This Supplementary Estimate for the Department of Agriculture comes at the end of a period of 12 months which can be described as one of the most difficult and most disappointing years for Irish agriculture of the past 20 years. In the progress Report for 1965 on the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, we see a failure to meet the various targets. We have a situation where 14,000 people have left the land and in sector after sector of our agricultural industry, targets have not been reached. Unfortunately, this Supplementary Estimate does not allow us to go into the detail which the present situation demands. We must confine ourselves to the details of the Estimate.
The Supplementary Estimate is for £2,045,000. I think it necessary to spell out the subheads in case it might be thought, as a result of the usual ballyhoo and misinterpretation that there always is on any Vote for Agriculture, that this is £2,045,000 going into the pockets of the farmers. The details of the Supplementary Estimate are: Salaries, Wages and Allowances, £415,000; Additional Grants to University Colleges, £58,700; Contribution to Irish Countrywomen's Association, £1,000; Contribution to Macra na Feirme,£1,000; An Foras Talúntais, £136,000; Prevention of Disease, etc., in Livestock, £43,200; Bovine Tuberculosis Eradication Scheme, £796,000; Grants towards the Cost of Co-operative Projects, £6,000; Payments to Pigs and Bacon Commission, £1,300,000; Diseases of Animals Acts, £24,700; Marketing, etc., of Dairy Produce, £956,000. Deputy Donegan pointed out at the outset of the debate that this Supplementary Estimate for £2,045,000 will not make the farmers the richer by even one shilling.
There are two main heads of the Supplementary Estimate which are of particular interest to me, coming from a constituency where dairying and pig production are the two main systems of farming carried on. There is a subhead here of £956,000 for the marketing of dairy produce. The Minister dealt at length with this question of dairy produce. He mentioned what it is costing the Exchequer, the difficulties which have to be surmounted, and so forth, but I think the Minister deliberately refrained from presenting the true picture at the present moment regarding the markets for dairy produce. I am sure the Minister is just as well aware as I am of the predictions for 1966 in respect of milk production. He must be aware that unless there is an increase of 7.5 per cent in milk production during 1966, the markets for milk products which Bord Bainne have entered into cannot be met. There is no earthly hope of getting this 7.5 per cent increase in milk production this year and, for that reason, if we must, under the terms of the Trade Agreement, supply 23,000 tons of butter to the British market, this will mean that we will be unable to supply the markets we have already got for cheese, milk powder and other dairy products. This, in my opinion, is the most serious situation that has hit this country and the agricultural community for a long time.
We have gone to tremendous trouble and have made colossal efforts in recent years to obtain and to develop markets, not alone in Britain but in various parts of the world, for our dairy products. On numerous occasions I have paid tribute to An Bord Bainne and I do so again now. We are faced with the situation, which obviously was completely unforeseen, that in 1966 we will be unable to meet our entire market commitment. This of course will have the disastrous result of giving us a bad reputation on world export markets —of fly-by-nights, coming with plently of products one year and the next year not being able to supply our commitments. I do not like making sweeping statements, and I try to avoid making them as far as possible, but I have already made a statement over which I stand, that is, that there is no earthly hope in 1966 of obtaining a 7.5 per cent increase in milk production.
There are good reasons for saying this. It is a well known fact that the dairy farmers have been trying to produce milk against almost overwhelming odds. Since 1953, there has been an increase of only 3d per gallon in the price of milk, or 16 per cent, and since 1953, costs of production have soared. It is becoming virtually impossible to produce milk at the price which our dairy farmers are getting, 2¾d per pint. Our farmers are working for seven days a week producing whole milk at this price. As Deputy Corry said, there is every argument in favour of giving priority to this most important section of our community in regard to increases. Unfortunately they are receiving no increase in the Budget. I see no hope of increasing milk production and we will be doing quite well if we again reach the 1965 figure for milk production. It is too much to expect, with production costs increasing all the time, that we will get an increase in milk production.
In regard to the marketing of dairy produce, we all know that it is essential to produce top quality dairy products. As an incentive to the farmers to produce top quality milk, an increase or a bonus incentive of 1d per gallon was given last year. Today the Minister stated that the numbers qualifying under the creamery milk quality grading scheme is 42.5 per cent. I cannot accept that figure; I do not believe it is correct. From the evidence I have got, I believe the figure is something over 30 per cent. However, it has produced certain results, but everybody connected with the dairy industry admits that it is essential to produce top quality milk as otherwise we cannot get top quality dairy products. Now it has been recognised, since the experiment last year and the working of the 1d bonus, that this 1d per gallon is not enough. It is completely inadequate and is not a incentive. It has been a grave disappointment not only that there has been no increase in the basic price of milk but also that the Minister has not found it possible to increase the quality bonus.
