. Having got his coat off, he will work.

In Mayo excellent work has been done by men who, when they started, had no experience whatsoever. Some of their work will remain as a monument to their credit. Hundreds of acres have been reclaimed. Squads of men, numbering 30 to 100, are at work in two or three pockets, earning £5 to £7 a week, while remaining in their own homes. Great benefits result from such a scheme to the smallholder and can bring security, both from the point of view of wages and from the point of view of reclamation of extra acres of land, which, as the Minister put it, is the one thing on which the nation depends.

My experience is that, where the private contractor does the work, he is watched very closely by officers of the land project section of the Department. Usually six jobs may be progressing in one parish and the officers come along the road regularly and cross the fields to the job on which they know the men are working, and inspect the work. They inspect the drains when they are open and inspect the pipes when they are put down and they see that the work is done properly. There is not much room for abuse in the scheme, particularly where the work is carried out by private contractors. It does happen, however—it may be the fault of engineers or the fault of the contractor—that mistakes are made, but, in the main, the scheme is working very satisfactorily, at least, in Mayo.

I have heard rumours—and rumours are very queer things—from other counties that when so and so was in such and such a county, everyone made a heap of money almost overnight on land project work. I have heard these rumours, but, when one tries to sift them and to investigate them, one finds there is little or no foundation for them. Where there are four or five officers of the Department of Agriculture in a town like Ballina, Castlebar or anywhere else, where one knows the activities of the other, I cannot imagine that these officers, if they had any sense, would take any serious risks. As far as I know, they have not taken them.

I would like to see this section of the land project speeded up where possible. Every county has not been as lucky in the matter of contractors as Mayo has been. Mayo people are well accustomed to taking risks. They have been taking them all their lives. Generations before them have taken them. They have had to emigrate to England, America, Canada—all over the world. Some of them have earned money there and have come back with a few hundred pounds and have engaged in this work and have made a success of it. The Minister should bring home to other counties that in Mayo much progress is being made through the system of private contracts.

On the whole question of the land project, I have not changed my mind or my views one bit. I have always regarded the scheme as the greatest scheme ever introduced in this country or that ever will be introduced. Where there are defects of which I know I regard it as my duty to bring them to the notice of the responsible Minister, even at the risk of unpopularity or of being misrepresented. That I have done and hope to continue to do.

I have been engaged in the pig business for many years. I have some experience of it. It is very disappointing for a farmer, having bought his bonhams at £7 or £8 each, having fed them for four or five months, to sell them to a dealer or drive them to a fair or factory, and to find that, after all his effort, time and labour and expense, he is at a loss. I have been meeting that type of complaint, as I am in the trade. I would be much happier paying £10 per cwt. for pigs than paying £7 per cwt. So far as my problem is concerned, I would be covered anyway. I would like to see the farmer richer. I would like to see him making something because the day he does not make something will be a bad day for the country. He will go out of production and that is what he has been doing.

The pig trade has been very risky and the market has been uncertain and, although the farmer has backed a winner on some occasions, he has backed losers more often. I am throwing my mind back some years to the time when one could buy pigs only on permits from the factories. I remember putting 100 pigs out in the field for three weeks because I could not get rid of them and it was only through the providence of God that they did not get disease and wipe me out because 100 pigs cost a lot of money even in those days. Deputies opposite are critical of the hard times through which we are going at the moment but, if they cast their minds back, they will be able to remember harder times, although we are disappointed at the profits there are out of pigs at the present time.

It is heartening to know that the Minister has initiated a scheme under which the farmer is guaranteed a minimum price of 235/- a cwt. dead weight for pigs. That will give some stability to the market. It also gives the farmer an opportunity of knowing in advance the least price he can expect. One of the things I have noticed in my part of the country is that our farmers feed their pigs too well from the very first day. John Brown buys four pigs and Pat Murphy buys two or maybe four. There is a competition on from the very first day to see how quickly they can get those pigs out. They are really anxious to have them out in three months, three months and a week or three months and a fortnight, and they feel disgraced in the neighbourhood if the pigs go to four months. Accordingly, the pigs get the best of everything, the best potatoes and milk, and not skim milk either but whole milk.

Mr. Dillon

That is a mistake; skim milk would be much better.

Mr. O'Hara

Much better, but one farmer is afraid the other farmer's pigs will be out before his own. I believe that, if the farmers did not rush their pigs out in such a hurry, a much better type of pig would be the result. Farmers should be advised to adopt a feed of skim milk, barley and so forth. They should be educated in the proper feeding of their pigs. I think this could be got home to them through county committees of agriculture, through Muintir na Tíre, the Irish Countrywomen's Association and the other farmers' associations throughout the country. I have never seen a Land-race pig, but I have seen many a good Irish white and devil a thing was wrong with them. They were a good, sturdy, reliable type of pig that kept the roof on many an Irish homestead. They have been tried and tested.

The Minister referred to the cows with the long horns across the sea. The Landrace pig may be all right. I know very little about him, but I think we should rely more on what we have got and what we know and try to give that the correct feeding. If you feed to pigs foodstuffs with a high fat content, your bacon will be very fatty and, according to present standards, practically unsaleable. I remember selling country butter in this city at 7d. and 8d. a lb. It was good country butter. On some occasions it was sold for as low as 4d. and 5d. a lb. You would pay a lot more for lard to-day. If anybody doubts that, I can prove it from the records. Even in those far-off days had we been able to put on the market better handled, better graded and more hygienically treated produce we would have been able to demand higher prices. Deputy MacCarthy may not like it when I tell him that we sent a good lot of the bad butter to Cork in those days. I do not know what they did with it but a lot went down there anyway.

Mr. MacCarthy

They used it for cooking.

Mr. Dillon

A good deal of it was sent to West Africa, too.

Mr. O'Hara

As I was about to say, we should try to educate our people into improving the quality and the methods of handling our different types of produce. We should be more careful about the way we market our produce. It is the few offenders who cause all the trouble. The buyer is always up against these people because when he is buying in large quantities he cannot properly examine everything. In spite of everything he can do, some inferior stuff may get to the ports or even find its way across the water. It is not the good stuff that will be talked about across the water but the occasional bad egg or bad potato. Things like that have very serious effects on the price of our products generally.

Last September I was in London and I met a hotel proprietor who was a native of my own county. He said: "What is wrong with your Irish hams now? I would much prefer to buy them if they would keep and remain fresh, particularly if I could get them from Castlebar or Claremorris. But I got some bad hams and I got out of them. I am now buying Danish hams." There was an Irishman whose father and mother reared pigs on a smallholding in Mayo. He was anxious to buy Irish hams but, because he got a bad one or two, he turned over to Danish bacon. I am convinced that we have the finest meat in the world but some inferior stuff is allowed to escape attention occasionally and then you have all this criticism. That man in London asked me to bring this to the attention of somebody who would be able to correct it, so that it would not happen in the future, not just because he lost on the price of the ham but because he felt, as an Irishman, that it was really bad business for us to be allowing such things to happen.

I agree with the Minister that we here in Ireland have got as good a type of pig as there is in any other part of the world. Fortunately, we have satisfactory conditions here for the rearing of pigs. For the greater part of the year they can be let out to the fields where they will thrive. You cannot let them out like that in other parts of the world where the climate is hard and rather severe.

I wish to refer to the question of pig feeding. I was recently in the Tubbercurry area of County Sligo and my attention was drawn to an experiment carried out somewhere in that area in the use of chicory for the feeding of pigs. I know nothing about chicory but I was told that some farmer in that area, under the supervision of some officer of the committee of agriculture, carried out some experiments in the feeding of chicory to pigs. It was sown in the ground and the young pigs were let out to eat it. The remarkable thing about it was that when they came to be sold, all the pigs were graded A. It is not my experience, as a pig dealer, to see all pigs graded A. I would not expect to see them all graded A, but if there is anything important in what I have said, I am passing it on to the Minister. Some of the local newspapers gave a much more exhaustive report on the experiment. The man who brought it to my notice told me that it seemed to him to be the solution to the problem of the smallholder; if there is anything in it, I would like the Minister to say if he has heard anything about it and let the people know whether it is good or bad or whether anything can be done about it.

Mr. S. Collins

Has the Deputy any idea of the cost?

Mr. O'Hara

What I was told was that bonhams were let out to feed on it and that on an acre of land there was a profit of £270 or £280. If that amount of profit can be got from an acre of land, it is time for the Minister to sit up and take notice. I hope we have found something there but I have not got the figures. I meant to make further inquiries but it was only recently that I heard of it.

What has happened with regard to pigs, in the matter of guarantees, I would like to see happen also in the case of other produce of the land, whether animals or birds. Take eggs, for instance. Unfortunately, due to no fault of the Minister, egg prices were forced down in England. Owing to the high cost of feeding-stuffs here in this country, particularly if fowl are fed on imported maize, it is almost impossible to make any money from egg production at the present time. That is a pity because the basket of eggs, sold once or twice a week, provided sufficient money for the ordinary smallholder to keep the house running from week to week. To my personal knowledge, there was often enough left over after providing for the necessaries of life to put 10/ or £1 away for the rainy day. In addition to that, there is the fact that the families were always well fed when there were plenty of eggs and poultry around the house.

I still believe that, with the right approach to this problem, money could be made on eggs, but not at the present summer price. If our people could have a guarantee of price for a year or two, they would know what they were doing—a guarantee that would assure them of getting 30/-, 40/- or 50/- per long hundred every week. I know there is a feeling that if sufficient people went into egg production, and the deep litter and all that, the price would probably be brought down to 25/- or 30/- per long hundred. If the Minister would devise some system of giving a guaranteed price, even if he had to re-establish Eggsports, Limited, it would be a very good thing.

It is being rumoured from across the water that many of the people there, private citizens who have little gardens available at the back of their homes, are getting out of fowl production again as there is not as much money in it as they thought. The reason they went into fowl, in the first instance, was because eggs were rationed. They were getting only one a week and they thought it would be a good thing if they had eggs of their own. Due to the fact that at the present price there is not much advantage in it for them, it is rumoured that they are getting out of egg production again in Britain. I have no more liking for them in Britain than anybody else, but in the matter of eggs and other perishable goods they really represent the best market we have.

I have had experience of exporting eggs to Spain and Germany and I have had the experience of crates stencilled in a language that I did not understand. It was a difficult trade, but I think that you would always be sure that you could get rid of your fresh eggs in England at any time.

If it is true that you have that situation in England, and that the English people, who originally went into fowl because they could not get eggs, are now getting out of fowl, the Minister might usefully keep that in mind and he might be able to see a chance for this country to take advantage of that situation. I cannot say that I have got my information from the most reliable source. The people who told me about it may not know an awful lot about what they were talking about. They may have heard of a few people getting rid of their flocks and thought that everybody was doing it.

I should like the Minister to give something in the nature of a long term guarantee. He has given us a minimum in the case of pigs of 235/- per cwt. If he could give us a minimum in the case of eggs, making the price as generous as possible, that would be a very good thing and a very desirable thing because, as I have already said, one can always cash eggs quickly.

Talking about eggs, I remember the time when I bought eggs at a halfpenny each, 5/- per long hundred. That may surprise some people, but what is more surprising is the fact that 4/- of that 5/- was Government bounty paid to the exporter. I can produce records to prove that. That went on for a certain period. I suppose it is better to forget these things now and to remember that times to-day are not too bad. We know the margin of profit may be small, but it is not as small as it was some years ago. It is heartening to remember that.

On the question of cattle prices, I happened to be at a county council meeting at Castlebar on the day one of these glaring headlines appeared in the Irish Press:“Cattle Boom Over.” That paper was passed around the Fianna Fáil councillors with a laugh and a joke. In saying that, I am not telling any lie. That is something I do not like to see happening anywhere at any time. After all, many of the Fianna Fáil people are farmers themselves. The majority of the Mayo County Council are farmers. I take a poor view of people who gloat over the misfortune of our Irish farmers or who try, particularly at a critical stage, to misrepresent the position by newspaper publicity. At the time the position was bad. There had been a boom period and prices had gone mad. People got £10 and £20 a head more than they expected. What did they do? They went out and invested that money in young stores, and they bought the stores dear, naturally. They were encouraged into doing that because prices were high. Some people forget that prices do not always remain high and they go off on a mad spree. The regrettable feature was that any newspaper should try to make the position worse than it really was. Thank God, with the passage of time, the Minister has been proved right although, when he did speak, I thought he was saying a little bit too much. He said: “Hold your cattle; prices will come right later.” I am glad that, for the sake of everybody concerned, Fianna Fáil and everybody else, prices have improved. They are not back to the 1955 level. Possibly we shall never see those levels again, but prices have at least recovered. I hope the present trend will continue because cattle are one of the most important lines we have in relation to agricultural production.

Deputy Walsh yesterday evening tried to discredit the present Minister by describing him as a man who would buy Indian meal, wheat or any other agricultural commodity from any part of the world in preference to producing it at home. I think no Minister has done as much to encourage the growing of agricultural commodities here at home than has the present Minister. Everybody knows it is impossible to grow barley, beet, wheat or any other crop on land which is deficient in lime. During the emergency we had compulsory tillage under Fianna Fáil. I believe that was necessary to ensure sufficient food to maintain our own people, but, because of that compulsory tillage and because of the compulsory growing of wheat, barley and other crops, there was a tremendous user of lime out of the land. That went on for a number of years. During that period we only had, as Deputy Carter said last night, the old lime kilns. There was no ground limestone scheme. The result was that there was a rapid deteorioration in the soil from the point of view of lime and phosphate content.

Deputy Walsh, for whom I have a great respect, tried to paint the picture last evening that the present Minister has done nothing in relation to the growing of wheat, barley or anything else. I do not accept that. I think the present Minister has done more than any of his predecessors to improve both the quality and the quantity of every crop grown. He has done that through the land reclamation scheme. He has done it through the ground limestone scheme. I was told a year or two ago by experts in the Department of Agriculture that our land required 17,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons of lime to put it into good heart. I do not know what progress has been made in that direction but I believe farmers are now using more and more lime; and, if they are not, it is their own fault because lime is heavily subsidised. It can be transported over a distance of 40 miles right to the farmer's own door. He would need to be a very poor farmer if he could not afford the price of a load of ground limestone because the present Minister has made it cheap enough for anyone to buy it.

Deputy Walsh accused the Minister of trying to do away with tillage. I do not accept that as the Minister, in my opinion, has done more than anybody else I know to increase the output from individual holdings. There is no use in our blinding ourselves to the facts. When Fianna Fáil were in office, which was for quite a long time, they did not initiate the necessary schemes when they had the opportunity. I remember distinctly the director of a limestone quarry, whose name I will not mention but who was one of the pioneers in the ground limestone operations in this country, telling me all about this ground limestone. It was in the first years of the inter-Party Government. I said I had never seen it and asked what it was like. He said: "The next time I am passing I will bring you a bag." He brought the limestone and we put it into the cabbage in the garden and it did a good job there.

Ground limestone did not exist, so far as the people of this country were concerned, until the present Minister came into office. This man told me he had the greatest difficulty with the banks in an effort to get credit because of the problem of disposing of the product. They were struggling and they had to canvass and when they came to offer people limestone people asked: "What is that?" They did not know what he was talking about. The present Minister had to shout for a number of years, and must have become fed up shouting, in order to convince people of the value of ground limestone. Now in any country district on a boreen or on a road which is pretty narrow you would want to watch yourself because you will surely see a limestone lorry tearing up the road.

Therefore, it can be seen that we are making progress in this respect. There is no use in trying to drag politics into it and to belittle any Minister. When Deputy Walsh was Minister for Agriculture I walked across the floor of the House in support of his Party because I thought it was for the good of the farming community. I got my photograph in the Irish Press and neither my wife nor myself could recognise it; I was like somebody who had come out of jail. The idea was to try to discredit me because I voted with Deputy Walsh on one occasion. I saw nothing wrong with that because I thought I was doing something good for the Irish farmers. I take the broad view in these matters in fairness to the majority.

The Fianna Fáil Deputies who have spoken have for the most part offered some constructive ideas and some constructive criticism on this Estimate. I do not expect them to agree with everything that the Government does. It is the duty and responsibility of the Opposition to point out the defects they see and it is a healthy thing for them to do so. I hope that whenever they offer criticism they will be fair about it and will not misrepresent the facts.

