When I moved to report progress last week I was suggesting to the Minister what I consider a better control of the advisory services now sponsored by Muintir na Tíre and controlled by the Department of Agriculture. We live in an agricultural country where it now seems that the fountain pen is regarded as a force mightier than the plough. We have two groups of agriculturists or farmers, first those who till the soil and produce the nation's wealth, and then we have the academic group, the scribbler at the desk and the hot air merchant or the geyser on the rostrum.
Committee on Finance - Vote 27—Agriculture (Resumed)
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration—(Deputy Walsh.)
Would it be impolite to inquire to which category the Deputy belongs?
The more silent section seems to be the worker on the headland. He seems to have very little to say; at least he is a silent worker and it is to him, to that section, we must look if we are to increase production and to improve the living standards, not alone of the agricultural community, but of the non-agricultural community as well. I am informed that recently the Taoiseach was the guest of the Southern Law Society at a dinner in Cork and he had to administer a sharp rap to the lawyers at that dinner who, in farming, now seem to be the force and to be the most vocal section in the community. If we could get rid of the hot air and encourage the people whose job it is to produce and to increase production, we would be much nearer a solution of the serious problem which we now face.
None of us can get away from the fact that we face, or maybe are in the throes of, a very serious national emergency. If we are to solve that problem and to obviate that emergency, then the only section of the community to which we must turn for a solution is the agricultural section. That solution can be found only when we get our farmers to increase production substantially. Then every section of the community will be assured of a higher standard of living and we might get rid of this irritable purchase tax. I would like to remind the non-agricultural sections of the community that the purchase tax had to be introduced because we failed in the last six months of last year to maintain a scale of production which would pay for the flow of imports, mostly of semi-luxury goods; perhaps I should not say that, but mostly of goods which are considered now by the non-agricultural sections of the community as attributes or accessories to modern living. We can get rid of that impost only if our farmers increase production substantially.
When I was speaking last week I was drawing a distinction between a rural organisation and a producer organisation and I was urging on the Minister that the best way we can achieve increased production is to tap the organised resources which are now available to the Minister. The Minister is in a very favourable position in comparison, say, with a Minister for Agriculture as head of the agricultural section, ten years ago. He now has organised farming, a latent force which, with co-operation, he can call upon to help him solve this very pressing problem.
I was suggesting a certain build-up. When I was speaking I suggested a local controlling committee for the local adviser, not a committee of representatives mainly of non-active agricultural sections of the community, but of those producer organisations whose job it is to do the work and to give us the increased production which we need. I suggested that the adviser should work in co-operation with a local controlling committee. Read my speech.
May I inquire if Deputy Moher proposes to make the same speech again as reported at columns 773, 774, 775, 776, 777, 778, 780 and 781?
Oh, no. I submit that I must make some reference to what I said to pick up the sequence of the line of argument I was pursuing and I can guarantee to the Minister that, as far as I possibly can, I will avoid repeating anything I said on the last occasion.
The Deputy should not repeat himself. I had not the advantage of hearing the Deputy on the previous occasion and I am not saying that he is repeating himself.
I have already referred to what the build-up of a local controlling committee should be. I put it now to the Minister that such interests as co-operative societies cannot possibly be excluded from a local controlling committee. I suggested that the C.A.O. should be the liaison between the county committees of agriculture and the Department of Agriculture, working in co-operation with the representatives I have suggested from local producing bodies in the area.
I submit that the representatives of the co-operative societies cannot be excluded because it is logical to assume that agriculture cannot be developed without increased capital expenditure on the part of those who want to increase production and agriculture cannot be expanded without availability of credit facilities. Therefore, the creamery manager and the representatives of the co-operative store cannot be excluded, because, on them, will fall the responsibility for providing the short term credit required to increase production. Again, if those farmers who are called upon to increase production want to gain the full benefit from that increased production, they must safeguard themselves against the swarm of parasitic middlemen who may descend upon them. For that reason, again, the responsibility for marketing the increased produce must rest on the co-operative societies. I submit that the co-operative societies are very deeply committed in this matter, inasmuch as they will be called upon to provide the capital by way of increased credit and to market the increased produce. This will naturally entail a considerable expansion of their marketing organisations.
May I show the Deputy two photographs of the parish agent actually operating from an office in the local creamery?
The Chair on several occasions has deprecated the production of exhibits in this House. I deprecate the production of exhibits very strongly.
These are not exhibits. They are working from the creameries.
The House is not to be turned into a picture gallery or exhibition.
The reason I have given is one of the reasons why the creamery manager or the co-operative store manager cannot be excluded.
Now we come to the mechanics of production. We must have a starting line. We must know in what direction we are going and where we start. A preliminary to the advent of an agricultural adviser or parish agent in an area is the computation of the production output in the area before his advent. That is a rather complex job and one which I fear most of our agricultural advisers are not qualified to do. Here, the economics section of the university could be called in to help. As far as I am aware, there is in Cork University already a service which, if expanded and financed, could do the work. Having got the figures, we could then start from a base line, knowing what the position is in reference to any phase of the production in an intensive area and what the position was before the area became intensive.
Our existing advisory services employed by the county committees of agriculture are, in the main, extensive and when we increase the number of instructors, say, on the basis of one to every three parishes, or one to every three branch creamery areas—I would not confine myself strictly to the parish as a basis—we will have to adjust the thing. We will have to have a goal in that area, an objective and a plan, and we will have to know exactly where we are going or what we want. That can be done only by starting on the right foot. We have in our agricultural set-up a rather unique situation in so far as some areas are the producers of primary products and those primary products are in many instances exported from the producing area to finish the basic article which, in most cases, will have to be sold competitively.
Let me demonstrate exactly what I am trying to get at as far as production of barley is concerned. Let us take my constituency of East Cork as an example. East Cork is a very substantial grain-producing area but it produces a surplus. It is not a very intensive pig producing area but the adjoining constituency of West Cork is. West Cork is, however, not a barley-producing area so that you have an export of a primary product from one constituency to produce in another a finished article which must be sold competitively.
Nobody probably has had more headaches than Ministers for Agriculture in trying to arrive at a fair and equitable price for primary products. I submit that in the organisations I mentioned earlier in this debate, and to which I may not now advert, there are specialised committees, working with the advice of experts on the production of grain and pigs and I think a very easy way to resolve the row would be to commit those organisations, as I have suggested we should, to get together and suggest a reasonable price for the primary product. The Minister should say: "Let your grain committee and your pig-producing committee get together and suggest to me a reasonable price for barley for the producers and make sure you will give barley to the pig producer at a price that will assure him of a reasonable profit and that will assure him that he will sell his fat pig in the competitive markets across the Channel."
That is the direction in which my mind is travelling and I think that if the Minister would only get going in that direction he would find his job much more pleasant and much easier. He would not be praised by one section when the breeze blew in their favour and assailed by another. That is one of the reasons why I want to commit those organisations, not alone to the control of, but to participation in everything we should do in the development of advisory services. I can go a point further. I have given you the build-up from the parish agent to the controlling body.
Now, let us get up to university level. In each of the different zones of production we have a university college. One would expect in Cork, for instance, that if we had a multiple research and specialised advisory service it would be directly applicable to the zone served by the Cork University. Here we have the link-up. Then in the West of Ireland we could have the multiple research and specialised advisory services suitable to the Galway hinterland served by the university there. Here in Dublin we have two universities which could serve the huge perimeter around the city. I am not suggesting that there should be more borders and more boundaries, but these three areas are three natural zones each doing a specialised type of farming and in these different zones we could utilise the universities to do the multiple research and the specialised advisory service suitable to each zone.
The Minister will see in what direction my mind is travelling. If I have taken a stand against his plan I have not failed to produce an alternative plan and let me emphasise that I think the plan I have submitted is getting much nearer the establishment of the Agricultural Research Institute because, if we can develop the service on the build-up I have suggested, we have then the nucleus of the Agricultural Research Institute. While I am on the subject, I can tell the House that many a storm will blow over the Minister's head before he will have satisfied all the sections now clamouring for the control of the Agricultural Research Institute.
Hear, hear!
Are you not presupposing something?
Does the Deputy advisedly use the words "clamouring for the control of the Agricultural Research Institute"?
If the Minister will allow me. I have been associated with my colleague, Deputy R. Barry, in the Cork County Council and the Cork County Committee of Agriculture. We became members of both bodies at the same time. Every fellow, of course, blows his own bugle, and I can say that in Cork we have as good a county committee of agriculture as anywhere in Ireland but, when I want to speak of county committees of agriculture in relation to the suggestions which I have made, I am quite prepared to say that the whole structure and the whole basis of the county committees of agriculture require revision.
It would be illogical for me to name an instance of the producing organisations in Cork who should participate in the control of the advisory services or in the control of production without suggesting a revision or an amendment of the Act under which county committees of agriculture are set up and my suggestion, for what it is worth, ignorant and all as I am, is that the 1931 Act, on which the present county committees of agriculture have their statutory foundation, should be revised so that in addition to the elected representatives on the county committees there should be mandatory provision made for the inclusion of representatives of organised agriculture in the counties. It might not be a very popular thing, from the political angle, for somebody to suggest that.
Why suggest mandatory? At the moment it is optional.
The Minister is well aware that county committees of agriculture are representative of elected groups in the counties and that any decisions arrived at will be from a majority of the committee. If the majority decide not to give representation to agricultural producing bodies, then they are out. I think, following the line I have suggested and the build-up I have outlined, that it would be illogical for me not to suggest that the Act should be revised so that there would be a mandatory provision to give representation to the nominees, at county level, of producing bodies in the county, and, in particular, to the producing bodies participating in the local committees, controlling the advisory services. Those are my suggestions in relation to the revision of the county committees of agriculture.
What we want here more than anything else, and what we have failed to get, is the co-operation of farmers not only in my county but in the country generally. Lectures, education and all this talk are all very well, but if we can convince the farmers as a body and as an organised group that it is in their own interest to co-operate and increase production, then we will have found a solution to this almost insoluble problem. When I was associated with the Mitchelstown Co-operative Society, one of the achievements of which I felt extremely proud and what I regarded as one of the best day's work ever done was to make available to every farmer's son attending the secondary school in that area an agricultural science graduate. Any farmer's son attending that school can take agricultural science as a subject right up to his Leaving Certificate. If that course were followed by every secondary school with a purely rural hinterland, we would have gone a long way on the road to educating, if not this generation, then at least the coming generation of young farmers. So far as I know—and I am ashamed to say it—there are only two such schools in the country which have such teachers attached to their staffs. One is in Mitchelstown and the other is in Tipperary town.
What about the agricultural colleges?
I am speaking about the ordinary Christian Brothers' day schools—the schools which the Minister is aware are serving the biggest section of the farming community. Not all our farmers are in a position to send their sons to boarding colleges. Not all our future farmers will have the opportunity of having the advantage of being students in boarding colleges with a farm attached.
