Committee on Finance. - Vote 41 — Agriculture (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (17th Dáil) – Wednesday, 20 Nov 1963

Committee on Finance. - Vote 41 — Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

"That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration."

—(Deputy Donegan.)

Mr. T. O'Donnell

Coming from Limerick, a constituency so closely associated with milk and bacon production, it is natural I should have an interest in the parts of the Minister's speech dealing with these two important arms of our agricultural industry. For me, the Minister's speech was remarkable not so much for what it contained but rather for what it omitted. The most serious defect in it was the lack of any detailed reference or clearcut expression of opinion on two recently published documents which will have a vital bearing on the development and progress of Irish agriculture.I refer to the reports of the survey teams which investigated the dairying industry and the bacon industry. Most people had expected that the Minister would avail of this opportunity to give us some idea of his views on these two important documents. In particular, we were hoping he would give us some indication of how far the Government would be guided in their policy for agriculture by the revolutionary recommendations contained in both of these reports.

Each of these reports contained a variety of recommendations. The most important were those which recommended that a large number of our creameries and bacon factories should be closed down. They recommended a reduction in the number of creamery undertakings from 197 to 30 and also that the 600 premises in operation should be reduced to 150. The fact that the wholesale closure of our bacon and milk-processing plants should be recommended in the year 1963 is a terrible reflection on Government policy in recent times. It represents a complete contradiction of the targets proposed for agricultural expansion in the Blue Book. I believe if we had been given a realistic policy in recent years, the output from our farms would have reached the stage where we would not alone be utilising the capacity of our existing plants to the full but would be taking steps to expand them and erect new ones instead of closing down so many now.

The omission of detailed reference to these reports in the Minister's speech is a very serious one. My reaction to it was that perhaps the Minister and the Government had decided not to go ahead with the implementation of the recommendations contained in the reports. However, a short paragraph in the Blue Book, Second Programme for Economic Expansion, leads me to think otherwise. Paragraph 41 states that the recent survey of the dairy industry had shown there was considerable scope for better returns to creameries and farmers through improved organisation. I do not accept this at all. In view of what has been stated in the Blue Book and the danger that the Government will be influenced in future policy making by the recommendatitons of the survey team, it is necessary we should avail of the opportunity presented by this debate to make as close an examination as possible of the possibilities of the dairy industry.

I have before me the observations of the four organisations vitally connected with the dairy industry. They have been unanimous in their rejection of the main recommendations of the survey team's report. Any attempt to implement the main recommendations of this report without thorough examination of its implications could involve most serious consequences for the dairying industry. It would be fatally easy to embark on costly changes which not alone might be socially undesirable but economically disastrous.The vital importance of the dairying industry in our economy should now be fully recognised; I do not think adequate recognition has been given to it. Unless that is done in the immediate future, I am convinced the targets for agricultural expansion set out in the Blue Book can never be achieved.

The increased output of cattle and high quality milk envisaged in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion will primarily depend on the co-operation of creamery farmers in the dairying areas. They own about 55 per cent of the cow herds. Pig production, while perhaps secondary, is closely related to the economy of the dairy farmer. If the Blue Book targets are to be achieved, the dairy farmers must be enabled to improve the carrying capacity of their holdings, increase their dairy herds, modernise cowbyres and install necessary cooling equipment and water supplies. There is no doubt of their ability to increase output or about the capacity of their farms to carry increased stock, provided — this is important — adequate assistance is available to them. The assistance by way of grants, credit and advice at present available is totally inadequate to permit of any improvement taking place and the first step towards achieving the Blue Book targets must be a new deal for the dairy farmer.

The new heifer scheme will not be much use to the average dairy farmer because most of them are carrying as many cows as they can afford and the scope for expansion is very limited. Taking into account the present system, the £15 grant is not going to be nearly sufficient incentive to increase herd numbers. The possibility of increasing these numbers and increasing output of high quality milk is very great but we must be realistic, and there is no point in setting targets unless we get the means to achieve them. If we want to increase the number of cows, the dairy farmer must have the capital to make up the difference between the £15 grant and the actual cost of the animal which would now run to about £50. To carry the extra stock on the average dairy farm, the farmer will have to improve the carrying capacity of the farm. This will mean more liberal use of fertiliser, new techniques in grassland management and conservation for winter feeding and will entail very large capital outlay which the average dairy farmer is not at present able to meet.

It will also make increased demands on our advisory services which are now totally inadequate. Any increase in cow numbers will lead to an increase in milk output. There is scope there: in fact we have a recent statement by Mr. O'Reilly of An Bord Bainne that about 20 million extra gallons will be needed next year to meet our export commitments. It is vitally important that the milk should be of the highest standard. To produce high quality milk is not easy. Most dairy farms will have to improve byres or erect new ones, adopt a milk parlour or open yard system, new equipment will need to be installed, including, perhaps, milking machines, cooling equipment and running water.

All these improvements are recommended in the report but while the team pointed out the need for improved quality of milk and showed how that could be achieved, no attempt was made to show how or where the farmer could find the capital to effect these improvements. It is foolish to think that the average dairy farmer at present can effect such improvements. For example, the grants available now for the improvement of cowbyres amount to £9 per cow for the erection of a new byre up to a limit of £15. That is a total of £125. From inquiries I have made from farmers who have erected them, it costs between £30 and £40 per cow for a new byre. I was in a cowbyre on Monday which cost £37 per cow. The dairy farmer with 25 or 30 cows who decides to erect a new byre will have to spend between £1,200 and £1,500 and the maximum grant will be £135.

For reconstruction of an existing byre a grant of £5 8s. is given to a maximum, again, of 15 cows or a total of £81. This goes only a very small part of the way in meeting the cost of reconstruction and improvement.One of the things that it is most difficult to understand is the fact that the farmer who erects a milking parlour gets very little assistance. I am convinced from experience that the only way to get top quality milk is by means of a pipeline milker. The ordinary bucket machinery is becoming obsolete. The device of the future will be the pipeline milker taking the milk direct from the cow to the churn. The cost of erecting a milking parlour is at least £400, and the building to hold the equipment will cost anything from £200 to £400. The average expenditure then is £700 to £800. The maximum grant available is £20. I am informed that this grant of £20 is not specifically available for a milking parlour. I saw the list of grants available and milking parlours are not included in that list. The only way in which the £20 can be claimed is if a milking parlour is put in as a loose shed for livestock.

There are no grants available for milk coolers, another vital piece of equipment. The assistance available to the farmer at present, particularly to enable him to improve the quality of his milk, is totally inadequate. I realise it is no use being critical if one cannot put forward some concrete suggestions. I believe the only incentive which means anything to the dairy farmer is an increase in the basic price of his milk. The heifer scheme will not effect any great improvement. The grants are wholly inadequate. The first and most important step is to give the dairy farmer an economic basic price for his milk.

