Not plans. But now, before we go out to plant an acreage of forest on bog, we are going to find out, in so far as it is humanly possible to do so, will the forest grow. If it will, we will plant it; if it will not, we will not.
I am sorry that Deputy Geoghegan has left the House. There is a practice growing up in this House, which I deplore, of Deputies complaining bitterly that we are failing to "deliver the goods" in respect of the Ceantair Cúnga. The last time this Estimate was before the House Deputy Geoghegan had to tell me that a number of persons in whom he was interested had failed to have their grants paid to them. I asked Deputy Geoghegan would he be kind enough to give me particulars of these cases so that I might investigate. He said "certainly". I waited a week and I got no word from Deputy Geoghegan. Then I wrote to Deputy Geoghegan to say that perhaps he had overlooked this, that it had escaped his memory, and might I request him to give me particulars of the cases. I got no answer from Deputy Geoghegan. Then I wrote again and said: "Perhaps my first letter has miscarried but I am worried about these people, whom you say we failed to make provision for though they were entitled to it." I am still waiting for the reply.
I was principally concerned to intervene in this debate to deal with the codology of Min Fhéir Teoranta. But I was also concerned to intervene in the debate in order to introduce some note of reality into it after all the tripe talked by members of the Fianna Fáil Party. Our purpose in the congested areas is to provide the people who live there with decent employment, producing economically under decent conditions, and my submission to Dáil Éireann is that our effort in the few years since we first put our hand to the job has been attended with very considerable success.
I believe that by patient perseverance we can greatly improve on what we have already done. But over and above the enterprises of fishery, forestry, boat-building and peat land research, with which I have dealt, I want to say that in the congested areas, as in every other part of Ireland, there is one work that should take priority over all others. And that is the exploitation of the land. People are sometimes inclined to assume that all the land in the congested areas is virtually and. That is nonsense. The land of the greater part of the congested areas can be made to yield, for those who own it and work it at the present time, not less than twice what it is at present producing. I say with the fullest deliberation as Minister for Agriculture that the land of the congested areas can be made to produce not less than twice what it is producing at present.
In the vast majority of congested holdings in Ireland of ten to 15 acres we could, by the introduction of proper procedures, convert them to morrow into the equivalent of 20 or 30 acre holdings, if we were to measure them by their yield. And the key to that is simple, if we could but carry conviction to the minds of the people of the congested areas to implement it. It can be summed up in three words: phosphates, potash and lime. If we could put out on every acre of the congested areas that wanted it two ton of ground limestone—and there are areas, particularly in the north of Clare, where that procedure would be unnecessary and there are other areas where that procedure would be unnecessary as far as lime is concerned— and if we could get out on every statute acre of the congested areas not less than four cwt. of 40 per cent. super and one cwt. of muriate of potash, we could precipitate a revolution in the standard of living of the people living in the congested areas.
If any Deputy in this House really wants to serve the congested areas, I suggest to him that he should join with me in trying to carry conviction to the minds of his constituents living in those areas that the key to their deliverance can be formulated in three words: phosphates, potash and lime. There is the real way in which we can raise the standard of living in the congested areas. All else is ancillary to that fundamental task. I think the ancillaries have their importance, and that is why I intervened in this debate in order to emphasise them; but I would be doing less than my duty if I did not emphasise to the House that, no matter what we do at Bangor Erris, no matter what we do on the seashore, no matter what we do in boat-building, no matter what we do in the development of horticulture, all is of secondary importance compared with the arable land. And there is no knowledge available to the human mind which we lack effectively to remedy the problem that exists there. There is nothing wanting to us to complete, the task of doubling the standard of living of all our people living in that area. The only thing we have so far failed to do is to make known, and to carry conviction to those to whom we wish to carry it, that the instrument of their deliverance from the low standard of living they at present have to a relatively high one is phosphate, potash and lime. The tragedy is that where a thing is simple, it is often overlooked. If it were something sensational, dramatic, incomprehensible, perhaps to a great many of us, it would be eagerly investigated as something novel, arresting and worth while. The very simplicity of the essential in this case is the greatest obstacle we have to getting it accepted by the people to whom it means most.
I would wish to end my observations in this House by asking Deputies on every side to join with me in persuading the people living in the congested areas of this country that they have a duty to themselves and to the land on which they live to use phosphate, potash and lime.