I wish to refer now to the Glenamoy experimental station to which reference is made on page 27 of the Minister's White Paper:—

"An area of some 2,600 acres which had been occupied by Min Fheir Teoranta at Glenamoy, County Mayo, is being developed by the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands working in close co-operation. A peatland experimental station is being established by the Department of Agriculture with the object of ascertaining the best and cheapest methods of reclaiming blanket bog for agricultural use."

I realise I have held the House for a very long time but it remains for me to say that I would like to see that project succeed. We had quite a lot of misrepresentation in regard to this Glenamoy project. I was glad when I heard in the first instance that Glenamoy was getting any attention at all by the previous Government, who proposed to produce grass meal there. I have said before when speaking on agricultural matters in this House that I am not a firm believer in the production of grass meal as being suited to our Irish needs. I am speaking from experience when I say that my neighbours in Mayo certainly would not buy grass in a bag and I do not think they would even take it for nothing because I tried to sell it to them. Although they have seen grass meal elsewhere, they did not like the idea of taking grass in a bag, although our people are no less practical than they are in most parts of the country.

I wish those connected with this peatland experimental station every success in their efforts.

I have great respect for the men at the helm who were appointed by Fianna Fáil. They worked late and early in draining the bogs and a great deal of their activity was very useful. Colossal sums of money were spent on bog drainage when Fianna Fáil were in office and I am giving them credit for that. I am not speaking of what has been said at the cross roads; I am speaking from having seen it myself and having walked around it. They did some valuable fencing but the idea of trying to develop the thing further for grass meal would be a failure.

The present venture of a peatland experimental station at Glenamoy will. I hope, be successful and I believe it will, from the point of view of providing employment for people who up to recently had to cross to England to earn their livelihood. It will be most useful for that purpose and it will be a great source of education to the people adjacent to the station—to people, for that matter, coming long distances to see what can be achieved in bogland with proper treatment and proper care.

I would like to say again that I have the fullest confidence in the present Minister and that I feel sure that he has every co-operation from the officials and from his staff. He is a hardworking, conscientious man and in saying that I do not wish to throw dirty water on his predecessors. But the Minister was reared in a tradition of hard work, honesty and good example, and generations that came before him have given good service to this country without any doubt. Some of the things he says from time to time might be misrepresented and he is clearly fond of talking. One thing for which I will give him credit is that, as I said, he is conscientious and sincere, and is as anxious as his forebears proved to be to help the Irish tenant farmers. That fact is recognised by the people of my native county and will ever be recognised. They have the fullest confidence in the present Minister and I am very proud as a humble Deputy in this House to get up and say that, and I have no apologies to make for saying it.

Mr. Derrig

I do not want to anticipate the discussion, which I suppose will be a brief one, on the Supplementary Estimate in connection with the subsidy on graded pigs. Probably the House will be expecting more information from the Minister as to how that is to operate when he proposes the Estimate. But following upon Deputy Lynch's speech yesterday evening—referred to, I think, by Deputy Beegan and also by other speakers—on this question of grading, one wonders whether there should not be some grading of the prices on the consumer side as well as the grading of the produce on the producers' and sales side.

The quality of the rashers that the Dublin consumer is getting at present, I think, is entirely different from that to which we were accustomed in prewar days. Whether that is due to bad methods or improper feeding or whether it is that the consumers' point of view is not taken into consideration sufficiently by the bacon factories and the wholesale and retail establishments, I cannot say. But when people are prepared and expected to pay a fair price for a product, they expect that it will be up to standard. I think that some help might be given both to the consuming public and also to those who are producing bacon if there could be more publicity on this matter; if in regard to food matters generally the assistance of the different agencies of publicity, such as the radio and the Press could be sought, where advice would be given. As Deputy Walsh said yesterday, there might not alone be a weekly bulletin advising the farmer as to the changes in prices and in market conditions, but there might also be some information given— as is given on the British radio—to the housewife. The question of vegetables, for example, comes in here. Everybody knows that producers of vegetables are getting very little, probably 1d. for a lettuce which may fetch 1/- in the greengrocer's shop. There is something very radically wrong when the public are subjected to an impost of that kind.

Allowing for all the difficulties of marketing vegetables, a question which was examined by a committee when we were the Government, and the efforts that have been made to provide markets, where working people can procure vegetables and eggs and so on, at reasonable prices, it certainly would seem at present as if the interests of the consumer were being entirely ignored, not alone from the point of view of prices—which one might understand, since food prices are high—but with regard to quality. I think there is some responsibility on the Minister for Agriculture, if I am not assuming—as I certainly am not— that he has not grave and sufficient responsibilities without it, to see that the quality of rashers should be maintained and that the oily, fat rasher to which the Dublin housewife is being treated at present should be eliminated.

The Minister has not referred to the proposed Agricultural Institute. I should like to know whether the Government hopes to come to any decision in regard to its establishment, or what is the position? As regards the question of maize, I welcome the Minister's statement that steps are being taken to deal with imports of feeding stuffs. It is certainly incomprehensible that we should be importing millions of pounds' worth of feeding stuffs at the present time. The argument that it was economic to import maize or other feeding stuffs, I think, has to be re-examined and will not now carry the same weight as it did in former times. Our neighbours, at any rate, have not the slightest doubt about the absolute necessity, from the point of view of saving dollars and rectifying their balance of payments situation and of building up their agricultural economy on the soundest possible basis, of excluding foreign feeding stuffs to the greatest extent possible.

I should also like to support the demand that has been made that the Minister ought to exert himself to see that the dairy farmers are acquainted with the results of this commission on costings. It is all very well for the Minister to say it is not his responsibility and that it might appear to be high-handed if he were to interfere, but, after all, when a Government commission is set up it has a responsibility to the country. The Government has a responsibility in regard to it. It is not as if a body of individuals outside decided to examine some particular matter; there is a definite governmental responsibility once such a body is set up and presumably the task of furnishing a report within a reasonable time must be included as part of its responsibility. I hope we are not going to be in the position in which the Government found itself in regard to the report of the Commission on Emigration and Population which did not appear for years.

The Minister, when pressed, has on one occasion, as the fancy took him, poured scorn on this Milk Costings Commission and on another occasion has suggested that the report, when it appears, or the views of the commission, may not be favourable from the point of view of the dairy farmers who are naturally interested in the extent to which the recommendations or findings of the commission will support their claim for an increased price for milk. If there is any foundation for the suggestion that the commission is going to report on those lines — in fact, whether it is or not, but I should think more especially if it is going to report rather to the disadvantage of the dairy farmers — one would imagine that that would be all the more reason for having it produce its findings as early as possible. We had the spectacle in Dublin of several thousand dairy farmers marching through the city and demanding that the findings of this commission be published. It would be only fair to these men who, I take it, are only interested in the dairying industry from the producer's point of view, that this unseemly delay in the production of that report be ended and that the producers and the Dáil and the country generally should know what the findings are.

In connection with the land project, there is a paragraph on page 25 of the White Paper dealing with fertilisers, in which it is pointed out that 5,765 applications had been received; that soil tests had been made on 5,308 holdings (230,861 acres), and that the delivery and spreading of fertilisers had been completed on 1,871 holdings, about 80,000 acres. The paragraph goes on to say:

"A large number of applicants, having had the soil tests taken, do not avail themselves further of the facilities provided under the scheme."

If that means that the applicants do not consider the scheme worth while from their point of view, would it not be well to have it examined further? We cannot expect the Minister to pursue investigations as to why these applicants have not taken advantage of the facilities, but it is a matter of general interest. The House generally would welcome the fullest information as to how the fertiliser part of the scheme is operating, for example, the total amount of fertilisers delivered and spread up to the present and the total amount of fertilisers involved for all the applications at present in hand.

When the scheme was being started, the Minister told us that he expected that there would be an annual use for eight or ten years of some 2,000,000 tons of ground limestone and 250,000 tons of ground rock phosphate. We have reached the point now, the scheme having been in operation for about seven years, where 1,000,000 tons of ground limestone are being distributed and spread. I do not know what the figures may be in connection with the phosphates, but, if we are to reach the targets, it is evident that much more energetic organisation is required. The Minister foresaw at that time that up to 365,000 acres a year would be restored to fertility. The total acreage at present is 670,000, roughly, and it has cost about £6,500,000 including the provision of ground limestone and phosphates.

The Minister has stated that overheads came to about 15 per cent. I should like to know whether that is the minimum figure or whether the Minister is satisfied that the overheads can be further reduced.

Reference has been made to the question of credit. I notice in the Central Bank Bulletin that while advances to farmers have increased in recent years from some £12,000,000 to £16,000,000, the percentage of advances to agriculture has decreased. We have no information as to how the Agricultural Credit Corporation is functioning and, if the Minister could throw further light on the position regarding that institution, we should all like to know to what extent his changes have increased the facilities which that corporation has been able to make to small farmers.

I agree with those who have stated that the position has moved, even in recent years, relatively to the disadvantage of the small farmers. They are not getting the benefit of the additional production, reduced costs and greater profits from the mechanisation which their bigger neighbours are able to install. They have not the capital resources. It is of great importance that we should know how these small farmers stand from the point of view of capital. According to a report of a commission that we set up in regard to agriculture, post-war, the capital necessary to reconstruct farm buildings or farmhouses was so great, out of all proportion to the value of the holdings, that it seemed to be an insuperable difficulty. The Minister now has his farm buildings scheme and one would like to know to what extent that scheme is being utilised by the smaller farmers, whether or not it has particular advantages for them, whether or not they are being specially catered for.

There is a distinction between those who have a large acreage, who own good farms, who are in a prosperous state and who have been able to take advantage of the various schemes, in the past and the smaller type of farmer in the West of Ireland and other areas. The economic factors are operating against the smallholder all the time and with growing force and greater momentum as time goes on.

There is an example of that in the result of the recent price review in Great Britain, when the British Minister for Agriculture announced that milk, pigs and eggs were things of which they have sufficient in the light of present needs. He went on to say:

"Pigs and poultry were the largest consumers of imported feed and further encouragement could not be given until they had got down unit costs of production, and, in the case of pigs, achieved an improvement of quality."

The industry, he added, had already made some strides in that direction. So that as far as pigs, eggs and milk — though some increase in price has been given there — are concerned, that is the policy apparently. They feel they have sufficient bacon, sufficient eggs and sufficient milk. That must have an effect upon our economy here. The incentives, that would have otherwise been given for the production of these commodities, no longer exist and it is clear that in future there will be no guarantee regarding the prices of these important items which are produced on small farms. The market price will determine the return the farmer gets and his remuneration and whether it is worth while to remain in the business or not.

In view of these circumstances, I think there should be a re-examination of the schemes which the Department are operating to ensure that the maximum advantage will be derived and that, if necessary, the schemes will be adjusted where that is possible in order to benefit them and to make them feel — and I hope the subsidy on pigs will have that result — that they may have reasonable confidence that the Government will support them in the production of these fundamental commodities which are the things in which we expect them to specialise. If we expect them to do more, we must show that the Government will do all they possibly can to encourage them where capital equipment, for example, is necessary and where technical skill and knowledge are required.

I have an open mind on the question of parish agents. I think that parish agents or any other agents who take part in the life of the rural community should be welcomed and, not alone that, but one would like to see such persons organising parish festivals so that the social life of the rural areas, which is now so endangered by emigration and other factors, would be maintained. I think the representatives of the young farmers, both men and women, should co-operate. Their organisations have now been given special recognition and one hopes they will do more to vitalise their respective parishes so that their activities will not be based upon towns to any extent but that the parish in which they live will be the centre of their social as well as their living activities. Not alone that, but when they are getting married, perhaps they might consider that getting married in the home parish can have its own glamour and its own advantages. It is not always necessary to go to the capital city and spend a few hundred pounds on a marriage there.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. Derrig

I agree with the commission which reported on post-war agricultural policy when they said one has to depend on the enthusiasm and the effort of youth. Effort, they said, must spring from enthusiasm and the will to succeed and in their view — not the view, perhaps, of all the members but of a great many of them — only in the minds of the young can you get this enthusiasm and this desire to succeed. They went on to say that the most important factor in securing farming efficiency is education. That was the view of a certain number of the men who signed that report. Education, they thought, was of greater importance than all other factors and they attached particular importance to the facilities for technical and continuation education.

If the parish agent is merely an adviser who is to be available as an individual when called upon for advice, I do not think that is sufficient. He ought to be associated closely with either the educational side or with the economic side of farming. The ideal would be that the agent should be associated particularly with the local co-operative organisation, let it be an organisation for the utilisation of machinery in a pool in the parish where you have small farmers as has happened in Ballinasloe, or a co-operative creamery. If he were associated with these, and if he had a knowledge of marketing and of transport problems, I think it would be of great advantage to him and also to the co-operative organisation concerned.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. Derrig

Obviously there are other officers attending to the educational side of rural life in the vocational schools. If the parish agent is not associated with either the production on the land or with the sale of the produce, if he is not part of the organisation, I think his influence and his work will not be as advantageous or important as it would otherwise be. The adviser the Minister called in, when he first took office, on the question of the improvement of grassland was an employee, I understand, in his own country; of course, it was a pioneer country, with circumstances different from those here, which provided the farmers with seeds and other requisites to enable them to produce certain products. The organisation, which was in the nature of a joint stock body, took the produce off the farmers' hands. It did what the co-operative organisations do in certain parts of the country.

For example, you may have a co-operative society interested in cereal production. Perhaps this is not necessary nowadays, but it used to finance the farmers during the spring work and in the harvest would take over all the produce. If these parish agents were associated with organisations in the dairying or cereal branches of farming, they would have an intimate knowledge of the needs in their locality. I am afraid that if they are not part of that organisation intrinsically they will be merely regarded as outsiders, helpful and friendly and good men to know but not doing the work that I consider is necessary in the way of organising the small farmers; organising them from the credit point of view and from the point of view of getting the best results at the lowest cost from the soil; organising them from the point of view of bringing their produce to the markets.

The organisation to which the Minister referred in the West of Ireland, the Congested Districts Board, was, in my opinion, the only body available to look to the small farmer's needs; the co-operative organisations were in the way of local loan societies. They were confined to certain areas and were in a small way of business. Now, of course, farming, as has been stressed in the course of this debate, is a business and should be treated as a business. If the parish agent is not able to take his part in it as a businessman, I think we will not get the results. There will not be much use in the farmers having this information at their disposal if they are not able to turn it to effective use, if they are not able to turn it to practical results. I cannot see how that can be done except through some co-operative organisation which will have some definite economic purpose connected with farming rather than the mere giving of advice.

On the question of agricultural engineering, for example, if some of these parish agents were specially qualified to deal with that subject they could give much valuable advice. Farmers like to get advice and to buy the machine best suited to their circumstances. It is a needless expense that they should have to enter into correspondence with the English organisation to get the necessary information as to the best type of machinery. I think there should be some agricultural engineering service under the Department where farmers could get the benefit of the advice of experienced officers who would save them a great deal of money and heart-burning and advise them in the right direction as to their investments.

The Department, of course, is constantly expanding its operations. I do not know whether that is a very good thing or not. It is the oldest Department of State we have here. I understand that, when it was first set up, it was regarded as the first instalment of Home Rule. For some reason or other, and I think it becomes more manifest as time goes on, because of the reasons I have suggested in connection with the parish agents, we are not likely to have the same confidence in, and the same seeking after, advice from the Department as we had in the past because the conditions have altered so much.

If we were starting anew, I think it is obvious that we would get specialists, experts and technical men, into the farming groups, either voluntarily or through local authorities, in the different areas of the country, get them to build up proper agricultural methods and to increase production somewhat in the same way that was expected when the co-operative movement started and when it was being organised.

It is quite impossible, I think, for a Government Department to run some of these services as well as the people who are themselves concerned could run them. I must say that I have a great deal of sympathy with the attitude of young farmers who feel that they would like to have a direct hand and some responsibility. Educationists have often stated their belief that the best way to encourage the young is to place responsibility on their shoulders. If you do not do that, you will not get the results that you would otherwise achieve. I think that you should bring in the young farmers as much as possible into the organisation of these schemes. If we are going to hand over executive functions to them, that might create some difficulties, but we ought to associate them with these services as far as possible. It is a valuable education for them, just as it is a valuable education for the farmer to have soil testing carried out.