Not all of them can go to those colleges—I do not want to name them— that specialise in teaching farmers' sons agricultural science. I know that education in that field is under the control of another Minister, but I would suggest to him that, in co-operation with the Minister for Education, he should do all he possibly can to get agricultural science graduates into our secondary schools and to make sure that, when our young students leave the secondary school, they will have a first class agricultural education.
It is in those schools and by that method that we can get over this prejudice that, unless you have a white collar job, you are inferior to the man who goes out, puts on a set of overalls and mounts a tractor. I have said over and over again—and I think it is to some extent true—that, as an agricultural community, we have lost our love for the land. It is an extraordinary thing that not even a percentage of all the thousands of people who emigrate from this country ever look for work on the land. You will find them crowded into big industrial cities. We can go back even further to the days of the mass emigration immediately after the Famine. We know that in those days the majority of our Irish emigrants went out to the areas cleared of virgin forest and built their little farms. But the industrial revolution came in America and, in 100 years, they were uprooted and migrated back to the towns. I remember reading in an economic history of America that the movement was so vast during that period of the industrial revolution in America that some of the priests who went out to minister to those emigrants found that they had to learn a new language—mainly German—because the little farms which those people had developed were mostly taken over by Germans.
I had no intention of speaking on this question of advisory services for as long as I have done, but I was prodded into so doing by the Minister himself. I have given an alternative. I have given the build-up and it is, as the Minister would say, "off the cuff". I have not gone into a detailed study of the snags which might be found in it, but I have given the outline. I submit to the Minister and to this House that it is a better starting ground than the action the Minister has now taken, and I want to appeal to him to stop now and think before he crosses the line of no return. We know how we have failed in our control of Irish agriculture to reach that degree of production which our competitors have reached. It is an admission of failure. It is the yardstick by which we can measure the failure of control in Irish agriculture up to now.
I want to say that there is a growing cynicism by farmers and organised farming in this country with the Civil Service direction, and there is also a growing cynicism by organised farming of politicians. Everywhere, at every meeting and gathering, you have speakers in those organised groups getting up and having a "clatter" off us politicians and where we fail. The suggestion which I have made is aimed at killing that kind of thing. It is aimed at getting these people to do their own business, to solve their own problems and to solve the nation's problems. It is no use for me or for anybody else to get up here and keep on talking. There has been a whole lot of talk down through the years. There have been speeches and lectures by people who never damped their feet in the morning dew—people on the rostrum telling the farmers where they failed and what they should do.
The backwash of this growing cynicism by organised farming and intelligent individual farmers is that they regard every politician as a weeping Arab at the Wailing Wall.
The Arab does not weep at the Wailing Wall. You are getting your history a bit crossed.
No; I purposely used the phrase. It is a polite way of saying that they regard us as hypocrites. I have now got to suggest, and I appeal to the Minister, that he reconsider this whole thing. It takes a very big man to alter a major decision and it takes a wise captain to alter course when he is warned of dangerous seas ahead. That is all I want to say on the advisory service. I submit that the proposals I have made to the Minister and to the House are worthy of an examination as an alternative to the plan which he has developed and is sponsoring. I say that if the Minister can commit every group concerned with agriculture in the country to do their own job, it will help to solve the serious problem which we have facing us as a nation.
In going on to the other aspects of the Minister's policy, I want to say that, for the past ten years in this country, we have had a prices boom. There is no getting away from the fact that the going has been easy. It has been easy for the farmers, as can be seen if you make an objective examination of the position. We were told by the commission that was set up to inquire into emigration that something like 20,000 people leave the land every year. There is a constant migration from the land, so it can reasonably be assumed that, with boom prices and more money for a smaller number of people, the logical conclusion is that incomes are higher, as far as the individual is concerned.
On the other hand, however, we would be fools not to face up to the situation which is there before us— that the physical volume of Irish agricultural production has remained practically static. The Minister has said that there was a 24 per cent. increase, but you can always look for a base to that year when production was lowest.
The last year of Fianna Fáil.
You can always take the last year as the lowest year and use it as the base year.
Yes; that was the last year of Fianna Fáil.
I have not mentioned either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael since this debate started, but if the Minister wishes to introduce politics into the matter, I can change front. The fact we cannot get away from is that our agricultural production has remained static in relation to our expenditure, in relation to what we are called upon by other sections of the community to produce. The major part of our imports of no matter what kind of goods you name will have to be paid for by increased agricultural production and I ask the Minister can he say, or can anybody in this House say, that our agricultural production and the amount of produce we have been able to export has been capable of bearing the enormous demands made by way of imports. Otherwise, you would not have had this enormous adverse trade balance.
I speak relatively. When we make comparisons, we must make comparisons in relation to the amount of exportable produce we have to pay for our imports and one of the things we have to admit is that our imports have outstepped the value of what we have been able to export by way of agricultural produce. That cannot be avoided. Our position, relatively, has remained static.
Hear, hear!
We are in the dangerous position of not being able to produce enough agricultural produce to pay for all the demands being made on us by all the people who want luxury goods. No wonder they crib and no wonder the gentlemen on the rostrum shout: "You are failing to do the job." Now we feel the pinch of the purchase tax which the Minister for Finance had to impose to stem the inflow of imported goods. Is that not the whole situation as to the way we have failed? The non-agricultural sections of the community say that we have deprived them of their needs because of our failure to increase production. Is that not the charge against us?
On the other side of the picture, we, as a nation, under God's providence, were fortunate enough to have escaped the ravages of a world war. We were fortunate in so far as, unlike our competitors, we did not have our economy smashed to the dust as they had. They shook themselves from the ruins in 1955, and now where are they? Many of them have increased their volume of output by 50 per cent. since 1945. That is the yardstick by which you can measure where they are going and where we have broken down.
On this question of boom prices has been built, for the non-agricultural sections of the community, our whole social structure, not on increased volume of production, but on boom prices. If there were a collapse of prices to-morrow, all our present commitments, as the Minister knows full well and as every Deputy is aware, would weigh very heavily on the agricultural sections of the community. The only way we can protect ourselves and all the other sections of the community, and the only way in which we can give them what we have assured them of by legislation, is by a substantial increase in our agricultural output.
We have here the Minister for Agriculture as the person responsible to this House and the country as the arch director of our basic industry, agriculture. There is no other form of industry from which we could build up and get the potential increase that we can get from agriculture, if we can break this barrier that is before us, and get our Irish farmers to do the job. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce, quite recently, "skiting" to America and chasing a mirage for phantom industrialists, while here at home we have our basic industry in a stagnant position. We have in agriculture an industry with an enormous potential which we can develop, and I submit to the Minister that agriculture is the one industry we have in which we have a real source of development.
Again, I am never afraid to say of that pattern of industrial expansion that everyone is glad that we all now accept the industrial policy of Fianna Fáil, in so far as industry should be aimed at providing decent employment for our surplus population from the town and from the land, but I am afraid that many of the suggestions made in this House might have repercussions, too, on agriculture. We have reached a stage in industrial development——
The Deputy seems to be discussing industrial development.
Only in so far as it impacts on agriculture. We have reached a stage here when a very serious examination should be made of tariffed and quotaed industries, because a number of those industries impact very seriously on agricultural production costs. I have said that, and I know that the Minister will say the same thing and agree with me. He has spoken at fair day meetings where he hammered loud and long the manure manufacturers of this country, but he is utterly powerless now to do anything about it. He has not done it.
I found a good deal of difficulty in repairing all the sins of Fianna Fáil, but to-morrow is a new day.
On the figures, and on the serious position which has developed, we have definitely been living beyond our means as a nation, and we have not got the production in Irish agriculture which we should have got, to help us live within our means. I remember the days when they roared "hairshirt" and "calico shift" at us when we sat at that side of the House, when we said "you can have all those things and more, if you produce the wherewithal to pay for them". Then the "hairshirt" and the "calico shift" was the howl that went up from Fine Gael, the spate of propaganda which was the incentive and impelling force in landing us where we are now. I remember Deputy Seán MacBride with his contribution: "Repatriate the external assets".
The Minister is not responsible for Deputy MacBride's utterances.
I can quote "repatriate the external assets" as a slogan of some of the people participating in the Government on that side of the House. That was the political manna of Clann na Poblachta. Then we come to the big slogan: "Fine Gael for better times". That slogan has been dropped now. Nobody now shouts: "Fine Gael for better times". Were those not the incentives and the driving force behind the Fine Gael version of better times, which means bigger and bigger motor cars for the non-agricultural section of the community, and brighter, bigger and more expensive television sets? Yes, press button services in every home is the manner in which we can consider and interpret that slogan. Now we have reached the tragic position that the Minister is forced into the position of saying: "You cannot have those things. If you will have them you will pay a purchase tax varying from 15 to 35 per cent."
This has no bearing on agricultural production.
He is getting it across.
We have, as I say, been riding the surf of the prices boom.
Maybe Deputy Walsh thought he was Minister for Television Sets when he was in the Department of Agriculture? I do not.
He is doing well.
On all those slogans spun the mad merry-go-round, "Fine Gael for better times", but the merry-go-round is now at a full stop, and the slogan: "Fine Gael for better times" is no longer hoisted or plastered up on dead walls in every town and village.
Will the Deputy relate this to the Estimate? He seems to be travelling very wide of the agricultural Estimate.
I am pretty near the mark.
Is the operative word "pretty"?
With this glittering El Dorado, of course, came another evil, the hire purchase system.
What has this to do with agriculture? The Deputy had better get back to it now.
On two previous Estimates I spoke at length——
Is fíor dhuit.
——on dairying, because I represent a constituency which is predominantly dairying, and on cattle breeding, and I placed on the records of this House comparative figures for the different breeds, not alone in dairying but even for the crosses, and I notice that having put that data, the findings of impartial investigating bodies, on record, one of the things we did not hear in the Minister's introductory speech was "the dual purpose Shorthorn cow is the best in the world." The record is broken.
I never was more convinced than I am now.
The record is now broken.
No, no.
I advise the Minister seriously to examine even the percentage increase in the Friesian breed in this country. I should like to have the figures from him when he is replying. When I visited the Departmental farm at Clonakilty last fall an experiment was being conducted by the manager of that farm as between commercial Friesians and Shorthorn bull calf breeds. It was amazing. I did not ask for the live weight gain per day, but one amazing thing was the obvious difference between the Friesian bullock and the Shorthorn bullock. This is, I think, the first experiment carried out by the Irish Department of Agriculture and I will give the Minister all the credit where it is due, that it is being conducted under Deputy Dillon as Minister for Agriculture. It was, to my mind, even at the stage when I saw it, a most revealing experiment, and I feel sure that the House will be glad, when the experiment is concluded, if the Minister will give us the final figures. In speaking on previous Estimates, I used to make reference to investigations carried out by investigating bodies outside this country, and I would be glad at any time to have the figures of an independent investigating body on the same lines in this country.
