I am sure these other countries have the equivalent of 3,000,000 sheep, but if the Minister wants to engage in a debate on that I will take him on any day. At all events, it will quieten the Minister if I say that the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Lands were members of the Government which in the year 1949 sat down and decided solemnly that the annual plantation rate should be 25,000 acres per year. That decision was embodied in the long-term programme submitted to the American authorities and presented to this House. It might be well if I refreshed the memory of the House in regard to what was said at that time in relation to that programme. I am quoting from page 22 of the European Recovery Programme (1949-1953). It is a public document (P. No. 9198). Paragraph 49 reads:—
"So far, reafforestation has been carried out only on a very small scale; in recent years the rate of planting in the State forests has been approximately 6,000 acres per year. It is proposed to step this up to 25,000 acres per year. The aim will be to plant 1,000,000 acres by annual increments of 25,000 acres. At maturity, and assuming an average yield of 3,500 cubic feet of timber per acre on a 50-year rotation, the annual return on a 25,000-acre felling will be of the order of 87.5 million cubic feet, or approximately 350,000 standards of sawn timber."
That was the decision of a Government submitted to this House in the year 1949. I would like to have seen a higher annual rate of plantation decided upon then but I was quite prepared to accept an annual rate of 25,000 acres a year as being a vast advance on what had been done before. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached that annual rate of 25,000 acres a year. In 1949-50, we planted planted 3,393 acres; in 1950-51, with the impetus given to the afforestation programme by the present Minister, plantation went up to 9,372 acres; in 1951-52, it reached the 15,000 mark; then it slumped back in 1952-53 to 12,400 acres and it was the same in the following year. In 1954-55, it went up to 13,900 acres, and in 1955-56 the area planted was 15,000. This year I understand the planting programme will be 17,500, which will be the highest plantation rate achieved since the State was set up. I am very glad to pay tribute to the Minister for having achieved that planting rate, but that is still short of the planting rate which I think everybody will agree is the necessary planting rate of 25,000 acres a year.
I mentioned some of the main economic problems facing the country, the need for increased production, the need to provide employment to enable the vast numbers who are at present unemployed or who have to emigrate, to live in their own country. Forestry is now the biggest single undertaking in the State. There are more than 5,000 men employed in forestry as the result of an expansion which took place in forestry from 1948 onwards. Employment in forestry grew from 2,000 to 5,000 acres. That is no inconsiderable increase, but I do not know whether members of the House appreciate fully the seriousness of the lack of development in the country.
I am glad to see the Minister for Agriculture here. He is looking rather sceptical, but I wonder does the Minister for Agriculture appreciate that from 1951 to 1955 37,000 people who had been employed in agriculture became disemployed? There was a fall of 37,000 in agricultural employment in that short period. That is not due probably to any fault in the organisation of our agriculture. The tendency for disemployment to occur in agriculture has been a world-wide one.
What is particularly disturbing, and I would like the Ministers who are in the House now to bear this in mind, is the fact that during that period while 37,000 people were disemployed in agriculture we only succeeded in creating 1,000 additional jobs in non-agricultural occupations. That is the net result of five years of endeavour. I am quite prepared to give credit to this Government and to the previous Government for using their best endeavours to promote development, but the net result of those endeavours was a net disemployment of 36,000 people in a period of five years, quite apart altogether from emigration. With all the money we spent and with all our best efforts, we only succeeded in creating in that five-year period 1,000 new jobs in the non-agricultural sectors of our economy. Surely that must show some basic defect in the policies we are pursuing. I am not talking now of the policy of this Government, the last Government or any Government. I am not concerned with trying to make political capital for one side or the other.
We must face the stark realities of our failure to pursue an economic policy capable of coping with the problems with which we have to deal. We have a falling population. From the census we know the extent of that fall. We have an emigration rate of 40,000 to 45,000 per year. We have an unemployment problem ranging from 40,000 to 70,000 to 75,000 depending on the season of the year. We are not engaged here to-night in a general economic debate. I merely give these facts to underline the vital importance of actively pursuing a policy of afforestation and putting the maximum amount of endeavour into it. I am quite satisfied the Minister is doing that. I am quite satisfied the Minister would like to plant 50,000 acres per year. I am quite satisfied he is doing his best. Having regard to the slowness of the progress made and to the fact that year after year successive Governments and all political Parties have voiced their agreement and their approval of afforestation, in the light of the lack of progress it is desirable, I think, to try to remove doubts as to what our target is. For that reason I tabled this motion which proposes an annual target of 25,000 acres per year. The Minister has tabled an amendment, accepting that target of 25,000 acres but providing that it should be reached by annual increments of 2,500 per year. In three years' time, on that basis, we would reach the 25,000 acres per year. I am prepared to accept that. It is a reasonable rate of progress and I accept the Minister's amendment in that regard.
The House, however, should put on its records as a definite indication to the Minister, whether it be the present Minister or any other Minister, that the annual target is to be 25,000 acres per year. I would like to make it clear—I think I have made it clear on a number of occasions—that as far as I am concerned and as far as anybody interested in forestry is concerned, we have reached the stage when we are no longer prepared to accept excuses if the programme is not implemented. I am quite certain the Minister will do his level best to achieve that programme. I have become so used over a period—not merely since I came into this House but long before it—to hearing different excuses put forward for the lack of progress that I have now reached the stage where I am not prepared to listen to any excuse or even to listen to reason in relation to forestry.