We ought to give our young farmers some knowledge of administration and business control so that if the time comes, and I hope it will come, when a great part of the marketing arrangements and the disposal of our produce will be carried out co-operatively by these young farmer representatives, they will be equipped to undertake these responsibilities. At present, they feel that the Department wants to have everything under its control and that it is not prepared to make room for voluntary effort or voluntary work unless it is to be on the particular line the Department wishes it to be and carried out in the manner in which it wants to have it carried out.

The staff of the Department now is nearly twice as costly as it was ten years ago. The headquarters staff of the Department cost £265,000 ten years ago and it is now costing over £500,000. Side by side with that, in addition to activities in the administration of different Acts and local schemes, it has taken upon itself the administration of such large schemes as the land project scheme, the ground limestone scheme, the farm buildings scheme, the bovine T.B. scheme, granaries, storage and other such schemes. One would imagine that, in connection with some of these schemes of a capital nature, some arrangement would be made to bring the representatives of the farming community into closer association with their direction and policy. Are we to assume that all effort and all activity sponsored by the State is to be concentrated entirely in the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. Dillon

Would the Deputy say is Dáil Éireann not the authority for fixing policy?

Mr. Derrig

It is impossible for Dáil Éireann to fix policy in this matter because the debate on this Estimate for the Department of Agriculture concerns itself with general questions of farm prices, employment and so on, and the actual organisation or the mechanics for getting the best results in a community of small farmers, such as we are, cannot get that requisite attention, I think, in this House. Even if a special committee were set up, I doubt if it would have the knowledge or could get down to bedrock.

What strikes one immediately, on looking at the reports of the American experts on Irish industries, is that the entire stress, or almost the entire stress, is placed on the need for efficiency in the processing and the production of the actual product of the factory, the reducing of the costs and the turning out of such a product as will have the maximum sales appeal. As far as the administration, or office, side is concerned, if we are to pay heed to our friends across the Atlantic, very little indeed of the organisation ought to be in the office. It should be in the field. It should be in the factory, on the farm or in the workshop; it is there surely in this modern age that the results are to be achieved.

This is a very, very difficult problem and any Minister who has had responsibility for a certain Department may feel rather chary of attacking that particular Department or appearing to attack it. If I were to attack the Land Commission, people might think it very extraordinary and very ungrateful but, in the case of the Land Commission, it can at least be said, en passant, that a great many of the duties and responsibilities that it has are of a statutory nature. Some of them were there even before the State was established and, to that extent, we have that justification for the Land Commission.

I think there is now a general feeling among young farmers, a great many of whom are highly educated young men — if they have not become graduates in agriculture they are certainly the equivalent because they have the practical knowledge on their own farms — that they would like, and it is a good characteristic of our age that these young men should like, to come forward and do what the Minister himself would like to do, namely, make their mark, leave something behind them, show that they have started off a new pioneer movement, if you like, in a very practical way because, if they go on organising, meeting and talking for very much longer, the practical efforts and the practical work to which one would like to see them turn their hands will be forgotten. Perhaps they may even have the misfortune to come into the political arena, which would be just too bad! If we want to save them from that fate, I think we ought to encourage them and give them as much responsibility as possible in advisory capacities and in connection with the administration of schemes.

The Minister, of course, in previous years started off — I do not know whether or not he forgot it this year: I was not present — by reminding us of the tremendous improvements in agricultural income and in agricultural prosperity since 1948, for all of which presumably, we were to take it, because it was implicit, that the Minister, and he alone, was responsible. All the credit was due to the Minister and to his administration for the better prices the farmers have been getting during the post-war years. Now if the Minister, as has been said, is going to take that responsibility and wants the credit for that, he must take the other side also.

Here I would like to remind the House that it was not any voluntary act of anybody that was responsible for improving prices here; it was the post-war conditions and the fact that you had in operation in Great Britain the Agriculture Act of 1947, the very first paragraph of which says:—

"The following provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect for the purpose of promoting and maintaining, by the provision of guaranteed prices an assured market for the produce mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act, a stable and efficient agricultural industry capable of producing such part of the nation's food and other agricultural produce as in the national interest it is desirable to produce in the United Kingdom, and of producing it at minimum prices consistently with proper remuneration and living conditions for farmers and workers in agriculture and an adequate return on capital invested in the industry."

Following on the passage of that Act, the British Government introduced a system of price reviews in the spring of each year. We had such a review this year. First of all, everybody must have known that beef prices must reach a peak at some time. We had premonitions and warnings from various directions. Last year, as well as this year, the Minister issued a warning. He announced last year that we were then in a buyer's market and that we were faced with competitive conditions. I think he described the position in practically the same, if not the same, phrases this year.

When we look at last year's trading we see that there was a declension particularly in the second half of the year. We see that in the six months from June to December there were 98,640 fewer cattle exported than in the corresponding six months of the preceding year. We see that for the year 1955, while there were 2,900 tons more of tinned beef exported, the exports of beef and veal, fresh, chilled or frozen, fell by no less than 26,000 tons. We see that even in the dairying industry production fell last year by 1,740 tons. However, it was not entirely the fall in the number of cattle exported but the fall in price which will enable us to judge whether anybody was justified in saying that the boom had ended.

"These farmers," says the Minister for Health, "who had taken that advice were now realising that they were fools as cattle prices had now been increased by £5." Most extraordinarily he admits that "the British Ministry had granted increases in cattle prices and that meant that the prices of Irish cattle must increase." As if the farmers in Laois-Offaly are so backward and so lacking in intelligence that they may not know that the British Government has these statutory obligations and has now introduced this scheme by which whatever fluctuations there may be there will be no catastrophic fall in cattle prices in any week!

Reference has been made during the course of the debate to the notable absence of the Labour Deputies and one can only assume that they are busily engaged trying to canvass the farmers in the constituency which has been receiving such excellent attention from Ministers of State. The Ministers and the Labour Party may be successful in persuading the farmers of Laois-Offaly that Fianna Fáil are very bad men so far as the farmers' interests are concerned, but I can tell them that, when the farmers of Laois-Offaly were looking for prices for their cereals, it was not to the Minister for maize or to the Minister for grass they had recourse but to the Fianna Fáil Government which gave them guaranteed prices for their produce.

Mr. S. Collins

I think the time has come to face in a rather realistic way the extreme difficulty and virtual stagnation that is showing itself in our agricultural economy. I am not going to enter into a controversy on the merits of the schemes which have been started. Suffice it to say that the present Minister must get, whether grudgingly or otherwise, the kudos for many material advances in the line of services, and particularly advisory services, to the agricultural community. I am a person who believes that all the various schemes, enumerated so effectively by the Minister himself at the conclusion of his address, are schemes that are vitally necessary, schemes that should be an integral part of any advisory system for agricultural development. I believe that the land reclamation project, in its conception and in its ultimate aim, can be of immense value to the State, but it does not alter one fundamental fact that the Minister himself will have to face. That is, that, with all that has been done, all the imagination and all the effort by the Minister in his leadership, the expansion in actual agricultural production over the period of native Government is not any greater than 10 per cent.

We must face the problem as to why there is not an expansion in production. I hope, in the course of my remarks, to put the problem fairly to the Minister as we find it, particularly in my own constituency, and as we find it generally in the South of Ireland. Production and more production has been the cry of every individual Minister in the Cabinet; it has been the cry of the leader of the Government, the Taoiseach. But what, in fact, has all this done? What, in fact, has been shown in increased results? Mark you, there is one salient fact that is unquestionably and undeniably true in relation to this whole matter. That is that unless we can effectively get production on the land we cannot hope to secure and hold our present standard of living and have a rational progressive economy within the State.

We have had lip-service in this House all the years that I have been in it, and before ever I came to it, to the belief that the real wealth of Ireland is in the first six to 12 inches of our soil. The extraordinary thing is that, while we have provided all kinds of advisory services for the farmer, while we have provided all kinds of grants in the way of farm dwelling improvements, even grants for gate-pillars, there has been an extraordinary shyness through the years in putting money into the actual six or nine inches of the soil of Ireland which, in the main, is the source of all our wealth.

There is only one way in which we can get increased production in agriculture and that is by improving the quality, heart and fertility of our land to enable it to produce the additional feeding stuffs necessary for our live stock and so to carry on our grasslands more stock than they are carrying at present. How can we arrive at that position — that we put better quality and heart into our land enabling us to produce this extra quantity of mixed cereals as the basis for our feeding rations and at the same time be able to carry on the land, and feed in the stalls, a rapidly increasing cattle population? We can do that only on one basis — let us face it. The land has to be properly fertilised and put into heart. I say this to the Minister for Agriculture in a deliberate way: while we in Ireland are in the top three bracket, as regards the cost of fertilisers to our farmers, we are certainly not in the top three bracket in the return by way of prices that our farmers receive for their commodities. There is something completely wrong, first of all, about the cost of fertilisers to the farmer and, secondly, about the fact that this octopus Department has not been able to conceive and effect reasonable, progressive and rational credit facilities to enable the farmer to do the job that we are all shouting at him to do.

There is nobody in Ireland who can do the job better than the farmer himself but he must be given a chance to do it. Increased production will not be obtained if the already too high cost of fertilisation is increased and if we have not got stability in price levels. It is unquestioned that it is practical and possible to increase production immediately. The land of Ireland could produce twice as much as it is now producing and could carry at least two to three times as much stock as is at present on it if, instead of talking about improved grasslands, we got down to doing the job. We have been told in expert reports from outside the State what can be done with Irish grasslands. The Minister, in his own trenchant and colourful way, has enunciated and preached the doctrine of improved grasslands. What is the result? The response has not been anything like what it should be. I say to the Minister in a deliberate way that, if he wants improved grass, the quicker he can make pedigree and improved quality seed available at reasonable prices and get the farmer on to the task of liming and improving his land, to give better and more luxuriant grass yield, the quicker he will get a response in the way of capacity to carry an increased number of live stock.

I heard the Minister say, in his own practical way, what he would recommend to the Irish pig feeder as a new basis of pig feeding. He has indicated that the pig feeder can have a very effective balanced ration for his pig by using barley, skimmed milk and a handful of salt, not too little, certainly in no circumstances too much. The Minister went as far as to say that if we had not sufficient barley, he was inclined to advocate — I think rightly — a policy of importing barley so that the pig feeder would have a continuous supply of the basic feed to continue his plan. I say deliberately to the Minister that if there is a proper effort made to give the farmer fertiliser at a reasonable price and adequate credit facilities to enable him to put his land into better heart, he will be able to produce, without difficulty, the barley he will want for feeding.

The responsibility that the Minister must take is to ensure that he can gather together and control the supply of barley so that the farmer will have it available to him when he wants it. There are many avenues, particularly in West Cork, through which the Minister could encourage the growing of barley and its use with skimmed milk as a pig ration. Would it not be possible for the Minister to get big organisations, such as they have in West Cork in the co-operative creameries, to erect the necessary granary to store large quantities of barley that could be grown locally and kept for the purpose of pig feeding, as required? Why envisage the importation of barley when we know perfectly well that a reasonable investment by the State in our own land can give us a sufficiently increased yield that would more than cover our needs?

We are up against one great difficulty in agriculture in this country — we have to face it — in that our farmers in the main have got a high profit-low production outlook on agriculture at the moment. Why? It is because on occasions in the recent past, where they rapidly expanded production in any line, the market went "phut." There is the big danger and the big problem in agriculture at the moment.

I heard a great deal about poultry from Deputy O'Hara. Poultry can be rapidly increased but what happened some years ago when there was a very substantial expansion in the poultry industry? "Phut" went the market. The Irish farmer to-day is content to produce his handful of stores at the present profit rather than to try to double his output and risk the possibility of difficulty in disposing of it or of a substantial fall in price.

Let us face real issues. I shall give, as I always have given, the present occupant of the Ministry of Agriculture all the credit that is due to him for courage, imagination and leadership. In immense fields of agricultural endeavour, he has done great and lasting service to the State but we are still facing the most vital issue for every person in this House, irrespective of Party politics, which is the difficulty of low production and the question of how to stimulate the present phase into active expansion that will produce the results that are necessary if we are to maintain the present standard of living and give the Irish people economic security in the future.

There is no good in expecting land of poor quality and in poor heart, or grass that is mixed and not cared for properly, to be the basis on which you can increase production. That can only be done in one effective way, with the availability of the Minister's very enhanced and capable soil testing service. With this service, it is possible for the farmers in wide areas of this country, within the short period between harvest and setting time next year, to know exactly what deficiencies exist in the land and exactly what can best be applied to the land to make up for these deficiencies. It is in that direction the drive for greater production must come if we are to get increased yields from our land.

Remember that, if you are to change over to an increased production economy, it is increased yields that become the vital factor of the profit margin return to the farmer. Whether it is beef, store cattle, pigs, fowl or any other type of live stock, if we get down to the task of getting bigger yields from our good arable land we will inevitably lead to a continued substantial profit margin for the producer and, at the same time, make available to the feeder the raw material that will enable him to produce at competitive prices. We must face the fact that we have got to seek our outlet in a competitive market and, if we are to produce more and more cattle for the British market and more and more feeding stuff for our live stock at home, we must ensure that while we equate the profit that can be earned by the cereal producer, we must keep the price of feeding stuff reasonable to the producer so that the finished beast, leaving the farm on the hoof, will show a reasonably satisfying margin of profit for the man who has carried him.

All the advisory services in the world will be of no use unless they are put into practical effect by the improvement of the land, by the improvement of the strain of our stocks. It has taken immense effort and work to get all the various projects under way. There are the seed testing services, the pig progeny testing services, grass-seed testing services, the veterinary advisory service and all the other advisory services but they do not become of any value unless they are put into effective use. In this matter I think I am coming to grips with what I believe to be the real difficulty to which we have to get down — how are we to get our land to produce more per acre? If we are to expand and to produce our foodstuffs at home, it is expansion per acre we want so that we can allow for the profit margin that is so vital to the producer. There is no doubt that my colleague, Deputy Hughes, when speaking last night, struck the note that must be struck.

I think the time has come for the Minister, as overall captain of this big industry, to advise the farmers, as far as he is capable, what changes should be made in the types and breeds of cattle. There is a marked tendency in the world market now to go in for lean animals, whether it is lean beef, lean mutton or lean bacon. I do not know whether that is an adjunct to the drive against thrombosis or the various other diseases that people allege have their basis in too much consumption of fats. Anyway, there is a wide-world tendency towards lean meats. These indications are there and they mean that we must change to some extent, as indicated by Deputy Hughes last night, the type of cattle we produce for disposal in the British market.

Mr. Corry

Where did you find it? We are down 129,000 pigs.

Mr. S. Collins

I do not know where the Minister got the figure of 24 per cent. for I cannot find it at all. I would hate to think that the Minister would take the figure of 24 per cent. as an optimum figure.

Mr. Dillon

No, but it is a very useful first step.

Mr. S. Collins

I have already given the Minister credit for a substantial advance but what I am trying to impress on the Minister is that the reason the increase is not more marked is that the land has not been improved sufficiently. The main reason for that is the high cost of fertilisers. No one has been a greater advocate, since he came into public life, of the use of fertilisers than the Minister himself. If all the wealth of Ireland is concentrated into the first six to nine inches of the land, why have we not got the courage to put more and more investment into that? If it is necessary to subsidise the fertilisation of land I am sure that the Minister would go ahead with a scheme of that nature, just as he did with the land reclamation scheme. If he does, he will see sizable results in increased yields and we will be able to produce more and more pigs and cattle because it will be possible to have feeding stuffs at a more reasonable price.

Mr. Corry

The Minister would rob us on every side.

Mr. S. Collins

What really irks me is that, with all the efforts made and all the services provided, the farmers are not making effective use of the advice that is available to them. That brings me to the Minister's pet scheme. I think it is a very useful scheme. I refer to the parish agents. I am glad the Minister is determined that he will have the advisory services that the farmer wants. As he put it himself, in his own trenchant way, if the county committees will not do it he is serving notice on them that he will.

The first step in this respect is to get the farmers to avail of the soil testing service so that the parish agent may be in a position to tell them what to do in order to put their land into good heart to produce the cereals so vitally necessary for feeding for live stock. If there is an impetus and a real drive to produce more per acre, we will go a long way towards self-sufficiency. That can only be done by the effective use of the soil testing service and the implementation of the further steps necessary, namely, the putting into the land of the lime, phosphates, permanganate or anything else necessary to put the land into proper condition. If that is done, even though the farmer may be scared at the price of fertilisers, his increased yield per acre will give him a valuable return on any capital outlay he may make.