I also gave figures for beef tests and, as far as I know, there is a new series of tests out. I think I have it here, but I shall not refer to it because I have already given comparative figures, and they are on record, on a previous Estimate. To-day we hear very little about poultry. Poultry is something that it not mentioned any more.
Why? Are turkeys not poultry?
I am speaking of poultry generally. I remember how the Minister and I at fair day meetings in East Cork gave the agricultural audience their fourpence worth in the speeches we made against one another on poultry production. Those were the days of the poultry parlours. Those were the days when the present Minister promised that there was a fur coat around the corner for every farmer's wife who increased her poultry flocks. We have seen the poultry parlours that were put up all over the country at that time, but the fur coats did not materialise. I warned some of the people then to be very careful about the amount of capital they put into poultry because, if they were not careful, they might never recoup it; and I believe that, in the main, that is what happened. The subsidy to the home producer in England finished poultry here, and since that time—I do not know how many years ago it is now—a quill has not been disturbed in the old moulter. But the Minister used to say at that time that the hen was worth more than the Fianna Fáil calf ever was.
Which was quite true— the women were getting more for the hen than the men were getting for the calf under Fianna Fáil. Was that not true?
I want now to come back to pigs. Pigs at the moment are a very serious bone of contention because the farmers and the agricultural community generally do not know exactly where they are.
Why?
The Minister may shout at me across the floor of the House: "For the first time ever, I have given the farmer a guaranteed minimum price." Now, in relation to pigs, there is the possibility of a big development in the future. We should not lag behind in the use of artificial insemination in relation to pigs. At the moment considerable work along these lines is being done at Cambridge. Some work has been done by the Mitchelstown Co-operative Society on artificial insemination in pigs and I think there is an enormous potential to be developed here. At the outset, we may have some trouble until techniques are developed, but I think the importance of artificial insemination in relation to pigs is a development to which we can look forward in the future.
There is, of course, a difference of opinion as between the large white versus the landrace. When I was speaking in this debate last year, I informed the Minister at that time that there were landrace pigs thriving within the Republic. If one looks at to-day's paper, one will see there a statement by a clergyman in which he not alone refers to the fact that these pigs are thriving within the Republic, but that they are there by the thousand. Now, I think that represents a very serious situation. It is again, mark you, a case of the farmers repudiating the Department of Agriculture.
This time two years ago on this Estimate, we listened to the Minister go into a verbal tailspin as to the dangers of myxomatosis. The Minister warned us of the danger of introducing a new virus disease into this country. But that disease was brought in contrary to the advice of the veterinary section of the Department of Agriculture and contrary to the advice of the Minister. To-day, we can say without exaggeration that rabbits are, if not completely eliminated, at least capable of being controlled. They are no longer a threat. All that happened in two years. Two years ago, he was advising on the danger of introducing a new virus disease. He warned this House of that danger, despite the fact that at that time myxomatosis was ravaging the County Kilkenny. To-day, two years later, one cannot keep a pet rabbit without a licence issued by the Minister for Agriculture.
You know that is untrue.
Is that an exaggeration?
You are only restricted in regard to what are called wild rabbits. Domestic rabbits like chinchillas are not affected.
One can keep those. Now in regard to landrace pigs, we have been warned by the Minister, on the advice of his Department, that atrophic rhinitis is endemic in the landrace. Some of us who have studied the tests and studied the mortality rate in Denmark are not inclined to agree with that belief. We are not inclined to agree because, if the landrace pig is as ridden with atrophic rhinitis as has been suggested, how could the mortality rate where those enormous tests have been carried out be so low?
The mortality rate?
The mortality rate between weaning and finishing in the fattening tests. One of the things that strike one on looking through those tests is the exceptionally low mortality rate during the test period and before the killing stage. If the breed is so ridden, as has been suggested, with atrophic rhinitis, how could that be? It is certainly a pointer indicating that the whole subject requires further examination. But what I am concerned about is that, despite the advice given by the Department of Agriculture and despite the warnings issued by the Minister, landrace pigs have been introduced into the Republic. We have here a land boundary. Landrace pigs were introduced into the Six Counties. They are being developed there. With a land border, we could not hope to prevent the introduction of landrace pigs into the Republic and we are now informed that landrace pigs by the thousand are thriving in the Republic.
I put it to the Minister that, when that situation exists, he should seriously consider a complete revision of the whole attitude of the Department of Agriculture to landrace pigs. The situation only becomes farcical when the Department advises farmers not to touch these pigs and they are being brought over the Border and distributed all over the country, at the same time. I am sure the Minister will agree that our whole approach as to what we should do in relation to these landrace pigs should now be revised and re-examined in the light of circumstances which represent a fait accompli.
One of the things we do know, and one of the things the Minister knows, is that the biggest pig-producing unit, possibly, in what used to be the British Isles, is the McGuckin Foundation Farm at Masserene in Antrim. We know that the McGuckin Foundation up there have introduced landrace pigs and are crossing them with large whites and are getting dramatic and spectacular results. We are again on the doorstep of development here and I would suggest to the Minister that, before we waste money and energy, we should examine all the data available to us, because I maintain that, if we do not, we will be travelling over a considerable amount of the ground that has been travelled over by other people who carried out research work in this field. Let us start somewhere. Let us not repeat and prove what has already been proved. We know that Professor Cooper, who used to be in Kent and who is now, I believe, either in Durham or Nottingham University, did a considerable amount of research on pigs and one of the conclusions he came to was that there was nothing in the large white breed which could show a comparison with the landrace. That was a general summing up by Professor Cooper, who has done a considerable amount of work and research in that area.
I am not the person to decry what has been done, or to say that, because a thing is foreign, it is better than anything we have at home. That would be a ridiculous assumption, but all the figures we have tend to point in the one direction. Here is something that might interest the Minister and the farming Deputies in this House. The Comtel Reuter Trade Report published on 14th April, 1956, gives a very interesting sidelight on the bacon market across Channel, a sidelight on prices of sides or as they were given in a recent trade report on bacon prices. They quote Danish sides at 326/—that was Grade 1 or Grade A; Home (English), at 320/-; Northern Ireland, 318/-; Dutch, 316/-; Republic of Ireland, 310/-; Polish, 304/-. Is that not a very disturbing—
What is that?
I will give you the original report. It is a quotation from a trade reporting organisation—Comtel Reuter.
What quantity of our bacon is going to Great Britain——
Let us not talk about the quantity. Are we not in the position that, out of quotations from six producers, we are second lowest on that list for Grade A?
I do not know how you could get a quotation in Great Britain at present.
I will give you the report later. Danish Grade 2 on the British market fetched 6/- more than we got for our Grade A. Is that not something we cannot run away from? In other words, as far as the British retailer is concerned, he regards Danish Grade 2 as a better selling proposition to the retailers than our Grade 1. I warn the Minister and every farming Deputy in this House that we should concern ourselves about where our pig industry will be, if we start to develop the large white—how long will it take us? Conservative estimates given to me in regard to getting into a competitive position indicate that it will take us 15 years. That has come from people who have the information. Where will our pig industry, our pig producing industry, be in 15 years? What are the prospects of building up a permanent pig industry here if we do not do something, and do it rapidly? We must do it.
I will get away from pigs and get back again to bulls. Here is a report of a recent progeny test in England. First, let me say in relation to bulls and to the purchasing of bulls, I am not a bit happy. Our Department officials go to England to purchase bulls every year and they bring those bulls in here. First of all, let me say that to purchase a bull from a catalogue is a form of madness and, if you want to do the job as it should be done, if you fancy a certain bull in the catalogue, the simplest thing to do is to get back to the farm of production and try to get some line on the economics of the feeding on that farm and, if possible, see the bull's dam. These are all factors in the purchase of dairy bulls. So far as I know and so far as I have been informed by people at the other side, our Departmental officials have never been given that opportunity. As far as I know, within a few days of the live-stock sale, the official is sent across to the sale when he should be there a month or five weeks before. In fact, it would pay us if we had a permanent or semipermanent official at the other side, engaged in assembling data or investigating bulls which might appear on the catalogue at any sale. It is a most dangerous business to go into a sale and buy a bull from the catalogue. You must see the bull's dam and find out something about the economics of feeding on the farm on which that bull was produced. I would urge on the Minister to accommodate the live-stock section of the Department in every way he can and give them every opportunity of getting that information before sales. It is a well-known fact that we have bulls in our artificial insemination stations here of all dairy breeds—I am not singling out any breed—sired by bulls which are now rejected in England as depressing yields over there.
That is a very serious position. I am told—I have no reliatble figures but I do notice on this report—that the sires of some of the bulls that are now in use in artificial insemination stations in this country——
What report is that?
The bull progency testing report.
For when?
1950. Dutch imports and other bulls at Selby Farm——
Are these Friesian bulls?
There is a Friesian bull, in particular. I am not picking out a particular breed. However, we have in operation in the artificial insemination stations here bulls sired by bulls whose progeny are now proven to give depressing milk yields. That is a matter that should be seriously examined. I do not say these things cannot happen——
The Deputy seems to have knowledge of this. What bulls is the Deputy referring to?
I do not want to go into the list now. However, I shall give the Minister any information I have and which he requires.
The Deputy said there are bulls in use here which were sired by bulls whose progeny give a depressing milk yield.
It is being proved now.
What bulls? Can you give me a list of them?
I could, for instance, mention a Dutch bull as an example. The Minister knows well that it would be very bad if I were to name in this House bulls which are now in use at artificial insemination stations and which were sired by bulls whose sires are known at present to give depressing milk yields in England. I shall pass on any information I can get on that matter to the Minister.
Would the Deputy pass it to the artificial insemination station?
Yes. It is not an easy job. There are bound to be snags in the purchase of bulls. Money will not buy proven bulls. We know that the nearest we can go towards getting a proven bull is to get the son of a proven bull from a high milk-yielding dam. That is as near as we can go when we cannot buy proven bulls. These are two factors we have to watch out for and, again, there is the economy of feeding on the farm from which the bull is purchased and the yield of the dam.
Dairying is of vital importance to this country despite the fact that some people say nobody wants an exportable surplus of dairy produce. That outlook is begotten by defeatism. That outlook is begotten by the fact that we have failed to keep our place as competitors in the British market for dairy produce. We will always have that trouble until we have dairy cows that will give us a yield of milk that will bring us back as competitors on the butter market or on the dairy produce markets in England. We shall never have a substantial increase in our cow population until then.
