When I moved to report progress last night I was rather defending myself at the Bar of the House against the charge of attempted assassination of the parish plan in County Cork.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.
You are not the only defendant in this case.
I think I gave a fair cross-section of what one might describe as the functionaries in a local guild of Muintir na Tire. However, I am reminded I forgot the school teacher or, as he is known locally, "the master", and I also forgot to mention the home assistance officer. I was going on to argue that this conflict between the bit of freedom which is left to organised groups and the inroads of bureaucracy is as old as the Department of Agriculture itself. I was pointing out that it began with the very foundations of the Department of Agriculture in this State. One of the oldest organised groups in the State was the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society founded by that great man, Horace Plunkett.
After he had founded this organisation and had done so much with so little for Irish agriculture and had fought all the opposition which was his lot to meet at that particular time, he was asked to form what was then, I believe, the Board of Agriculture by Balfour. He took with him a man by the name of Gill as his first secretary, leaving behind in his earlier foundation, the Irish Agricultural Organisation, Society, R.A. Anderson, another co-worker with him in the foundation of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. Later, when he left the Department of Agriculture and returned to his first foundation, he himself was amazed at the inroads that had been made by the new Department on the independence of the original foundation and it is interesting to note what Anderson himself had to say on this thing.
The Deputy's observations are not relevant to the Estimate before the House.
I am discussing what I might call the extension of the control of the Department of Agriculture in this matter, the direct control of the parish agent in the various counties where it operates.
The Deputy is evidently discussing the whole history of the Department of Agriculture.
No. I am just showing that the challenge is as old as the Department of Agriculture itself and I quote from Anderson in his book, With Plunkett in Ireland. This is what he had to say, when discussing the consequences of the I.A.O.S. accepting a subsidy from the Department of Agriculture:—
"I realised that we had bartered such freedom as we had, for the Department's subsidy. As the Department paid the piper, so it asserted the right to call the tune."
Again in the same book——
Perhaps the Deputy will be good enough to give the date of that declaration?
It is a quotation from page 117 of the book, With Plunkett in Ireland. That is as far as I can go. On page 132——
He was referring to the Department of Agriculture operated by the Tory or Liberal Government in Westminster.
He is referring to the inroads made upon the independence of the I.A.O.S. on accepting departmental control. Again, on page 132 in the same book he says:—
"It was not until then that he (Plunkett) realised the great mistake that had been made by imposing official control on a voluntary body, I.A.O.S., that he had founded. It had wellnigh killed all co-operative spirit and enthusiasm in us who formed its staff. It had destroyed all the initiative which had resulted in its remarkable progress, for we had no longer a free hand."
All this happened a long time ago. At the moment we are discussing the administration of the Department and the Minister's activities during the past 12 months.
I am trying to argue that private initiative, organised initiative controlling the advisory services, is by far the most satisfactory. In those quotations, I have been trying to show that this collision between departmental control and the invasion of the rights of independent organisations is an old one. I have given those opinions as impartial ones.
I was making the case last night that Muintir na Tíre is a rural organisation and in the areas in my constituency there are highly organised groups of agricultural organisations. There is a very distinct difference between Muintir na Tíre as a rural organisation and such organised bodies as the M.P.A., Macra na Feirme, The Irish Countrywomen's Association and the Irish Creamery Milk Producers' Association.
What is the M.P.A.?
Sorry, it should be the N.F.A. All those bodies represent active farming organisation. I think that, if we are to have local control, those are the bodies which we should co-ordinate with any advisory service which we should provide in an area. You cannot effectively operate a service in an area when you have organised opposition as was evidenced when this matter was being discussed in the Cork County Committee of Agriculture.
The Deputy organised it. Did the Deputy not write them all to come in?
No.
The Deputy told me last night that he took out his typewriter and made out six carbon copies.
Of the circular sent from the Department of Agriculture.
It was an invitation.
No, it was not.
It was something blooming like that.
