Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 28 Jun 1960

Vol. 183 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Diseases of Animals Bill, 1960—Committee and Final Stages.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

Clearly here the matter is relevant for debate, Sir. The old fund is being wound up and the new procedure is being adopted. First, I want to beg that we do not raise this matter into a grand question of principle on which the Minister and I are conjoined in irreconcilable differences. I take it that in fact the Minister and I both concede we have a problem here. The question is whether it can be equitably resolved without opening up vast potential additional issues which should be excogitated at much greater length before attempting a comprehensive insurance against death from disease in cattle.

Let us get our minds clear. This Bill has nothing to do with the death of livestock from disease. This Bill is solely concerned with the appropriate compensation for farmers whose cattle have to be destroyed in order to prevent the danger of the spread of disease. I want to suggest this analogy to the Minister, and I urge on him strenuously to look at it with an open mind. I think there is an analogy between a small farm being struck with the lightning of foot and mouth disease and being struck with the lightning of natural phenomena.

We are all agreed that in the case of the disaster of a small farm being struck by foot and mouth disease, it is a proper thing to slaughter all the cattle on the farm, but no one would argue that, even though that served the public interest, you should say to the farmer, after you buried all his stock: "You were just unlucky. The foot and mouth disease happened to strike your holding and all your stock had to be slaughtered. That is too bad. Lots of other people lost stock from fluke, stomach parasites or other causes and though their losses may have been extended over a protracted period, the end result is just as disastrous for them as it is for you." We are all agreed that, faced with the necessity of wiping out a man's livestock in the public interest, we ought to compensate him on a generous scale. That is the purpose of this Bill and the Acts that went before it under the general title of the Diseases of Animals Acts.

What I am suggesting is that, without going into the wider question of a general insurance scheme to cover all livestock against death by disease, which I agree with the Minister is an extremely complex and difficult problem, we can isolate one very strictly limited risk which besets all livestock. As the Minister says, looked at from the point of view of the whole country, the number of cases that occur are infinitesimal but each of them has this feature in it—that for the individual it is catastrophic.

Therefore, I argue that as each instance of this kind amounts to a catastrophe for the individual, because the total number of these incidents is microscopic and because the cause of death is readily identifiable by the circumstances in which it took place, this is a restricted situation with which it is very easy to deal without putting a burden of any substantial size on anybody but lifting if off the backs of a very few. That burden can be completely crippling. We could easily prescribe that deaths from lightning must be notified to the officers of the Department and the Garda Síochána within 12 hours. That would enable veterinary inspections to be made immediately and the popular report in the vicinity would confirm the recent occurrence of lightning so that it is relatively easy to exclude the possibility of fraud.

I am not suggesting that the Minister should take a decision here and now. He has power, I believe, by Order, if he wants to use his general powers. If he is determined to do it by Order, I would strongly urge upon him the desirability of bringing in whatever kind of amendment is requisite and make provision for death of livestock by lightning under this Bill.

Mr. Sweetman

Might I add a few words in support of the plea made by Deputy Dillon, particularly having regard to the occurrence of last week? One farmer I know in county Kildare lost two cows by lightning last week and another lost 32 sheep. A case like that is quite beyond their ordinary means of coping with. It is one which, as Deputy Dillon said, would fairly be isolated from the other risks. I am sure everybody will agree that to cover the single sole risk of lightning would be worth while.

Mr. Dillon

Will the Minister consider this matter?

Mr. Smith

You know the Minister considers everything.

Mr. Dillon

He can do so graciously or discourteously. If the Minister says that he will give this matter consideration, I shall be much obliged.

Mr. Smith

I thought I gave a reply which was quite suitable.

Mr. Dillon

I am asking the Minister if he will consider the matter.

Mr. Smith

The Minister considers every suggestion that is worth while.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 3.