Secondly, the farmer will have to be compensated for the extra trouble the production of high quality milk entails. I agree with the recommendation of the survey team that a bonus be paid on a special grade of high quality milk. Thirdly, there is need for credit facilities. I stated here before that I have plenty of evidence to show that a large proportion of the dairy farmers have obtained the maximum credit they could obtain.

If we are to effect all these improvements and reach the target set out in the Blue Book, there will have to be an improvement in the credit facilities available at the moment. I have been told—I have not had time to check—that interest rates on agricultural credit here are the highest of any agricultural nation in Europe. I am also told that the agricultural credit available in Denmark, one of our biggest competitors, carries an interest rate of 1½ to two per cent. From that point of view alone, the suggestion made by the Leader of the main Opposition, Deputy Dillon, with regard to the provision of £1,000 interest-free loans for farmers is wholly excellent and I was surprised that there was so much criticism of the suggestion by the Government Party. Deputies on both sides who are familiar with the present set-up in the creamery areas will agree that improved credit facilities are very much needed.

Fourthly, there is need for advisory services. The survey team were concerned mainly with advice being made available to farmers to enable them to produce the quality milk now so necessary. I am in complete agreement with that. There is need for advice on the efficient operation of new machinery and equipment. I have known dairy farmers to install milking equipment without receiving proper instruction on the actual operation of that machinery; the results were disastrous. There is need for advice on hygiene, avoiding diseases like mastitis, and so on. I am in complete agreement with the need for providing adequate advisory services.

With regard to the dairying industry, the survey team deals at length with the present organisation of the creamery industry. They say there are too many small units. They recommend that a considerable number of creamery premises be closed down and that processing should be concentrated on large centrally situated units. They recommend that the present method whereby producers carry their milk to the creamery should give way to alternative methods of milk collection. A number of such methods are dealt with, such as bulk transport by tanker and multi-can haulage. The team has not given any comparative costs. I know one place in Limerick where multi-can haulage is in operation. The cost is 1½d per gallon. The IAOS has supplied me with figures for operations of this kind in other places; 2d per gallon is the average cost of transport. It must be remembered that the distance at present is not a long one because in the intensive dairving areas one does not have to travel very far before one finds a creamery. The question is: what will it cost to transport that milk a much longer distance to the larger centrally-situated processing unit intake point, the intake being anything from 15 million to 20 million gallons? It will cost a good deal more.

There are also the costings which have been done by the IAOS which show that the present system of cream separating station is operating for under a penny a gallon. So that the suggestion that the small creameries be closed down and processing be concentrated does not seem to stand up to any analysis in the matter of costs.

As I have already said, it is significant that the four organisations, the National Farmers Association, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, the Irish Creamery Managers Association and the IAOS, while admitting that there will be examples of small creameries which could economically be closed down, do not accept this suggestion that the wholesale closing down of the small creameries and the substitution of bulk transport for the present method will achieve any worthwhile economies.

I am trying to be as fair as possible and I have expressed agreement with a number of the findings, but one of the worst features of the report is the apparently hostile attitude of the survey team towards the co-operative idea of organisation. The report shows a complete misunderstanding of the principles and practices of co-operative undertakings. The members of the survey team have shown a lack of appreciation and understanding of the basic principles applying to co-operative organisation and they also appear to know little or nothing about the practical working of the committees of co-operative creameries.

In one part of the report a suggestion is made that if the creamery industry had been organised on non-co-operative lines it would have developed very differently and of course, by implication, with better efficiency. This attitude of hostility towards the co-operative idea of organisation is very difficult to understand because throughout the report reference is made to the efficiency of the Danish dairying industry and the team seems to have forgotten that the Danish dairying industry is organised almost entirely on co-operative lines.

While the survey team dealt at length with the co-operatives and succeeded, I must say, in showing them up in a very poor light, very little reference was made to the Dairy Disposal Company which is responsible for 25 per cent of the intake in the creamery areas. The Dairy Disposal Company was in an ideal position to take the initiative in pioneering new developments in the creamery industry as it possessed both vertical and horizontal integration but what steps have the company taken to rationalise the creamery industry? What are its costings? How does the fact that in County Clare it controls the dairying industry from three centres help in the matter of economy? Is it not a fact that the co-operative creameries, by and large, pay a better price to the producer than the Dairy Disposal Company pay?

Mr. Smith

Compare the districts in which they operate.

Mr. T. O'Donnell

I said was it not a fact. Is it a fact? I know of one particular case in County Limerick where a small co-operative creamery with an intake of 750,000 gallons is paying a higher price than the Dairy Disposal Company pay three miles away.

Mr. Smith

Why did not the co-operative movement go into Clare and organise it?

Mr. T. O'Donnell

That is a matter for the Minister. I cannot understand why the survey team should have adopted this attitude to the co-operative idea of organisation. Again, the survey team is critical of the co-operative for their lack of mutual co-operation.I do not think that this criticism is fully merited. There is considerable scope for greater co-operation between the co-operatives and between the Dairy Disposal Company and the co-operative societies and, in fact, there are a number of examples of where this inter-co-operative approach has been very successful.

Another thing I did not like about the report—and, of course, it was a logical sequence to the criticism of the co-operative idea of organisation—is that it made only very little reference to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society and, in fact, ignored completely the outstanding services which this organisation has given to the dairying industry. Every dairy farmer, every member of a creamery committee, everyone associated with the dairying industry is aware of the tremendous service that has been given by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in the matter of promoting co-operatives and I was surprised here last week to hear one Deputy from the opposite benches—I think it was my friend Deputy Gibbons—saying something to the effect that he did not think the IAOS was doing a lot for the dairying industry. It might be no harm to place on record some of the contributions and some of the services which the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society have rendered to the dairy farmers of this country.

The IAOS has been responsible for promoting greater co-operation among the co-operatives to which I have already referred. There is an outstanding example in my part of the country in the Golden Vale Food Products, which is an organisation of 16 co-operative creameries which is engaged in the processing of milk products. The IAOS has pioneered the use of whey and other by-products in the dairying industry for pig feeding. It has been responsible to a large extent for the growth and expansion of the artificial insemination stations. It has given day-to-day guidance to the various creamery societies throughout the country. One would expect that a survey team examining the dairying industry would at least give credit where credit is due.

I am convinced, and most of the people engaged in dairy farming and in the creamery business with whom I have discussed it are likewise convinced, that the reorganisation of the creameries suggested in this report will definitely not yield the economies which the team think they will yield.