We must get increased production of both cereals and live stock if we are to continue to maintain decent profit margins for the farmer. If the farmer can produce more of his own feeding stuffs he will be able to finish his cattle, pigs or poultry at a more reasonable cost and that will enable him to bear the impact of whatever the market trend may be. Even if there are no fluctuations in trend, unless the producer can ensure for himself the costs of production plus a certain margin of profit, he will have to go out of production. We have had that difficulty where there has been a too rapid expansion, as there was on one occasion in pig production; the bottom fell out of the price; there was a recession in production and it took some time to overcome that recession. It is to obviate a recurrence of that situation that I think we must put ourselves in the position of producing our feeding stuffs more economically so that we can ultimately produce the finished article at a more economic level thereby enabling the farmer to preserve his profit margin.

There has been a lot of hot air about the Milk Costings Commission and its report. People are trying to pin the Minister to the fact that he said the report would be out on the 31st. I take it that when the Minister said that he believed the commission would respond to his urgings and let him have the report. To castigate the Minister, as Deputy Derrig did, about this commission, which was set up by Fianna Fáil and the terms of reference of which were drawn up by Fianna Fáil with, apparently, no ceiling put as to the date for the issue of the report, is, I think, going a bit too far I make one suggestion to the Minister. If the commission continues recalcitrant in the issue of the report, he should sack the lot and get someone who will finish the job.

Mr. Corry

We made him an offer last night. Let the Minister get the same team as did the beet costings and they will produce it for him in 12 months.

Mr. S. Collins

I think there is an infinitely greater problem behind this question of milk costings. Here, again, what we really need is increased production and the increased production we want is an increased yield of milk per cow. It is usually as expensive, if not more expensive, to feed a bad cow as to feed a good one. If, instead of wrangling about when the Costings Commission Report is coming out, we were making a drive towards the improvement of our milk yielding stock, we would be doing a great service to the nation. When any cow produces more than the minimum necessary to make her economic, she becomes a rather profitable proposition on every extra gallon she produces. Whatever the report of the Costings Commission may be, we would all be doing a good service to the dairying industry if we co-operated in every way possible with the Department of Agriculture in the expansion and improvement of cow testing and in the encouragement and propagation of the eradication of T.B. scheme.

What seems to annoy the Opposition is that the present Minister, with a trenchant flamboyancy, can put something across in a way that they have never been capable of. Sometimes I feel that a great cause of the petty irritation displayed on the other side in debates such as this is due to the fact that they cannot take the Minister on in any way in the course of these debates. Whether by way of interruption, interjection or "crack," he always has that facility to return a blow more effective than is aimed at him. It is time the Opposition got down to giving credit for things that are of benefit to us all. The expansion of cow testing, the improvement of milk yielding stock, the rapid and effective propagation and promotion of T.B. eradication, will be of immense benefit to the agricultural community generally. Where the vital and basic industry of the nation is concerned, as affected by these schemes, we should be capable of wishing the good luck and success called for in respect of these schemes, irrespective of who initiated them once they are meant to confer a national benefit.

The Opposition do themselves no good by thinking that they can make a thing a bad scheme simply because it was introduced by Deputy James Dillon, as Minister for Agriculture. In fact, most of the schemes that they tried to deride will live long after their derision has been forgotten. I saw the land reclamation scheme sabotaged and derided but, in spite of that, we have all reached the stage to-day where we can take up the statistical return that the Minister makes available to us to show the practical and effective value it has been to the country.

Let us face the fact that to get what we all desire, substantially increased production from the land of Ireland, we require the goodwill and co-operation of the Irish farmer with the Department. It shows a very poor sense of duty in any member of this House when he tries to create dissension or mistrust between the Department of Agriculture — no matter who the Minister may be — and the Irish farmers generally for mere political advantage.

We owe to our people in this country the best standard of life we can give them, the best standard of life we can encourage them to win and maintain for themselves. With the increased production of cereals that we need for the feeding of the ever-increasing number of live stock in the State, we can give an ever-improving standard of life to the Irish people particularly to those who make their living on the land of Ireland. We owe them a duty to see that they get every help and encouragement that we can give them. I believe that the mind of the present Minister is directed, through his own efforts and through the efforts of his Department and the advisory services under his Department, towards giving all the help and advice he can to the farmer to do better for himself, to run his own small or large holding more effectively for his own profit and for the national profit, for the increase and expansion of our exports. It ill-behoves any of us in this House for any political reason to show lack of co-operation or to deride something that would be a permanent contribution to the improvement of the lot of our own people.

We hear discussion in this House on other Estimates about emigration, about the flight from the land and other matters. The more we appreciate the dignity of the position of the Irish farmer and the man who helps him on the land of Ireland, the sooner we add to that dignity of his a full and proper standard of life, the sooner we can make him comparable in respect of his earning capacity with any other section of this community, the sooner we can get him into the position of national self-respect that is properly his position, the sooner we will have established a sound and effective economy.

Most of us are not more than a generation or two removed from the land. Let us remember not only was that land able to give us the wealth with which to balance and support our economy but also from that land came all the impetus and effort that gave us the right, as free men to-day in an Irish Parliament, to encourage a Minister for Agriculture to direct Irish farmers to their own salvation and, by their salvation, to the greater glory of Ireland and to a greater and sounder economy on which we all can thrive and to which, with that little bit of forbearance and honest co-operation, we can all contribute ad majorem Dei gloriam.

Mr. Geoghegan

It was not my intention to intervene in this debate at all, but I feel it my duty to speak on a few points I raised here when this Estimate was going through the House last year. I expressed my view last year, as I do again now, of the position regarding the placing of Aberdeen Angus bulls in West Galway and probably in the West in general. The Minister has stated that he expects the person who kept five milch cows last year to keep seven this year and the man who kept ten to keep 14. I can say to the Minister that if he expects us to keep at least one or two more in the West, especially in the area I represent, he will have to place more Aberdeen bulls in that area. He knows the area as well as I do, and he knows that the Shorthorn bull or the Hereford is too soft to live on the mquntainside and in the poor, rocky land in the West. I sincerely hope that in the coming year he will be able to send a greater number to that area. I am sure he has in his office many applications made this year that have been turned down because of the fact that the bulls sought were not available.

I would also like to refer to the tomato scheme in that area. It is stated on this document here, by the Minister, that there are 95 glasshouses in the Spiddal-Knock-Carraroe area of South Connemara. I asked him last year about this matter and I would now say that if he wants us in the West to increase production I believe the people there will be only delighted to increase production in that way if the Minister makes an extra allocation of those glasshouses in the near future. They extend actually from Spiddal, as I said, to Carraroe; they could expand practically 25 miles more, to the island of Lettermullen. They could extend on the other side just the same. I know the people are anxiously waiting to see if they can get them. I hope, in the coming year, the Minister will make further allocations in Connemara of these tomato houses.

I asked the Minister some questions in this House concerning veterinary surgeons and districts in the West. I asked if the Minister could see his way to station another veterinary surgeon in the West. The Minister knows Connemara fairly well and I think he will agree that it is too much to ask any veterinary surgeon to try to cover this area or to ask the people there to put up with such service, or lack of service. That veterinary surgeon must cover this area from Spiddal to Lettermullen, from Oughterard to Clifden and from Cong to Clifden on the other side. I have known myself where a neighbour lost two milch cows no later than six months ago.

I asked the Minister to have the case investigated and he told me in his answer that the veterinary surgeon was on duty actually on an island and that he had to leave a man to do his work for three days, and that, because of being caught and held up on the island by bad weather, he was unable to return when the three days were up. His substitute could only stay for three days and then had to move off to his next appointment. In the meantime, my information from the owner of the milch cows was that it was ten days before the veterinary surgeon turned up to see them and in the meantime two cows had died. In any case they were left with only this veterinary surgeon in Clifden.

I was not at all satisfied with the answer of the Minister in that case and I would ask him earnestly to consider the possibility of stationing another veterinary surgeon in the Carraroe district. As it is, with a veterinary surgeon in Clifden who has to cover the whole of West Galway, I do not think that any veterinary surgeon, even with a helicopter, would be able to do the work required to be done in that area. I asked the Minister a question earlier in the year as to whether, owing to the bad weather we had, which affected our potato and oats crops in the West, he would make sure that there would be a good supply of seed potatoes and seed oats available to the people in the Connemara area. I know it was intended that seed potatoes and seed oats should be given out to the people of the West in general, but no later than about a fortnight ago people have come to me and told me they have been refused even one cwt. of oats — and in the case of one individual, one cwt. of potatoes. When they went to the agricultural inspector to get their supplies of one cwt. of potatoes or oats, as the case might be, they were told there was none left.

When I asked the Parliamentary Question of the Minister he should know that we were threatened with a scarcity and that adequate supplies should be made available.

Mr. Dillon

When did they apply for them? A fortnight ago?

Mr. Geoghegan

Mr. Maguire

The debate on this Estimate has been on a different line and a different tone from agricultural debates in the past. There was one thing noticeable this evening. There appears to be a genuine desire on all sides of the House to wish success to whoever handles the plough of agricultural development. That is only reasonable because agriculture concerns this country more than any other subject. On the existence and prosperity of agriculture depend very largely the existence and prosperity of the people as a whole. We find at present, as on other occasions when distress seemed to be around the corner, that there is only one source of wealth we can depend on to save us from disaster, that is, the Irish soil and the people who develop it.

At present the country is confronted with the problem of a declining market and an adverse balance of imports and exports. The world is troubled and there is a degree of uncertainty about the future. In such a time it is only natural that the goodwill and co-operation of people interested in their own and in the country's welfare should be given freely in the effort to pull us out of the difficulty.

The call now is for more and more exports, for increased production, which automatically would improve the balance of payments, the adverse state of which is at present menacing the fortunes of our people. It is suggested that the obvious remedy is to increase production and exports. Another suggestion is that, in addition to increasing production and exports, we should import less. These are obvious remedies but are they practicable?

It requires long planning by experienced men to increase production and there must be the prospect of increased markets for the goods produced. Otherwise, increased production might mean that we would reach the stage when we had no longer a market for which it would be economic to produce. There might be another snag if we concentrate on the production of more goods. The aim really should be, by increasing production and by providing better facilities and creating prosperity, to make room on the land for more people rather than to produce more crops for export.

To a large extent, we import commodities that can be done without, without serious inconvenience, such as perfume, fur coats and motor cars. These are good and useful if they can be afforded, but they are not of sufficient national importance to justify the expenditure of national resources in other countries, at an unfavourable rate, for their importation merely in order to give additional pleasure to some people. They can be done without, particularly when the nation is confronted with a serious problem.

We should pay our way and stand on our own merit in the world markets. We should use the land by putting more people on it and giving them a fair way of making a living on it, as was done in the past. The only sound basis is to use the land as nature intended it to be used, that is, as a means of livelihood for the people.

Export alone as a means of making money must inevitably lead to the destruction of the well-being of this country. We cannot hope to produce goods in competition with the United States of America, Canada, Australia, and the many other great producing countries. To attempt to go into competition with those would be very fallacious. We should concentrate on using the land which nature gave us for the purpose intended by nature— to make contented homes on these lands for our own people. Exports and imports are all important, but it is all a drive for money now. We think only of getting money by any means. That will lead to short term prosperity only, if prosperity at all.

Naturally we will require increased production to keep us going on a fairly good standard of living, though perhaps not up to the measure of the standard we enjoyed in recent years. As far as one can see, there is discontent among our people. Every week we see people claiming increased wages and shorter hours, which must necessarily mean lesser output. These claims are accepted by the Government; one Government after another have accepted them. Where is the common sense in saying we want to reduce the cost of living when, day by day, week by week, we go on increasing the cost of living? It does not make sense. There are ample opportunities in this country without overworking anybody or increasing the strain unduly on any section of the community, and with proper Government direction great improvement can be made towards the end we have in view — greater production. If we utilise a lot of what is at present waste land in this country, we can increase our production enormously. There is plenty of land of third class capacity yielding practically nothing of any value. That land is abandoned and allowed to remain in its poor state. If we converted that from its present state of uselessness into useful production, it would add greatly to the wealth of the State.

We have heard about the great value of the land rehabilitation project and of drainage. I agree entirely that the land rehabilitation project is a great scheme and that drainage is also very necessary. But side by side with that is the rush to get more and more money regardless of the convenience of the people. The lands I speak of could be turned into a useful adjunct to our dairy farms. What is needed is not extensive drainage or expensive drainage. What is needed is a shoring to divert the water from flowing over the surface of the soil because the sub-soil of those lands is all nonporous. The water flows on the surface because it cannot go through the sub-soil.

It would be a waste of money to apply the land rehabilitation project to this land. What is needed are surface drains to stop the water from flowing over the land and to divert it in an open shore into its natural channels. When that has been done, artificial manures of a suitable composition could be applied. In that way we would increase our areas of grass land and double the number of cattle we could feed. The trouble is that people do not understand these things or visualise the wealth and prosperity that could flow from such work. Not only was this good land at one time, but it produced more and better butter than any other part of the country. Princes of trade in European countries came to reside there and to buy butter for shipping abroad. County Sligo occupied second place in Europe for the quality and quantity of its butter. At that time, Cork occupied first place and, of course, Deputy Corry would say it still does. Sligo was second and Limerick was third. I am saying this with the object of showing that, instead of leaving this poorer quality land in its present state, action should be taken to drain it properly and put it back into production.

I was speaking on the subject of cattle and stock in this country some years ago in this House and a man came to me afterwards and said that, until he had heard me speak, he did not know that before a cow gives milk it must produce a calf. I am giving more details on the subject of these poorer lands to-night because there may be another such person who might not know about them. The areas to which I have referred are capable of vast improvement. But they are left aside because there is too much of a rush to get money quickly and too much of a concentration on the rich land. The land to which I have been referring has proved itself by the production of milk and live stock. It has produced more store cattle than any of the land in the south of the country and those cattle enjoyed a reputation among buyers not only from the Midlands but from England and Scotland. That type of store is still available but will only be produced in greater numbers when dairying is put on a paying basis.

As I said earlier, you must have the calf before you get the milk. The calf is a valuable asset and, if the dairying industry is not improved and the land is not improved, not only will the milk business die out but also the best stores in Europe will die out. I wish the Minister were here to take a note of what I have been saying. I had something similar to say on a previous occasion and the Minister indicated that he had a lot of sympathy with the point I made. I was hoping the Minister would be here this evening so that he would give his attention to these matters.

There is a further invasion on our rights which could mean a great loss to the nation. That is the desire and over-enthusiasm of the forestry section of the Department of Lands to acquire land on a large scale for planting. The Minister has indicated in public that the prospects of employment in forestry are very good and that forestry will give more employment than would be given by the use of the land for other purposes. I have had some experience of forestry myself, both State-owned and private-owned and, as far as I can estimate it, there is from a man to two men per year employed on every 100 acres of forestry.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Forestry may not be discussed on this Vote.

Mr. Maguire

The point that I am raising is the devaluation of agriculture and the fact that it is being destroyed by one Department as against another. The Minister has the right to know that no one Department has the right to destroy the most important asset of this country which is agriculture. If the Forestry Department pursues its present policy, it will destroy one of our most useful national assets by displacing farmers who give quick return, and it will replace them by an area of wasteful forestry that will give no return for 30 years.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

Is the Deputy opposed to forestry?

Mr. Maguire

I am, in so far as the present proposals are concerned. The Minister is sending out circulars to landowners asking if they are prepared to sell their land. That is an invasion of the interest of needy people and taking them into a market where the land will only fetch a reduced price. It is then proposed to put that land to a purpose that will give no return for 30 years, whereas if the farmers remain on these lands they will give us increased production if they are usefully employed. They could increase their production by twice as much in two years and I am surprised that the Department of Agriculture has not already taken notice of this matter. Give us surface drainage, the withdrawal of the water from the surface, manure suitable for the soil and we will show you results from creamery production and from store production that once made this country famous.

I make this contribution to congratulate those who are doing useful work and to express the wish that the next time we meet our economic problems will not be so pressing and that the area of land at present being put out of production by the Government will once again be devoted to useful husbandry.