That is a complete and absolute misrepresentation. I had nothing further to do with it. The whole project was discussed, as far as I am aware, at county level in those organisations. It was a decision by those organisations at county executive level. I should hate to think for one minute that I, on this side of the House, or any Deputy on the Minister's side of the House, would exert an influence and make any one of these organisations a political pawn.
One of the things for which we all hope and to which we look forward is that when those organisations exist they will have an independent and an objective approach and that they will consider anything that is of vital interest to agriculture and to Irish farming, outside the arena of Party politics. I am sure the Minister and every Deputy will agree that those organisations cannot be accused of, or labelled with, any political taint. I have been trying to make the case that if the Minister wants to do something big, something worth while, something with which his name will be associated, he has got to resolve this now. He has got to take organised farming into his confidence and try to make some arrangements by which the adviser, call him what you like, would be under local control. You surely can expect better results and you certainly can expect more co-operation. He may appear in a particular area where there is organised hostility. I do not say it is of an active kind but he is a kind of misplaced official wondering on which farm his advice would be acceptable and on which farm it would be repudiated. That is the case I have been trying to make and am putting to the Minister.
I go further and make this suggestion. I believe that the impetus behind the increased demands for the parish agent has a certain basis. I have been unofficially informed that there are 11 applications in the Minister's Department from Cork County. There is in this age of ours a fraudulent word "free" and I believe that the impelling force and the impetus at the back of those demands was the fact that the agent was a free agent paid for by the Department of Agriculture. He was paraded as free.
Let us not forget that there is nothing free to the agricultural community. In the final analysis, no matter where the free item goes, the burden will be shuffled by some device or another right down to the back of the agricultural community. I am not a believer in firing things around free. I am not afraid to say that I would like to see, as an earnest of the applications for advisory services, some contribution from the people who are making the application. Too many people in political life to-day make statements with an eye to the impact of those particular statements on their ballot box. As far as I am concerned, as long as I am a member of this House, be it long or short, if there are unpopular things to do, or to be suggested, I will not be afraid to suggest them. Neither will I be afraid to go back to the farmers in my constituency and defend my position; nor again will I be afraid to suggest that, as an earnest of these applications, there should be some local contribution from the people concerned.
Every Government Department tempts the agricultural community with something free, the dangled carrot or the coated pill. In Government Departments there is always the implied or stated suggestion that, if you do the thing, there is 50 per cent. recoupment, That has been the incentive behind a mad gallop for expenditure in this country. There is always the temptation and always the incentive.
Let me say, first of all, that I do not want to be misunderstood. I have never met Mr. Moran. I assume he is a decent Tipperary man from what I have heard of him. I know Dr. Henry Spain, the Minister's chief adviser, in connection with the operation of the parish plan.
On a point of order, I have no doubt what Deputy Moher intends to say is nothing but complimentary to the officers of the Department but if officers are to be mentioned by name and commented upon, that opens a wide field of undesirable procedure.
I want to put forward a suggestion. In the particular area in Cork where this parish agent now operates, there are two of the most progressive co-operative societies in Ireland. Kilworth is covered by the Mitchelstown Co-operative Creamery Society; Ballynoe, Conna and Ballyduff—I think it is a combined parish— are covered by the Castlelyons Co-operative Society. Both of these societies have already considerable financial commitments in those areas and operate services there. You have Mitchelstown with the breeding station and the veterinary service covering the whole area, and there are other services there as well. Our aim in those areas should be to try to use the organisations we have so that the co-operative societies in the area can do something worth while. These societies should be asked to co-operate even financially; they should be asked to contribute, say, one-third of the cost of any advisers which might operate in their co-operative areas. The Cork County Committee of Agriculture should also be asked to contribute a third, and the Department of Agriculture should contribute a third.
Is that not an equitable and sensible suggestion, that all groups of organised farming in the area would form themselves into a committee? The greatest possible harmony exists between the various agricultural organisations in the area. In many instances, as the Minister is aware, a member of one organisation would also be a member of another and all of them are shareholders in the two co-operative societies concerned. I did not come in to demolish the advisory services provided. I did come in to make a suggestion which, I think, would give results far better than the Minister can ever hope to obtain from the parish agent as he now operates in that area.