But there is another place where there is room for considerable improvement.There is considerable scope for rationalising the processing of dairy products. The manner in which the processing plants are at present organised and, in fact, in many cases, their location, leave much to be desired. I have no doubt at all that considerable economies could be effected.

This whole question of the rationalising of the processing of dairy products is tied up with another important problem, that of diversification.These words "rationalisation" and "diversification" have been bandied about quite a lot. We have all been speaking about them and we may not have been fully aware of all the implications. I have advocated diversification and rationalisation myself, but it is not as easy as some people seem to think it is because it is a fact that in most of the major dairying countries butter is the dairy product. We ourselves are not alone in that. I have figures here which show that in New Zealand 80 per cent of manufactured milk is turned into butter. In Denmark, it is 72 per cent and here in Ireland it is 81 per cent, so that while we should be looking out for opportunities to divert as much milk as possible into products other than butter, we must at the same time not lose sight of the fact that butter is, and will in the foreseeable future remain, the dairy product.

I am particularly glad to read of the success of the Kerrygold campaign in the north of England. It is true to say that if the prices obtained there for our butter can be maintained, there is no more economic outlet for milk. People are under a very big misappre-hension about this whole question of diversifying milk to products other than butter. I heard a statement made that butter was a dead loss but I do not think that is so. As I have said already, while butter will remain the dairy product, we should at all times be on the lookout for opportunities to divert milk from butter into other products, provided the other products guarantee an economic outlet.

On the question of rationalisation, I believe that there is hope for this. I am always very conscious of the fact that in the premier dairying county of Limerick, the vast proportion of the milk being produced there is being transported long journeys. Some of our milk from the local co-op is going 70 miles to Rathmore to be processed into chocolate crumb and then transported to Dublin. There should be room for improvement and certainly for economies in this direction. I also read recently that a milk powder plant has been established in the Minister's county of Cavan. Is it not true that there are a number of milk powder plants in the south of Ireland which are operating well under their full capacity? Is it not also a fact that the creameries in the west and north-west of Ireland are not able to produce sufficient butter to meet the needs of those areas? Is it not true that a considerable amount of butter is being transported from the south of Ireland to the western and north-western counties? Surely there is room for rationalisation there? We should exercise extreme care and caution in the matter of locating milk-processing plants. We have seen what happened in Drumkeen and in Wexford. Extreme care should be taken to avoid a repetition of those failures.

Another little example of where rationalisation is needed is the fact that while there is no restriction on the haulage of whole milk, there is a restriction on the haulage of cream. I know one co-operative society in County Limerick which for the past couple of years has been buying the entire cream output of three small auxiliary creameries in the area and it was prevented from utilising the cheapest transport it could have got. There is room for rationalisation there, too.

I feel that the ideal set-up so far as the processing of dairy products goes, and the way in which rationalisation can be carried out most effectively, is in the type of set-up to which I have already referred at Rathluirc; Mitchelstown is another example, although it is organised as a co-operative on slightly different lines. If we can encourage this type of co-operative organisation for the purpose of processing dairy products and if the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society is given the necessary finance and powers to achieve it, then rationalisation in the entire dairying industry will take place gradually and logically without any disruption.

The marketing of dairy products is a very important matter and, as I have already said, I am particularly glad at the progress made in the campaign in the north of England. I am delighted to pay tribute to Mr. O'Reilly for the tremendous work he has done, not alone in the Kerrygold campaign in the north of England but in opening up new markets for butter and other dairy products in so many different countries.We have got to a state when in order to meet the present order book, we will need an increase of something about 20 million gallons in 1964.

I did notice, whether it was in the Minister's speech or in the newspapers, a statement by the Minister to the effect that a campaign would be initiated here in 1964 to create a greater awareness of the value of dairy products. While we have the largest per capita consumption of butter in the world, our cheese consumption is very low. I do not think there is a general awareness of the nutritional value of milk and dairy products, and particularly of cheese. Propaganda, publicity and perhaps education would have an effect in making people more aware of the nutritional value of milk and dairy products.

There is one chapter in this report which contains two recommendations that have found universal agreement. Nobody can disagree with them. One is that improved laboratory facilities should be made available for the testing of milk and dairy products and the other, that there should be adequate research facilities. The survey team in recommendation 27, paragraph 179, recommended that the accommodation and staffing of butter-testing stations should be increased and that a number of regional laboratories should be provided for chemical and bacteriological analysis of controlled samples of dairy produce. This is absolutely necessary. The other recommendation is in paragraphs 221 and 227 on page 45: "That provision should be made to service the industry adequately with research facilities". These two things are vitally essential to the further progress of the dairying industry.

I have dealt at length with the dairying industry and I do not intend to go into the bacon industry in anything like the same detail. The recent development by the co-operative creameries of pig-fattening stations is an ideal one and will have a very vital effect on the future development and expansion of pig numbers and bacon output. The scheme whereby the creameries have set up large fattening units utilising the by-products of the dairying industry and lease progeny-tested sows to local farmers is an ideal set-up and should hold out great hope for the future of the industry.

I wish now to make one or two points of a general nature. I have already referred to the question of advisory services in connection with the dairying industry but these are specialist services. The advisory services generally are totally inadequate and the system of appointing instructors on a temporary basis was a bad one. A considerable improvement has been effected in that matter in the past year or two but the system was bad because the adviser who was appointed on a temporary basis did not get sufficient time to see the plans which he had initiated come to fruition. I want to repeat what I said on the occasion of this debate last year, that the general idea behind the parish plan was a good one.

One of the great advantages of that plan was that it brought the adviser into intimate contact with the local community over a limited area and he was therefore much better able to understand the economic, social and psychological problems of that area. It was a tragedy to scrap it and the Minister and the Department should have second thoughts about that decision.I know there was a number of problems associated with the parish plan, such as the duplication of services and the question of whether it should be directed from Merrion Street, but all these were difficulties which could have been overcome. The idea of an adviser working in close co-operation with a local community and as a member of that community was a good one. The basic idea behind the parish plan has been confirmed over and over again in recent years by the mass of documentation from community development experiments in various parts of the world.

The last point I wish to make has to do with co-operation. I notice from the Second Programme for Economic Expansion that an examination of the possibilities of co-operation was being made by an American expert. I do not think there was any need to bring in an American expert to examine the possibilities for co-operation here. From my knowledge, there are officials in the Department of Agriculture who have experience in the field as parish agents or as instructors promoting co-operation among producers. A number of them have studied the co-operative movement abroad and I cannot see where the need was to bring in the American expert to tell us how we might encourage our farmers to co-operate.

