Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 9 Jun 1964

Vol. 210 No. 6

Supplementary Estimate, 1964-65. - Agriculture (Amendment) Bill, 1964: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill has two objectives: firstly, to increase the maximum financial contribution by county councils to county committees of agriculture; and, secondly, to provide that in future not more than 50 per cent of the members of county committees of agriculture may also be members of county councils.

The first of these objectives is dealt with in section 1 which empowers county councils to increase the maximum contribution payable to committees of agriculture for the service of their agricultural schemes to a sum not more than 21 times the produce of a rate of one penny, that is, 1s. 9d., in the £, in the area consisting of the county, exclusive of any urban districts therein.

The annual income at present available to each committee of agriculture consists of a contribution from the county council equal to the produce of a rate of not less than 2d. in the £ nor more than 15d. in the £ and a State grant related to the amount of the agricultural rate. Prior to 30th September, 1963, the State contribution to committees of agriculture approximated in the aggregate to the contribution from the county councils. Arising out of the Report of the InterDepartmental Committee on the Problems of Small Western Farms, increased financial aid was made available by my Department to 12 committees of agriculture in the western areas to enable them to strengthen their advisory services. In the case of these areas, the State contribution towards the salaries of advisory officers was increased as from 1st October, 1963, from approximately 50 per cent to 75 per cent. In areas other than those coming within the scope of the revised arrangements, the State contribution to the finances of the committees of agriculture is unchanged and approximates to the produce of the agricultural rate.

The existing maximum agricultural rate of 15d. in the £ was fixed under the Agriculture (Amendment) Act, 1958. Since the passing of that Act, 15 of the committees have obtained a rate higher than the maximum of 10d. in the £ prescribed before the passing of the Act. One of these Committees is, in the current financial year, in receipt of the present statutory maximum rate of 15d. in the £, another 14.88d. in the £, while three other committees are in receipt of a rate of 14d. in the £.

The increased expenditure of committees of agriculture in recent years has been due largely to the considerable and very welcome expansion in the agricultural advisory services. The total number of all categories of advisers employed by committees in 1957-58 was 313. In 1963-64 the corresponding figure was 402, an increase of about 30 per cent over the six-year period. Committees' expenditure has increased over the same period from £559,428 to £828,017. In the next few years because of the expansion programme already mentioned, it is expected that there will be a marked increase in the number of agricultural advisers employed in western areas. Every county will then be reasonably well staffed with advisers but I would, even after that stage, look forward to further expansion of numbers as the demand for the services of advisers of various kinds is expected to continue to grow.

In addition to the increased numbers of advisers there have also been fairly substantial salary increases in recent years. It is clear that, due to increasing expenditure, committees now at or near the existing maximum rate of 15d. in the £ will be unable to maintain their agricultural programmes unless they are enabled by legislation to increase their income in the future and that is the purpose of this section. I want to emphasise that the provision is purely a permissive one. It does not impose any obligations on county councils to increase their contributions to the committees of agriculture. It merely empowers them to do so where they consider such an increase is called for.

Section 2 of the Bill provides that, after the next local elections, approximately one half at least of each committee of agriculture will be composed of persons who are not members of county councils but who will be chosen by the councils by reason of their attainments in the practice of farming or in the development of agriculture and rural living in their localities or who are active in the promotion of agricultural or rural home education and advisory work.

Existing legislation is not precise as to the numbers of non-county councillors who may be appointed to act on committees of agriculture. Indeed the legislation, which dates from 1931, provides merely that each committee should be composed either wholly of persons who are members of county councils, or partly of persons who are, and partly of persons who are not, members of councils. In practice the proportion of non-councillors on committees varies considerably from one county to another, some county councils tending to confine membership of committees to councillors, while others have shown a more liberal outlook towards the appointment of non-councillors.