We all know that forestry involves long-term planning. In order to plant successfully one must plan at least five years ahead. If one decides on 25,000 acres per year one must start probably four or five years before that to acquire the land necessary. A large proportion of the land may be unsuitable and, therefore, one must acquire more than the actual amount required for planting. In addition, one must have a plantable reserve. If one intends to plant 25,000 acres one will want a plantable reserve of approximately 75,000 acres in hand. I know the Minister is doing his best in that direction and I hope the legislation he introduced last session will facilitate him in carrying out his programme.
It is essential that all planning should be done carefully so that we will not be told two years or three years hence that there are not enough seedlings, not enough reserve of land, not enough thinned forests, or something like that. It is well we should know exactly where we stand. The House wants a reasonable target of 25,000 acres a year and it wants that target achieved.
Even by planting 25,000 acres per year we should still be doing considerably less proportionately in comparison with other countries. In Britain, which is an industrial country suffering more from over-employment than underemployment, the target of the Forestry Commission is 5,000,000 acres. In the year 1954 the British Forestry Commission planted 70,400 acres. In addition, 19,100 acres were planted through the medium of State-aided schemes. In effect, in 1954 they planted 96,500 acres. That is six times more than we did in that year. It must be borne in mind, too, that Britain has a much higher percentage of land under timber than we have. As I pointed out, Britain is a highly industrialised country suffering from overfull employment. Yet, the British Forestry Commission engages in a vast programme of afforestation. The land area is about three times greater than ours, but Britain planted six times more timber than we did in one year. There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary or nothing ambitious in our aiming at planting 25,000 acres. It is the very minimum we should aim to achieve.
I should mention, of course, that quite apart from the decision of the Government in regard to the 25,000-acre target in 1949 which is embodied in the long term plan, a forestry survey was made by an official of the F.A.O. who came here, and in the course of that survey he approved of the planting of 1,000,000 acres, half of which would be for purely commercial timber and the other half on the basis of a full social forestry programme. So there can be no question or room for argument now on the plantation rate or the target we should reach. Our concern should be that these targets are reached and that is the purpose of this motion.
I am quite certain—and I would like to pay tribute to the Minister and the Government—that the Minister has been doing his best and I congratulate him on having been able in a fairly short space of time practically to treble the amount of forestry work which was being done before. That is an achievement, but we cannot rest on our laurels and we have to reach the target which we set ourselves seven years ago.
While I welcome the amendment tabled by the Minister which ensures that we will reach that target in three years' time, I would again like to make definitely clear that I do not think we should be prepared to accept any excuses next year or the year after or in three years' time if the targets laid down in the Minister's amendment are not reached. All the difficulties that can arise are difficulties that can be anticipated.
Of the various items of capital expenditure indulged in by the State, forestry is the most productive. We spend some £12,000,000 or more on our roads. It is very necessary to have good roads but good roads do not provide us with an income; they do not produce anything that would add to the productivity of the country. They do not add to our exports. We spend, I think, something over £1,000,000 on forestry. I would like to see that process reversed. I would prefer to see us spending £12,000,000 on forestry and £1,000,000 on roads. From the point of view of productivity we would get much more and also from the point of view of employment, because of all the various forms of public works, forestry is the one which has the highest labour content. It is much more than in the case of road work and is higher even than housing. In addition to that, forestry produces a solid asset, from 12 to 15 years afterwards, when it begins to yield a return.
I hope that the House will approach this motion in an objective sense and that what I have said will not be misconstrued by the members of the Opposition as an indictment for their neglect. It is as much an indictment of previous Governments as it is of them; it is a general indictment, if you like, of our lack of foresight as a nation in that respect. Possibly, it is one illustration of the lack of economic thinking and planning which has characterised our development since the State was founded.
I think Deputy Moylan has tabled an amendment and I do not know whether he intends to proceed with it. It suggests that instead of the motion which I propose, or the amendment which the Minister proposes, that a select committee consisting, I think, of 15 members of this House should be set up to examine the desirability of this annual target of 25,000 acres. Frankly I think that would be merely placing an additional difficulty in the way causing additional delay. I would regard it if adopted by the House rather as a side-tracking of the amendment intended to void the efforts of those who had all these assessments and decisions made from time to time setting this target of 25,000 acres a yield a year.
For goodness' sake, let us get together on that; let us try to ensure that the target is reached and that we get results. As I said before, we already have an additional 5,000 people employed on forestry. That is an increase of 3,000 in a short space of time since the present Minister took over. That is a welcome development, but let me remind the House and the Minister for Agriculture who is looking sceptical and cynical about it that were it nor for that increase we would not even have found the miserly 1,000 additional jobs outside agricultural employment, and that the increase is extremely small in the light of the fact that in a period of five years we succeeded in disemploying a net total of 36,000 people. If an annual target in forestry of 25,000 acres a year is pursued actively we will have more than 5,000 people employed and I hope close on 20,000 people employed in forestry. Apart from the direct employment thus created, there will be produced raw material which I hope will provide employment for twice as many and will enable us to increase our produce and our exports, because I think we should aim at planting not merely sufficient to meet our own requirements—and we import between £16,000,000 and £20,000,000 worth a year at the moment——