An adequate advisory service and the promotion of co-operation among our farmers are two very important matters. To show that I am not speaking here in a merely academic manner, I should like briefly to tell the House of a practical experiment in co-operation with which I happen to be closely associated. A group of ten farmers in my parish came together a few years ago and discussed ways and means as to how they might combine to produce more efficiently. We realised early on that the success of the experiment would depend on the availability of specialist advisers. On representations being made to the Limerick County Committee of Agriculture, one of their advisers was permitted to give extra attention to this particular group.

Once a fortnight for the past three years, that group has held a meeting with the adviser, alternating from house to house, and after those three years, the adviser has reported that production has been increased by 43 per cent. That is a perfect example of the value of co-operation and the specialist services in getting more efficient production. There was one flaw in all this, that with that 43 per cent increase at the end of three years, with two further years to go in our five year plan, the adviser obtained a permanent appointment in the midlands and we were faced with the possibility of his leaving. We are hoping that as a result of representations, he will be allowed to remain on but that bears out the point that the temporary appointments were a bad idea.

The Minister's speech was a disappointment because it omitted reference to a number of important issues. On the whole we can say that there is nothing in the Minister's speech to indicate new thinking on the development of our major national industry. There is no indication of a new or more enlightened approach to the economic or social problems of rural Ireland. Certainly there is no attempt to overcome the farmers' lack of confidence in the present administration, or no evidence of the dynamic leadership which is now so necessary if agriculture is to expand.

I believe the biggest task confronting those charged with the responsibility of looking after our major national industry and of developing and expanding it to the fullest, is to create incentives and a climate of opinion which will make progress possible. This can be done only by dynamic leadership and a rational Government policy. Unfortunately, there seems to be very little hope of achieving this while we have an urban-minded Taoiseach who on numerous occasions has shown a lack of understanding and knowledge of the problems inherent in farming. We have the greater misfortune of having a Minister for Agriculture who has been openly hostile to the farmers' organisation. As I said, I believe the targets set out in the Blue Book on economic expansion can be achieved, provided we get a rational Government policy.

Mr. Leneghan

I often wonder if it would be better to stop the clocks in this House because obviously very few people can read them. I have great sympathy for the Minister because I realise he is operating under great difficulties. Judging by the number of Deputies who waited here all day for this important debate and by the even smaller number of spectators in the Public Gallery who took an interest in it, I am inclined to say if something happens, may God help agriculture. Were it not for the fact that the bells were out of order today and were ringing continuously, would anybody have been here at all?

It is remarkable that in this country agriculture is so much different from its counterpart in other countries. It always appears to me that the people who know most about agriculture, that is, if we are to take them seriously, are people who have no association with agriculture at all. We appear to be the best country in the world for theoretical farmers and, I suppose, the worst for practical farmers. At least we appear to have very few practical farmers but then I suppose it is often difficult to blame the farmers because in most cases they are very seriously misled. If anybody goes to a farmers' meeting, will he find a farmer in the chair, or a farmer acting as secretary, or even a farmer acting as treasurer, if one becomes necessary? He will not. But did anybody in this House ever see a farmer as chairman of the IMA, or chairman of the INTO, or put in charge of the Ecumenical Council or anything like that? No.

It is remarkable that as far as advisers on the agricultural side of our lives are concerned, they are all people having no association with farming. Only a week ago, we had a homemade general down the country talking homemade agricultural economics to the farmers and promising them £1,000 free credit. On the other hand, when the same gentleman had the power to give them something, he could not give them a 2d stamp. Are the farmers daft that they are going to be misled by that type of misrepresentation?

We had a few big meetings in the west of Ireland recently all aimed, moryah, at helping farmers but really aimed at helping the people who convened the meeting, shopkeepers, teachers, doctors and priests. None of them wanted to lose his clients and they impressed very forcibly on the farmers that if they grew sufficient carrots, their future would be assured. I can well imagine any Mayo man weeding carrots, growing them for an undisclosed profit, while he has much more remunerative methods of making money without accepting advice from those who know nothing about farming.I hope the farmers of Mayo and the farmers generally will have enough commonsense to pursue the policy they believe is right and not allow themselves to be dictated to by people who are just trying to use them as pawns in a game, be it political or economic.

It is time somebody spoke out on this because those people are being misled and the Department of Agriculture is often being held up to ridicule wrongly. It is unfortunate that due to circumstances in the past, over which we had no control, and the denudation of the country, there is a great imbalance in the farming community whose numbers are very dense in the bad lands of the west and very small in the good lands of the midlands. That imbalance will have to be corrected. I do not mind whether it is the priest, the doctor, or the shopkeeper who is concerned. There is only one solution for agriculture, that is, to send back to the good lands of the midlands the people who were chased out of those lands by Cromwell and his like.

For the benefit of the people of the midlands who look down on us, and who have tried to prevent us from getting back, I want to say that there has been only a very rare case of failure among the people who have left my county. I have gone to the trouble of seeing these people in their new homes and on their new farms. Those farms are unfortunately still too small but the few that have been taken up here are doing more for agriculture than all those who have been in the midlands for the past five centuries. The more who are taken back there, the sooner will agriculture be put on a proper footing. Unless they are brought back, unless those estates are divided up and given out to these people, agriculture will never come to anything here.

What kind of agriculture have we in the midlands? For the want of a better description, I will call it a butter and cream agriculture. Surely it is well known today that cream and milk can be processed into other things besides butter? It is extraordinary in a world where practically half the people are half-starved that we, who have the best land in Europe—perhaps in the world—cannot supply our goods competitively to world markets. I listened for over an hour to Deputy O'Donnell talking about the Golden Vale. The grass grows there in spite of them. If we in the west had that land and that grass, we would not be here preaching poverty like some of the midland people have been preaching since I came in here today. Indeed, we would be well off. If a man with 35 cows is looking for Government softness, there must be something wrong with him; he is not doing his duty. If any man in my constituency could be assured of keeping ten milch cows, he would not be coming here craving Government assistance.

When I go through the midlands, what do I find among these alleged farmers? They do no work. They spend one half of the year going to the races and the other half going to funerals, and a few hours at Mass. That is their sole contribution to the agricultural output of this country. They have not even the gumption to pay a proper rate of wages to their workers. Those are the people who come along in their Mercedes and other posh cars and have the effrontery to accuse the Government of not treating them properly. I see no reason why they should be assisted at State expense.

I know poor people who came up from my constituency to 35 acres in the midlands. They are not looking for soft money from anybody. They go out and work. They have their crops saved in time and are not afraid to work. They are an example to the fellows who have been preying on the Government and on the ordinary people for far too long. There is a scheme for everything. In fact, we are more and more becoming a nation of "schemers" and nothing else. They would not get out of bed in the morning if there was not some kind of scheme behind them. They would not baptise their children without a scheme of children's allowances. The whole thing is crackers.