There have been considerable changes in recent times, notably in the emergence of new voluntary rural organisations, the extension of the co-operative movement, the growth of the educational and advisory services and the development of new techniques and ideas generally. There can hardly be any doubt that committees of agriculture would benefit from some members drawn from the voluntary rural organisations and the co-operative movement or from among prominent local individuals who for one reason or another do not wish to stand for election to the county council.

I believe that the time has come to reshape our legislation so that persons, who are not members of county councils but who are playing a leading part in the improvement of our agriculture, and in raising our rural living standards, will have a greater opportunity to participate in the membership of committees of agriculture. I feel sure that the change now proposed will bring to committees a new source of inspiration and strength and that it will lead to a more general acceptance of the educational and advisory services by the rural community.

I believe that our present agricultural advisory system, which consists of a partnership between the Department of Agriculture and the county committees of agriculture, supported by the results of the research work undertaken by An Foras Talúntais and the universities, is basically a good one and that, subject to the improvements to be effected under this Bill, it is calculated to make a great and vital contribution to our further agricultural progress and development.

Mr. Donegan

We on this side of the House accept this Bill as a very small step forward, albeit a step in the right direction. We welcome the fact that the expenditure that will now have to be met in the West of Ireland as a result of the decision of the interDepartmental Committee on Small Western Farms for the provision of extra instructors is being looked after, inasmuch as the committees of agriculture can now spend more than the maximum rate of ?d in the £ in their respective counties. We know also that some counties, even before this step forward on the part of the inter-Departmental Committee—which I presume has hardly come to pass yet —had, in fact, reached their maximum. So, one half of the Bill is merely bringing up to date and accepting the power which some county committees of agriculture now have to spend more than they thought they would have to spend when the 1958 Act passed through both Houses of the Oireachtas. It would, however, be quite naive of members on both sides of this House and the Minister if the exact provisions of the proposal that there shall be extern members to the extent of 50 per cent on the committees of agriculture were not examined in some detail. It must be remembered that the truth of the matter is that section 15 of the 1931 Act still governs the appointment of members of committees of agriculture and that, in fact, it is the county council in every case that will appoint them.

We on this side of the House have considered whether or not it would have been better to insert some provision for the automatic appointment by certain voluntary organisations of their nominees but we feel that perhaps the wisest course is the one that has been followed. There is the point that, as we have three, four or five large voluntary farmers' organisations in the country, some of them in one county or another go up and some go down. Therefore, the situation would appear to be that some organisation should after some years have two or perhaps more nominees and, because of custom, a small or almost nonexistent organisation might, in fact, have a larger or an equal number.

However, section 15 of the 1931 Act still stands. It indicates that the entire committee of agriculture, with the Government provisions set out in section 2 of this Bill, still appoints the entire committee. The county council will, therefore, have to face this problem in a very non-political way.

I say, without any taste of rancour or without any desire to hurt the Minister, that I know an excellent committee of agriculture where the head of Muintir na Tíre in the county was unseated to provide a place for a Fianna Fáil Senator who lives in an urban area and has no land. I know an excellent committee of agriculture where the foremost shorthorn breeder in the county, and a man who is doing highly detailed experimental cereal plots for the Department of Agriculture, was unseated to provide a place for somebody else who was a political figure but who was not involved in agriculture. Whether or not that was done by a majority of Fine Gael on the county council or a majority of Fianna Fáil or a majority of Labour, or any sort of combination, it is still wrong.

If we are to follow the line on which the Minister introduced this Bill, then we would expect that there would have to be a non-political line right through the country on the county councils. I want to say from our side of the House that, in local government and traditionally, that particular line of thought has always been available and that it is necessary now that it will also be available in the appointment of committees of agriculture on all other sides also.

It would be a pity if the voluntary organisations in the country or other people interested did not realise the similarity that exists between a present Seanad election and the present new proposed system of election of members of committees of agriculture. You can have a vocational nominee for the Seanad. You can be nominated by an extern body but when you want to get there you have to be voted there by the members of the county councils and the members of this House and the members of certain city corporations. This is the same situation here. You can be an excellent person. You can be of great value. But when you come to seek your seat you have to be voted there by the people who themselves are elected through political channels to the county council.