Does the Minister, or the parliamentary Secretary, realise the tremendous difficulties which faced dairy farmers not only last year but in recent years, not only in regard to the matter of rising costs and static prices, and the lack of adequate incentives, but also in regard to the difficulties they have had to meet in the matter of the eradication of bovine tuberculosis and the increasing instances in recent years of brucellosis and various other diseases? It would be difficult for me to exaggerate the tremendous difficulties they have been facing. I live among them and I know their problems. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the columns of the provincial newspapers in recent months have been filled with advertisements for auctions of dairy herds which are being sold by people getting out of milk production?
The Minister, in a benevolent manner, on page five of his introductory speech, referred to the Exchequer assistance to the dairy industry and to the marketing of dairy products and said:
The total sum for milk price support this year amounts to £10,696,000 or about 6.5d. per gallon.
He goes on to say:
There could scarcely be any better evidence than this of the Governments recognition of the importance of the dairying industry in the whole economy and of the Government's willingness to assist the industry so far as the resources available permit.
I respectfully suggest that this is complete bunk. That is the type of approach that has made 1965 one of the most disastrous years in agriculture and the type of approach that has produced the results outlined in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. The only incentive that will give proof of the Government's interest in the dairying industry is to give the farmer a fair price for his produce, and that has not been done.
Much play has been made with the question of assistance to the dairy industry. I have heard speakers saying that dairy farmers are well off and that any increase in the price of milk would lead to an increase in the price of butter, and so forth. I am told that last week on the Budget a Labour party speaker said that the dairy farmers should be compelled to pay income tax and that the price of milk is too high. It is vitally important that we should see this whole question in its proper perspective. This £10 million for the dairying industry as well as this additional Vote for marketing of dairy produce is justified for the simple reason that the dairying industry is the most important factor not alone of our agricultural economy but of our entire economy. It is an industry which provides a living for 110,000 dairy farmers and their families and provides employment in co-operative creameries and processing industries for several thousand more. It is an industry which has contributed £20 million in the export of dairy products in 1965. It is like stating the obvious to mention that the dairying industry is also the foundation of our cattle exports.
The Minister's statement proves nothing. There is no evidence in this Supplementary Estimate or in anything produced by the Minister since he took office to indicate his genuine interest in the dairying industry. The position is now that at a meeting of dairy farmers in Limerick last week, it was decided that drastic action would have to be taken. This is a very responsible section of the community not easily provoked into drastic action. They have now decided to take the extreme step of leaving their farms, coming here to Dublin and demonstrating outside Leinster House. Surely that is proof they have reached the limit of their endurance? Is it not a warning to the Minister and the Government that the official attitude to the dairying industry will have to be changed sooner or later?
There is no use waxing eloquent about the marketing of dairy produce, if, having entered into commitments, we cannot keep them. I already said before the Minister came in, and I repeat now for his benefit, that the national milk pool projection for 1966 indicates we will have to get a production increase of 7.5 per cent over 1965. In January and February of this year, milk production was down—four per cent in January and about three per cent in February. Anybody who knows the problems the dairy farmers have to contend with knows it will be a miracle if we get the same milk output in 1966 as we had in 1965, let alone an increase of 7.5 per cent. I have on previous occasions paid tribute to the officals of Bord Bainne for succeeding in putting our dairy products into markets in various parts of the world against extreme competition. But if we fail to meet our commitments, will it not make them look foolish?
There is only one answer, and it is a very simple one. Our dairy farmers must get an economic basic price for their milk. To compensate the dairy farmers for the increased costs and other difficulties they had to contend with, a minimum increase in the basic price of 4d per gallon for milk is now essential. If the dairy farmer gets that, the Minister need not bother about the £15 headage grant for heifers or any other such scheme, because the dairy farmers will produce the milk to supply our commitments to the export market and will also supply our store cattle. That is the best incentive they can be given.
The Minister referred in detail to the creamery milk quality grading scheme, which was referred to by other speakers as well. I do not accept the figure of about 42 per cent. I believe it to be about 33 per cent, but that is beside the point. The Minister must remember that in 1965 there were a number of favourable factors which had an important influence on the methylene blue test. One was the fact that the weather was exceptionally cold—there was no heat wave. If we had had normal summer weather when the cooling of milk would have been vitally important, this figure would not have been reached at all. Only about 20 per cent of the farmers are equipped to produce quality milk.
I have heard a lot of blatherskite about dirty milk and so forth. This type of talk is a pure waste of time. Every dairy farmer has to reach certain minimum standards, and he had to reach those standards before this quality milk scheme ever came into operation. You cannot send dirty milk to a creamery. I have been taking milk to a creamery since seven years of age. Quality milk and clean milk are not one and the same thing. That is something very often not realised.