It looks nice on paper to say that £39 million will be made available by the Government, but I should like some kind of assurance that £38 million of that will not go to the big farmers in the midlands and £1 million to the poor farmers in the west. I am sorry the Minister is not here because I would like an assurance that there would be a reasonable distribution of this money—that it would go to the people who really want it and not to the people who have already got heaps of it or, if they have not, it is because they lost it on horses and not on agriculture. I should like an assurance that it will go to the poorer farmers and not to the armchair farmers in the midlands who, because they have money already, can take full advantage of these schemes. If a man has money he has no trouble in making money. If a scheme is introduced, there should be a difference in its allocation as between the man in the west and the man in the midlands. The man in the midlands can get £5,000 in a scheme in which the man in the west cannot get even £50. That is something which badly needs reexamination.I am completely in agreement with the new heifer grant. It should have been introduced long ago. But again only the big man can take advantage of it. The Minister should be careful to ensure that that will not happen.

There are many glaring deficiencies so far as the Department of Agriculture are concerned. They have spent millions trying to eradicate bovine TB. If the west is free, how long will it remain so, in view of the present attitude of the Department? Anybody who wishes to smuggle a calf can smuggle all the calves he wishes across the Shannon at any hour of the night. I cross that river twice and sometimes four times a week. I have never yet been held up, and I could have six or seven calves in the boot of my car. With this new £15 scheme, every cow in the west will suddenly calve. We know what happened in the North.

I am not interested in saving the Government £15 a calf. However, if a reactor is found in a man's herd in the west, he will not be able to sell again for a long period. That will be very serious. At present, a calf can be at least 12 months before it is tagged. That certainly leaves things very open to all types of devilment, to put it mildly. The inspectors have been stopped from tagging the calves. They should be sent out to tag them as soon as possible. The present position is leaving a very wide gap for the reintroduction of bovine TB in the west. What I am saying will not go down well with all the farmers, but if they have commonsense, they will see the point of it. If these gentlemen have to spend two years without selling an animal, they will see that what I am saying is correct. In my area, 6,000 or 7,000 calves are born each year. It would only cost a few shillings each to tag them. It is fantastic that the present position should be allowed.

One thing that gets my goat is the tremendous amount of money lost to agriculture because we are not exporting whiskey in the quantity we should. Scotland can sell millions of pounds worth of whisky to America. But we are the pioneers so far as whiskey is concerned. Today you have these hoary, old whiskey barons who believe whiskey should be as old as themselves before anyone can drink it. They are codding themselves as well as the Irish farmers because our people who are in large numbers in England and America and Scotland taste Scotch whisky and when they come back here, they buy it and that is costing Irish farmers many a pound because the produce of their land will not be bought and the sales of Irish whiskey are reduced.

There is no reason why these people cannot produce whiskey readily saleable or why they cannot take 20 times as much produce from the farmers for whiskey production. If any man here had the option of a glass of poteen or a glass of whiskey, he would immediately take poteen. The Minister or somebody should remedy this grave injustice to farmers because the whiskey barons, as I know them, are already well-off and do not trouble to get markets for their products. They are doing well enough. We should be able to produce whiskey to sell in Britain and the US without any difficulty.

Another thing which must affect many midland farmers—it does not greatly affect my people—is the manufacture of sugar. There is no reason why any sugar should be produced here except from sugar beet and for the sake of the few people permanently employed in a few factories through taking stuff from Dr. Castro and his friends, I think this is a great injustice to our farmers who should be asked to provide sufficient sugar for all our requirements.

We all know the nonsense that goes on regarding wheat. Anybody with money can buy all the conacre he wants and if God is on his side, he cannot go wrong with the guaranteed price. That is not fair, as it puts Irish farmers out of a livelihood. Most of these big people are English people or doctors or Dublin businessmen. I know many of them. Somebody should take steps to eliminate this business. If beet can be grown by contract, why not wheat? It is time something was done about it.

Most of what I say has probably been said by others but I probably have a different viewpoint. I notice that the Department will move a man from the west of Ireland from a place worth £150 to £400 and give him a place worth, perhaps, £5,000. While the Minister will give a grant for drainage of land in the west, he gives no grant to grow grass although thousands of acres of bog extend from the farms around Erris and other such areas. With grants, these lands could be seeded, fertilised and made to grow grass, and if the Minister provided such grants, he would benefit not only the people there but many others, as the owners would not be anxious to leave their holdings if they could be enlarged.

Some of the schemes are so stupid that only people with brains, down in the west, can see how mad they are. Why not give grants to turn bogland into grassland, which it has been proved can be done? It grows so quickly they cannot keep it down. They give semi-free seed which is not a great benefit when it is the endproduct that should be subsidised if we were sensible. Why not subsidise the potatoes produced rather than provide free seed? Everybody would be satisfied and only the man determined to do a good job would take the seed. There would be no case like the man who said: "I left them to God and God left them to me and between us, they turned out a bad job." If the man knew he would get a good price, he would look after the crop.

The marketing techniques in the agricultural industry are either crazy or non-existent. The best proof of that is that when Mr. O'Reilly went to sell butter, he found he could sell three times what we had. Some Deputies did not approve: they had hoped he would be stuck with it. That did not happen. People should be sent out to sell other things besides butter. We have bacon, for instance.

It is hard to take the pig business seriously. It must be difficult for a man to produce the type of pig he is being told to produce when he never tastes it. I have a document here and on page 10, there is some kind of formula which I guarantee no man or woman listening would be able to comply with to get a pig to qualify for the maximum price at a bacon factory. It is like something you would see at Cape Canaveral where they send up spaceships. It is crazy. If the bacon is that good, why not let us taste it? Then we might be inclined to produce it. As it is, if you want to sole your shoes or put a gaiter in a tyre, you could not get better stuff than what we get in the west of Ireland. Send us some grade A 1 pigs and let us taste the meat.

Many a farmer will agree with what I say because while he is supposed to produce this type of pig, he does not know what it is. Only in Dublin do they know, apparently, and yet what I get here is just as bad as what I get in the west. Why does the Department not do something? Why not put this famous bacon which they say the British have gone daft about on our own tables? That might make quite a difference. The farmers will produce pigs if it is economic but they are very suspicious of the activities of the factories. If the factories decided to buy pigs liveweight, that, alone, I think would mean a substantial increase in the number of pigs. As it is, one man sends off a pig and gets Grade A 1: another, whose pig seems better, gets Grade B 2 or something like that. What is the first man to do on the next occasion when he finds this difference in price? If they all sold them there on the spot liveweight, even if they lost money, there would be no grievance. There would be an incentive to rear pigs. Some genius who never saw a pig except in a picture or a drawing had this brainwave.The pigs are measured. Because one pig is an inch and a half longer than another pig does not mean that the bacon will taste differently.

