On behalf of the Fine Gael Party, I move:
"That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should take steps to help the farmers who through no fault of their own suffered crippling losses from the effects of storm and adverse weather conditions on their wheat crop, in the growing of which they were carrying out the urgent exhortations of the Government."
If the Government have any illusions about public opinion in relation to the wheat question, I should like to tell them at the outset that everywhere one goes in my constituency, which is perhaps the most prominent wheat growing county in Ireland, one hears the statement that the general election was four weeks too soon. The Government seemed to be totally unaware of the stress of public opinion against them with regard to their action to the wheat growers in the tillage counties.
The fact cannot be ignored that over the years the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government has been to urge and exhort the growing of wheat. Unmindful of the changing world situation in regard to wheat and surpluses of wheat, they still persisted in that policy and expended large sums of money advertising and exhorting people throughout the length and breadth of the land to grow wheat. This year, and it is not the first time, it happened that there was a major disaster for the growers who had a wheat crop available for harvesting. Every Deputy knows that the weather in the latter part of September and the early weeks of October was absolutely disastrous from the point of view of anyone with a wheat crop to harvest.
Apart from that there were high gales. There was one gale in particular, rejoicing in the name of "Debbie", the tail-end of the American hurricane, which came over here. As the Minister must know, people who are harvesting wheat by combine harvester have to leave it until it is very ripe to have it in a millable condition. That gale put paid to a good many crops because it removed the head of the wheat which was completely lost. I do not know if the Government accept the fact that there were exceptional circumstances this year in relation to wheat growers because the Minister's reply to a Parliamentary Question put to him by quite a few Deputies of this Party was to the effect that there was a definite wheat policy, that he would stand for that and there would be no compensation or assistance to offset the heavy losses which were suffered.
It has even been suggested in some cases that the farmers were responsible themselves for their losses. Let us cast our minds back over the past year. We had exceptionally wet weather, and exceptionally late wet weather in the Spring, so that it was impossible in many cases for tillage operations to be carried out and, therefore, the suggestion that the wheat growers themselves were responsible because they sowed late is nothing short of an outrage. If the Minister for Agriculture and the Government had given any fair consideration to the matter they would have known that it was quite impossible for farmers in many parts of the country to sow their crop.
Then again it has been stated, and stated at official level, that they should not have sown the crop. The Minister and his advisers are aware, or should be perfectly well aware, of the economic fabric in every tillage county. They know that the farmers buy the wheat seed dressed and ready to sow and no merchant will take it back again. The suggestion that they should not have sown wheat late is an outrage. What were they to do with the wheat seed? Were they to throw it out or feed it to the hens? They could not even feed it to hens because it was dressed already and contained a certain amount of abnoxious material which would have been injurious to hens. Only for the bad weather they would have been all right sowing it late as they did.
It should be crystal clear to the Government that this is a problem caused purely and absolutely by the weather. The farmers in the tillage counties, having arranged their husbandry for the year, had to do what they did and they are entitled to compensation. Why are they entitled to compensation? The Minister in his reply said if he were to compensate the wheat growers he would have to compensate everybody else. To start with, having arranged their husbandry for the land, there was a guaranteed price for the wheat. Circumstances at the moment are difficult for the farmers. It is very hard for them to be sure that they will get a fair return for anything they may do nowadays. That is evidenced by the butter crisis, the impending bacon crisis and the prices paid for livestock over the last 12 months and the low price for coarse grains which is probably the lowest guaranteed price practically in the world. They were forced to sow late and in no way can any blame be attributed to them in regard to the time they sowed the wheat.
Other Deputies will speak to this motion later on. I can speak for my own county where I know the circumstances. We have in County Wexford, right along the coast, a wet district in which wheat must be sown late. That wheat area, known as the Macamore, goes right across the centre of the county and spreads out in the New Ross and Wexford districts and south of Enniscorthy, where there are very wet areas. The losses, as agreed to by the Minister in his reply, were 30 per cent. all over Ireland. I want to tell the Minister that the losses in Wexford are 40 per cent. in spite of anything anybody may say, or any returns that may be made, because you can prove anything on paper, if you want to, with official statistics. Forty per cent. of the Wexford farmers have had their wheat returned as unmillable.
I should further like to direct the attention of the House to the fact that during the emergency when the Fianna Fáil Government were in power and asked for wheat to be grown the Wexford farmers responded. They ran out their land and practically nothing was left in it after the war. They stood by the country then and it is not very much to ask on their behalf that the Government now stand by them in the disastrous circumstances in which they find themselves.
For the benefit of Deputies who are not in tillage counties, and are not aware of the economic circumstances that obtain in a tillage county, I shall briefly recount the position. The position is that Wexford is a county of smallish farmers, or small farmers and smallish farmers, which is not peculiar to Wexford alone but is a condition that prevails throughout the country. The position there is that they buy their seeds and manures from the merchant and there is a long standing, friendly arrangement that these are given to them on credit because they have not got the funds at their disposal to pay for them. When they harvest the crop they pay the merchant and he takes the crop from them.