We cannot get away from the fact that the whole foundation of our agricultural production is centred on dairying. Even our beef industry is based on dairying. There cannot be any worthwhile expansion of our beef industry until we have an expansion of our dairy cows. The fount is there. Beef is a tributary of the dairying industry. When it comes to agricultural production, anything else is just a mere trickle. The two supporting props of our whole agricultural economy are dairying and the production of store cattle for beef. Those are the two major items in our agricultural economy and, no matter what the Minister says, we cannot substantially expand our beef industry until we have a considerable expansion in the number of our cows.
The Minister has recently been going round the country preaching a certain doctrine in relation to the suckling calf. If he talks about a suckling calf he should talk about a "sucker cow" because, as far as the small farmer is concerned, that it what that cow would be. She would suck the life blood out of the small farmer's agricultural economy. We know that you cannot have a beef industry based on small farms. You cannot have a beef industry unless you have the broad acres, because it is one of the lowest forms of agricultural production: it gives the lowest output.
I will try to give some indication of the fallacy of the Minister's argument in advocating the suckling calf and the "sucker cow." Let us examine, for instance, just a few rough figures which I worked out here. I come from one of the biggest dairying areas in the South of Ireland. There is a creamery there which has ten branches extending into three counties. When a survey was made a number of years ago it was estimated that the average size of the farm, measured by its cow-carrying capacity, was a nine-cow farm. We know that, even on fairly good dairying land, it would take four statute acres to carry a cow and her follower and produce some feeding and hay for the winter.
Four statute acres for one cow?
Yes. The Minister should not look over his glasses at me. If you study our dairying generally, you will find that it is not as high as that figure at all on those farms that are purely dairying farms. They do not carry a cow and a follower to every four acres. I know, from my association with the small farmers in the area, that it is tillage grazing and that it is not God's grass. They are people who farm on rotation and who have fairly better than average grazing.
And it takes them four acres to keep a cow?
We should examine the difficulties. I am sorry if I have surprised the Minister. However, when the Minister was advocating a "sucker cow" he did not think for a minute of what the impact of the "sucker cow" and her following would be on a small farming economy. Even some concentrates would have to be procured at the end of the year to finish and winter the calf.
In addition to the four acres? If that is the type of farming the Deputy does, the sooner he turns to cobbling the better for himself and the nation.
As the Minister knows, no Deputy farms. He only sleeps there for a few hours at night—that is, if he does the job here which he is expected to do.
It is well for you, if it takes four acres plus concentrates to feed a cow—
Assuming a good yearling weighs 6 cwts.—and it would not be a bad yearling that would weigh 6 cwts.—that represents £42 at £7 a cwt.
For the yearling?
For the yearling. If you like, you can reduce it to three but I am not giving way on the four acres. But even reducing it to three what do you give him as an income for his acre—£13.
When I was a boy, three went into 42 14 times.
If the Minister wants a debate on mathematics I can hold my own against him there, too.
Still, three goes into 42 14 times.
Give him £14 an acre.
He has now three acres to a cow.
He is doing pretty well on the sucker cow.
Suppose it were two acres, what would he have?
He would be going round in the Taoiseach's Chryslers.
I am speaking of good average grazing in the dairying areas in this country. If the farmer is expected to carry his sucker cow on three or four acres and were he to plough that acre and put it to wheat, even at the reduced price of wheat, it should be worth £35, ten barrels to the acre. That would be a fair return.
£36.
We will ultimately be cribbing over threepenny bits.
A £1 in my hand is no threepenny bit.
An acre of barley converted into pig meal would give a figure of about £50 per acre. Deputy Donegan can contradict me if I am wrong. A fair return for an acre of barley converted into pig meal would give you about £50. We will get back even to the Pekinese—the Jersey cow. There are Jersey cows in the South which give a return of between £50 and £60 an acre. They would be a much sounder proposition than the sucker cow suggested by the Minister.
Deputy Walsh will give us an idea of what you might expect in regard to an acre of beet. He knows more about beet than I do. In my field the farmer would certainly be doing much better with his acre of ground than he would with the Minister's sucker cow. I will leave it at that. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to produce figures which will give the honest to God small dairy man in the South something in the region of what he would get from an acre of barley. If the Minister produces that he will be taking something out of the hat.
I did not mention depreciation in the cow at all. We have figures to show that the lactation life of a cow is something like three years. These figures have been given. Let the Minister contradict me if he likes. I am not a statistician, but I cannot avoid noticing that the lactation life of a cow is given as three years.
The Deputy must have the queerest cows in Europe to have a lactation life of three years and require four acres to keep them going.
We will get away from that.
God grant we may. If we do not get away from that, we shall be ruined altogether.
What I want to quote to the Minister concerns the matter of the dairy men in the South.
If there is a farmer who keeps a three-year cow which requires four acres of grass, I will offer him a berth in Grangegorman. It is the only place he is fit for.
We will not go there.
If the Deputy keeps that kind of cow the sooner he goes there the better.
If they take the Minister's advice on the small holdings in the South a lot of them will go to Grangegorman, fully certified at that. Can the Minister prove to me that a little dairy farmer on the Galtee foothills, keeping that sucker cow, will do better than he would if he grew an acre of barley and fed it to pigs or if he grew an acre of beet or an acre of wheat? The life-blood of the smallholder is his income. The Minister now suggests to have him turn to that form of agriculture which assures him of the lowest possible income per acre.
There is a very serious situation facing the dairying industry in this country. The chocolate crumb industry at the moment is in a very untenable position. We know that if they go back into the British market for chocolate crumb, they will go back as competitors. The previous agreement ended last year. We also know that, for 1955, the British had a surplus over their liquid requirements of milk for industrial purposes amounting to 334,000,000 gallons.
That huge surplus is there to be converted into a milk product which is a most profitable one. From what we know and as far as we are aware, chocolate crumb will take a considerable proportion of that milk for manufacturing. The position of our chocolate crumb industry as competitors in the British market is a rather untenable one. We know that, as a dairying country, if we fail as competitors in the British market for one milk product, we will ultimately be out as competitors for the whole lot.
Having regard to the pattern that has evolved here, there has been an enormous waste of capital attached to our dairying industry. Our dairying industry developed on the basis that dairying should be a satellite subsidiary of the beef industry. That left us in the position that we have not the gallonage that would permit us to go back as competitors. Any time we have gone back to the British market we went back to supply a pro tem need in cheese and milk powder. When competition came and normal imports were resumed, we were hurled out. We could not compete. Then we went in for chocolate crumb for as long as we had the protection of an agreement. When we lost that, we were out again.
That all adds up to one thing. There has been a considerable waste of capital and energy in our dairying industry. In regard to the chocolate crumb industry, hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent on the erection of buildings and on the importation of modern machinery and technicians. Now, they find themselves in the position that the whole thing goes for scrap. It was in use for a few years. Is that not an enormous waste of capital?
Now the creamery managers are in a dilemma. They do not know in what direction to go. Some of them think there might be a few years in milk powder. The chocolate crumb machinery is now hurled out into the scrap heap and a new set of machinery for the manufacture of milk powder is required. Is that not very much the position of the dairying industry from the point of view of going into the competitive market? There are many creamery managers who say that casein is something that would last. But in relation to this whole matter, regardless of what Minister is in power and regardless of what kind of propaganda speeches are made, we know that unless we develop a certain type of cow, unless we reach a national average comparable to that of our competitors, then we are out, once we have to face a competitive market. We have only one alternative, to look for a subsidy for the exportable surplus of our dairy produce.
We must face the problem of the enormous waste of energy and capital in relation to the dairying industry, not being able to remain in any particular milk product in a particular market, switching from one milk product to another and ending up by being pushed out of the market for all milk products. That situation was begotten by those who thought that we could produce beef here and at the same time produce from our dual purpose Shorthorns a cow that would give a milk yield, competitive with that of our opponents in the British market.
When I spoke in this House on a previous occasion, I gave facts and figures and a considerable amount of data in regard to the various milk breeds. I argued and produced facts and figures which were not refuted and they were to the effect that if we developed the right type of Friesian here we could get a quicker and higher milk potential than we could hope to get from Shorthorns, that we could get a first class store, a store capable of being finished under a good grazing economy here at two years or slightly over. We do know also that on the English market Friesian beef is very acceptable, in so far as it is lean beef. Nobody now wants fat of any kind and I think we should seriously review our position in regard to dairying.
We talked here a few years ago as if the market in England for beef was going to be a lasting one and that there was a huge demand there for all the beef we could produce. Are we so sure now as we were two years ago? At that time Peron was in power. Peron's row with the British had cut off the Argentine beef supply. But here are some recent figures. Until next July, the Argentine has contracted to export into the British market 20,000 tons of chilled beef a month. That is equivalent to 65,000 cattle a month. My friends over there, people who are on the administrative side, tell me that that beef is first quality, and in a recent letter one particular man said to me that there were queues outside local butchers' shops trying to purchase that first quality Argentine beef which was being sold at from 1/10 to 2/2 per lb.
Despite all the nonsense about newspaper reports depressing cattle and beef prices, we know that when there are increased imports to England of first-class Argentine beef, those huge imports are bound to impact themselves on the dead meat trade with England and we can naturally expect a drop in beef prices if those imports are to be continued. These are facts which we must examine and all the talk about a certain newspaper taking the bottom out of the beef market is just nonsense; the reports in question had very little if anything to do with the beef market. Of course, those facts will not be stated when somebody from that side of the House wants to make a propaganda speech. There is too much political nonsense talked here instead of the facts being made known to those people concerned in the production of beef in this country.
In relation to our farm buildings scheme, a considerable amount of money has been expended in the erection of farm buildings, and a considerable amount of money will be spent within the next five or six years for that purpose. That will be accentuated as we develop the scheduled areas for the eradication of bovine T.B. I do not know whether other Deputies are of the same opinion, but if you travel through the country, amongst the small farming area in the South, one of the things that will strike you is how little has been done for the small farmer in the way of replacing the rambling shacks you will see in the small farmer's yard. I give as the main reason for that the fact that if the farmer is entitled to a £60 grant, say, for the erection of a cow house, to qualify for that, he must be in a position to raise £300 capital. The strange thing is that the people who have made the most use of farm grants are the people with the strongest bank accounts. The little man who has no bank account, or no spare money, will have to look across the fence if his neighbour has a large farm and see this man availing of every grant because he has capital to invest.
I would suggest to the Minister that he might consider revising the whole grant system in respect of farm buildings and to have the grant system on a sliding scale; in other words, to have a much higher grant for the little fellow with the low valuation and to grade it down for the man with the high valuation, thus giving the small man the advantage. He has no capital; he will have difficulty in getting capital and for that reason he will have difficulty in utilising the grant. If the grants could be operated in that way, I think we would have a swing about and the little man could benefit by this scheme. Under the present system, the whole thing is being snapped up by the man with the strong bank account while the smaller man must look on.