Whom do these people think they are codding? They are codding only themselves but the unfortunate thing is they are destroying an industry which could be worth millions of pounds. The people are being made mugs of. It is time someone spoke out about the hypocrisy that is going on. No matter what is said about the farmers, they are the best workers in the country. They survived all kinds of persecution and, were it not for the farmers, we would have no nation today. There must be something wrong when they complain, despite the fact that they are in fairly good circumstances. If commonsense prevailed, instead of bribes and doles, they would very soon get on their feet. I am not criticising the present Minister. We have had worse than he. We had the Minister for Grass, the Minister for Calves, the Minister for Drains, the Minister for Eggs, and so on. But the present Minister will have to do something to appease the farmers. Schemes are all right, but they are drawn up by schemers.

I come to the funny side of Agriculture now. I do not know who produced this document. I know it was not the Minister. I wonder did he read it? It is one of the funniest documents I have ever read. How does anyone know exactly how many milch cows, or heifers, or calves there are in the country? How does anyone know there are so many cattle over one year and under two years, over two years and under three years? Perhaps it is possible to compute these figures, but the man who knows the number of sheep in the country is a genius. He should get full marks. So should the man who knows the number of ducks. I have six ducks and I am certain they are not on this list. The man who knows the number of geese——

Mr. Coogan

There are a lot of them.

Mr. Leneghan

——is in the scholarship class. The number of ordinary fowl in the country—I presume whoever computed this figure means hens, chickens and so on. I have 80 or 90 hens and chickens and I know they are not in this list. I am sure a great deal of money was spent on compiling all this. Why do the people who produce these figures not go the whole hog and produce figures to show the number of hedgehogs, rats——

Mr. Coogan

There are a lot of them, too.

Mr. Leneghan

——and mice in the country, and the number of cats in the country.

Mr. Moher

They are not agricultural animals.

Mr. Leneghan

There is someone here in this city who needs to have his head examined. What man knows for certain that there were 767,200 ducks in the country in 1956 and there are 337,000 in the country today? It is time there was an end to this codology. I do not mind civil servants sitting in an office having a soft time trying to cod the public, but they will not cod me. Here we have the number of acres of grass. From the figures given, it is clear the country is nearly once and a half as big again as it is. If this sort of thing does not end, if these figures are produced again next year, and I am here, I shall not let them go as lightly as I have this evening.

I want an explanation as to how the Minister can know the number of ordinary fowl or how he can state that they dropped from 13,527,200 in 1956 to 10,638,300 this year. I know there is not a hen in the parish in which I live on that list. I know there are many hens in other parishes which have not had the honour of being recorded here. I am sure there is many a missing duck and many a missing goose. I ask the Minister to eliminate this stupid nonsense in future. If there is not some absolutely certain method of computing these figures, then they should not be put before us at all.

As far as I remember, these statistics started in 1926. Members of the Garda Síochána were sent out to get them. The garda went into the first house and it depended on what that man thought of his neighbours as to what figures appeared, but I can assure the House he always gave far more animals to his neighbours than he gave to himself. It is on that kind of record the Department of Agriculture is still operating. I ask the Minister to get proper figures, throw these into the fire and stop insulting our intelligence.

Mr. Moher

A feature of the speeches from Fine Gael benches right through the year has been the alleged bankruptcy brought about generally and, in particular, in agriculture, by Fianna Fáil policy. Last week, I listened to Deputy Donegan, shadow Minister for Agriculture in Fine Gael, enunciating Fine Gael policy. He formulated so many schemes that, on one hand, he was like a tape recorder gone wrong and, on the other hand, he talked in so many millions he was like a slot machine gone wrong. He did not have to put the penny in. The millions rolled out.

Where was he going to get them if the position of the country is as we have been told week after week, month after month? But if Fianna Fáil went out and Deputy Donegan came back, in a week he was going to find money by the million. Of course, there was this difference—the difference between promise and performance. His memory must be very short. He should well remember the difficulties into which his Leader ran when he was Minister for Agriculture.

I have here a speech made by Deputy Dillon to the County Waterford Committee of Agriculture in Dungarvan. He made a proposal to the dairy farmers of Ireland, a proposal which he called a new charter of freedom, that would usher in for the dairying industry in Ireland a golden era. The proposal which he made was almost to coax the dairy farmers to accept a reduction of twopence a gallon. That was the difference between promise and performance.

One of the things that Deputy T. O'Donnell forgot was that the New Zealanders produce approximately 200 lbs of butter fat per acre while here in Ireland we produce about 50 lbs. Those two figures would leave that argument completely bottomless. In terms of milk production per cow it would probably be unfair to make comparison between milk production here and in New Zealand because most of the New Zealand dairy cows are Jersey cows with a very high butter fat yield. A fairer comparison would be between Ireland, Denmark and Holland. The recent figures are: Ireland, approximately 450 gallons per cow; Denmark, 750 gallons; and Holland about 840. No matter what we do or say, or what kind of argument we put up to suit the particular types of dairying in our constituencies, in the final analysis, when we come to export any milk product no matter what State support is given, we will still be in competition with those very efficient milk producers.

Deputy T. O'Donnell talked at length about the creamery pattern in County Limerick. One of the things he did not say was that 70 per cent of Limerick creameries are within four miles of one another and the remaining 30 per cent are within six miles. Any person knows that those creameries were located for pony, horse or donkey transport, and now many of those creameries are only collecting centres where milk is collected and transported in bulk to manufacturing plants 30 to 60 miles away. Many more of them have as their only equipment a rotary churn to produce butter. He said that all the farmers' organisations in County Limerick were quite satisfied with the pattern of the setup there. I do not know if any one of the representative groups of farmers' organisations in these counties ever studied the report to which he was referring in relation to those creameries. Many of those creameries are protected by the peculiar structure of our dairying industry: No. 1, they are protected by the fact that we have price support; and No. 2, and this is one of the main factors in their protection, the supplier is stuck to a particular creamery. He cannot switch from the creamery to which he is connected even though it is inefficient and there is a much more efficient one within a reasonable distance of him.

Again, there was the implication that it was a job for the Minister for Agriculture.Is it not a job for the farmers' organisations in the area? Must they not realise that corresponding organisations in other countries have a sane, rational approach in relation to the streamlining of the dairying industry? We know quite well that six or eight years ago the Danes did what it has now been proposed to do in the report to which Deputy T. O'Donnell referred. We cannot have small, uneconomic creameries. The net result is that in the final analysis the least economic ones and their suppliers will be the first to scream for another increase in the price of milk, because their price will be lower than that of the more efficient ones, and right along it is the State and the taxpayer who must compensate the supplier for the inefficiency of the unit or the incompetence of the creamery manager.