Captain Giles

I think the most unthankful task in this country is that of the Minister for Agriculture. No matter what he does, he will stand on somebody's corns. I agree that we have a long experience of agriculture since this State was set up 30 years ago and I am satisfied also that I have seen agriculture at a very low ebb. We have seen agriculture in misery and we have also seen it on the wave of prosperity. I am satisfied that, if that prosperity had been ploughed back into the soil of Ireland, everybody would be happy and we would have had happy homes in this country. Unfortunately that prosperity went to the heads of the lot of us and that money went floating around the country into racehorses, motor cars, dog-tracks and saloons but it did not go where it should have gone — back into agriculture to increase production. If that had taken place, there would be no worry about the balance of payments to-day.

I am of opinion that we are not fit for prosperity. We allowed it to go to our heads. We allowed ourselves to become materialistic when we got a little comfort. Materialism is a dangerous thing and it has taken control of this country. I am satisfied that a check should have been put on it five or ten years ago. That prosperity has upset the economy of this country. State sops are very little good and, to my mind, the training of a people is far more important. If you got the people on the right line, and keep them on the right line, there will not be much trouble in this country.

I am glad to see that the farmers are uniting at long last after many years of struggle and failure. I think that the unity which we see at present is the most hopeful sign for the farmers of this country. I hope that they will take in hands any tasks which are theirs to perform. There is no use in looking to this House or to the Minister for everything. The Minister is only a guide to help in the opening of markets and it is up to the farmers to take on from there and do their own work. The less State interference we have in this country the better.

I hope that the farmers will not put at the head of their affairs some narrow-minded political individual but that they will put at their head a broad-minded honourable Irishman who will see that politics are kept in the background. I hope that in the future they will produce a paper that is worthy of the Irish farmer. The Irish Farmers' Journal used to be a good paper with useful articles in it but now it is a dirty rag and I hope that some of the writers on that paper will be knocked on the head and that some decent journalists will come in.

It is time that we got away from the old narrow political bickering because that will not get us anywhere. We have had enough of it in this House and elsewhere and it never did us any good. We see now that the farmers are the only hope we have to pull the country through. It is up to the lot of us to stop talking and get on with the work. There is much work to be done, but the country can, and will, be saved by the united efforts of all of us. We can all give a help and let us give that help irrespective of what Government is in power.

The small man in this country is being squeezed out. Everything is getting bigger and bigger. We want bigger farms, bigger motor cars, bigger ranches and bigger herds of cattle. The little man is being squeezed out. The labouring man and his cottage have gone off the land. The small farmer is not able to make ends meet and he has got to go out or be sold out. That is a sad state of affairs. We are thinking too much of the big things but let us get down to ground level. Let us help the small man, even in a small way, because that small way will put the small man on the high road and in the position of being able to hold his own.

The Minister talks a good deal about the small man and he has done a good deal to help the small man. It should be our ambition to preserve the family unit on the land and not have the big holdings with the herd and the dog. We should put our people on the land first and let the cattle come afterwards. If we had more people planted on the land, the position to-day would be very different. I come from an area in which Cromwell did his foul work and I can safely say that we could plant tens of thousands of happy farmers under economic conditions on the east coast of Ireland and those tens of thousands of farmers would solve our balance of payments problem.

First things should come first. As far as I can see, both sides of this House have been afraid over a long number of years to tackle the one problem really confronting us, namely, the undoing of Cromwell's work and the resettling on the land of our own people. We should not tolerate vast prairies with the herd and the dog roaming over them. By all means, leave the present owners in their homes with a decent-sized farm and pay them reasonable compensation.

An Leas-Cheann Chomhairle

That is a matter for another Minister.

Captain Giles

I know it is, but nevertheless it has some bearing on agriculture. If we do our duty the country will right itself. We are too cowardly about facing these tasks and, because of that, the economy of our country is lop-sided. There is no use talking about increased prosperity if we do not at the same time have an increase in man power on the land. The country is being denuded of its population year by year. Despite changes of Government, the people continue to flee the land. Until some strong man or some strong Government takes over we will not make any progress in the right direction.

We have an excellent Minister and he has a thankless task before him, but he has broad shoulders to carry the burden. With the foundation that he is laying, I am satisfied that we shall make progress. The first thing we must do is get the farmers to avail of all the schemes, such as land reclamation, lime, fertilisers and the parish plan. I do not approve of little sops and little grants such as have been given over a number of years. I am not one of those who believe in giving £1 or £2 to a man to put up a pair of piers. It is shocking to think of money being dribbled out in that way. If we want to give grants, we should at least ensure that they are given for the right objects. We should give a man a grant to build a cow byre and let him then go on from there. We should subsidise fertilisers for those farmers who cannot afford to buy them for themselves, even if we have to subsidise to the extent of 50 per cent. of the cost.

If these things are done, we shall change the face of the country. Compare the land of the man who can buy fertilisers to-day with that of his neighbour who cannot afford to do so. Is it not as different as chalk from cheese? If the Minister cannot break the rings, he should at least come to the aid of the farmers and enable them to buy fertilisers. In that way we will double production. Giving small sums here and there is of no lasting benefit. In the first place, it is far too costly to administer because it entails some official's time on inspection and so forth.

Another step that should be taken is the education of our farmers in balanced farming. We have not got that at the moment. If there is a boom in wheat, everybody rushes into wheat. If there is a boom in cattle, everybody rushes into cattle. There is no balanced farming. It is humiliating to see big farmers with 200 and 300 acres of land setting their land on the tillage system when there is a boom in wheat. That kind of racketeering should not be permitted. The small farmer finds it impossible to get as much as five acres or six acres to till for himself. If these big landowners will not till for themselves or use the land for themselves, by all means let the Minister for Lands do his work. There is no other solution to the problem.

One day we hear of a glut in pigs and shortly afterwards we hear of a scarcity. Why? The fact is that our farmers are not balanced farmers. A balanced farmer will not go out of production merely because times are bad. He may switch his major farming operations to one particular item, but he will not go out of anything. When pigs were booming, large landholders in my county with 2,000 acres, and more, bought 25 and 30 sows and, in time, had 500 and 600 pigs on their land. It was they who caused the glut and, in doing so, they destroyed the small man who depended on pigs for economic farming.

I have seen balanced farmers in my county go through booms and depressions quite successfully because they could switch from one line to other lines of agriculture; but they never went out of any of them. When a depression hits, those who do not go in for balanced farming start grumbling. They are not in a position to face bad times. But we can face them and we can overcome them. I think our present problem will be solved by balanced farming.

The debate over the last two days has been reasonably good. There was only one speaker who tried to foul it and that was Deputy Corry. I hope his leader will check him. He comes in here and "lambastes" the Minister in a dirty, mean, low way. He does not know what he is talking about; only a few short years ago his own Party were using a battering ram on the Irish people.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not arise on this Estimate.

Captain Giles

I know it does not, but I am glad I got it in. I detest this bitterness and hatred.

Mr. O'Malley

The Deputy is giving a good example.

Captain Giles

The Fianna Fáil Party gave us example for 20 years and we are a bit sick of it. Land reclamation can be of immense importance and I am glad to say it is going full steam ahead in many parts of the country. I hope it will be speeded up. There are a good many people who were afraid of land reclamation because, somehow or other, the rumour went around that the valuation would go up if the land was improved. They realise the position now and that they missed a good scheme.

I do hot believe too much in having big machinery. Undoubtedly you want machinery for certain work but, if at all possible, manual labour should be employed for putting in shores and drains and cutting out dykes and ditches. Men who have been working on the county council roads should be put on the land where they can do an immense amount of good for themselves and the farmer. I have seen ordinary labouring men taking a chance and engaging in this work and they have become good contractors employing five, six or eight men who are getting good money and doing excellent work for the farmer. I would like to see thousands of this type of contractor taking on this work. Some people are slow to take the initiative themselves but, if they see others succeeding, it will be an incentive to them and this will eventually get the people back working on the land. We must aim first of all at getting our people back on the land and then the cattle and live stock.

In all these matters, nationalism should come before economics. As Deputy Carter said, there is more than economics in it. Were it not for the fact that more than 25 years ago we squabbled amongst ourselves we could have a balanced economy to-day. If we concentrate on the national approach, the economic side of it will fit in afterwards. As it is, we are just trying to best each other as quickly as we can to see if we can change people from one side of the House to the other. It is very bad for the country and is the cause of most of our difficulties at the present day.

There is great talk about the parish plan. I am one of those who believe that the parish plan should be tried out and if it is a failure that it should be scrapped. I know too much about committees of agriculture for a long number of years and I am very doubtful about them. Regardless of what Government we are under I say that committees of agriculture were corrupt bodies for a long number of years. I do not mean they were taking money but they did not do their duty. My own committee of agriculture could hang its head in shame and I could hang my own head in shame when I think of the things that took place there. Cattle licences were going out by the thousand to men who never possessed a goat, whereas the decent men who had live stock could not get a licence. You had secret meetings and a hugger-mugger to decide what would be discussed at the committee meetings and what would not be discussed. I am glad to say that that type of conduct has ceased. I am chairman of the committee and I will see that there is no hugger-mugger and no lavish expenditure of money for the benefit of people who do not need it. We will give our honest opinion and carry on in a decent and honourable way.

The parish plan, to my mind, should not be opposed by anyone until it is tried out properly. There is an artificial opposition to it in some cases by officials, in others by politicians and by farmers. Any Government in power has a perfect right to try out a scheme. If that scheme is a success, it can go ahead and, if it is a failure, it can be put on one side in favour of something else. I would ask the House to give the parish plan a chance. It is my belief that half of our people will never get the services of an advisory officer; it is not the advisory official's fault but he cannot get around to all the people who need him. Under the parish plan, the officer can visit all the people and get to know them and it will be possible to bring the clergy, the teachers and all those responsible together to see what can be done to increase production from the soil and deal with all the other problems that exist.

I would appeal to the Minister to have at least one parish plan in every county and we can then compare what has taken place in that parish with what has taken place in the larger area and see which is producing the better results. If it is not a success it can be withdrawn. The parish plan will give the people in a parish what they never had before, control of their own officer; it will result in pure democracy and bring us back to the parish pump where people will be in full control of their local affairs and have their destiny in their own hands.

As far as the lime scheme is concerned, we cannot proceed quickly enough on that and the Minister is to be thanked for introducing it and spending so much money on it. However, there should be more competition. In the Midlands, there are people who have control and monopoly of lime distribution and lime spreading. I want to see that in the hands of the many instead of in the hands of a few. There should be none of these rings and there are rings in this connection. I want to break these rings and to see many more men coming into the field to spread this lime, thus giving us open and healthy competition.

The whole crux over a long number of years is that many of our small farmers are starved for money. They have no capital and they cannot get capital. A man of ten, 15 or 20 acres of land, if he goes to a bank, will get nothing on his holding and there is nobody to secure him. Many of these holdings are almost derelict. They have neither soil tests nor anything else. The owners must try to get work on the roads and leave their holding in a neglected state. I would like the Minister to introduce some type of plan, for instance, a heifer scheme, in order to give these people a chance. The small man is in a very difficult position. He may have an old "bockety" cow, a mule or a gennet and everything else he may have is obsolete. If he wishes to till an acre he must ask a big contractor and the big contractor will not come to the small man until all his other work is completed. When he should be sowing whatever crops he wants to put in, he is delayed. In the same way, when the harvest should be coming in, he is held up and, before he gets assistance, the rooks and other wild birds have half of it gone before it is reaped.

The destiny of our country is in the hands of these small people. I want the parish plan to come to the aid of these people. What they need is an experienced officer to advise them because, in the first place, many of them are backward and timid and will not write a letter to a committee of agriculture or anybody else. They are just passed by whereas the big man, the influential man, can go to his telephone and demand that an officer be sent there within so many hours. If one does not come, somebody will be told in no uncertain terms what will happen next time and the matter will be reported to the county committee of agriculture. I want to see that cut out. I want to see the small man getting the same treatment as the big man. If we do not do that, we are not giving justice to the small man.

I would ask that more attention be paid to the small farmer. There should be co-operation between the Minister for Agriculture and the Department of Lands to see what can be done for the small men who can be helped in 101 ways. We can increase the size of the holdings by giving more land and we can see that they get houses. At the present moment they will not get even a labourer's cottage.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Agriculture has nothing to do with these points.

Captain Giles

I say that if the Minister for Agriculture would consult with the Minister for Lands to see what could be done, I think we would get better results. If the Ministers for Local Government, Agriculture and Lands consulted more frequently, a scheme could be brought out under the Department of Agriculture whereby those people could get houses like everybody else. They would then be more independent, but it is a poor state of affairs to see those people in old thatched cottages, getting very little facilities from anybody, having to go out and beg work on the roads or the pits or from neighbours while they should be working on their own holdings.

In my own county we have roughly 5,000 labourers' cottages and they get very little attention from anybody, apart from the rate collector when he calls. I might say that 80 per cent. of the land we give to these cottages never sees the plough or the spade and not even a head of cabbage is grown on it. I think we should do something for these people, such as having soil tests or surveys to see if lime, or manures, would enable that land to be worked. Otherwise, we will have almost 4,000 acres of our best land idle. It had been tilled but it is run out now and the people can grow nothing on it. I think the parish agent could get these people back into thrifty ways again. I saw men rearing large families 30 years ago without having to go out to work, apart from their own one-acre holding and they were able to get a fairly good living out of it. The plot was not actually big enough for them and many of them dug away the ditches so that they could get another few yards. These thrifty people raised onions, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, etc., and were able to make a little market for themselves in the village. I think they could do the same again if they got some assistance but in this country everything is going to the bigger man.

I would say to the Minister that he has a big task and an unthankful task but one to which I know he is well able to stand up, whether he is criticised or not. Whatever schemes he has, let him bring them in and face up to them. If we have money to spend, let it be spent on agriculture and not on industry. Too much money was spent on industry for which we did not get any return and it is very unfair and unnatural to find that a man, who makes a leg of a chair or a stool for a piano, will get from £6 to £15 a week, while the man tilling the soil, who is up to his knees in mud, cannot get £4 10s. a week. How can we expect agriculture to prosper in those circumstances? We have killed agriculture ourselves.

I say to the farmers outside — organise, control your own destiny, get the best type of men at the top and consult and work with your Minister for Agriculture, no matter what Minister he is. You can hold your own future in your own hands. By all means produce a magazine or a paper of your own, that you can be proud of, for Irish farmers, for the big man and the small man. If we had the big man and the small man working together in harmony — and we could get it because I do not see why a cottier with one acre could not head a farming organisation as well as any other — we could get increased production. If the farmers do that, work and co-operate, this country will progress along the right lines.

Mr. O'Malley

When the Minister was making his introductory remarks last week on this Estimate, he opened by launching an attack on the Irish Press. I do not intend to go into the merits or demerits of that attack, but the basis of it was a suggestion that the newspaper was undermining the agricultural industry and particularly the cattle section of that industry, because the Irish Press came out with scare headlines with particular reference to the drop in prices of cattle. I shall just refer to that by mentioning one single matter. I have to-night's Evening Herald before me and the heading across column six on page nine is: “Cattle Prices Down.”

Mr. Hughes

They are not saying "collapsed."

Mr. O'Malley

"Cattle Prices Down" is there in black print in to-night's Evening Herald. It goes on to say:

"There was a quieter trade for both heifers and bullocks in the Dublin Cattle Market to-day and heavier sorts especially proved slow to clear.

Prices were generally reduced by 7/- to 10/- per live-weight cwt. Prime heifers made 128/-; prime bullocks 126/-.

Sheep met a quieter trade and supply proved difficult to clear..."

I suppose we will hear no more about that because it is the Evening Herald and that is no Pravda in the eyes of the Minister for Agriculture.

The Minister and members of his Party are still continuing the cant of "one more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough." I think that is what they are still preaching. "One more acre under the plough"— there are 80,000 acres gone from under the plough in just 12 months and that is the position about the plough. The number of sows in this country was reduced by 20 per cent. and the number of pigs by 150,000. That is the "one more sow."

"One more cow"— the number of milch cows is down according to the Minister's own figures by 45,000. No doubt we shall hear this slogan repeated over and over again in the coming by-election in Laois-Offaly. All these three points will probably be repeated by the Fine Gael spokesmen on behalf of the Labour candidate. I do not know how the farmers in Laois-Offaly will react to the speethes of the Fine Gael members, but it would seem the time has come when they are beginning at last to see the writing on the wall.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture (Mr. O. Flanagan)

You will not be as ready to speak about the farmers of Laois-Offaly in a fortnight's time.

Mr. O'Malley

Time alone will tell that.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Monday week will tell that.

