Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 8 Jun 1967

Vol. 229 No. 2

Committee on Finance. - Vote 37—Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a sum not exceeding £40,037,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1968, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.—(Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.)

Mr. James Tully

I pointed out last night that this, in my opinion, is one of the most important, if not the most important, item to be discussed in the House this session. I also remarked that I considered it was very surprising, in view of the uproar and upset in Irish agriculture, that we should have it discussed here in such an air of calm.

There are a number of individual matters with which I should like to deal and I propose to do so now, having expressed my views on the agricultural dispute last night. I have nothing more to say on the agricultural dispute except this: for goodness sake, would the NFA and the Government not have a bit of sense? Can they both not realise that every dispute that ever took place, even the battles now taking place in the Middle East, must be settled round the table? Is it too much to ask grown adults in responsible positions to get down and discuss matters which are of vital importance not alone to themselves but to the whole community? If they do that, they will get the respect of the community at large. If they do not, they will be held responsible for the mess into which Irish agriculture must of necessity go because of the way matters are being handled.

With reference to the farmers who are still in jail, might I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach in this case to allow these people out? There is no point whatever in looking for a pound of flesh. I cannot understand why it was necessary to bring in the farmers who had not signed bonds or who had not paid fines up to £10, or why it was necessary to pick them up immediately, in view of the fact that there are numerous people who have committed serious breaches of the law, both civil and criminal, against whom warrants have been issued and who are knocking around this country for a considerable time, and no attempt has been made to bring them in either to serve a sentence or pay their fine. That being so, farmers cannot be blamed if they claim that there has been discrimination against them. They cannot be blamed if they say they were picked out for special treatment because the Government want, for some peculiar reason I cannot understand, to punish them.

I know that like the fellow whistling in the dark passing the graveyard, there are a number of Government supporters in this House who will get up here and say that the Government were right, that we must maintain the law. I am in favour of upholding the law, as is any right-minded person in any country, but if we get down to commonsense, we must agree that the whole approach from the Government side to this problem has been wrong. The NFA have made mistakes— tactical errors would be a better way of saying it—and I am not sure that they would not be prepared at this stage to go half way to try to get the matter cleared up.

The Government should not pooh-pooh attempts by anybody to mediate. I believe most people are doing this with the interests of the country at heart. If the 28th June were over, the whole problem might be approached in a saner way by the Government. They look with suspicion at anybody who tries to mediate now—this is an election stunt. People do not change their political views overnight and the Irish are a conservative people, they say. The one thing I would be afraid of is that the farming community would lose patience and confidence in the public representatives and they are likely to do that because they feel they are being singled out for special treatment, not very favourable treatment. In addition to that, they are getting very little support from those whom they elected to this House to represent them.

The question of the derating of agricultural land was mentioned. I quite agree with those who made the comment that it is complete nonsense to expect any farmer to dance a jig because one-fifth of the rates he had been paying on his under £20 valuation land has been removed: a matter of a couple of bob a week, which means very little difference. The farmers of Ireland will not be pulled out of the mess they are in by a hand-out of a couple of bob a week. That is what it amounts to. It was entirely stupid of anybody to suggest that this was the answer to the farmers' problem. If we cannot do a lot more than that, we had better review the situation again.

With regard to derating, surely it must be realised that since derating takes place only on land, there are very many people who recently tried to help themselves by building houses and that the rates on the houses, when the ten years are up, will be much more than what they are paying on agricultural land. Let us have a sane approach to this and not be telling the farmers that a lot has been done for them just because derating has taken place. That is all nonsense. I asked a supplementary question of the Minister for Local Government the other day about a man with a £35 valuation. I was told he gets £20 derating; but all he gets is the agricultural employment remission for the other £15. Did anybody ever hear of an ordinary farmer with £35 valuation being able to employ labour? He gets it awfully difficult to live on it himself. If he can do it, he is a fairly good farmer.