So long as the proper line is followed, this is a small step forward and a proper step forward. The point I want to make on this side of the House in accepting this Bill is that we hope that this line will be followed. We want the voluntary organisations in the country who would seek their full representation on the committees of agriculture to realise that the step forward the Minister looks for and I hope will achieve is entirely dependent on the action of the members of the county councils.

Mr. Tully

We agree that section 1 of the Bill is necessary. The constituency I represent has not got the difficulty which is mentioned here because we are a county with high valuations and, therefore, the rate returns are much higher than they are in many other counties. The 1d in the £ in County Meath produces very much more than it does in some other counties. Therefore, we have not reached the maximum yet and we are happy with the situation. However, in quite a number of counties the position is bad. Their style has been cramped over the past few years because of the falling value of money, wages increases and the necessity to improve a number of services. It was very necessary, therefore, to increase the amount. Possibly the Minister could have gone a little further with this 21d in the £. That would have prevented the necessity for bringing in further legislation. However, I suppose that is a matter of which the Minister is a better judge than I am and I shall not, therefore, dwell on it.

The second matter is somewhat more complicated. In most sensible county councils, and I include the one in my own county in the number, politics crop up only once in the year. That is on the day the chairman, vice-chairman and the committees are elected. After an election, when certain committees are being appointed, the vocational committee, the agricultural committee, and so on, we have politics right along the way. When I heard this Bill was being introduced, I thought the Minister would have gone a long way further on this line. I have not discussed the matter with Deputy Donegan but I think there is a great deal of sense in what he has said.

It is really too bad that people who do not know anything about agriculture should find their way on to these committees, simply because they are members of a political Party and must be given some kind of position, either because they have been defeated for election to the county council or they have topped the church gate collection. They must get recognition and the recognition is membership of a committee. Now, that is wrong and I shall be very glad to support the Minister if he devises some other system of appointment.

The Minister provides that only half will be county councillors. Possibly he thought that would provide a certain remedy because it would leave a wider field from which to draw and avoid a recurrence of the kind of situation to which I have referred. If the membership is uneven, I understand the council will get the odd member and that will give them an extra seat on the committee. The qualification laid down is attainments in the practice of farming or the development of agriculture and rural living. That is very wide. I am sure the Minister will agree there is not a national schoolteacher who does not take a rural science class. If he happens to be a member of the strongest Party, he will feel he should qualify. It will be pretty difficult to keep such people like that off the committee. I think the Minister should have come out plainly with what he has in mind. Why did he not say that only those with a practical knowledge of farming will be elected?

Mr. P. Brennan

Plenty of farmers' sons are teachers.

Mr. Tully

Then they will have a practical knowledge of farming. I have no objection to schoolteachers, if they know their business. I just picked out the schoolteacher for purposes of illustration.

Mr. Smith

Whom would the Deputy meet who would not claim to have a practical knowledge of farming?

Mr. Tully

One meets quite a few who want to pretend they know nothing at all about it. If the Minister does not intend to get the Bill through today, perhaps he would have another look at this and see if he can tie it up in some way.

There is another objection I should like to voice. By putting on 50 per cent who are not elected representatives, is there a danger we may have in some cases a whole series of Robert Emmets anxious to spend all the money they possibly can without any reference to how the money will be provided? They will not be members of the local authority and the striking of the rate will be no responsibility of theirs. There may be no danger in the situation. The Minister has far more experience than I have, but I think there is a slight danger that something like that could occur. We might have people with very little connection with the rural community and with no respect for the county council because, if they had respect, they would present themselves as candidates and succeed in getting themselves elected. These are the people who will show everybody the way to run a county committee of agriculture. There are one or two of them in every county. They put forward the most harebrained schemes.