Mr. O'Malley

I might not be as good a prophet as the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Nobody knows them better than I know them and I have honourably represented them for years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order, order!

Mr. O'Malley

My main purpose in getting up to-night was to refer to a matter to which the Minister in his introductory remarks and in all his explanatory document made no reference. It is one of the most important industries in this country and is directly under his control, namely, the bloodstock industry. I have looked through his speech and through every single paragraph and page of the document which he had prepared by the officials of his Department and nowhere is there any reference whatever to bloodstock. I trust I am in order in referring to this matter — I think it comes under sub-head J.

It was pointed out by the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh, when he was Minister, that the stud farms, as one section of the bloodstock industry, have one of the highest labour contents per acre in agriculture. The Minister could have dealt with this very important industry in view of the uneasiness which exists to-day about some recent happenings. There have been controversy, resignations, discussions and suppositions in regard to the purchase of Panaslipper. The ordinary small breeder and the more wealthy stud farmers are completely at a loss to understand who is in charge of the National Stud. Is it the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Finance or the directors of the National Stud?

I understand that the National Stud was vested in the Minister for Agriculture. Its inception took place on the 11th April, 1946. All the crops, live stock and other available assets at Tully were acquired on the 31st August, 1946, for the sum of £80,598. The farms, the lands and the buildings were then occupied under licence given by the Minister for Agriculture. In November, 1946, the National Stud really got down to business. They purchased the sire, Royal Charger, which was then a comparatively unknown animal and which is now known throughout the world. The price paid was described at the time as fantastic —50,000 guineas. We must give the directors of the National Stud credit where credit is due. To their everlasting credit, they showed extreme foresight in the purchase of Royal Charger. They syndicated that stallion for the sum of 198 guineas.

They were simply carrying out the wishes and instructions of this House, as expressed in the National Stud Act of 1945. The objects of the National Stud were specifically set out in Section 12 (2) of the Act. They were, to carry on the business of stud farming on any land which is the subject of any such lease and any other land held by the company, with the proviso that the breeder, particularly the small breeder in this country, would get priority and that such stallions would be available, if possible, to the smaller breeder at an economic price. That was all right and the National Stud commenced to carry out the wishes of the Oireachtas.

We then go on to 1948. The National Stud appeared to become a bit "cocky" and self-satisfied. All during this time, again to their credit, the directors were continuously seeking the services of a "long distance" sire. In 1948, they purchased three sires — Black Rock, for £8,465, Whitehall, for £6,890 and Preciptic for £15,131. In the same year they expended on five mares £33,633. There was very little criticism of those activities by the directors of the National Stud, in 1948.

Time went on and, in 1953, Irish horses won over £1,300,000 in 23 countries and the eyes of the bloodstock industries in the various countries were focussed on this country. We then purchased what the directors had been seeking for a very long time, the famous sire, Tulyar, for £250,000. At the same time, unfortunately, as time has proved, Royal Charger was sold for £106,324. It seems to be characteristic of the National Stud that they should have to apologise for all their actions. They buy something worthwhile, in their opinion the best, and they sell what has been proved to be just as good.

During the debate on the purchase of Tulyar, Deputies on both sides of the House were very critical of many aspects of the stud. The administration of the National Stud and/or—"and/or" I say—I qualify it because I have not sufficient information — the interference of the Minister for Agriculture and/or the Minister for Finance has set people wondering as to who exactly is running the National Stud. Is the National Stud being run by the directors? Is the National Stud being run by the Minister for Agriculture? Is the National Stud being run by the Minister for Finance?

The Minister has been critical of some of the decisions. Members on this side of the House have criticised the directorate. It has got to the stage that the Minister will have to come out in the open. As a man who resigned the other day said, there are certain confidential documents which he was not at liberty to disclose which should be presented to the House by the Minister so that we may know where we stand.

If things are not satisfactory, the Minister does not have to wait until the term of office of the various directors expires. He has powers under Section 13 (c) of the 1945 Act which says:—

"The said Articles shall provide that the chairman and all the other directors of the company shall always be appointed by, and may be removed from office by, the Minister for Finance, after consultation with the Minister for Agriculture."

If things are not going well in the National Stud, the Minister can remove one or all of the directors and can, under the Act, appoint a minimum of three or a maximum of seven new directors who will carry out the work of the board in an efficient manner. Does the fault lie with the National Stud? That is what the House and the people of the country want to know and that is what horse owners, particularly those of the smaller stud farms throughout the country, would like to know. Where does the fault lie? Who is administering the stud?

And yet in the same year, 1953, he actually took in £1,039 in stud fees. After that they leased him for £140 a year. There was no question of infertility there. I am giving these examples to show that something is wrong. It was said that Fianna Fáil appointed four or five of these directors. Possibly that is correct. I am not interested in who appointed them but if I were the Minister for Agriculture I would put out the lot of them very quickly if they were responsible for the appalling conduct of the affairs of the National Stud at the present time. I hope that in his reply the Minister will give us some information on this matter.

I do not want to go through the whole question about Tulyar again but some interesting statements were made when I asked the question on the subject on the 9th November, 1955, and when I raised the question on the adjournment that night. This is what the Minister for Finance, acting on behalf of the Minister for Agriculture, said:—

"The National Stud was set up by Act of this House and, by Act of this House, the choice was made as to the manner in which the stud would be run. The House then determined that it would be run, not by a Government Department, but by a company set up under the Companies Acts, with all the legal implications that involves, as regards the board of directors."

That is reported at column 675 of Volume 153 of the Official Report. Dealing with the sale of Tulyar the Minister said, as reported in the same volume:—

"The decision to sell Tulyar was taken by the unanimous resolution of the board of the National Stud."

That is what the Minister thinks. Section 25 of the National Stud Act of 1945, sub-section (5), states:—

"The company shall furnish to the Minister for Agriculture such information in relation to the policy, activities and decisions of the company as the said Minister may from time to time require."

Would it pay for the interest on the money?

Mr. Cunningham

Not at your present rate of interest for housing.

Mr. O'Donovan

That was the time Deputy MacEntee made the rate 5+per cent.

Mr. O'Malley

The progeny of Tulyar was worth 5+per cent. in those three years. On an investment of £250,000, we made £500,000 and even the Parliamentary Secretary, the financial genius of the Coalition Government, will agree that 200 per cent. profit after three years, and still to have the goose that laid the golden egg in our possession, is very good business. In eight months, this country got £700,000 and by the end of the year over £1,000,000 and of that some £600,000 came in in dollars. Ninety-eight of the progeny of Tulyar were born.

The Minister for Finance went on to say:—

"The Government agreed, and I agree, with the Minister for Agriculture that in any question where the stud is concerned it has got to be run directly by the directors of the stud. The only alternative you have is to keep them in office or to get rid of them."

What is the Parliamentary Secretary going to do? Is he going to keep this body in office or are they capable? The Minister went on:—

"You cannot blow hot and cold at the same time. You cannot leave the directors in control of the company and at the same time say that you will not permit them to carry on their job."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would the Deputy give the number of the Volume?

Mr. O'Malley

It is Volume 153, No. 4. Now we see the switch-over. Everything was left to the directors where Tulyar was concerned but not when Panaslipper was being sold. Panaslipper was bought for £45,000 and was being sold for £70,000. That £45,000 invested by the Minister for Finance brought in no return in all the months that they ran Panaslipper. They ran him in England three times and also in America and he did not win a race. There was no interference then by the Minister. The official statement issued was:—

"In June, 1955, the directors of the Irish National Stud Company, Limited, intimated to the Minister for Agriculture that they desired to purchase Panaslipper for stud purposes. Following their request, the Minister for Finance took up and paid for a further 45,000 £1 shares of the company to enable the company to complete his purchase for this purpose. On March 5th, 1956, the board of the stud company determined to sell the horse. No member of the Government was then informed of this decision."

There is the crib. They are cribbing now but there was no crib when Tulyar was sold. The official statement issued by the Government Information Bureau goes on to say:—

"On March 15th, 1956, the Minister for Agriculture learned for the first time, through the Press, of the intention to sell the horse."

Mr. O. Flanagan

It was not in the Irish Press they learned of it.

Mr. O'Malley

He must have been the only individual in this country to have to wait until the 15th March to hear of the intention to sell the horse when every man, woman and child knew of the deal which Mr. McCarthy contemplated. It was about time that they woke up to the fact after it was known all over the world. Of course, that is the value of indecision. The Government takes about 12 months to make up its mind on any point.

Mr. O'Donovan

There are times when that is not a bad fault.

Mr. O'Malley

The statement goes on to say that the Government felt that the proposed sale of the horse was a major change of policy in which they should have been consulted and that they did not desire to sell the horse. The Minister goes on to pay great tribute to the attitude of Mr. McCarthy, the American. I have no doubt that he is very deserving of that praise. The Minister stated that he had a legal lien on the horse and that if he had wished to do so he could enforce that agreement. I would like to give another quotation. It is interesting, in passing, to reflect for a moment on what Deputy Blowick, now Minister for Lands, had to say when Tulyar was being debated:—

"It is no trouble, apparently, to the present Government to come in here—"

that was the last Government

"— and demand £250,000 for the purchase of this horse, but why is the Government taking such a long time to tell the milk producers the price they are going to pay them? Are they taking any steps to spend £250,000 to promote the production of beef or milk?"

That was Deputy Blowick, now Minister for Lands. The present Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman, then attacked Deputy Walsh, Minister for Agriculture at that time. He had this to say:—

"It is no good for the Minister to shelter behind others and say this is not his decision, that it is a matter for the directors. This is the people's property and, no matter by whom the decision is taken, the people have a right to be told what the position is and be able to judge on the true facts when they are properly presented."

Then we had Deputy Crowe. Listen to his little intervention:—

"Apparently it is very hard on the Minister for Agriculture to grant an increase of 3d. or 4d. to the sorely-tried dairy farmers who are the heart and soul and the life-blood of the nation at a time when the cost of production has gone up immensely, and it has gone up immensely within the past two years. I consider it is very unwise of the Minister to pay out £250,000, as well as the cost of insurance, etc., at a time when we are told by the Minister for Finance that we are on the verge of bankruptcy."

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy got that off at speed. The Minister is not responsible for what every Deputy sitting behind him says.

Mr. O'Malley

I was only showing the attitude of certain people.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is responsible for policy and administration, but he is not responsible for what other Deputies say.

Mr. McGrath

But the Deputy is responsible for the Minister.

Mr. O'Malley

Now the Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman, through the Government Information Bureau, praised the attitude of Mr. McCarthy in agreeing not to exercise and enforce his lien on Panaslipper. In my opinion, that put the nation in a very embarrassing position, to say the least of it. It is embarrassing to think that we should have to kow-tow to Mr. McCarthy, or any American, or indeed any other individual for that matter, and say: "We are sorry. The National Stud definitely did agree to sell, but we would ask you not to go through with it." Here is what Deputy Sweetman had to say, when he was just Deputy Sweetman on 26th February, 1953, in relation to Tulyar:—

"It has been suggested, however, by people who know far more about this than I do, that no sire will ever be successful in the American climate in the same way as it would be successful in this climate. So far as I am concerned, I feel that I must rely for judgment in this matter on the people who I believe are experts at their job. They wee undoubtedly the authorised agents of the Irish people and as such were entitled to make the contract they did make. We cannot turn around now, as they were authorised in that respect, and tell them that on behalf of the Irish people we propose to welsh on a contract duly and validly made."

A contract duly and validly made!

"For that reason, if for no other, I personally feel constrained to support the proposal."

What a change there has been since. We do not hear any screaming from the Labour Party now of the failure to obtain £70,000 from the sale of a horse. We do not hear any criticism from the Minister for Health, Deputy O'Higgins, about the National Stud and the fantastic sums of money which passed through the hands of its directors from year to year. Indeed, this matter of the National Stud could be discussed interminably, but I do not propose to prolong the debate any further.

I appeal to the Minister again to let the House and the people have a clear-cut statement on the whole position. We had, as everyone knows, until public opinion and the smaller breeder forced a change of policy, the National Stud making a complete farce out of this syndication of Tulyar. We all know who got the nominations. We all know that in the first year there were very few nominations given to the people Tulyar was intended to benefit, namely, the small breeder. It is noteworthy that one or two gentlemen appeared out of the hat and perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government will explain to us the extraordinary coincidence of one individual coming out of the hat three times.

Mr. O'Donovan

I was not there.

Mr. O'Malley

Two or three gentlemen were lucky enough to obtain a nomination at £600, which was a giveaway really as far as Tulyar was concerned.

Mr. O'Donovan

The position is still not clear. Is the Deputy for the directors or against them?

Mr. O'Malley

The Parliamentary Secretary can very easily make up my mind. The Minister could have made up my mind if he had, either in his introductory statement or in his explanatory memorandum, referred to one of the most important sections of agriculture here, namely, the blood-stock industry. I only hope that when the Minister comes to conclude the debate he will give a clear-cut statement to the House as to his intentions. Were the directors of the National Stud incompetent and will the Minister, remove them for their incompetence? If they were not incompetent, did the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Finance, exceed their powers by giving certain directions to the directors?

As I have already said, we had a resignation from the directorate of the National Stud, Mr. Reynolds. I say it is a pity he did not go long ago. It is a pity he did not go when Tulyar was sold. It is a bit late in the day for him to be expressing his disapproval, but I suppose better late than never. Now he has restrained himself from making any statement on the matter. He has put the onus on the Ministers involved and he has suggested that they should explain.

The onus is now on the Minister for Agriculture to let us know in his reply — those of us who represent the small breeders and the large breeders — whither goest the National Stud? In what direction is it proceeding? What policy is fixed? If there is no policy, could there be a reshuffle now and could we put it back again on a proper footing, back to the position it was in when it commenced in such a worthy manner? In the interim it has seemed to deviate and unfortunately it was encouraged in that deviation with the consent of the present Government in allowing the greatest sire in the country to be disposed of. We have not yet heard from the Minister if that money has been paid. The condition of the sale of Tulyar was that the money would be deposited and after 30th June Tulyar would depart for the United States. We have not heard anything about the money, even though we may hope. In the case of Panaslipper the Minister went to Mr. McCarthy and said: "Look here, we know you bought the horse but we want him here." I suppose he would not consider going to Mr. George Hancock and saying: "Look here, we want Tulyar; he is the greatest sire in the world." I do not know if the Minister will do that. No one knows. The Parliamentary Secretary has urged me time and again to state whether I am for or against the National Stud. Candidly I cannot form an opinion because I have not sufficient information. Like everybody else, what I am saying is purely surmise on my part.

Mr. Childers

We found the Minister for Agriculture curiously pessimistic in his statement at the opening of this debate. He started off with the most ridiculous charges against the Irish Press, and on the subsequent day when he continued to speak on his Estimate, he did not seem to show the same breezy optimism which has been characteristic of him. One of the things we noticed is the fact that for years the Minister for Agriculture has been accustomed to take 1947 as the base line for comparing agricultural production, when the country, had been afflicted with the worst weather for 50 years and when the country had been without proper fertilisers or agricultural machinery for seven years as a result of a world war; it has been his practice to compare the rate of production at that time with whatever period he chose to take, either between 1948 and 1951 or subsequent to that period.

We do not know whether it is because the Minister for Industry and Commerce has supplanted the Minister for Agriculture in regard to agricultural statistics; in any event the Minister for Industry and Commerce announced last night that production was unchanged since 1906. The curious thing about his statement is that I believe he has been a little bit too pessimistic. I believe there has been a small increase in output since 1906. Therefore, whether it is that the Labour Party section of the Coalition Government decided to take over the job of announcing main agricultural statistics and to deprive the Minister of the opportunity of comparing production in these two ridiculous sets of years or not we do not know. But we do know that the Minister opened his remarks with his comment on the Irish Press which we regard as absolutely farcical. Whenever I asked any farmers in Longford who read the Irish Press whether they sold their cattle because of the character of the strip heading in that paper, they laughed at me. They thought it was the biggest joke they ever heard.

I do not know whether the Minister for Agriculture likes to insult farmers and to imagine they have complete absence of any common sense or understanding of the market position, or what purpose he thinks he can serve in making remarks of this kind. In any event, I could not find any Fianna Fáil farmers in County Longford who, staggered by the strip heading in the Irish Press, sold cattle they otherwise would have kept. However, I found a good many farmers, with different Party affiliations including that of Fine Gael, who for personal reasons of their own were forced to sell their cattle without having to consider the Irish Press, because they could not afford to keep them, because retention did not fit in with their rotation or for many other reasons of their own. They were annoyed with the Minister for Agriculture — they were not laughing— because he was giving an entirely false reason as to why they were selling their cattle; and they were selling them at a considerable loss to themselves.