If in eight or ten years' time we have to come in to a European Economic Community, can we with that kind of structure face the highly developed and highly organised dairying structures of the countries with which we will have to compete? Of course we cannot. It is very easy to get up and say that the local creamery must be preserved as if it were a parish hall or a social centre. Even at four miles apart in the area when you look at the average creamery, you will see tractors and trailers pulled by motor cars. You see very few horses.

Again, of course, there was a reference to bulk collection. If our dairy industry is sensible, if our farmers' organisations are sensible, they must ultimately come to some Minister for Agriculture with some rational scheme. These units are too small and do nothing but collect milk and sell it and have it taken 30 or 40 miles away to manufacturing units. With all these small co-operative societies which is the pattern in County Limerick, in parts of Tipperary and indeed in parts of Cork county, they will, if they are sensible, have to get together and produce some rational scheme whereby those small units can be at least federated together and some processing unit can be erected to serve the small units that come into the federation.

One of the things necessary as far as milk and dairy products are concerned is that we must be geared to manufacture that milk product which will give to the producer the highest prices and which has the easiest sale in whatever markets are available. That cannot be done with a small unit. You must have a central processing unit that will be at least viable enough to process milk into the product which will give the best price on the market. The small unit can never hope to give the help and advice which the bigger unit can give to its suppliers. To argue along the lines argued by Deputy T. O'Donnell, that all these small creameries, 60 per cent of them four miles apart and the remainder six miles apart, could compete against the Danes, is hopeless argument.

The Minister for Agriculture, whoever he may be, who is going to take the step of bringing in some reasonable and rational arrangement in this regard is going to be in trouble. We all know that many of the promoters of these small creameries have no business training whatever. Many of these people stick out their chests and say that they are directors of such and such a co-op but they have no business training and the supreme authority is the creamery manager. He is a Rainier in his own Monaco. He is the boss in his own republic and he will condition the shareholders and members of that co-operative. It is illogical and unreasonable for any of us who have any idea of the problems facing Irish dairying in a competitive European market to argue along the lines argued by Deputy T. O'Donnell. If the Irish dairy farmer is found inefficient against that competition, he will scream and then the Government must cushion him, and must continue to cushion him, because of his lack of efficiency and of competence.

There is a big number of people engaged in the dairying industry in this country. I have seen a figure of 100,000 Irish farmers producing milk for creameries and 10,000 producing milk for distribution. There are 4,500 people employed either directly or indirectly in the creameries and processing industries associated with milk. One of the extraordinary features of our eating habits here is that we are the second largest consumers of butter in the world. We eat about 40 lbs of butter per head per year. We almost eat ourselves out of house and home when it comes to butter. A contrasting figure is the consumption of cheese. With those 40 lbs of butter, we eat only two lbs of cheese per head. The Americans eat 12 lbs of butter per head and 18 lbs of cheese. That is an extraordinary difference in the eating habits of two people and I often wonder what the reason is.

I am glad the Minister has considered setting up this body, which, it is hoped, will make milk products popular. I often wonder why many of the people concerned in the liquid milk trade have not made an effort in this direction. In Britain, I have seen milk obtainable in cartons by putting 6d into a slot machine on the roadway. One of the features of restaurants and snackbars all over the place is the milk shake. Flavoured milk is sold in practically every snack bar and restaurant and one of the things that amazes me is why, in our major centres of population, we have not been able to push the sale of flavoured milk as they do over there. If the Minister can, through this organisation he proposes to set up, make milk popular in either liquid or manufactured form, and if he can raise the consumption of milk products other than butter, he would be contributing substantially to the dairying industry and we would be consuming a much higher proportion of our milk products here at home.

As far as cheese manufacture here is concerned, the figure is over 3,000 tons per year. Some cheese is exported but it is only a very small proportion of the 3,000 tons we produce. Cheese is mainly consumed at home and is mainly manufactured for the home market. Let us consider the amount of cheese manufactured and exported from Holland. Holland represents an area the size of Munster so it represents an area which is actually the size of our main dairying area, outside the Dublin Milk Board District. They export from that area approximately 100,000 tons of cheese. The Danes export to all countries something between 75,000 tons and 80,000 tons of cheese. In addition to that, the Dutch export close on £90 million worth of horticultural produce and £20 million worth of bulbs, so if we are to think in terms of intensive farming, as against extensive farming, we have the comparison of their huge exports from an area which is about the size of Munster.

I am glad that Bord Bainne have at last decided to sell packaged or rolled butter. I do not care whether they call it Kerrygold or Three Leaf Shamrock. At least you do not have this crude looking 56 lb. block at the end of a counter or butter made up in rolls with no title except the rather dubious title of "Produce of the Irish Republic". At least there has been a breakthrough. I remember that one of the things that struck me in some of the big shops in England was the attempt being made by the Danes to sell their butter. I saw Danish butter in rolls made up in tinfoil like a packet of biscuits. It was carried to an extreme which you would scarcely believe. I saw the butter being sold in a self-service shop in a sealed bakelite container.

Of course the temptation was there for the housewife and all she had to do was pick up her half pound, or pound, or whatever it was, put it in her bag and put it into the refrigerator when she went home. When she wanted to use the butter, all she had to do was take it out, still in the container, and put it on the table. That was an attempt to sell a product not alone in a package but with an added facility as far as the buyer was concerned.You will have seen the advertisement on television for margarine— I do not know whether it was Stork or some other brand; I am not allowed to advertise here—on which it is stated that it contains 10 per cent of Irish creamery butter. That was quite a common advertisement. I hope Bord Bainne will continue to develop a market not for bulk butter but butter in a package in the way our competitors sell their produce over there.

Deputy T. O'Donnell, among other speakers, referred to the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. I think we are all prepared to admit that we have travelled a very long way in this matter. If we are fair, we have to give credit to the Minister and the section of his Department which deals with this problem for having done a tremendous job. I know it has been done at considerable expense but very few people believed that we could have made the progress we have made in the time this scheme was in operation. I am glad the Minister is pushing ahead with the scheme and that purchases of infected cattle have been speeded up in the southern counties. Despite the fact that we have slaughtered something like half a million cows the Minister has been able to record an increase in our cow population, which is a feature we should not lose sight of.