Question proposed: "That Section 3 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

Could the Minister state what sum will remain when this Fund is wound up and where will it go? Is it proposed that any balance in the Fund will be paid into the Exchequer or that all liabilities attached to the Fund herebefore will become an Exchequer liability? Can he give us an estimate of the balance which exists at this time?

Mr. Smith

The proposal is that the payment will be made from the Fund up to 1961 but the Fund itself will remain open until 1963. Payments from this Fund are made in arrear. In fact, there are two years' payments due to local bodies at the present time and there is only a very small amount in the Fund to meet it. The Bill aims at bringing claims from the Fund to an end in 1961, after which no claims will be met from the Fund to local bodies, but the time in which payment can be made is extended up to 1963 and that is to provide for the normal payment in arrear that has been the practice in regard to this matter. It will also enable the Department to indicate the amount by way of rate that may be struck to meet the requirements of these payments up to that date, so that the arrangement should result in there being practically nothing in the Fund when it is wound up finally in 1963.

Mr. Dillon

In fact, any balance will be paid into the Exchequer?

Mr. Smith

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

As from 1961, am I right in saying that all payments which heretofore were chargeable against the Fund will become chargeable against the Exchequer?

Mr. Smith

No, that is not——

Mr. Dillon

The Minister distinguished between 1961 and 1963 and said that he was keeping the Fund in existence from 1961 to 1963 only for the purpose of dealing with claims that matured prior——

Mr. Smith

The local authority will continue to be responsible for the payment of the veterinary people appointed on a part-time basis. They will be responsible for the sheep-dipping and for whatever they are, in fact, responsible for now. These are the matters that will continue to be handled by them and provided for by them.

Mr. Dillon

This is not clear to me. I do not clearly see what is envisaged as between 1961 and 1963. Section 4 says that:—

Subsections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 72 of the Principal Act shall, on the 1st day of April, 1961, cease to have effect save with respect to expenditure incurred before that day by a local authority by way of remuneration, expenses, allowances or compensation payable by the local authority in accordance with that Act.

Therefore, I take it that any claims accruing due after the 1st day of April will be claims against the Exchequer.

Mr. Smith

No, that is not right.

Mr. Dillon

If that is not so, I do not see what is going to happen under Section 4 which is inextricably linked with Section 3. I do understand what the Minister says about the winding up of the fund in March, 1963, but if the Minister looks at Section 4 can he say what is going to happen in regard to expenditure other than expenditure incurred before the 1st April, 1961? Any expenditure incurred before the 1st April, 1961, will be a charge against the Fund after——

Mr. Smith

No, not a charge against the Fund. It is not a complete charge, it is a 50 per cent. payment from the Fund.

Mr. Dillon

Does not Section 4 seem to eliminate the Fund after the 1st April, 1961?

Mr. Smith

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

What is going to happen to claims accruing after the 1st April, 1961 and 31st March, 1963, when the Fund will be wound up?

Mr. Smith

I know it is complicated to understand. At the present time local authorities are responsible for providing money to meet payments under the Diseases of Animals Act. These are limited to, from memory, the employment of part-time veterinary people; they are limited to the administration of the Sheep Dipping Regulations and in some places to the employment of sheep dipping inspectors. In previous years the responsibilities of local authorities under the Act were much greater. They had up to recently, too, the Tuberculosis Order of 1926 but since 1957, I think it was, that was no longer a burden that had to be met by them.

Therefore I think I am right in saying that the total responsibilities of the local authorities under these Acts are in respect of payments to veterinary people in part time employment, in some cases the employment of sheep dipping inspectors, and the administration of the Sheep Dipping Regulations. All expenses incurred by them in that field were met 50 per cent. directly from the rates and 50 per cent. from the Fund. The Fund itself was created by the striking of a rate from time to time of one halfpenny in the £ paid by all these local bodies into the Central Fund from which they were able to claim and were able to secure 50 per cent. of the cost of the items I have mentioned.