The 1/9d. may not appear very much in some counties. In my county it will represent between £40,000 and £50,000. The Minister can see the danger to which I am referring. It would be more than a coincidence that the whole 50 per cent would be that way of thinking but you could get someone who would climb on the bandwagon and put everybody in the position that they would have to make enemies of a great many people. Those in public life cannot afford to do that. Apart from that, I think it is a good thing this matter has been examined. County committees of agriculture are far more important than most people think. Outside the particular group very few people realise the good a committee can do. Very few realise it is their organisation which brings about desirable and essential changes in agriculture. I am a little sorry the qualification is not that they should have a practical knowledge of farming or be the nominees of certain voluntary organisations whose interests lie entirely in farming and in the development of agriculture. However, I commend the Minister on introducing this Bill. I think the few matters I have raised could have been dealt with in another way.

Mr. Smith

Deputy Tully was perfectly right in saying that the questions to which he referred had been examined by the Department. Indeed, some of them have been examined for many, many years. The definition in the 1931 Act remains. I have no doubt that at that time those responsible were searching round for a better and more compact definition. The House can be assured we have done the same in 1963-64. If Deputy Tully were to examine the problems that could arise as a result of using the definition he suggests—a practical knowledge of farming—he would probably not be quite so insistent in this matter. An individual with a practical knowledge of farming could be selected but who would not be a farmer at the particular time. I cannot think right now of all the problems that would arise for those who would be trying to select persons on the basis of "a practical knowledge".

In regard to the other points raised both by Deputy Donegan and Deputy Tully, I admit that it would be better if one could provide a hard and fast method of selecting this 50 per cent who must be persons who are not members of the elected council. While being critical of the openings this Bill will leave when it becomes an Act, I do not think the Deputies were in the mood to say that they had a method by which this could be overcome. When in the last 10 or 15 years county councils seemed to veer towards appointing to county committees of agriculture only persons who were members of the council, I thought that was a great mistake on their part. Of course, members could always say, and did say whenever, in conversation, I accused members of a county committee of taking what I regarded as a foolish step, "Do you deny that I am a farmer? Not only am I a farmer but I have gone before my people and have secured election. If there are others who think they could be of more use or could make a bigger contribution to agriculture if they were members of the county council and could thereby secure election to the committee, why do they not seek election?" I have heard that argument and it is not bad reasoning but it never convinced me that it was a wise thing for councils to select only persons who were elected members of the council, as many councils did.

If one could stipulate clearly where this 50 per cent were to come from, that would be good. I certainly do not want any weak or evasive interpretation to be put upon this provision when councils come to appoint committees but, as in the case of the definition of "farmer", I cannot find it possible to provide the actual source from which they would come because if I were to name organisations and say "The following organisations will have the right to nominate", how could you be sure that the organisations so named would be able to devise a correct and fair method of selecting their own members?

Then there is the point that I have often mentioned, as to the number of these organisations and their representative capacity. I do not want to take sides with one organisation over another on the basis of its strength or its representative character. To attempt to distribute appointments to the committee of agriculture to named organisations would not be fair. I would hope that the strength and representative character of a rural organisation should make itself felt to the extent that people would be selected who would measure up well to the examination and scrutiny of those around them who knew them.

I am not claiming that this will be a perfect business. As is usual, it will probably be operated very fairly in most places while there will be areas where that might not be the case. If there is any Deputy who can put down an amendment in regard to the definition or the method of selection, I should be delighted. We have tried very strenuously to find an alternative proposal which would be better but we have failed to do so.

Mr. Donegan

There is one. If you take the number to be appointed as extern members and elect them by the county council votes on proportional representation, which the people have given you in respect of another matter, you will stop a majority on the county council from taking all the seats. That is a proposal that we can put down as an amendment on Committee Stage. That is the way to do it.