The Minister could not necessarily be held responsible for that but that is what I discovered in regard to this whole matter and we think, on this side of the House, that the Minister is simply escaping from his responsibility as he did previously when he compared the present production effort with that of 1947. As we always said in this House, you only have to go two years back to 1945, after five years of war, to find that the production level had shown practically no increase. Of course, if you select figures for two particular years you can prove anything in agriculture. You can boast around the country madly that the number of cattle under one had gone up to 1,000,000. If you look back to the book of statistics you will discover that the number of cattle under one reached 1,000,000 during the term of office of Fianna Fáil and before that. It depends on which two years you take in order to prove a bogus case.

The Minister failed utterly to face the challenges with which he is confronted at the present time. One of the challenges he has to face is his contribution to dealing with the balance of payments difficulty, dealing with the situation whereby our exports went down in 1955, whereby many forms of agricultural production decreased in 1955 and imports went up. So far the only contribution we have had from the Government is an emergency levy to reduce imports. The other contribution the Minister for Finance does not care to advertise is the credit squeeze that is going on. It is just as well to mention the negative help that the Minister for Agriculture is getting so far as this side of the problem is concerned, that there is at this moment the continued credit squeeze which affects every class of the community, the non-productive element more than the other, but it is the greatest assistance the Minister for Finance has in reducing imports and probably is of more value than the emergency levy.

We are not saying that some sort of restriction of credit would not be necessary if applied wisely and with proper discrimination. We are not saying that the situation is not inevitable in the circumstances but we do know that the Minister for Agriculture is pessimistic and that the Minister for Finance has not acknowledged the help he has got, in regard to reducing imports, from the banks.

The Minister has not faced the one difficulty which no Government has entirely succeeded in facing, namely, that the farmers in this country fear that if they increase production their prices will go down. In spite of the number of cash inducements to farmers, in spite of the number of guaranteed prices that have existed, the farmers of this country still have that fear. They have it primarily because of the rapid changes of policy that take place when the Coalition Government get in with their prejudice against the Fianna Fáil system of cash guarantees. That shows itself in changes in the system and as a result farmers have never yet had the confidence to go ahead in the way in which we would like them to and in which we would hope they would do. The Minister has not yet faced that challenge.

Another challenge he has not faced is that there is not half enough capital invested in agriculture, that capital is not available to small farmers, taken large and wide. The whole capital structure of farming is utterly inadequate and that demands a policy of long term development. Nobody has succeeded in dealing with that entirely but the Minister now has an opportunity to command aid for this particular work which he possibly never could command before, due to the fact that we have got to export more produce, due to the fact that the Minister for Agriculture is in a position to demand of his colleagues far greater assistance to help him in his problem. He is even in the position at the present time to ask the rest of the community, if necessary, to make sacrifices in order that there may be a sufficient injection of capital into agriculture and in order that all these difficulties, many of which have been with us for a long time, may be overcome. The Minister is in an ideal position at the present time. He is in that position because of the difficulties we face and because the public, who might in other circumstances think that measures adopted to expand production were extravagant, ill-advised or perhaps speculative, would be inclined to support a Minister for Agriculture who had some new ideas in view of the seriousness of the country's economic position. So far as we can see, he has not faced that challenge.

There is another challenge he has not faced, one which is very much easier for him than ever it was before. The level of agricultural teaching is disgracefully low in this country. The problem is made easier for the Minister because of the National Farmers' Association and Macra na Feirme which have published an important document admitting that is the case. They have published a statement saying there are three things required to bring about increased farm production — to give farmers more confidence, greater use of capital and greater educational facilities. They even go so far as to say the third is the most important of all, so that the Minister's problem is in some ways easier because an organisation outside politics, a new national organisation, has made declarations upon the matter. The Minister's task is easier than it was before, when, if he thought of new ideas or proposed new policies, he would run the risk that, if no national farmers' organisation had pronounced upon these proposals, they would be criticised from the other side of the House merely for making debating points or because members of the House thought they were wrong.

The Minister now has this work done for him and the Opposition, if forming the Government, would be in exactly the same position. That gives the Minister a great opportunity. I think one of the curious things about this debate is that the Minister did not mention the National Farmers' Association in the course of his address. It is not the first time that an effort has been made to start a non-political farmers' association, avoiding the difficulty of having to support the interests of the big farmer as against the small farmer, avoiding the difficulty of having to disengage from political controversy. The fact is that the National Farmers' Association has a number of ways of advising the Minister. Its membership is constantly increasing and the level of its pronouncements is certainly far above that of any other association I have seen for many a long year. Yet the Minister has made no comment upon it.

I would like to ask whether the Minister rather regrets the growth of the National Farmers' Association or what is his view about it and why, as this organisation is growing rapidly throughout the country, he took no advantage of its existence to modify his general attitude to agricultural problems and their solution.

The Minister has the opportunity of criticising the National Farmers' Association for any of those defects either in organisation or extent or scope of their activities. He has equally the opportunity of doing what has been impossible up to now for many reasons, social and historical, of beginning to invite a neutral farmers' association to take a far greater part in the day-to-day and week-to-week administration of agricultural policy and of using that organisation and the advantages that may spring from it to decentralise the work of the Ministry and to ask for consultation at every level on every problem so as to give farmers a sense of their own responsibility as a vocational organisation.

The Minister has that opportunity, as would anyone who was Minister for Agriculture this year and has the opportunity of guiding the work of this Department, because it is quite obvious from a study of the figures of the growth of the National Farmers' Association that its major growth took place in the lifetime of the present Government. They had barely got going when our Government was defeated and the Minister has now an ideal opportunity of speaking about the vocational organisation of farmers in this country and of giving a lead to the country upon it, and of saying how far the Minister must be responsible for promoting and administering policy and how far he thinks he can give the farmers for the first time in the history of this country a far greater and more immediate part in carrying out farming policy and in making proposals for changes, and in bringing the main lines of policy from Merrion Street down to the very smallest parish so that they can be discussed by farmers sitting round the fireside or in halls, so that they may feel they have a far more intimate part in what Merrion Street does and thinks than they have had before. It is a great surprise to me as I said that there has been neither criticism nor praise nor any comment from the Minister.

In regard to the question of capital, as the Minister knows, the debt on the amount invested in land in the form of external capital is about £1 per acre. There has never been any great change in regard to that. The banks have become essentially savings institutions and farmers are quite naturally determined, I think, to regard their deposits as savings for their families. Since the inception of the State there has been no change in the form of credit advanced by the banks. No effort was made by any Government, as yet, to organise credit facilities for farmers. The present Minister has simply said that he has every evidence that farmers did not want credit and he has left it at that. As the Minister very well knows, if agricultural production is to expand something will have to be done, not only about encouraging farmers to use more credit but to provide them with the necessary facilities.

The Minister has not faced the problem. It is a problem that affects farming and which has affected it for many years. Since the end of the war, with a full employment world in Great Britain, the demand for labour has been so tremendous and the wages offered so high that the economy of the small farm area has been largely dictated by the tremendous attractions of emigration and it is difficult to expect the small farmers in the small farm areas to undergo the risk of changing something like their present system of production and engaging in more capital expense when in fact, however modest their profits may be, they have increased, simply by there being fewer and fewer people each year on the land, and so long as agricultural prices continue to rise the people in the small farm areas have an automatic increase in income per head.

With this continuous development it is extraordinarily difficult to make any proposals which can be reasonably acceptable for increased production based on changes in fundamental methods and techniques because it is only human for a farmer to keep his investment low when, in fact, by diminution of the numbers of people living on it and by rising prices, higher profit levels can be consistently maintained. The Minister has not dealt with this fundamental problem nor has he adverted to it and yet it is the biggest issue we face — that there is a growing economic integration with Great Britain that could not be foreseen by either the Cumann na nGaedheal Party nor the Fianna Fáil Party when the State was established, an integration which is being effected by the full employment world in Great Britain and by the very high wages and salaries offered to the people. No one objects to a certain amount of emigration — it is natural to our people — but when, as I have stated, it became essential to start what I might describe as intensified modern farm methods in the small farm areas, the alternative solution offers a tremendously contrasted way of life which is difficult to change. In other words, every little bit of extra capital invested may increase production by 10 or 20 per cent., but the knowledge required is twice that and there is, again, five times as much worry for the farmer. That is the problem we are faced with and, as I have said, we have heard nothing from the Minister about it.

The Minister must be aware that the consolidation of holdings in all the western areas is proceeding apace. The work of the Land Commission is negligible compared with the falling in of holdings and the enlargement of holdings in the West. I suppose the most serious statement in the Population Commission Report, which no doubt the Minister has read, has been the sad fact that any increase of production that has taken place in this country in the last years has been on farms from 50 to 150 acres and the Population Commission Report announces an actual reduction in the output per acre of the smaller farm. As the smaller farms amount to one-half to two-thirds of the land of this country, that is a really serious problem which ought to be faced manfully and which ought to be the subject as far as possible of non-political discussion here because it may be the death of this nation if it continues. As Deputies have already said on both sides of the House, the small farmers have not the capital to engage in modern methods, have not the organisation as yet to co-operate with their neighbours in sharing modern machinery and they live far away from the main centres of propaganda and instruction and, apparently, the problem is a very serious one which is in no way being faced.

Part of the reason for all this is the fact that we have been discussing in this House, largely, since 1947, matters that have no concern with production. Thanks to the Coalition policy and propaganda during three general elections, most of the discussion and the debate, both during by-elections, general elections and in this House, has been on non-productive matters. We are always discussing the retail prices, the cost of living. People have become obsessed with price levels instead of considering costs of production and greater output. We have set the very worst example that can be set in this House by this long conflict, for which the Coalition Parties are entirely responsible, on retail prices, the cost of living, how much people have to pay for bread to-morrow, for tobacco the next day and stout the next day. It is all, it is true, a snare and delusion. We are seeing the last and the end of it at the present time but, nevertheless, it has prevented any kind of fundamental attitude to production being typical of this House.

It is interesting that the National Farmers' Association has put improvement in education first in their programme and it is interesting that in their report on the institute they have even suggested that there must be some education on national objectives in regard to agriculture. They have suggested a form of education that you could find in the earlier days of the Catholic organised co-operatives of Belgium or in the Danish high schools. It is clearly indicated in the agricultural institute report that it is necessary that the younger people be taught something about the importance of fertility, of unlocking the fertility in the soil, the importance of seeing that every parish produces as much as it can and every family produces as much as it can and that there is a contribution in that way to the nation as a whole. That has been recommended by the National Farmers' Association and it has passed almost without notice. It is probably one of the most remarkable recommendations by any farmers' body in the last 30 years. In the light of the fact, as I have said, that production has been diminishing in the small farms, it is of very great significance.

The whole problem is even more fundamental than that. The world of technology has not yet come to rural Ireland. The world of science and technology has not yet come to the younger people. We have the poorest form of education in Northern Europe. There is no country where there is less teaching of science, either rural or otherwise, than there is in this country. Educational experts are well aware of the fact that if a child leaves school at 14 years of age, unless he is a very special genius, he has not yet acquired the knowledge even of his own language to understand what technology means, to be able to choose between a technological career and a career not connected with science either rural or otherwise or to be able to feel that he can translate into words what productivity means. It is recognised all over the world that the school-leaving age is far too low if that be the objective.

Since the war and with the advent of the Butler Act in Great Britain and with improvements in education elsewhere, we have fallen very far behind in our standards in regard to scientific instruction applied to farming or anything else. When we speak of these things, no one disagrees. No matter to whom you talk, everyone agrees that education has fallen behind; everyone agrees that there is a tremendous absence of scientific thought amongst the younger people in the rural districts; everyone agrees that something must be done about it but, so far, no action has taken place.

Mr. Dillon

Does not the Deputy consider that the parish plan would have done something to remedy that position?

Mr. Childers

It is a contribution.

Mr. Dillon

Nobody more than he did all in his power to frustrate it.

Mr. Childers

We are not talking about the administration of the parish plan.

Mr. Moher

When I get up I will give you my views on the parish plan.

Mr. Childers

It has been found in practically every country engaged in agriculture that, in addition to local advisers, there has to be a far greater degree of teaching, both practical and theoretical, for farmers' sons and, indeed, for their daughters in many cases. Our level of teaching has fallen very far behind that of other countries.

Mr. Dillon

Has the Deputy ever attended one of the short courses at Athenry?

Mr. Childers

I have attended one of the short courses. It is the number of pupils that attend them that is important. Of course, the Minister is not referring to that. Will the Minister let me develop my speech? I have not said that there is not a system of teaching here available. The difficulty is that there are not one-tenth the number of pupils, one-tenth the number of teachers and there has not yet entered into this country the spirit of agricultural technology. The scientific scene does not yet exist in the small rural community, not in the sense that it exists among our competitors in Europe. It exists there. We should not be ashamed of talking about it.

Other countries have had to fight for more education. Education has improved in other countries not always as a result of people all over the country suddenly passing resolutions. It has frequently been the result of leadership in one particular sphere of activity or another. In some cases in Europe it has been the Church of the majority faith of this country that has taken a very large part in actually stimulating rural science education. In some cases it has been the Lutheran Church but, whatever the influence has been, someone has to give the lead. Improvement does not generally come by thousands of people all over the country passing resolutions demanding more education. There generally has to be some form of leadership before something is done.

I wanted to speak about it here tonight because I have taken the opportunity of making a very considerable study of this, both in the way the system works here and in other countries, and I feel perfectly certain that it lies at the root of many of our difficulties. We need about 500,000 scientists, managers, chemists, soil experts, agricultural engineers, putting it dramatically, in this country in order to administer agriculture properly.

Mr. Dillon

Half a million?

Mr. Childers

The Minister knows if I am exaggerating, as he himself does, in order to give an instance of the tremendous deficiencies that exist. One can make comparisons in regard to all these matters. As I have said, the National Farmers' Association have made some very interesting statements and have proposed a number of changes.

These remarks might be addressed to the Minister for Education, who would be able to answer them.

Mr. Childers

No matter where I look I find that these educational services are far more extensive than they are here. Is it not obvious from the stagnation of agriculture that a great deal more will have to be done in that direction particularly because our land is not as uniform as that of Holland? Our problems are greater and require a greater knowledge of agricultural matters generally than is the case in certain parts of Europe where you have a certain dull uniformity over huge areas. The problem is greater here than there.

I also find that so far as research grants are concerned we are far behind other countries. In Holland £1,000,000 a year is made available for agricultural research. I do not see how the Minister can be refused if he puts up the case to the Minister for Finance that more money is needed for research. That is the amount of money that is available in Holland for 5,500,000 arable acres as compared with our 11,000,000.

In their report on the agricultural institute the National Farmers' Association adverted to all these things. I agree that so far as the level of education is concerned, it can only develop slowly. I believe that the suggestions made by the National Farmers' Association and Macra na Feirme are well worthy of consideration. They do not advocate the abolition of the county committees of agriculture but they advocate that they should become corporate bodies with a greater number of co-options from farmers in the area and that they should be modified to suit the needs of the present day; modified so as to get the kind of people on to them who will take a great personal interest in the month to month working of the parish agent and see that the agent does group work in the different parishes.

I do not know whether the Minister is cynical and thinks that the National Farmers' Association have over-estimated their capability to be able to do this, but I would like to ask the Minister whether he has considered the paragraphs in the commission's report in regard to that matter. In Holland the work of the advisers and their assistants is largely assisted by co-operative advisory associations.

Mr. Dillon

I thought that in Holland they were almost entirely State controlled.

Mr. Childers

They are State controlled but these advisers work largely with a variety of co-operative advisory associations. They meet these people everywhere and work with them collectively so that there is a far greater volume of group work done and there is a far greater number of pilot farms in Holland such as the one we are now running in Kildare. The amount of group and co-operative work done to the advice of these people is far greater than it is here. I am suggesting that the representations made by the National Farmers' Association in regard to the modification of county committees of agriculture in order to enable them to take a greater part in the work of the parish agents seem to me to be of great importance. I feel very strongly that we are not going to make much progress until, in some way or other, the farmers can feel that they are really part of the Department of Agriculture.