What that seemed to convey to me was that they were getting half their expenses directly from the rates. They were paying in one halfpenny in the £ to the Fund to get back the other 50 per cent. of their outgoings. It seemed absurd, since they had no other commitments under the Bovine Tuberculosis Order, as amended, or under the foot and mouth disease, or swine fever, or any of the other diseases which were originally the responsibility of local bodies, to continue a situation in which they paid these charges if not directly, indirectly. It would be better that they should be responsible for whatever rate is necessary rather than strike a rate of approximately 50 per cent. and then have it paid back to them from the Fund. That seemed to be rather cumbersome machinery and for that reason we proposed to bring in this arrangement.

Mr. Dillon

The more I look at this the more I fail to understand it. It is not proposed under this Bill that hereafter the hazards provided for in the Diseases of Animals Act are to be met on a county basis. The old scheme was not so impracticable as the Minister suggests. The old scheme left in the administration of the county the operation of certain compensation provisions but it was generally agreed if there were some catastrophe in Cavan or Monaghan that each county should not be expected to bear the whole burden of the catastrophe inasmuch as its prompt extinction was for the protection of the whole country and therefore the whole country should contribute to a fund. Even though Tipperary might contribute a very large percentage of the fund and Leitrim very little, if an outbreak took place in Leitrim the whole Fund might be spent there because in the long run Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny and other counties were all going to benefit by the Draconian measures taken in Leitrim and the cost of compensation was spread over the whole country when it was necessary to embark upon it. I understood the Fund covered compensation for the slaughter of cattle even in the event of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

Mr. Smith

No.

Mr. Dillon

But it certainly covered the rest of the slaughter under the old Bovine Tuberculosis Act which I understand is still operating but operating under a new basis whereby the person is entitled to get 100 per cent.

Mr. Smith

It is met by the Exchequer.

Mr. Dillon

Altogether? The full recoupment?

Mr. Smith

It is an Exchequer responsibility.

Mr. Dillon

I understand that if at present I have a beast suffering from clinical tuberculosis, as distinct from a beast which has reacted to the T.B. test, I send not for the Department veterinary surgeon but the county council veterinary surgeon. If the county council veterinary surgeon is prepared to certify that in his judgment the beast is suffering from clinical tuberculosis, he can slaughter the beast and then, whether it turns out to be clinical tuberculosis or not, I get compensated. In the old days if a veterinary surgeon made a mistake you got the 100 per cent. compensation but, if on the slaughter of the beast it turned out that in fact the beast was suffering from clinical tuberculosis you got a percentage. I think it was the late Senator Moylan who changed that regulation and provided that under that Order you were entitled to get 100 per cent. for such animals from the local authorities whether they were suffering from clinical tuberculosis or not.

Mr. Smith

It was Deputy Aiken when he was Acting Minister.

Mr. Dillon

I thought it was the late Senator Moylan. However, it was at that time that a change was made but I understood it remained a charge under the Diseases of Animals Act.

Mr. Smith

No, it is a recoupment, from the Exchequer.

Mr. Dillon

Did the local authorities not pay the compensation and then claim it back?

Mr. Smith

It was paid from the Exchequer, not the Fund.

Mr. Dillon

It did not pass through the Fund?

Mr. Smith

No.

Mr. Dillon

Am I right in saying that theoretically foot and mouth disease slaughter was a charge on that Fund?

Mr. Smith

It has been a State liability for years and years.

Mr. Dillon

Theoretically, it was provided for under this Fund.

Mr. Smith

I do not know the machinery which was resorted to, but I do know that the costs of swine fever had to be fully met from the Exchequer and, in fact, the only items that are a charge are the ones I gave.

Mr. Dillon

Sheep dipping and the payment of the county veterinary surgeons.

Mr. Smith

And payments in respect of the inspection of slaughter houses and all that.