As I have stated, in that area there are two local co-operative societies. There are also the National Farmers' Association, Macra na Feirme, the Irish Creamery Milk Producers' Association, Muintir na Tíre and the Irish Countrywomen's Association. Every one of those organisations is allied to the two co-operative societies. Let us not exclude Muintir na Tíre; let us not be narrow about it and let us also include representation on that committee from Muintir na Tíre.
Have you not something there? Have not you a group of farming organisations in the area as well as the two co-operative societies concerned which will provide the credit and lend a hand in the operation of any plan? Remember, credit, as the Minister knows, is an important factor in any development in connection with agriculture. Where is it easier to get credit, where should it be easier to get credit or where would be a more sensible place to get credit than through a co-operative society which has assets which can guarantee a substantial bank overdraft? We do not want to throw our farmers to borrowing societies. We do not want to have our farmers committed too deeply in hire purchase. We know there is a constant drain on lending societies. If the farmer gets reasonable short-time credit from the local co-operative society, the Minister can be assured that he has got over the major difficulty in the matter of agricultural credit and agricultural development.
I make that suggestion. I do not believe in coming into the House and making destructive suggestions. I believe that if I oppose something I must show a logical reason for opposing it and that I must not oppose it merely because it was introduced by a Fine Gael Minister and I am under some suspicion sponsored by the Fine Gael organisation in that particular area.
I do not want to be paraded as being opposed to the extension of advisory services. We want advisory services but we want to make the most effective use of them and the plan which I have suggested is a plan which offers the Minister an assurance of success. If you set up in that area a local committee, controlled locally, away from the searing rust of departmental control, you can surely trust two societies who already manage an advisory service and, as the Department of Agriculture is aware, control an enormous personnel.
Let us come to the stage where we will show some act of faith, even at this late hour, in organised farming. One of the surest ways to prevent grousing and cribbing by organised groups is to commit them to doing something. Do not hold them continually in isolation. I can cast my mind back to the early days of the development of artificial insemination. I was associated as a pioneer with the society when that was introduced. Had the Department of Agriculture been the sponsoring authority, there would have been endless trouble, endless difficulty, yards of red tape, departmental regulations, technicians being prodded and pestered by officials in the office and always the terrible danger involved by the fact that the technician and the field man must always watch himself. The Minister knows what a Civil Service Department is as well as I do. The technician has to meet all the difficulties; he has to face all the bumps; he is the fellow who gets beaten around and the man who sits in a conditioned office is the man who says: "Why did you do that?" Then the unfortunate man has always got to watch the waspish official who might write something into his file which would remain there forever to militate against him.
These are the reasons why you can always hope to get better results by having a man on the spot, a man living amongst the people, a man who is part of the life of the community, not a displaced person with his control centred in Merrion Street. That is why, as the Minister prodded me into speaking on advisory services, I have decided to come out and to put to this House my views on what we should do by way of throwing back the responsibility for development, not to the Department of Agriculture.
We are possibly one of the most Civil Service ridden communities in Europe. There are too many people in this country doing unproductive work. There are too many people in this country who scribble in offices and do nothing. The Minister well knows that the Americans who came here suggested that the technician should be sent out to the field, that he will do no good in the office, that we should let him get out and meet the people, face the problems where they are and try to solve them on the spot.
He got a very warm reception from the Deputy when he went out into the field.
Who did?
The technician — the parish agent.
I never saw him.
He may not have ever seen the Deputy but he heard him.
Any criticism which I offered was not criticism of the unfortunate man who had been fired out into the wilderness by the Department of Agriculture.
"Fired out into the wilderness?" A minute ago the Deputy said he ought to be put out on the land.
He did not know where he would go.
If the Irish Department of Agriculture send him out, he is being sent to the wilderness. If the Americans send him out, he is being sent out on the land.
If the Minister starts badgering me it will be a matter of fire and cross-fire. Let us get on with it.
Hear, hear! Is fior dhuit.
I have put a suggestion to the Minister and he is still silent.
The Deputy was complaining a minute ago that I was saying too much.