But there is no statutory obligation to do anything — there is an option — and a great many of them do not do anything. There are entirely human reasons for that, of which the Minister is well aware. There is nothing disgraceful in it. As the Minister would know if he read the minutes of the county committees, because of natural tradition they are really administrative bodies. They pass votes authorising this person to do this thing and another person to do something else. They do not, for example, hold fortnightly meetings to discuss what is being done in the area, what lags in the way of improvements in agricultural production, because there is no broad survey of the deficiencies in the several areas. I do not mean mentioning the names of farmers, but there is no sort of competitive work undertaken by the committees because the advisers are not given a broad picture of the target to be achieved in relation to any particular area. They are not given particular problems to solve and, because the committees do not live in that spirit, they have not yet played the part they should play in improving agricultural production both from the standpoint of propaganda and the standpoint of social relations in so far as the farming community is concerned.

I am sure the Minister will agree with that. I think it is a matter that requires consideration. I hope I have said sufficient to suggest that this whole question of education requires consideration. I would like now to deal in more detail with the question of the market for beef in Great Britain. I think it is a pity that the Minister indulged in this criticism of the Irish Press because I think the problem is a serious one. I think the farmers need some kind of lead from the Minister, if he can give it to them, in regard to the marketing of cattle.

As the Minister knows the bulk of the chilled beef has been coming into Great Britain between August and December. At the same time peak production in home-produced beef in Great Britain also takes place, plus very big sales from here to Great Britain at the same time. That is a problem our farmers have to face. As the Minister knows, there have been all sorts of exhortations to people not to buy their cattle at the peak price period but rather to buy their cattle earlier, try to get them improved earlier and sold earlier. That is a very difficult thing to do and it is not always even possible to do it. In any event, I think the farmers, instead of being told they should not pay attention to the Irish Press headings, need more advice on the marketing of beef in general. The farmers, for example, are very worried about the entrance of Argentine beef on the British market at 1/7 per lb. There have been statements made by various agricultural economists in Great Britain pointing out that the average exports to Great Britain have been 63,000 tons from 1951 to 1953 as compared with 355,000 tons pre-war. These economists seem to take the view that, although there may be some increase in frozen beef exports from the Argentine, they will never reach the pre-war level because of the growth of population there and permanent changes in the Argentine economy.

I think the Minister should give some advice on that matter because there has been considerable perturbation in agricultural circles in relation to the wild prophecies made as to the extent to which Argentine beef will flood the market. That will obviously affect prices at certain times of the year and, if the Argentine continues to send towards the end of the year and we continue to have very heavy sales at the end of the grass period, we will be faced with a formidable difficulty if cattle are exported on the hoof, not through any co-operative marketing operation but through the prices paid to individual farmers. If that continues we shall be faced with a permanent and difficult problem. Equally, if a great deal of finished British beef also appears on the market at the same time, the problem will be made even more difficult still. I think the Minister should give his views on that.

I am myself an incurable optimist in regard to the future of agriculture. I refuse to listen to the many Jeremiahs who hold that we can never advance for this reason or that reason. I have noted the fact that the British are consuming 250,000 tons less beef than they were consuming pre-war and they are not yet, in fact, very high consumers of beef. The consumption in Ibs. per head for the year 1954 was 43 in the United Kingdom; 37 in West Germany; 82 in Canada; 89 in the U.S.A.; 108 in New Zealand; 119 in Australia; and we have the truly fantastic figure of 185 in the Argentine. Perhaps some slight reduction in Argentine consumption at home may help to contribute towards exports to Great Britain. But the figure for home consumption in the Argentine is, as I have said, a fantastic one and, even allowing for an increase of beef from the Argentine, I do not know at what figure one could put that increase; at present it is 63,000 tons for the last three years. If it reached another 30,000 or 40,000 tons and if New Zealand managed to add another 15,000 tons, there is still an enormous opportunity for us, as the Minister knows, provided our cattle are the right kind and the right weight and provided we study the British market.

Again, I think that in face of our present problems the Minister will have to do far more market research into the whole question of the cattle trade here. I made a tremendous effort myself to find out what the situation is, to find out whether there has been any research into the future possible trend of the British market, to find out whether the small lean joint habit is likely to last, whether it will be a permanent feature because of the smaller British family, because of the children living away from their parents and because of higher incomes, to find out what the proportion of the large joint required for catering purposes is as compared with the small joint and to get some kind of market trend and some kind of idea as to where we are going. I have made an effort to find out whether the policy of breeding and the use of bulls here really conforms with the future market trend of Great Britain, whether the farmers, who are out of touch with the market and have not got the figures and who do not know anything about what the market trend will be in detail, are able to get the advice as to how they can act in face of present circumstances.

I am a firm believer in market research. I had enough experience in the advertising world to know how unpleasant and hard-boiled and materialistic it sounds, but it has become an essential feature of modern commercial life and some effort should be made to measure the situation in Great Britain at the present time. I was at Cambridge recently and there I inquired into the work of progeny testing on cattle, and the success achieved in proving the hereditary factor in the conversion rate of young cattle when fed on equal quantities of food. I would like to ask the Minister whether he could not persuade the Minister for Finance that we could be one of the leaders in the world in that, even as a small country, whether, if our principal job is selling cattle on the hoof to Great Britain, if it is going to be one of our major forms of production, he could persuade the Minister for Finance to let us be one of the leaders in that, one of the initiators.

Mr. Dillon

In what?

Mr. Childers

I would like to close by asking the Minister if he has reconsidered the question of the high prices of fertilisers in this country? As the Minister knows, the figures have been published for competitive prices of all sorts of fertilisers in many countries abroad and, in the case for example of phosphates, the price here is extremely high. In fact, in about November, 1955, the price of phosphates here was the third highest in Europe. I would like to ask the Minister if there is any way out of that difficulty and whether he is examining the problem? The figures that have been produced by some farm organisation showing the profits that can be made by the application of phosphates in various countries show a very diminished profit figure in the case of Ireland.

It is clear that sufficient quantities of phosphates are not used because the price is so high and in view of that it seems strange that we should have such a prejudice in regard to subsidising fertilisers. That prejudice arose partly because there may have been some difficulty in administering the subsidy but when we consider the expenditure of £25,000,000 a year on capital services and that only some £6,000,000 are devoted to agriculture we realise that this is something for which not only the present Minister but former Ministers must take responsibility and something which I think underlies the whole background of our problem. We have not yet been able to reverse these figures and I think if we had been able to do so the money for housing and all the other non-productive expenditures would have been found very quickly.

Both Governments have continued that position, but in relation to this huge capital programme why is the present Minister still prejudiced against the application of heavy subsidies to fertilisers? I think it is essential for the development of the industry. The Minister apparently believes that a subsidy could not be made available without the danger of its being absorbed in higher profits——

Mr. Dillon

I do not believe in subsidising the industry.

Mr. Childers

I think that is a very serious statement by the Minister because the British Government does subsidise fertilisers as the Minister knows.

Mr. Dillon

They do.

Mr. Childers

I think there are other countries where fertilisers are subsidised and where apparently racketeering does take place in prices merged at various points. It seems to me to be mere prejudice. We spend enormous sums of money on every kind of capital work such as arterial drainage, which is very valuable and very necessary, but, if there is a lack of capital, I honestly think if we are going to spend capital it would be better spent on fertilisers than on arterial drainage if the money is not available for both.

I would like to ask the Minister does he consider whether most of the suggestions he has made depend ultimately on enormous increases in the amount of grass and feeding stuff available in this country? The quicker turnover of cattle which is essential if we are to expand production can only come from that. The sending of cattle of nine and ten cwt. to England at the age of two years on a far bigger scale, if that is to be the future trend, can only come from that. It seems absolutely essential to consider in the light of present circumstances, particularly in view of the present change in market trends, the old question of fertiliser price margins. I cannot see any justification in spending £8,000,000 a year in subsidising bread at the present time, at this stage of our history, at this stage of our inflation, if we cannot afford subsidies for fertilisers.

Mr. Deering

Practically everything has been said on this Estimate, but I would like to compliment the Minister on his great grasp of every detail that is in the interests of agriculture. Take the limestone subsidy. Much has been said about the good effects achieved by the use of lime on the farm and the farmers have been helped considerably by this limestone scheme. Quite a lot has been said from the opposite benches of the extra expense involved because of certain monopolies by companies in the transport of ground limestone. It is a wonder that they did not rectify that matter. They claim to have started it. If they did, why did they not start it on a proper footing? If they did not start it, they had a chance some two or three years ago of straightening the matter out and there would be no need for them to spend one and a half hours here criticising the set up and trying to lay the blame on the inter-Parties.

Certainly, the good effects of the scheme are to be seen all over the country in the wonderfully green fields in the very early spring, continuing into the late autumn and early winter. There is almost an all the year round production of the best natural food, good grass.

Most people are reluctant to mention wheat. I think the Government took a very good line in changing the set-up in regard to wheat. It will be admitted that wheat growing has a very low employment content in comparison with the growing of other grains that give all the year round employment. Take, for example, Kilkenny, the ex-Minister for Agriculture's constituency. Kilkenny grows approximately 46,000 acres of wheat, which costs the country very nearly £500,000 in subsidy. As against that, County Cavan grows only 1,000 acres of wheat but the growing of other crops there has a higher employment content. In Kilkenny there are only 12,500 male workers on the land and in Cavan, where there is very little wheat grown, there are 18,000 male workers on the land. In addition, the two counties are similar in size but Kilkenny has a valuation 20 per cent. higher than Cavan. Therefore, there is a good deal to be said for the type of farming carried on in Cavan, having regard to the employment content in the production of corn consumed on the farm and the production of cattle, pigs and other live stock for which there is an export market.

There is no export market for wheat. There could be a famine in the midst of plenty if there were over-production of wheat for which there is no export market.

Mr. MacCarthy

There is export to the people who eat it.

Mr. Deering

Did not I point out that the export is from the constituencies where wheat is grown? That is the unfortunate part.

Mr. MacCarthy

You are not taking the mills into account.

Mr. Deering

I am taking the overall picture. The best authorities in this country, some of them supporters of the Deputy's Party, have said that it is more important to keep the people at home than to have a higher standard of living. That is not merely my opinion. It is the opinion of people not very far from the Deputy's constituency, whose opinion is very highly valued. I would again compliment the Minister and his staff on the wonderful success they have made of agriculture.

Mr. Moher

I have been here all day and at this stage I am not in a fit condition to initiate a debate. For part of the time, the House sounded more like a political windmill than a debating chamber. I do not know how the Minister survived all the nauseating bouquets that have been flung from the opposite side of the House since the beginning of the debate.

I would not start off on the note which I intend to take were it not for the fact that I have been baited and taunted by the Minister across the House as the would-be assassin of the parish plan in Cork County. That charge having been placed on my head, the House is entitled to some explanation of my position in relation to the parish plan as a member of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture.

I want to go back, first of all, to the copy of the departmental notice which was issued by the Department of Agriculture to the C.A.O. in Cork. I want to repudiate any implication or insinuation that I was responsible for any of the opposition which the parish plan met in the Cork County Committee of Agriculture. I went to the Cork County Committee of Agriculture meeting and gave my views on the parish plan and I hope, before I am finished, to give a résumé of the statement which I made there.

The first intimation that the Cork County Committee of Agriculture got of the introduction of a parish agent in that part of Cork County represented by the two parishes of Kilworth and Ballynoe and Conna, was when the copy of a circular which was sent to the C.A.O. in Cork was circulated to the members of the county committee. There was no prior consultation and no prior information was given. There was merely the simple statement that this agent had arrived in the two parishes concerned and had taken up work there. That was the first intimation that we in the county committee of agriculture, the body that has a statutory responsibility for the provision of an advisory service in the county, not from the Minister and his Department.

I will tell the House what I did when I got that circular. I thought it was an innovation. I thought that organised farming interests in the county had a right to know. I typed five carbon copies of the circular. I sent one to the county representative of the M.P.A. in the area, another to the representative of Macra na Feirme, another to the secretary of the Mitchelstown society, another to the secretary of the Castlelyons Co-operative Creamery and another to the county secretary of the creamery suppliers. I thought that as an elected representative in the county I was entitled to pass that information on to the organised farmers of my constituency. That was the part I played.

The Minister is inclined to imply that I am opposed to the extension of advisory services in that county. That is not the case. Ever since I became associated with the county committee of agriculture, I have advocated the introduction of further advisory services where requests had been made for those services. I tried to initiate an advisory service with the local co-operative society. That disposes of the charge that I am opposed to advisory services in the county, but the big question that arises is the control of advisory services in the county and I expressed my view of what I thought of a further incursion by the State in the matter of the control of the advisory services. I know also that as far as the agricultural advisers under county committees of agriculture are concerned they are indirectly controlled by the Department of Agriculture, because a county committee of agriculture may do only what the Minister permits them to do.

Mr. Dillon

They need not do what the Minister wants them to do which is a very much more important thing.

Mr. Moher

The advisory services controlled by the county committees of agriculture are, to some extent, controlled by the Department of Agriculture. In fact they are so controlled to a very large extent. It was stated in the circular that the intention was to supplement rather than supplant the existing services. At the same time, there was the usual cute, ambiguous paragraph inserted at the bottom asking the C.A.O. to make such adjustments in the services as would accommodate the parish agent. I assumed that was because the Department or the Minister did not want duplication of the services in that area and that it was a polite and a veiled invitation to the committee to withdraw any advisory services they had in the area.

How then can you argue that the service was not supplanting an existing service? That is the question I pose here. Any opposition I expressed in the Cork County Committee of Agriculture to this parish agent was not to the parish agent himself or what he proposed to do but to the system by which he was controlled. I was in good company on that particular occasion because it was the very day on which one section of the dairy farmers were parading here in Dublin protesting against the delay in producing the Milk Costings Commission's Report by another group of civil servants.

The Cork County Committee of Agriculture faced the situation that day where the gallery overflowed into the committee chamber and every organised branch of farming in the county, through their spokesman, protested against the control of the parish agent directly by the Department of Agriculture. We have, as Deputy Childers has been saying, thanks be to God, reached the stage in this country when we have organised groups of farmers who, we must admit, speak for the farmers throughout the country. I have accepted that situation and I am sincerely glad to see such a development in every county throughout the country. So also should any Minister for Agriculture, because now the Minister for Agriculture is in the happy position that he can consult with the body representative of the farmers on any proposal he wishes to introduce.

As I was saying, a rather peculiar situation developed at that meeting in Cork. We heard first the spokesman of the National Farmers' Association who submitted a memorandum which expressed the considered views of the county executive of that association. There was concurrence from a spokesman on behalf of Macra na Feirme and finally from a representative of Muintir na Tíre, Professor Lyons. Professor Lyons came into the meeting also. I believe he is a member of the national executive of Muintir na Tíre and I believe that, in co-operation with the Very Rev. Canon Hayes, he was the author of the parish plan. He quoted extensively and first of all repudiated the suggestion that he at any time, as spokesman of Muintir na Tíre, advocated the control of the parish agent directly by the Department of Agriculture. He quoted from pamphlets and memoranda which he had written over a number of years.

I am in no difficulty whatever. I know the propaganda of Fine Gael in East Cork has been going full blast to try to represent me as a person who is opposed to giving advice to farmers in the constituency. I had from one very prominent farmer in the area a rather abusive letter charging me with trying to deprive the farmers in two East Cork parishes of the advice of a parish agent. I sat down and rattled off six sheets of foolscap and attached a note saying I was enclosing what amounted to an open letter and inviting him to publish it in any newspaper he wanted or to read it at any guild meeting of Muintir na Tíre in his area.

Mr. Dillon

Might he add, when he read the six pages: "He doth protest too much?"

Mr. Moher

The six pages dealt with State control generally and with the sterility which is being associated with State control in this country. I have a strong objection to the extension of that control to the advisory services and I will try, in as few words as I can, to give the reasons for my objections. I do not object to the parish plan. My objections are not based on the fact that the services have been introduced by Deputy James Dillon, the Fine Gael Minister for Agriculture, because I defended that same Minister at a public debate.

Mr. Allen

God forgive you.

Mr. Moher

These antagonisms and opposition to State control are as old as the Department of Agriculture itself. One of the things that we have lacked in this country is that no Government or no Minister has ever made a gesture that could be regarded or interpreted as an act of faith in the farmers or as an act of faith in organised farming in this country. The attitude always was that nothing could be done as effectively as it could be done by a Government Department.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 18 Apr 1956