Mr. Tully

It does not guarantee that they will be elected.

Mr. Donegan

It does not guarantee anything but it means that a political majority on a county council cannot take every extern seat.

Mr. Smith

I am not so much afraid on that head.

Mr. Donegan

Well, it is there.

Mr. Smith

The difficulty arises when the county council comes to look at the people whom it should choose, who are outside their own elected body. I am not really so much afraid of the political aspect. I think that, by and large, except in a very isolated case, county councils have made a fair effort to give fair representation. That is my experience. It did not happen in every case but there were very few where reasonable consideration was refused to parties in the composition of these committees. I am not saying that these two provisions, that is, the definition of an eligible outsider for membership of a committee and the method of election, are perfect but we cannot see any better.

Mr. Tully

You would want to say what "rural home education and advisory work" means. That is a sticky one. It takes in nearly everyone, including the parish priest.

Mr. Smith

Yes, and if you met a parish priest who was a farmer's son and who worked in agriculture for years, even perhaps since his ordination, for long stretches every year and who was a genuine agriculturist, would not it be hard to deny him the description of a man who had a knowledge of agriculture?

Mr. Donegan

I think Deputy Tully meant everybody up to the parish priest and the Minister is giving it a twist.

Mr. Tully

I am afraid the Minister is a little too adept for me.

Mr. Donegan

He is not. We will watch him.

Mr. Smith

In any case, I am not trying to be. In consultation with the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, we went into this very fully. They did not like everything that was in it but they agreed with most of it. I think the House can take my assurance on these two points that have been mentioned and appreciate that it will not be possible to tighten matters up any more closely.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill considered in Committee.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

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

Mr. Donegan

I suppose we have really made a point in respect of the rule in subsection (1) (c). I think Deputy Tully is quite right in what he said and I agree with him that we take in everybody in a rural parish up to the parish priest. Rule 5 of the Second Schedule of the Agriculture Act, 1931, says:

No person shall be appointed to be a member of a committee of agriculture unless he either has a practical, commercial or technical knowledge of land or has an estate or interest in some agricultural land in the county or has special local knowledge of agricultural matters.

I do not want to delay the passage of this Bill but I think the definition in the 1931 Act has not been improved upon.

Mr. Tully

I do not want to delay the House, either, but I believe that is far better than this very vague detail. I read it at first rather quickly but on a second reading, it seems to me to be a very vague detail. These non-county council members are to be chosen by the council, because of attainments in the practice of farming or the development of agriculture and rural living or because of attainments in the promotion of agricultural or rural home education and advisory work.

I think the Minister will agree with me that the widest possible interpretation can be put on this. Let me say that I did not mean that the parish priest did not know anything about farming. Most of them I know are excellent farmers, apart from the knowledge they had before they entered the Church. If the Minister cannot do it now, I would ask him, before the Bill passes through the Seanad, to have some agreement made to have this tightened up.

If we do not have this matter tightened up, we will have a whole group of people being put forward on some committee or other who have not the foggiest notion about farming at all but who, because of their allegiance to one political Party or another, will be put forward. Some people think it is a good thing to be on a committee, no matter what it is. I should like the Minister or his advisers to think of some way of tightening this matter up, even if it does mean—and this is a job he would not like doing—tying down representations to certain organisations.

There is another point. When you give the local authority the right to select these people, there will almost certainly be in certain cases objections by some people that somebody, no matter who he is, has not the proper qualification. I am really perturbed that this is something which may cause more confusion and it does not improve matters at all. I should be grateful if the Minister would agree to have another look at it and see if he can provide a better way of dealing with it.

Mr. Smith

My attitude is slightly different. I know that no matter how you try to do this, you cannot tighten it up completely. Once I have arrived at that conclusion, my second approach to the matter is that the definition should be reasonably wide. My third approach is, having been forced to the second conclusion, to look to the local authorities and to expect them, having got this, which was the only advisable definition I could give them, to make their choice as wisely as possible. That is my approach and I do not think you can improve on it. I do not mind looking at it again. When I give that sort of assurance, I am giving it in the knowledge that we have tossed this over and I cannot find myself able to come up with something at this stage that I could not come up with yesterday.