Mr. Dillon

It has not yet been made clear to me what will happen in respect of claims which accrue between 1st April, 1961, and the date on which this Fund is wound up, 31st March, 1963. Are they to be an Exchequer charge?

Mr. Smith

The only claims that will be met, or met in part, from the Fund are claims which will arise before 31st April, 1961. As from that date, the services which I have mentioned—the employment of veterinary surgeons for inspection work, for example, slaughter houses and other such matters as sheep dipping orders—are the only charges which will have to be met by the local bodies. They will be made direct to the local bodies instead of using this cumbersome scheme of meeting half from the rates and having the other half refunded from the Fund which they themselves have built up from the rates struck under the Diseases of Animals Acts.

I admit in the early days when the local bodies were entirely responsible for the payment of compensation in relation to these diseases, there was a case to be made for a fund like this because a disease might strike some particular county or area and the burden would be so great that the local body would be in some difficulty if it had to meet it on its own. If we look at the history of the matter, I think we will see that by and large all that business ironed itself out. As I say, that was all right at the time because the field to be covered by those local bodies was much wider and more formidable than it is now. It has now been reduced to almost nothing and there is not, to my mind, any justification whatever for the Fund since there is no State contribution involved. If there had been any State contribution involved, I would have taken an entirely different view and I would not have come forward with these proposals, but since it was created by these local authorities from a rate struck by themselves I can see no justification for continuing this cumbersome machinery.

Therefore, to whatever extent the local bodies are now liable for expenses under these Acts, they will carry that burden without building up a fund in any shape or form but purely and simply from their own direct action so far as payments from the rates are concerned.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 4 agreed to.

SECTION 5.

Question proposed: "That Section 5 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

I generally agree that matters of history are not significant, but it would be fantastic to inform the Legislature that the words "accredited area" were put into the original bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme by oversight and for no comprehensible reason. This is not a matter which I should have thought it expedient to discuss in detail in public, if the Minister had not made certain observations during the concluding stages of the Second Stage of this Bill. It is pure nonsense, of course, to say that the words "accredited area" were a mere oversight on the part of the Department because the matter was most carefully considered.

In the initial stages of the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme, our procedure was not identical with the British procedure. They had been at this job for 30 years and they had made a very substantial degree of progress. We were starting and the whole question of using the phrase "attested area" was carefully considered. It was agreed, on the best advice available, that in order to avoid any misunderstanding between ourselves and the British Ministry of Agriculture, we should not adopt their terminology because what we were doing in the early stages of the process of the eradication of bovine tuberculosis was not identical with what the British were doing.

It was fully foreseen that at a certain stage we could reasonably hope to catch up and then our conditions would be identical with the provisions provided for under the British scheme and when that time came, it would be suitable to adopt the British term which was "attested". I assume that there now have been further discussions with the British Ministry of Agriculture and it is mutually agreed that our terminology should be the same. If so, well and good, but it is just nonsense to suggest that the words "accredited area" were casually employed for no valid or comprehensible reason, and I think it is a mistake on the part of the Minister to suggest that was so.

Mr. Smith

I assure the House that in making whatever remark I made —which was to the effect, I think, that I did not understand why the word "accredited" should have been inserted in the Bill at first—I was being perfectly truthful. One of the first things I asked was how that came about. There is not very much use in pursuing something that has happened in the sense of just trying to discover exactly what reasons people had for making a decision like this but I was given to understand that the word "accredited" was inserted—I shall not say entirely —largely because of the insistence of the late chief veterinary officer of my Department. Having heard that, I did not pursue the matter any further.

I cannot for the life of me see what difference there was in the British approach to the eradication of this disease in the sense that the test was the same. I know the incentives were different, but the actual test was the same. Why should we have a different term from that used in a neighbouring country with which we have such close trading contacts? When I made that remark, I did not want to say who was responsible, according to my information, because the man had died.