The Minister would still prefer the dispensary doctor, the curate, the local school teacher, the gravedigger, the sewerage caretaker and the maternity nurse as the persons who should be organised to advise this particular man on what he should do in regard to farming in the area. I have suggested that practically every group of organised farming in existence in this State has groups and guilds in that particular area. I have suggested to the Minister that the best thing he can do to formulate that advisory service is to get these groups working together. Every section of organised farming in the county is represented in those groups. Then he should bring in as well, as ex-officio members of that committee, the manager of the creamery, the manager of the local co-operative society. Those two people are vital. So would the chief agricultural officer. That would give you a governing organisation, a sponsoring body that would be representative of all organised sections and it would also give the type of people necessary — the local co-operative society manager and the local creamery manager who would be able to provide the credit and further the schemes initiated by the parish agent.
I am aware, and so is the Minister, that the advisory services, as organised and operated in practically every county in the State, with the exception of a few, are extensive. They are extensive, in so far as the number of instructors are limited to cover huge areas. I shall not confine myself entirely to the parish as a unit because, as the Minister and anybody who knows rural Ireland is aware, a better unit might often be the group of shareholders served by a branch creamery. It has been suggested that in Cork County there are 98 or 99 parishes, and if we are to proceed on the basis of the three-parish plan——
Are these 99 rural parishes?
I would not like to be too specific but I am aware that the city is not included. There is the area known as the city rural area. If we are ultimately to arrive at the position where we would have an instructor to every three parishes then we are approaching what one might call an intensive advisory service. Here is something to be thought out. Surely the intensive service cannot proceed on the same lines as the extensive one. Surely when we concentrate on an adviser in a given area, first of all there is an enormous lot of work and here is where I object to the control of the Department of Agriculture because, side by side with this development, will come an enormous build-up behind the technician. There is the mathematical formula of Parkinson's law for the development and extension of the Civil Service.
There will be built up behind the technician another enormous staff that would not exist in the smallest comparative degree if the advisory service were controlled locally. I would hate to think that, if we had an intensive service, we would have schools of instructors racing round the parish taking soil samples with augurs and shoving them into their bags. Many farmers think of an advisory service along these lines; they think that the advisers should be there to do these things. They think that if there is a manurial shortage or if they have a spot of rust, the fellow will come out and locate it for them.
That is not the kind of idea we should have if we are to develop an intensive advisory service. We must first of all, in all areas, have somebody to give us a survey of basic levels of production at the time of the introduction of the advisory service and from there on would want to keep in mind the point from which we started and measure the development. In that way, we could measure the efficiency of the adviser and the need for co-operation in a particular area in which the adviser was working. Those are my views.
I want to refer to another difficulty. We know, and the Minister knows, that every agricultural science instructor is a civil servant. I was asked to speak to the Agricultural Science Faculty here in University College, Dublin, and I listened there to what I had been listening to years ago when I was a young man. The same clichés as I listened to 30 years ago were thrown out in Newman House that night. When we came down to the point I told them they were civil servants, no matter how they resented it and I said: "If you want to deny the fact that you are civil servants, is there a man here who will leave the sheltered position he has with a county committee of agriculture or with a Department and go to work with a private firm and run the risk of the exposure that is attached to failure?" No. They were then silent.
That is the difficulty. The co-operative societies could not develop an advisory service because those they would employ would not get the annual increment to which they would be entitled as employees of the county committee of agriculture or of the Civil Service. These people do not want to get away from the control of the Department of Agriculture on the one hand. Yet, on the other hand, they do not want this control. They simply want the advantages attached to it.
If we are to get them outside the control of all this business of regulations, regimentation, personal files and all the other regulations associated with technicians linked up with the Government Departments, surely the one way we can do it, the indirect way, is to have the local organisations working in co-operation with the county committees of agriculture. I have been associated with a county committee of agriculture for almost six years. Here you have a structure that would be substantially improved if the parish plan were put into operation and developed extensively throughout the country. It must, unfortunately, lead to the elimination and the liquidation of the county committees of agriculture.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 25th April, 1956.