Mr. Donegan

What is the modus operandi whereby a person is disqualified from being a member of a committee of agriculture? As I understand the position, the persons appointed from the county council are governed by Rule 5 of the Second Schedule of the Agriculture Act, 1931, which reads:

No person shall be appointed to be a member of a committee of agriculture unless he either has a practical, commercial or technical knowledge of land or has an estate or interest in some agricultural land in the county or has special local knowledge of agricultural matters.

The members are governed not only by Rule 5 but by the other rule. What happens when the county council appoints a person who is not properly qualified?

Mr. Smith

If you attempt, as I said earlier, to challenge some individual who is appointed to a committee of agriculture on the ground that he had not a knowledge of agriculture, it would be very difficult to establish that charge.

Mr. Donegan

I am very free with members of the Minister's Party and it would not be very hard to establish that at all.

Mr. Smith

It is interesting to me to discover, at my age, that these defects belong only to the Party of which I am a member.

Mr. Donegan

They belong to everybody. We all have defects. The Minister's answer is not a logical or legal answer. There is a provision in the 1931 Act which sets out qualifications for membership of agricultural committees. There must be some governing method by which persons are disqualified from membership. If there is not a provision there, there should be before this Bill passes through Parliament. I will not challenge anybody. I am long enough in politics to know that would not be any good. I do not know what the position is in relation to these qualifications. If a person is challenged, what is he to do?

Mr. Tully

I do not want to put bad ideas into the Minister's head but I am sure he realises that within 12 months local elections are due. Immediately after the local elections, there probably will be a general election. Perhaps it will be before or sometime after. The Minister can see, if there is a general election following close on the local elections, that people are allowed to go forward.

Mr. P. Brennan

What is wrong with that?

Mr. Tully

Why should somebody who will be absolutely useless to the county committee of agriculture be appointed on it? Why should he be appointed if he is a good political organiser while somebody else who would be better on the committee is left off because he is not so hot on politics? He knows all about farming but not about politics.

Mr. P. Brennan

You might get a person who knows about farming and not about politics.

Mr. Tully

I am aware of a case where there is an election coming along which may cause a certain amount of trouble. Deputy Donegan has quoted the Second Schedule of the Agriculture Act, 1931. Rule 2 of that Schedule lays down:

Every committee of agriculture shall be composed at the discretion of the council either wholly of persons who are members of the council or partly of persons who are and partly of persons who are not members of the council.

Rule 5 sets out that no person be appointed to a committee unless "he either has a practical, commercial or technical knowledge of land or has an estate or interest in some agricultural land in the county or has special local knowledge of agricultural matters". It would appear from this that he does not even have to belong to the county. If he comes under this very wide qualification, it does not matter where he comes from. Bringing in the Bill was the Minister's responsibility, but it is our duty, before it goes through, to point out weaknesses in it to him in case he might feel inclined to alter them later.

Mr. Donegan

I disagree with Deputy Tully in as much as subsection (1) (c) of section 2 adds to Rule 5 and they must also qualify under that. Deputy Brennan asked what was wrong with this. I shall cite a good committee, which shall remain nameless. It is wrong that a place should be given to people of a certain political line, while the head of Muintir na Tíre in the county and the best shorthorn breeder in the county, with 30 years' experience of doing highlyspecialised cereal plots for the Department, should both be excluded, although they were members for 20 years. It is all right for the Minister to say that he must now depend on the county councils. While I agree there is nothing wrong with politicians, at the same time, I think these two examples I have quoted are quite wrong. While the Bill is a slight step forward, it might not be a bad thing if, before it went through, the Minister looked at it and made some changes.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 3 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.