Again in connection with farm buildings and with any other scheme for the future, when we have all this money to expend by way of grants and when we have decided to spend this money, is it not about time we had some planning authority? Is it not about time that we would have somebody trained to go to the farmer if he decides to build a new cow-house, and say: "Would you erect it there because it will mean, as far as you are concerned, economy of labour?"
There is no one to give advice in that direction and we have seen some of the new houses erected in the most disadvantageous positions in relation to the man's residence. There should be some planning authority, somebody who would be able to give advice on the erection of farm buildings in relation to economy of labour. All these things impact on farm production.
On the bovine T.B. scheme, we know that one of the most potent sources of T.B. infection is unpasteurised skim milk. Every vet. in the country will tell you that it is utterly nonsensical for a farmer to tuberculin-test his cattle and try to eliminate reactors if the local creamery has not installed a pasteurising plant. I would urge on the Minister, as a preliminary to the eradication of bovine T.B. in those areas outside the scheduled areas, that he should make available to every creamery manager a grant for the installation of a pasteurising plant. That is an important preliminary as far as the eradication of bovine T.B. is concerned.
There is another aspect of bovine T.B. eradication which must agitate the mind of everybody who has anything to do with livestock. I shall refer to it in a minute. We know that there has been most extraordinary and rapid progress made in the eradication of bovine T.B. in England. When I was in England last September, a person who was in a position to know told me that in five years, if they could get sufficient vets., they would completely clear the whole country of bovine T.B. That statement was extremely disturbing because it meant that, as each area was attested and as each area was declared free, there was a cordon sanataire set up around the area, and our non-attested store cattle would be excluded from that area.
I will give some indication of what the situation was at that particular time. I have told the House that it was the belief of this particular administrative official that, if they could get an increased number of veterinary surgeons from the veterinary colleges, they would have the whole country clear of bovine T.B. in five years. It will give some indication of the progress they have made and of the ever-reducing area into which Irish store cattle can be exported, when I say that all Wales is now an attested area or a free testing area. Anglesea, Carnarvon and Denbighshire are free testing areas; the remainder are attested. In Scotland, the only outstanding areas are small areas comprising the counties of Aberdeen and Angus, Kincardine and part of the county of Perth. One can realise the huge area that is being done in Wales and Scotland. In England the counties Cumberland and Westmorland are now declared to be completely attested areas. Free testing areas are Berkshire, Hampshire, Yorkshire, Kent, East Sussex, Wiltshire, Devon, part of North and West Riding, Yorkshire, and parts of Oxford and Buckinghamshire. Practically all areas south of the Thames are now well on the road to attestation.
Is that not a serious situation in view of the little progress which we have been able to make in the eradication of bovine T.B.? Is it not a serious situation, when we realise that the main producing areas of store cattle are the dairying areas in the South, that we cannot declare that any fraction or part of that main dairying area is free of bovine T.B.? We are lagging behind in the race. We came into it too late.
Whose fault was that?
We will find ourselves considerably embarrassed because the area into which we can export non-attested cattle will be reduced to such a degree that it will have very serious consequences on our store cattle trade.
With regard to the Milk Costings Commission, I want to say very little. I did refer here to Parkinson's Law earlier in the debate. Parkinson's Law produced a mathematical formula for the growth of the Civil Service, but we had to wait for the Milk Costings Commission to get a unit of measure by which we could measure their output. That was the first time we got a yardstick by which we could measure the output of a Civil Service group. Consider the position in which the Minister has been placed. They have virtually told the Minister and the farmer to go to Hades, that they will give the report when they like and when it suits them, despite the fact that over £30,000 of the taxpayers' money has been expended. That is all I shall say on the Milk Costings Commission.
I have on a previous occasion referred to our agricultural economy. One of the things that we do know is that the small farmer is being crushed out. The Land Commission publish reports showing the number of holdings which they create every year, but that is only one side of the picture. Twice that number are being liquidated. The small man is disappearing from the face of rural Ireland and he is disappearing for one reason only, that there is the same economy for the smallholder as for the man with the broad acres. We have no small farm economy. The small farmer can only survive on a specialised economy. That is why I am so interested. The small farmer is not concerned about the production of store cattle. He is concerned about the provision for him of that cow that will assure him of the highest income, that pig which will give him the biggest margin of profit. That is why all this business of the right cow in the right place and the right pig is so vital. The proper cow and the proper pig to the smallholder assures him of the title deeds to survival.
That is the reason why he is disappearing and any Deputy who is travelling throughout the country will see the ruins. It is a continuous process and I am always inclined to think of a certain ballad when I contemplate the situation. The ballad says:—
There's where the children played games on the heather,
There's where they sailed their wee boats on the burn;
Where are they now; some are dead, some deserted,
No more to their homes shall those children return.
Is it not all very much the story of the small man in rural Ireland? Does not that summarise the position of this country of ours as far as the small man is concerned? There is all this depopulation because our economy never provided for the small man the title deeds to survival.
I have spoken at some length on this Estimate and I am getting a bit hoarse. Still there are many things to which I should like to refer, but I am afraid I have subjected the House to an endurance test. One of the things I, as somebody who has his roots in the soil of this country, would not like to see is that any Minister for Agriculture, no matter who he was, would become the "Sir Echo" of any particular Government. Anything I have said in this House has not been of a political nature. I have tried in the main to offer constructive suggestions.
In the main.
I have tried to be as helpful as I possibly could. I think there is a fund of goodwill if we could only tap it and that there are latent forces which we should get into action to help solve this problem of ours. I have made certain suggestions. I submit those for the examination of the Minister and for the consideration of the House. I said early in the debate some things which might bring a certain number of big guns and a certain amount of small arms fire upon me.
You have brought the big guns on you.
Now, now, Deputy Giles. I have said some things but as far as I am concerned my major contributions to debates in this House have been on the Minister's Estimates. This is in fact the third debate to which I have contributed. I am not afraid to say unpopular things. If there are forces at work which might blast me out of Dáil Éireann I shall be glad to resume where I left off. I never want to be an old lag, to fade out as the glowworm of a political twilight. I do not want to go that way.
Two men went up to the temple to pray.
If there are farmers in East Cork who think I cannot bespeak their views, I have no right to be here. When they are called upon to decide that, if they decide I have no right to be here it will be for me an escape to freedom.
For you are not as other men.
I want to close by expressing to the Minister my personal thanks. Any problems I submitted to him on behalf of my constituents during the year received his personal attention and I want to place on record my gratitude for his courtesy.
I could say that is the most dangerous thing the Deputy has said and I thank him accordingly.
Unlike Deputy Moher, I do not propose to delay the House by a very long contribution on this Estimate. I was very interested in quite a number of the things Deputy Moher said. Perhaps in the heat of the moment he may have made one or two slips which he would not have made had he considered the matters more fully. I personally would not be prepared to accept his figure of a 334,000,000 gallons surplus in England. I think there is something wrong there.
No.
Deputy Moher made a reference to the Milk Costings Commission. Coming from a rural district I would like to see the farmers getting a fair return for their labour, a fair price for their milk. I would, however, make the suggestion that if some of the big guns of the association, who are kicking up such a row about the price of milk, took the trouble of checking the wages they are paying to some of their employees, not alone in the production of milk but in the production of other things, they would blush with shame, rather than march at the head of 16,000 men marching in O'Connell Street. Perhaps that has nothing to do with the Estimate but I should like to make the remark in passing.
I should like to mention the fact that I think, as well as giving the farmers a decent price, the farm workers should get a decent wage. I think the present wage fixing machinery —the Agricultural Wages Board—is outmoded. We find that the members are prejudiced one way or the other. There is no appeal from their decision. I think the time has come to change that machinery. Perhaps when the board was set up, the Government who established it did a good day's work; perhaps order was made out of chaos. Now, however, we have reached the stage where we are slipping further and further behind and, if the £ is losing its value for everybody else, it also loses its value for the worker.
Was that not one of your 12 points? Was it not one of your 12 points to change over from the Agricultural Wages Board to the Labour Court?
Deputy Cunningham might not know much about it. He is suggesting something which I would prefer he would leave to me.
That was suggested by the Government when taking office.
Deputy Cunningham is trying to score a political point. If he allows me I shall score the point for him and perhaps in a much better way. Let us leave him to his teaching and leave me to my own business. I am outside the national school stage now.
I am telling you about the promises.
You are preceding me.
I am advising you.
Your advice is not needed. Keep that for the kindergarten. The whole question of farm workers' wages was something which was to be overhauled by the present Government. I would appeal to the Minister now to see that is done without any further delay. It is useless talking about the flight from the land so long as we have farm workers with a family, or without a family, still trying to exist on less than any other type of worker in this or any other country. The minimum rate of £4 9s. a week, which will be increased to £4 16s. for many parts of the country, is not a wage but a disgrace. It is no answer at all to say that farmers can pay more. The fact is that the Agricultural Wages Board set up by the previous Government fixes a minimum rate of wages which is recognised as the standard rate. It is not the standard rate, but it is recognised as such. We want to see something done to have that changed, and changed quickly.
I appeal to the Minister, who, I know, is a reasonable man. I know it is not his wish, no more than is it the wish of anybody else in this House, to see people attempting to live after a hard week's work on such a miserly pittance as that being paid to the agricultural worker in this country at the present time. I have heard it said by people down in the Minister's own constituency of Monaghan that, if you leave nationalism out of it, it was a pity they came across the Border at all because, in Northern Ireland, they could get almost £7 per week for a shorter working week than that for which they are paid £4 9s. in Monaghan. I think it is about time that position is changed, and it can only be changed by changing our machinery for fixing wages. I appeal to the Minister to do something about changing the Agricultural Wages Board as soon as he possibly can to give a fair deal to those men.
It is admitted by everybody here that the small farmers of this country seem to be getting a pretty raw deal; but some of the blame must lie with those same small farmers themselves, who are inclined to take advice from politicians who advise them to change from one crop to another and from one agricultural economy to another. Then, if that does not produce the results which they hoped it would produce they can say: "The Government is to blame. Why did the Government not do this and why did the Government not do that?" The small farmers in my own constituency are finding it pretty hard to live at the present time. Over the years, they have been trying to live on uneconomic farms. I know it has nothing to do with this Estimate, but I think an awful lot of the fault lies with those people who will not make their farms economic when the question of free allocation of land arises. I think that the one solution to this whole problem is to provide economic farms for as many as possible first, before more uneconomic farms are created in any area.
That is a question for another Minister.
I know it is, but I just wanted to get it in.
I am glad to see that at last a decision has been taken to improve facilities for the men working on some of the State farms. I made a point last year, and the year before, that it was rather a pity, while money was being spent on stabling and everything else around those farms—very necessary expenditure, I admit—that we had groups of 20 or 30 men with no cooking or other facilities around the place they were working. I am glad that has been taken care of in this Estimate.