That brings me to the heifer scheme. I heard somebody over on the other side describing it as a tuppenceha'penny scheme. Of course if you produce a scheme, no matter what its beneficial results may be finally, there is always the practice of trying to get some group discontented, trying to neutralise its value by sowing in the minds of a certain group the idea that they are being "done". I do not know if anybody ever got up here to represent the ranchers. Did the ranchers ever have a representative in Dáil Éireann? Was anybody ever honest enough to say: "That poor devil wants to live too"? We have heard about their Mercedes and their Jaguars but because they represent only a very small fraction of the voting population they do not count. When it comes to the man in the other section, however, his cognomen is "poor". The word "poor" is used with a quiver in the voice and if you could persuade the poor fellow that he was being "done", then no matter what the benefits of the scheme might ultimately be, you would have done something to neutralise its value and take from the credit which might be due to it.

We have all sorts of arguments about the sort of pighouse we should have. I heard some Deputy talk about whether it should be the solari or the Danish but whatever type we use we must have the right kind of piggeries. It takes about 6¾ cwt. of meal equivalent to bring a pig to about 200 lbs. provided you have the right kind of house but you could add almost 2 cwt more to that if you have not. Thus we see where the difference comes in between profit and loss.

The result of the experiment carried out some time ago over a wide area here regarding pighouses or fattening houses showed that night temperatures in most of these houses dropped to 40 F. You see where the housing problem comes in when the people who have experience always say that you must maintain the temperature of a fattening house at between 60 F. and 70 F. The wrong kind of house can cause you problems which over a large number of pigs will cost considerable money.

I must not forget the pig breeding schemes of the county committee of agriculture. I do not know whether rural Deputies have had the experience we had in Cork where a feature of every monthly meeting was an obituary list of dead boars—boars who died in service. I wonder what is the usefulness of that scheme. I cannot understand whether the boars died from natural causes because the veterinary certificate is not very specific. I do not know if there is any section of the Department which can discover the reason why we have such a high casualty rate among boars doled out by the county committee of agriculture.I feel that when the boar becomes aggressive and the wife of the cottier or owner becomes afraid of him she has him certified and he suddenly disappears.

As a breeding scheme it is worthless, because before you can test the boar's progeny he has disappeared and, whether he is useless or useful, he has gone. I wonder if the veterinary certificates are worth anything? Does anybody trace the cause of the high mortality among these boars? Did anybody ever try to find out if they died of diseases which are congenital or otherwise? One would imagine if they did, their ancestors would be traced and got rid of.

Deputy T. O'Donnell spoke of efficiency.I should rather not use that word. Possibly he was quoting from the report. I do not think the report was very complimentary regarding the whole pig set-up, from the breeding angle, from the dead pig to the bacon produced. I wonder if there is not something wrong. I have heard complaints from people abroad saying that Irish bacon was varied, nothing consistent about it. There was a wide variation between the cured product of one factory and that of another. If we are to use the Danes as a comparison, we know they can get 23/- per pig more than the value of the resultant bacon, for the offals, than we can get here. That surely is a very, very big factor as far as we are concerned.

I am very glad that the new manager who came up here from Cork has been doing something. I remember mentioning here on one occasion that we had about 20 agents in Britain supposed to be selling Irish bacon—that was before the Bacon Board was set up—and we had three Danes employed pushing the sales of Irish bacon against their own. One can hardly believe that, but it is true. The present body are doing one sensible thing. I have often said that you cannot create a taste for a product unless you keep that product continually on the market. As far as we are concerned that was one of our major failures in relation to much of our Irish produce. It was sent over to Britain and handled by British agents. An agent dropped 5 cwts here and another 5 cwts somewhere else; he did not come back to his first customer for six months. We could never hope to create a taste for Irish bacon and Irish butter.

What is the present position in Britain? The Danish wholesale society in Britain have over 50 selling centres. These centres are scattered all over the country, mainly in or adjacent to built-up areas. Their main task is to sell Danish products and to advise the producers in Denmark in relation to market trends, keep the Danish products continually in the shops all over England, Scotland and Wales, and to take complaints in regard to any Danish product. Those complaints are followed up and traced back to their source. I was in one of these centres in Herefordshire and the employment content of that one unit alone was well over 100 people, with no job except salesmanship. We had no such organisation.We had nothing at all comparable.They had high-powered advertising. You saw the flash on the television screen: "This week's best buy Danish gammon" at so much per lb. There was a Danish week during which Danish products were displayed.

That is the leeway we have to make up. The Pigs and Bacon Commission are doing a sensible thing. They have concentrated on certain areas in which they know they can supply our products and keep them continually before the people. In that way they can create a taste and, as we expand production here, they can expand their sales from these centres. That is a sane and sensible approach. If anybody is interested, he can go back on the records and he will find that for years on these various Estimates for the Department of Agriculture I have advocated exactly that kind of set-up for our produce in Britain.

Reference has been made to experiments. I do not know if it is generally known that a feature of Danish pig production at the moment is the stalling of pigs. The stalling of sows is a common feature of Danish agriculture. Each sow is held in her own cubicle. Sows can be very destructive and anybody who has ever dealt with, six, eight or ten sows knows the destruction of which they are capable. It is not so bad when it is your own property, but they can tear through a neighbour's property like tanks. Sows are now stalled in Denmark. They are fed a balanced diet and they remain quite healthy. They produce healthier litters. Indeed, the figures available show they produce slightly increased litters. There is no need to leave the old lady loose if one has a grudge against one's neighbour so that she will go in and root up his crops.

I compliment the Minister on introducing Continental breeds of cattle and I am glad the historical Spike Island is now being devoted to a purpose other than that to which it was devoted in other days. We are inclined to talk here of dairying and its competitiveness and we seem to forget that beef production and the sale of beef is a very competitive business. We have schemes for progeny testing dairy bulls. I do not know how far we have got in the testing of beef bulls. The Americans have gone very far in progeny testing of beef bulls. A recent experiment carried out by the Germans indicates that they too are very advanced on that line. I have here the result of an experiment. I do not know what the breeds were, but they were probably Hollsteins. The experiment was carried out on 41 bull calves. They were slaughtered at 8 cwts. Each had consumed 23 gallons of full milk, 90 gallons of skim, 9 cwts of concentrates, 5¼ tons of beet top silage, 8 cwts of hay. None ever saw a pasture. That experiment pinpoints for us that, as well as being efficient in dairying and efficient in pig production, we must also make ourselves efficient in beef production. I am glad the Minister is importing some foreign breeds. Nobody can say what the results will be but, at least, the Department of Agriculture has taken the decision and we hope that in the next five or six years some figures will be available to show the results of this experiment.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 21st November, 1963.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 20 Nov 1963

Committee on Finance. - Vote 41 — Agriculture (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 20 Nov 1963