I want to say that I attribute no blame to the merchants whatsoever in regard to the wheat crisis. The blame lies elsewhere, a point to which I shall come presently. I just want to show the House that the whole economic fabric of rural life, and not only rural life, because it permeates into the business houses in the towns as well, has been upset completely as a result of this heavy loss of 40 per cent. of wheat in my county, and no doubt in other counties. Other Deputies will be in a position to state their own case later. I have spoken to buyers of wheat from all over the country, from the north, from the midlands, where the situation was not as precarious as in the north, and from the south. They told me they took in wheat on many occasions in the early part of the harvest, the wet period, in the belief that it would be millable. They sent it to the millers and it was sent back to them as unmillable. They had to defray the cost of sending it in there and sending it back again. That is what the buyers were up against, the ordinary merchants who dealt with it and whose relations with the farmers in my constituency, as no doubt all over the country, have been excellent all along.
The millers were the final and only decision as to whether the wheat was millable or not. Many buyers, men of repute who had stood the test of time and who had the confidence of the farmers, told me they took in the wheat believing it was millable, but it was sent back to them as unmillable. They had no redress. There is no protection for the farmer against that sort of thing, except the Minister for Agriculture. I want to tell this House that when we were in Government and when we were supposed, according to my friends opposite, to have done everything wrong, we had a parallel set of circumstances: a bad harvest and wheat being returned. My telephone was going night and day, as it has been since the recent harvest, and I got on to the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon. The situation was put right and the millers, who were throwing out the wheat as unmillable, took it because they were protected by the Minister for Agriculture. That is what I want to make crystal clear to Deputies. The only person who can protect the farmers against the millers, who have an absolute and utter monopoly—I challenge anyone to deny that —is the Minister for Agriculture.
That is the state of affairs that has prevailed throughout this harvest. Is it any wonder that farmers are going around saying that the election came four weeks too soon and that if they had another chance, they would get at this Government and give them their answer? I do not know what the financial position of this Government is, but I have reason to suspect it is a parlous one, judging from the fact that yesterday we had a Supplementary Estimate for £10,000,300, including a sum for last year's wheat when there was a fairly disastrous harvest as well. A state of affairs exists at the moment in which the whole economic fabric is taken out and nobody knows where he stands or where he is going to turn to get the money to pay his rates. These people are quite unable to pay the merchants from whom they bought their seeds; they are unable to pay for the manures; they are unable to have a few pounds to stock for next year. Many farmers, when finished with the harvest, have a few pounds in hand to buy sheep or to put on after-grass or that sort of thing. They have not a shilling now.
The price prevailing even before the election, when we were all busy, was fairly satisfactory. Immediately the election was over, the crisis started. The price was 45/- a barrel, no matter what sort of wheat you sent in, whether it was good, millable or otherwise. I have seen samples come in myself—I am not an expert and I do not claim to be one—but the merchants dealing with it knew that every single barrel was sent back as unmillable. If it comes back as unmillable, the farmer is supposed to get 45/- a barrel. Did he get it? Not likely. He lost on his moisture up and down, and it was always down. I know farmers who got 35/- a barrel for wheat. The Minister for Agriculture knows what they paid for their seed and he knows the expense involved in putting that crop in.
There is no protection for the wheat grower. Over the years we have listened to the jibes and taunts from those opposite that we were grass farmers, not tillage farmers, and they were going to put the agricultural community on their feet. There is less money in Wexford today, the premier tillage county of Ireland, which I have the honour to represent, than ever before. There is less money in the pockets of the tillage farmers there than ever before. I am glad to see the Taoiseach is listening to this debate. I hope he read the telegram sent to him by numerous Fine Gael Deputies. I hope he now will listen to the representations made to him by the Deputies sitting behind him from the tillage counties, who know that every word of what I am saying is the truth. In fact, I am stating the position conservatively, if anything.
Of course, the answer will be that the millers are the experts, that they have spent all this money setting up this machinery so they can give the flour to the Irish people. What about the farmers who bought machinery? What about the tremendous capital investment in machinery and so on? How are they to get the money? Many of these things have been bought on hire purchase in the hope that there would be a decent future for agriculture here. They have suffered more and expended more of the money at their disposal than the millers. The millers are simply in control of the wheat situation at the moment. I put it to the Minister in all fairness that it is not too late for him to say he realises this drastic situation exists and to give immediate help to the farmers of my constituency and of the other constituencies.
If the Minister replies to this debate, it is only fair that he should give the House some indication as to the future for those who take the hazard of growing wheat. No matter what anyone says, it is a hazard. Over the past five or six years, there have been two good harvests. This year was an exceptionally good year. It looked at one time as if we would have an absolutely bumper harvest. If we had had a bumper harvest, despite all these exhortations of the Government to grow more wheat, there would have been the difficulty of disposing of the surplus.
The Taoiseach, who is at the moment a student of international affairs, although he is a city man, must have his mind preoccupied with the outlook for agriculture. There is not a grain of Irish wheat to be got into the European market. There is a surplus of wheat in the world today. Let them consider their whole policy problem and come out and meet it. Perhaps it will be argued by some Fianna Fáil speaker when I sit down that I am trying to make political capital. They can say that if they want to. What I am trying to do is what I am sent here to do—defending the men in my own constituency who are in poverty and hardship and have no future, financially or otherwise. I am trying to defend the business people of my constituency and the working people, whom the farmers will not be able to pay. I submit it is the duty of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture to act because this is not only a crisis in some counties. It is an overall national crisis.