I would suggest to the Minister, as I did last year, that every possible help should be given to fruit growers, particularly those in the areas where soft fruit is grown. For a number of years, those people have been put in a very awkward position, because certain groups of manufacturers have created a ring and waited until the last minute to offer less than the fruit was worth and put the people in the position that they had to sell it at a price which was not economic. The result is that many of them have given up growing fruit altogether. I would suggest that, if the Minister can in any way assist in the fixing of a fair price for fruit, that should be done early in the season and so prevent this ring from taking advantage of the position.
I know this is so, because, two years ago, I introduced an outsider who was prepared to buy fruit from these people at 2½d. per lb. more than the ring were offering. Immediately the ring found that they were not going to get the fruit, they jumped their price to the same figure. That proved to me that the only answer was to have some kind of alternative market. If the Minister can be of any assistance in that way, I think he should be, particularly in view of the fact that over the past two years quite a lot of fruit was imported at very high prices from the Channel Islands and other places. A lot of that could have been grown here, if the people had been given a guaranteed price in time, so that they would know they were going to get the price and not have to wait until the fruit was on their hands and ready to be sold.
I would also suggest again that something should be done with regard to the apple crop in this country. I do not know about the South but, in the northern end of the country, we have the same difficulty year after year. Apparently the crop cannot be preserved and we find that, from just immediately after Christmas right until the next apple season, we are buying apples which are imported from all over the world—and that in an area where the best apples that can be found are grown. Apparently, because of the fact that they are not being preserved—there is no way in which they can be preserved—they are not available when they are needed. I saw myself people down in the Duleek area selling apples at less than a penny each and later on in the season buying apples which were certainly only as good and not much better for 6d., 7d. or 8d. It does not make sense. If the Department can assist in this matter in any way, they should.
Finally, there is the matter I mentioned here last year and which the Minister treated with contempt. I would ask him to have second thoughts on it. It is the matter of tobacco growing in this country. I think his remark last year was: "I grew it; I cured it and, God help me, I smoked it." I did not grow it; I did not cure it and, God help me, I did not smoke it. But I have some documents, which I would be glad to make available to the Minister, from experts from some of the tobacco growing countries. They state that the tobacco, which was grown in this country before, if it received the correct treatment, is equal to the finest Virginia tobacco. If that is so—and they are prepared to pledge their reputation that it is so—I think there is no reason why we should not do something about it. Even if it is not so, I think the Department might assist even in a small way by making available loans of, say, £100, which would enable those people to set up their tobacco growing business again. I know it might interfere with the Exchequer, but, at the same time, I think those people should be given the chance to prove, as they say they can, that not alone can it be smoked here, but that it can be exported, and so provide them with a livelihood, even though it might not be the finest in the world.
When I, the last of the three Deputies for East Cork, rise to speak here this evening, I think you, Sir, and all the Deputies in the House might well be pardoned for posing the question: "Is there anything left for an East Cork man to say?" We listened to Deputy Corry here for an hour last week. We listened on two days and again to-day—altogether four and a half hours—to Deputy Moher talking on agriculture. While, if I had not listened to them, my remarks might have been directed in a different way, I want now to state here to-day categorically that it is my belief, no matter what Deputy Moher says, that he opposed the parish plan here.
I want to prove by his own statements—I have here Volume 156, No. 5 column 676, of the Dáil Debates of last week—showing that the first thing Deputy Moher did, when he got the circular from the Department of Agriculture, saying that a parish agent was appointed to two Cork parishes and one Waterford parish, namely, Conna, Ballynoe and Ballyduff, was to make five carbon copies of that circular and send them to (1) the Secretary of the N.F.A. movement; (2) the Secretary of the Mitchelstown Co-operative Creamery; (3) the Secretary of the Castlelyons Co-operative Creamery; (4) the Secretary of Macra na Feirme. I think he said he sent out five, but he sent out only four. I am suggesting that Deputy Moher, when he got out that circular, thought that the best way to organise opposition to the parish plan was to set all these people talking. I must say here, Sir, that I have nothing but the greatest confidence in all those bodies.
Deputy Moher also remarked that he thought that the Cork County Committee was one of the best county committees of agriculture in the country. That circular was to come before the Cork County Committee on a Tuesday, but Deputy Moher decided that the representatives of the different bodies I have mentioned here should have it also, with the result that, before the Cork County Committee could discuss the matter, the gallery of the courthouse was filled by the representatives of those organisations. I think that Deputy Moher would have been much wiser to let the Cork County Committee discuss that document in a cool, calm atmosphere first, and then, if those people thought they had something to say to it, the Cork people would have given them an opportunity of saying it another day. When Deputy Moher states that he did not make any opposition to the parish plan in Cork, those statements which I have quoted must put the lie to that statement.
If the Deputy means to suggest that Deputy Moher told a lie, it is quite out of order and the statement should not be made.
Mr. Barry
He said here last week that he had not organised opposition to the parish plan.
The Deputy said: "puts the lie". That seems to suggest that Deputy Moher told a lie.
Mr. Barry
I did not suggest that, Sir.
All right.
Mr. Barry
I think that, when I quote a little further from Deputy Moher's speech, we will see why he thought that representatives of these bodies should be present on the day this circular was being discussed.
Deputy Moher apparently had some very strong objections to a body for which I have the greatest regard, that is, Muintir na Tíre. I quote from the same Volume—column 681, Deputy Moher said, when asked by the Minister to give the cross-section:—
"I will give you the brains trust and then the ballast. You have the local parish priest, unless he is too senile, and then he is usually represented by the local curate as chairman. You have the dispensary doctor and the local solicitor, the Civic Guard sergeant, the local grave digger, the water curator, the sewerage caretaker and the local maternity nurse. They are the people who constitute the brains trust of any normal guild of Muintir na Tíre, with a few old doddering farmers thrown in to nod."
That is the end of the quotation, but I notice that he did say later on that he was reminded that he had forgotten to mention the school teacher and the home assistance officer. I happen, at the moment, to be the senior Deputy for East Cork and I want, at this, the first opportunity I have had, to stand up here on behalf of the people of East Cork and on behalf of the guilds of Muintir na Tíre and say that most decent-thinking people would not stand behind that statement for one minute.
I think, having said that, that it is only right that I should say what I think of Muintir na Tíre. While we can say nothing bad about the other organisations mentioned, Muintir na Tíre was founded long before any of them. As a rural organisation, it has done a great deal of good work. Deputy Moher pointed out that Muintir na Tíre was a rural organisation but not an agricultural organisation. It is hard to see the difference. It would take someone like Deputy Moher to say that. Here we are with the rural organisation which is a voluntary organisation. It is an organisation that has, at least, done work by voluntary contribution, without asking for Government aid and if we had much more of that kind of work and organisation in this country, and much more local work being done by local people on a voluntary basis, we would be doing the right thing, rather than always putting out our hands for State help. It is a sad thing when we have a man like Deputy Moher, under the protection of this House, making such an attack on an organisation which is purely rural and voluntary and which has done immense good in this country.
Deputy Moher went on to say, and I could not but agree with the Minister when he interrupted to say that he heard this three or four times before, that:—
"You cannot effectively operate a service in an area when you have organised oppositions as was evidenced when this matter was being discussed in the Cork County Committee of Agriculture."
That is Volume 156, No. 6. The only opposition to the parish plan in County Cork was some kind of bias that some people had against Muintir na Tíre. When the parish agent went there some six or seven weeks ago, there were several meetings called in the three parishes. All farmers of different political views attended those meetings, and they were told what would happen if they co-operated with that parish agent. I am glad to tell the Minister now that if an army of inspectors came down there now to try to put that parish agent out, he would not be let out of that parish. It will be a long time before he is let go from those three parishes, no matter what kind of opposition there may be to having him there.
Deputy Carter referred to pilot farms and advocated setting them up. Personally, I have no use for pilot farms. They must be financed by the Department of Agriculture and that means that, when they are short of money, they can send for £5 or for £100 to the Department. What the average farmer wants to know is what he can do with the resources at his disposal and not with those at the disposal of the Department. That is the reason I believe that the parish agent is an ideal solution for the problem of spreading the advisory service. I think it is the best and only way that the research work done by the Department can be applied to the farmers' farms.
It is not usual for me to stand up in this House and to speak in the way I have spoken and to name a Deputy so much as I have done to-day, but I was, unfortunately, put in that position by the statements that were made. I want to assure you, Sir, that, while I have mentioned Deputy Moher's name, it was in no spirit of antagonism to him personally, but just because he had made statements which were not actually in accordance with facts and I should take the first opportunity of trying to contradict them.
There was one point that I wanted to bring to the Minister's notice, and it may be awkward in one way. I have noticed around the country that, if there was anything that did great good for the farmers, it was the land rehabilitation scheme, or the land project. That is admitted on all sides of the House. The difficulty I find in the working of it—we must, maybe, put the blame on another Department—is that where you have acres of land which farmers are anxious to drain and lime they are prevented from doing so by the county councils not first draining the streams into which these lands might drain.
There should be some liaison between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Local Government in that direction. I know personally large tracts of land which are being held up from being drained owing to that snag. I suggest that the Minister should consult with the Minister for Local Government to see if these difficulties can be got over.
One thing which has surprised me is that I have not found any mention during this debate by any Deputy last week or to-day of the disease we had in wheat last year, which was a cause of severe loss to many farmers in East Cork and Cork generally. I refer, of course, to the disease known as rust. There were experiments conducted subsequent to the harvest as to how this disease might be controlled or eradicated, but we have not heard anything from the Department since as to the success or failure of those experiments. Can we say to the farmers that they will not have the same losses this year? If the Minister has any information on that, it might be a help and some consolation to the farmers to know that, whatever they may have, they would not have this disease that they had last year.
I was glad to hear that a resolution, which I sponsored at the Cork Committee of Agriculture with regard to the grading and price of pigs, got so much support here. I know that the problem is difficult, but I do believe one thing—and I say this as a retailer of bacon—that if the bacon curers grade their pigs A, B and C, and pay a certain price for the bacon in proportion to the grade, they should, when selling that bacon to the retailer, have those sides marked A, B or C, and adjust the prices accordingly, so that the retailer can pass that on to the consumer. Mind you, it is not hard to satisfy people, and the farmers themselves would be satisfied if they knew the reduction they were getting in the pig grading was passed on to the consumer. Knowing what the Minister has done with regard to grading, I still feel that he should do something about that snag which still remains, and take more effective steps to deal with it.
I do not believe any Deputy in this House can talk on all the different aspects of agriculture with any kind of certain knowledge and authority, so I have referred to pigs, and wheat, and the parish plan and my belief in its working. With that I can only wish the Minister, in his drive for increased production, the best of success in the coming year.
