asked the Minister for Agriculture whether he is aware that many farmers had materials for the erection of hay sheds delivered to their premises on dates subsequent to the stoppage of grants under the farm buildings scheme and before the erection had been approved by his Department, and, if so, if he will consider making grants available to such farmers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Farm Building Grants.
I am not aware that many farmers are in the position described in the first part of the Deputy's question. A small number of farmers whose recent applications for grants in respect of hay sheds under the farm buildings scheme have had to be deferred for the present informed my Department that they had already made arrangements for erection of hay sheds, although they had not obtained the necessary approval of their applications. It is an essential condition of the scheme that an applicant must obtain prior official authority for carrying out, to prescribed specifications, any work for which he seeks a grant.
As the funds provided for the scheme this year are earmarked to meet applications already accepted and applications in respect of cow-byres from participants under the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme, I regret that I cannot accept any further applications at this stage. I may mention that this year's funds are up to the level of last year's and are substantiaally more than the funds provided in earlier years.
The acceptance of applications will be resumed at the earliest possible date, but I would like to make it clear is that connection that there must be observance of this condition that the applicant must obtain prior official authority for carrying out, to prescribed specifications, the work proposed for a grant.
Seeing that the work is to cease from now to the end of the financial year, would the Minister tell us what is to happen to the staff normally employed over the year in this work?
I fully sympathise with the Deputy's well-intentioned misconception. I said that the receipt of applications will be suspended, but, in fact, I am still charged with the responsibility of spending in the remainder of this year £426,000 on farm buildings and if that does not keep the staff of the farm buildings scheme as busy as bees, they are better men than I am, Gunga Din.
Is the Minister aware that the suppliers of hay sheds, who canvassed the farmers for years, had delivered and erected them in farmers' haggards before the owners of the farms had made application? There were a number of such cases throughout the country.
Is that the Deputy's question?
Will the Minister consider these cases? The hay sheds were delivered by the suppliers and erected at the same time as application was made, during the same week; it takes only two or three days to erect a hay shed. They made application the same day—before the Minister's officers decided they were within the specification. Could the Minister not reconsider those cases with a view to allowing a grant?
If that concludes the Deputy's supplementary question, may I say that, with his usual perspicacity, he has laid his finger on the very heart of this matter. The problem to which he refers is that the fellows who want to erect the hay sheds are delivering them before the other fellows apply for a grant at all. Then they expect me to deliver automatically a grant to whomever they have delivered a hay shed. Since the State was founded, it has been the established practice that, before a Minister authorises the outlay of public money, he must satisfy himself that it is being laid out in accordance with the rules laid down for him by Dáil Éireann. It is perfectly true that, so successful has the farm buildings scheme been, the number of erectors has doubled, trebled and quadrupled and they are chasing one another round the country seeking custom. As Deputy Allen says, they will deliver the makings of the hay shed on chance into anybody's yard. However, I do not think it is reasonable for a Deputy to ask me to give an undertaking that automatically I will give a hay barn grant to anyone into whose yard an enterprising erector has dumped the raw materials therefor. I cannot change the regulations which provide that, before a hay shed grant is given, the person who wants to buy it must apply; the officer of the Department in charge of farm buildings in his area must inspect the site and satisfy himself that it will be built to specification and I will then issue the appropriate notice that he will get a grant if he builds the hay shed. If he tries to short circuit that procedure, there is nothing I can do about it.
Surely the Minister is aware that, without any notice whatever, he clamped down on a certain date in June, July or August of this year and said there were no more grants for hay sheds?
No.
Without notice, there was a clamping-down on a certain date and no more applications were received. Small farmers who are unable to pay the full costs of those hay sheds were penalised.
There is no truth whatever in the suggestion made by the Deputy——
I saw the circulars myself.
——that any notice was issued to anybody that there would be no further outlay on farm buildings. However, I have declared in public repeatedly that, so successful have been my efforts to promote this scheme——
To try to stop it.
——I had earmarked already every penny appropriated this year and that I have no more money available until next year. If the Dáil wants me to spend another £1,000,000 or £10,000,000 on farm buildings, if I employed all the people in the country on the erection of farm buildings, I suppose I could do it but if I tried to do it I would be daft. I have no intention of asking the Dáil for permission to do anything so daft. We will keep on at this job year after year until the job is done but we will not go daft about it.
Question No. 24.