I have not been told by anybody that the British had any objection to our using the term "attested". If that is so, it is news to me. I was told that the term "accredited" was used in some countries. It may be attractive to certain people to use a term different from that of their neighbours just as when selecting a new suit of clothes or a new hat. That sort of reasoning does not appeal to me. I did not pursue the matter very closely. Having heard, roughly, how it came about, and knowing it was there, I decided to avail of my first opportunity to remove it.

I have been handed a report of the discussion of this Bill in the Seanad. It seems to indicate that some Senators with a very good knowledge of the cattle trade favoured the word "accreditation". Their approach was: "Let us try it, on the understanding that it can be changed." I have not read these reports. I do not know the volume of opinion one way or another. However, I see a speech by a Senator who certainly has a good knowledge of the trade and who seems to favour the insertion of the word "accredited". We are changing it now. I believe it is a good change. People with far more experience than I have in this matter have been urging this change.

Mr. Dillon

I think a matter of principle is involved here. The Minister is responsible for the contents of Bills brought before the Oireachtas, not any officer of the Department. The Minister's job is to listen to his technical advisers and finally take a decision and bring it to the House. I brought in the word "accredited". That was not done casually or by inadvertence but to secure co-operation with the British Ministry of Agriculture at that time. The purpose of the Bovine Tuberculosis Eradication Scheme was to maintain reciprocity with the British Department of Agriculture so that there would continue to be free passage of livestock between our two countries.

When the Bovine Tuberculosis Eradication Scheme and Bill was introduced by me in 1954 it was desired to use the term "accredited" not because it was used anywhere else but because it was not identical with the term "attested" in British legislation, as our procedures were not identical.

Mr. Smith

I should like to have that explained. Our approach to eradication may not have been the same as theirs but our tests and our standards were the same.

Mr. Dillon

Our ultimate objective was the same.

Mr. Smith

Our tests were the same.

Mr. Dillon

Possibly. At the time the scheme was introduced here, they had gone a very long way. They had a number of attested areas and this phrase "attested area" in Great Britain carried a certain meaning. We were aiming at "accredited area" which would be an initial stage. Ultimately, the aim was to arrive at an identical status with the attested areas in Great Britain. I hope we are well on the way towards that now, six years later.

My concern now is that this House was not asked by me or any other Minister for Agriculture to accept the word "accredited" instead of the word "attested", which was in common usage in the British scheme, by inadvertence or for some fortuitous reason. It was done after careful consideration of all aspects of the case and primarily to maintain the closest possible reciprocity with the British Minister of Agriculture because in our judgment the whole purpose of this scheme was to maintain that reciprocity and preserve the free passage of livestock between the two countries in the changing conditions that arose within the British scheme to make the whole of Great Britain an attested area.

Mr. Smith

I am not disputing the general objective which those who were responsible had in mind. I can understand the Minister or the man who was previously Minister for Agriculture or, indeed, a Minister in any Department coming here and putting forward proposals largely based on advice tendered to him by his technical advisers. We all have to do that. There are times when even a layman has the right to question the advice tendered by technical people——

Mr. Dillon

And to reject it.

Mr. Smith

——and to resist. I admit that a Minister's right to do this should be exercised with very great care. Professional men are in the strong position, especially when employed in State service or by any such body, that they will naturally safeguard themselves by taking no risks. There are times when a Minister has to contest some of their claims and some of their recommendations. I do not know how it arose except to the extent that it has been explained to me now. I cannot see that there was anything different in our approach to the eradication of bovine tuberculosis as far as tests are concerned. Our incentives were different. However, that has nothing to do with the status of the animal found free from the disease. The confusion that would arise with "accredited" in one county and "attested" in another should be apparent.

Mr. Dillon

We are not talking about animals here but about areas.

Mr. Smith

I am talking about areas, animals, diseases, and so on.

Question put and agreed to.

Sections 6 and 7, Schedule and Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Agreed to take remaining Stages now.

Bill received for final consideration and passed.