If there are any defects in our agriculture they are due to lack of education. I am glad to see that the Minister is looking at it in that perspective, and is doing his utmost, through his officers, to give a wider pattern of education to the agricultural community of this country. Our agricultural education should start much earlier than it does. It should start at a very early age, not when the primary school education finishes. It would be a good idea if there could be some arrangement between the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Education on agricultural matters so that we could start our agricultural education much earlier than we do now. By that I mean that even our textbooks and all our books in primary schools should have an agricultural bias. I remember in my young days going to the primary school, and our textbooks and readers contained much interesting matter relating to agriculture. It appears that this system has been departed from. That is a mistake. What you want to do with the young people, farmers' sons, is to bring them up in an agricultural environment, and to do that you must start in the primary school. The very day they go to school, if they are in a position to read, some subject should be put into their hands to read which relates to agriculture. Then they will grow up in that environment, and show as they go along an aptitude for agriculture. I know that the Minister and his Department are making sound, good, practical efforts to educate the farmers, but generally we should give an education with a markedly agricultural bias.
The parish plan has been mentioned by nearly every speaker in this debate. I think it was an exceptionally good move. It is right for the Minister to make available for the farmers an agricultural agent who would advise them. The scheme deserves an immense amount of support and credit from all sides of the House.
I was glad to see throughout this debate, as far as I have heard or read it, that in my opinion it has taken on a new look. The people on the Opposition side of the House have approached this debate in many cases in a very reasonable way. I was very much impressed by one rather lengthy speech I heard, by Deputy Childers. His speech was a masterpiece, as far as agriculture was concerned. He put up something very constructive and did not attack the Minister or his policy. He was helpful and constructive in his criticism and advice to the Minister. That is the right approach to agriculture. On all sides of the House there should be some kind of agreement and constructive proposals should be put up on which the Minister and his Department could act. I am glad that that change has taken place in the House, and that we have departed from the aggressive attitude which used to be adopted on this Estimate in previous years.
The Minister, in his ambition to educate the farmers, has proposed to establish an agricultural institute. With certain reservations I am entirely in favour of that. My reservations are these, that he may propose to erect the institute, perhaps, in or about Dublin. I am not quite sure but that it may be, perhaps, for convenience sake that it will be centred in Dublin—for the convenience of the teachers, the professors and the instructors. I have not the slightest objection to that, but I would advise the Minister, if he does decide to centre it in Dublin, to have some other institutions established throughout the country in each of the provinces, because, in each of the provinces, a different type of agricultural economy is practised. For instance, in the West, you have mixed farming; in the South, you have dairy farming and in the Midlands, you have the beef and cattle industry. For that reason, I think there should be subsidiary institutions established which could forward advice to the central institute established in or around Dublin. I think that would be very essential and very necessary, because our ideas come into conflict so often.
People in the South of Ireland who go in for dairy farming, whose economy is principally milk and whose stock is generally cows do not quite understand what our problems in the West are. Now, our problems in the West are more concerned with grass and the production and the raising of store cattle, plus pigs and poultry. In the Midlands, as I have said, they concentrate more on the production of beef. For that reason, I would say that there should be some kind of subsidiary institutes established in each of these areas —in Connacht, in Munster and in Leinster and that part of Ulster which is under our control.
I was rather astonished by one Deputy here making what I call a vicious attack on some of the organisations that have been established for the improvement and betterment of rural Ireland and, in particular, the agricultural industry. One Deputy from Cork, Deputy Moher, made an uncalled for attack. I hold he is a very intelligent man and I was more than surprised at him, because of the uncalled for attack he made on one organisation in particular, an organisation which I hold in the highest esteem, namely, Muintir na Tíre. That is an organisation which cannot be attacked and which cannot be criticised. That organisation has done more than anything else in rural Ireland to unite the people and give them an opportunity of exchanging views as between different sections of the community. It is an organisation which, regrettably, started rather late in this country. It is one of the organisations that can truly voice the feelings of the people in rural Ireland and I was astonished and shocked that any Deputy should attack that organisation. In my opinion, it has come to stay. It will expand and it will increase in numbers every day. I wish it every success.
There are other organisations associated with Muintir na Tíre. There is Macra na Feirme and the National Farmers' Association. I hold that all these organisations or associations are good from an advisory point of view, and should be supported and encouraged. I think it is the intention of the Minister and the Department not to support merely by lip-service, but rather in a practical way. It has been proved already that the Minister has done something in a practical way to encourage these organisations and associations to carry on the work they have initiated and it is regrettable that any Deputy here, irrespective of what Party he belongs to, should try in any way to belittle the services these organisations are giving the country at the present time.
The land project, conceived by the Minister and implemented by him, is one of the finest schemes ever started in this country. An immense amount of good work has been done under it already and I hope that good work will continue. I refer to the good work of bringing lands that were waste and derelict back into production. It is the aim of all of us to make the land produce more. That was the purpose for which the land project was initiated and I think it was one of the finest measures ever passed in this House.
As in all other human concepts, there are certain difficulties which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I do not know whether I am right in saying this, but it is my opinion that the biggest mistake ever made in this country or by a native Government was made at the time it was decided that the Government machinery would be sold. I think that was a calamity. It was a grave mistake. Nowadays, people are more or less at the mercy of contractors. While those contractors are doing very good work and giving their services very freely in certain parts of the country, there are other parts of the country which are being neglected. Now it is quite natural to expect that any man who purchases heavy machinery, costly and expensive machinery, will try to recoup himself for the cost of such machinery at the earliest possible date. Naturally enough, such a man is tempted to embark on big schemes, with the result that the smaller schemes are left untouched. I know that principle applies in certain instances. First of all, the machinery these contractors have is too heavy to go in on some fields. The farmer who wishes to have reclamation done with the aid of the Department is not in a position to provide the labour; and the small farmer in Mayo who wants to reclaim five, six or seven acres has neither the labour nor the time. He looks to the Government to send in a contractor.
I know that in many cases the contractors are refusing these jobs, with the result that this poor man is left lagging behind; he cannot get anyone to do the job. I would suggest that some light machinery should be made available through the Department to these people. I think that would be a good idea, because, after all, the small man, the man with the £20 and £30 valuation—and there are more of them than there are farmers with higher valuations—should receive every support and every encouragement and, not being in a position to do the work himself, should be assisted to the full by the Government and by the Department.
In conjunction with the land project, there is the ground limestone scheme. That scheme is being availed of to a considerable extent in my part of the country and the results are quite obvious. Looking at land which has been dressed in the past two or three years, no one needs proof of what lime has meant to the land in this country. Some of our lands have taken on a new look as a result of the ground limestone scheme, and any farmer who does not avail of that scheme—remember, he can have lime delivered to his door at 16/- per ton— is not, I am afraid, doing his duty to himself, to his land or to his country.
I want to say a word or two about fertilisers. Fertilisers would be more freely used by the farmers, if the price were more attractive. I know that people have got to become fertiliser-minded in many parts of the country, but the price at which fertilisers are now selling is altogether staggering and people are unable to purchase them. Even though the Government, the Minister and his Department have been generous as far as grants and subsidies are concerned, I would recommend to the Minister that he should further consider the granting of a subsidy for the purchase of fertilisers. If we continue in the present desultory fashion, it will take too long to bring our land back to fertility. If we give all the encouragement that should be given, we will in our lifetime see many more acres in production than are in production at the moment.
I should be much happier standing up here to-day and speaking on this Estimate if the cost of the Department of Agriculture was twice what it is to-day. Some people may say that that is very ambitious; that we want all for agriculture and nothing for anything else. But we must all be alive to the fact that agriculture is the predominant industry in this country and, where you have a failing and declining agricultural industry, all other industries must go by the board. I would not be one bit afraid to make this statement in any place in Ireland: I would much rather be here to-day supporting this Estimate, if the Estimate were millions of pounds more than it is to-day, because it means putting money into something that is worth while and which will give a return for the money invested during our lifetime at least.
I should like to hear from the Minister, as a matter of interest, and as a matter which affects my constituency, as the Minister knows well, something about the future prospects of the cattle trade. I do not want the Minister to be a prophet and tell me what is going to happen this day 12 months, but I know he must have an interest in the cattle trade, just as I have myself. We in Roscommon are engaged in the production of stores for the British market. That market has been despised by some sections here in the past and when we were told that it was gone and gone forever, it was a sad thing. However, it has come to life again, but when the Fianna Fáil Party were the Government of the day—I may be wrong in this—I always felt they had a prejudice against the cattle trade. I always felt that was the case, although I could not, for the life of me, see why there should be such a prejudice.
After all, it is a business that has stood on its own feet without subsidy, grant or anything else. The stores trade has been carried on through good and bad days, through the economic war and the times that came after that. I think it is one of the industries that is a credit to us and it should be catered for and looked after. I should like to know if the Minister has any idea—because the farmers are interested, naturally, in prices—of what may happen to the cattle trade in the future. My own personal opinion is that, if we produce the right animal, we will always have a market for it, but I will say that the day of the heavy beast of 12 or 14 cwt. is nearly finished. I suggest that what we should aim to supply in the years ahead are the lighter weights of beef cattle and I would say that what we should cater for in the years to come would be the Aberdeen Angus——
Crossed on the Shorthorn.
Who will breed the Shorthorn?
Crossed on the Shorthorn, yes, but I would like to know where we are going to get the Shorthorns?
I think the Shorthorn heifer is the best buy a farmer could make to-day, if he puts her to an Aberdeen Angus bull for sale as a springer next spring.
The problem in the West of Ireland is: where are you to get those Shorthorns? That is the problem in Roscommon.
The Deputy will remember that I have been preaching that for many years, that farmers ought to breed dual-purpose Shorthorn cows.
That is the problem. A Shorthorn heifer may be very valuable, but a Shorthorn bullock of a certain class is not so valuable. If a farmer is lucky enough to have a heifer calf, I would advise the farmer to keep it, but that does not happen always.
If the farmer takes the horns off the bullock, it will pay very well.
But he has to have him up very early in the weight—that is the outlook for the future. I would recommend to the Minister, if this is possible, that he should devise some scheme to subsidise Shorthorn calves. That is a tall order, perhaps, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. I am even inclined to go a little further and say that the farmer who took his cow to a Shorthorn bull and had a heifer calf should not be permitted to export heifer calves of that class to England for some time, because there is a growing scarcity of heifer calves in the West of Ireland.
The people breeding the blacks to supply the subsidy?
It is the people who supply all subsidies, the taxpayers.
I know. But would the people breeding the polled Angus supply the subsidy?
I do not know; I do not think it would be fair to ask them. However, that is a suggestion I wish to make to the Minister, in the hope that it might be worth adopting to encourage the breeding of heifer calves, which should be stimulated, I think, by something in the nature of a subsidy.
Some time ago, I spoke here on the rates on agricultural land. The Ceann Comhairle may say that may not be relevant, but I now want to suggest to the Minister that he should have a conversation with the Minister for Local Government and impress upon him the necessity for increasing the grant for the relief of rates on agricultural land. That is not a function of the Minister, but I would ask him to use his good offices to try to get that grant increased.
At 7 o'clock, you can vote for that Bill that will increase the subsidy.
Is there a motion down about it?
There is a Bill coming in, and I hope you will vote for the amendments.
You were in office for a long number of years and we did not hear anything about this motion.
No; the Minister is bringing in a Bill.
Oh, the usual Bill.
I hope you will support the amendment to increase the subsidy.
I would ask the Minister to do that now. On the whole, the progress made in agricultural matters for the past 12 or 15 months is encouraging and I think that, with a little time, the present Minister will be able to have his ambitions realised. He is certainly an ambitious man, and I am glad we have such a man in office to-day.
Coming back to where I started, I am also glad to note that the speeches from the opposite side—with the exception of a few speakers—have been made in a dispassionate manner and that the people on the other side of the House are displaying a better and keener interest in the agricultural industry. Without making any harsh criticism, I think that is a good sign that we are travelling in the right direction.
Quite recently, an interesting thing happened in my county with regard to bonuses to agricultural employees of agricultural committees. I understood the Minister made an Order authorising the payment of those bonuses. I am not quite sure of that, but I would like to know if the Minister has made such an Order, because it would clear the air very much. There is a little bit of conflict between our county committee of agriculture and our county council on that matter. The Minister for Local Government has not, it appears, made a similar Order, and if he had, it would make things very much smoother in Roscommon. Quite recently, in Roscommon, our officials made an application for this increase and we adopted a different scale from that recommended by the Department, a sliding scale, somewhat more moderate than was recommended by the Department. A very short time afterwards, we had a meeting of the agricultural committee and we were told it was mandatory on us to adopt the scheme.
It was not mandatory—I think I am wrong there. I shall deal with it when I am concluding.
It is a cause of confusion in our county. On behalf of my constituency, and on my own behalf, I hope the present agricultural policy will be continued. If that policy is pursued for the remaining years of our term of office, and if we get the co-operation of the Opposition—we have had a certain amount of it during this debate—the agricultural industry in this country will progress still further.
This is a debate on a very important Estimate and it is more important still when we bear in mind the warning we have received that, unless we increase production, we are doomed. I fear the Minister himself will have to shoulder some of the blame for the present position of our balance of payments. The reduction in the price of wheat has been responsible for a big gap in our balance of payments.
It is all very fine to ask farmers to increase production, but how can they do so when production costs are rising and when prices are not rising in accordance with these increased production costs? I think it was Deputy Tully who said that if some of the leaders of the farmers who paraded in the milk dispute would pay a decent wages to their workers they would be doing a better day's work. I do not know what wages they were paying, but surely Deputy Tully must agree that, when farmers' prices are coming down and when farmers' costs are rising, they will find it impossible to increase production.
Consider the position in the industrial sphere. If the workers demand an increase in their wages and if the increase is granted, then the impact of that increase is borne by an increase in the cost of the manufactured article. When, however, the farmer looks for an increase in the price of his produce, in order to compensate him for the increases that have taken place in his costs, he is told to double his output. Why is that not the attitude towards industry and everything else?
I was amazed to hear Deputy Deering criticise the growing of wheat. He said that we do not export wheat and his outlook seemed to be that, as we do not export it, we should not grow it at all. He also compared the amount of labour given in County Kilkenny with the amount of labour given in County Cavan. I live very near County Kilkenny. Take an average farmer who might grow 20 or 30 acres of wheat and follow that up with perhaps ten or 12 acres of beet. Then, again, there are other root crops, too. That is good farming. It is obvious that we cannot save those crops without increased labour. I am surprised by the speech made by Deputy Deering. He said we were not exporting wheat, but I would point out to him that we are exporting human beings. One of the biggest mistakes the present Minister for Agriculture ever made was to offer an increase of 2/6 a barrel for wheat to meet increased costs. The National Farmers' Association and farmers in general are not satisfied that an increase of 2/6 per barrel will meet the increase in their costs.
There has been a lot of talk about the education of our farmers. It is suggested that more agricultural instructors and agricultural advisers, and so forth, are required. In my opinion, that type of thing can be carried too far. Our farmers to-day are not illiterate and, what is more, they know how to work their land to the best advantage. It would be much better for all concerned if some of the money which, it is boasted, is spent on giving education to our farmers were devoted, instead, to helping the farmer to produce more. At present, the small farmer cannot increase his production, because the costs are too high. There was a time when he could make a livelihood for himself and his family by the growing of wheat and through the pig industry. Everybody knows that for the past few years the pig industry has been on the decline. If you buy a bonham at the market to-day, you will pay £6 or £7 for it.
Why not breed them?
Perhaps everybody is not in a position to breed them.
Why? Can you not keep a sow?
Farmers could do that and, indeed, do. However, not everybody is in a position to keep one.
Why?
I have said that possibly not every farmer is in a position to keep a sow. I do not know why.
If he can keep a pig, he can keep a sow.
We have heard a lot of talk about expecting increased production. I want to relate that to the position of small farmers. I have proof that lack of credit facilities for small farmers is having a severely adverse effect on their economy. I have seen clear instances of it myself. I visited an institution to which a farm of about 300 acres is attached. There have been improvements there in the line of houses and fertilisers. That institution can carry out such improvements, but the reason is that the State and the ratepayers are helping them to carry on. Sometimes you hear talk to the effect that such and such a man can double his output while another man cannot.
There was one scheme of credit for farmers which was operated through the Department of Agriculture, but which was transferred to the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I am sure every Deputy knows it is not easy for a small farmer to get a loan. I know a small farmer who sought a loan of only £100. He had three or four small cattle which he wanted to keep as they would be worth twice their value at that time in another few months. That man was refused the loan. We are told that the Agricultural Credit Corporation is there to help the farmer. It is not.
If the bottom were going to fall out of the price of cattle——
I am glad the Minister mentioned that. I must say I am very surprised by some of his statements.
Was it not true?
Was the statement in the Irish Press not true? Were they not down?
But the bottom has not fallen out of the market. Furthermore, have the prices not gone up again?
They were down again this day week. The Minister advised the farmers to hold on from 1st February until mid-April. Where would a man be who would have stall-fed cattle during that period? How could he be expected to carry on? Would the Minister ask the shopkeepers to wait until this man would sell his cattle?
I would.
They would not listen to you. Anyhow, the man could not afford to keep them. Any person of common sense must admit that the time comes when you must sell, in order to meet bills and other demands. The Minister has done more to increase the sales of the Irish Press than anybody.
They lost £78,000 last year.
I heard a lot of talk about grants. There may be certain grants which will not help production, grants in connection with the building of piers or the cutting of bushes. The drainage of rivers would do more to help to increase production. I know of some cases where farmers cannot avail of the land reclamation scheme. There is not enough money spent on the drainage of the main rivers and if the amount spent on the roads were spent on the drainage of rivers you would have better results. This would give the same amount of employment.
When Deputy Walsh was speaking, I heard Deputy Fagan say that he preferred to see the cattle going out on the hoof. I should not like to support Deputy Fagan's statement and I am sure there are other Deputies here who would not support it. We have a good meat factory in Roscrea but, if we are going to ship cattle on the hoof, it will be a great drawback to that factory which is closed for some months in the year. It is closed at present. If we close the factory altogether, what will happen? I do not agree with that policy.
As regards grants in respect of improvements and water supplies to houses, complaints were made to me in regard to a farmer who some time ago filled the usual form. He had three visits from three different inspectors. What would have paid the three inspectors would have paid the farmers outright.
Did the Deputy give me particulars of that case?
I will. It was only to-day that I happened to meet a certain person from South Tipperary—he is not in my constituency—who asked me about the matter. I will be only too glad to give the Minister particulars.
I should be very glad to have the matter looked into.
I heard Deputy Tully advising the Minister to grow tobacco again. That might be another smoke screen. It might get the Minister votes in Wexford. I do not think that would be a very wise move.
I agree with the Deputy but he will remember that it was his Party who started that particular folly.
There was a reduction in the acreage of potatoes last year. I wonder would the Minister start a scheme in regard to the production of certified seed potatoes on bog land? The scheme could be something like that which we have in regard to the sugar company on Bohoola Bog. If some of these bogs could be utilised, it would be of great help in the growing of certified seed potatoes. I would ask the Minister to consider that matter.
In my opinion the Minister made one of his biggest mistakes with regard to increased production by reducing the price for wheat. At a meeting last Monday in the Leix-Offaly area, the Minister said that if the farmers had not the money they would not have bought tractors but the tractors were either got from the Agricultural Credit Corporation or on hire purchase. It may look bad that the farmers had to do that. The reduction in the price of wheat hit these people very hard and some of the machines will have to be thrown on the wayside. A lot of them will have to be sold second-hand at scrap prices. One of the biggest strokes of hard luck to befall the agricultural community was the reduction in the price of wheat.
We hear quite a lot about the money spent on agriculture but the amount spent on agriculture is very small in comparison with that spent on research in industry. We are inviting gentlemen from other countries to speculate. I am not against the establishment of industry but more money is spent on industry than on agriculture. The price of fertilisers is very high and Deputy Beirne wanted subsidies for them. Did he think of voting for subsidies? He did not help when he went into the Lobby and voted for the reduced price of 12/6 per barrel for wheat. Farmers, on the average, lost between £200 and £300 each. With that money they could have purchased fertilisers.
In the White Paper, the Minister suggested the acquisition of land for the growing of certain cereal crops and for demonstration plots. I see thousands of acres in the Curragh whose appearance is no different in winter or summer. The same amount of grass is there all the time. There you have good land growing furze. If that land were taken over, it would be very suitable for a pilot farm. Indeed, it could be divided up but that is not a matter for the Minister. We are asking other people to increase production and put their land in good heart. But here you have thousands of acres.
Where?
The Curragh of Kildare, where there is plenty of furze and very bad grass.
And a few sheep.
I never saw a bag of fertiliser being spread there. The grass is the one colour, summer and winter. Yet we hear all this talk about increased production. We never made use of the Curragh during the emergency. The Minister should have considered it an insult to offer the farmers an increase of 2/6 a barrel.
It cost £300,000.
The fact that this Estimate has been discussed for five different days proves the wide interest taken in it. That is only natural when you reflect on the fact that agriculture is our basic industry and that on our exportable surpluses from agriculture we have to depend for raw materials to keep agriculture itself and other industries going. Of agriculture, our live stock is the most important side and of live stock our cattle industry must take pride of place.
Over the years our cattle trade was the one thing that sustained our people. It would be an unpardonable crime for anybody, here or outside, to say or do anything that would jeopardise that great industry which is so vital to the interests of the Irish nation. If our cattle trade were to collapse in the morning, I see nothing but doom for this country, so dependent are we on it as the main industry to sustain our people. The most significant thing emerging in recent months was the decision of the Minister.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.