There are a number of irritations which have occurred. Because of the alleged no rates campaign of the NFA, the Department clamped down on the payment of grants. The clamp down took place last fall, somewhere before Christmas, right up to the present time. I am quite sure there must be a very big backlog but would everybody not agree that it seems rather unfortunate that somebody who had completed repairs to, or the erection of, a house in January or February, 1966, had not received his grant in June, 1967, not because of the fact that the work has not been done but because of the fact that when the Department were able to carry out an inspection in the fall of 1966, there was a ban on payment of the grant until rates were cleared. I know a number of people who paid out of their own meagre resources for the repairs, under the impression that the Department of Local Government would honour their promise to pay the grants. The result was they were caught in a cleft stick. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to make a special effort to try to impress both on the Department of Local Government —who are tied up in this because Agriculture told them to do this—and on the Department of Agriculture to have these grants cleared.

Another matter which is causing a lot of annoyance in rural Ireland is the fact that if a man decides to implement a water scheme for a house and farm, he has some chance if he plans it with the Department of Local Government but, if he is foolish enough to try to bring water to his stables, he finds that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Local Government do not seem to have any way of clearing the small issues between them. I can give instances to the Parliamentary Secretary of dozens of cases which have been passing backward and forward between the two Departments over a period of seven or eight months. If the Department can give a good reason for this, I should like to hear it, but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why, if there is a common source of supply, it should not be possible for somebody to say: "On the source of water the grant is being paid by one Department, and the other Department will be responsible only from where the connection of the supply branches". It seems to be quite a simple matter but yet completely beyond the two Departments to reach common ground on this, and it is very annoying, particularly to people who have spent money, which they needed for something else, on modernising both house and farm.

Another matter which is causing a good deal of annoyance is the matter of land reclamation grants. Surely it is ridiculous that, when under the present system, according to the Minister for Local Government, in reply to a question by me, the average time between the date of application for a grant in County Meath and the time the inspector gets out to examine the land to ascertain whether or not a grant is available is 11 months, a warning should be given that any work done in advance of inspection will not qualify. Again, it appears as if it is either awfully unreasonable or the Department just do not want to pay the money—one or the other.

I heard of a number of cases of people who had tillage land flooded, and who, in an effort to relieve the situation, spent a considerable amount of money putting in drains to take the water from the tillage land. Before doing so, they applied for a land reclamation grant. That was done in May last year. An inspector could not get out until April, 1967 and, when he did get out, he said he was very sorry but the portion of the work done did not qualify for the grant, and the Minister confirmed this in the House. Surely extra inspectors should be employed to ensure that the inspection is carried out in time, or, alternatively, an arrangement made by which if it is evident the work has been done well, the grant will apply once the application has been made. The same applies to glasshouses. We had a situation a few weeks ago where the Minister very kindly agreed to bend the regulations slightly so that those who had applied after, I think, February of this year, would be paid the grant, even if some of the work was done before the inspection was carried out.

These are the sort of niggling irritating things which in normal times are the bugbear, particularly of the small farmer. You have the same thing in the payment for calved heifers. I quite agree with those who say here that much of our trouble in agriculture with regard to livestock was caused by the calved heifer subsidy, which was misconceived—to make a pun— and was in fact introduced here for the purpose of trying to please somebody. As we know, it did put into the pockets of a certain number of individuals a considerable amount of money, but it put on the farms of this country a considerable number of substandard cattle. Let us have no doubt about that. I saw farmers here bristling with anger when I made that comment before but when the general use of scrub bulls, which was banned here 30 years ago, was re-introduced, what can we expect but a considerable number of scrub cattle? When we cannot even sell top class beef how the dickens can we expect to compete with anybody with that sort of thing?

In addition, the amount of money made available for the calved heifer subsidy was too small the first year. It was estimated and, to show how badly it was planned, the Minister estimated it would take £300,000 the first year, and he put £2,500,000 in last year; it took £1,500,000, and he has as much in this year. We know that the amount of money which can be collected in the calved heifer subsidy this year will be comparatively small because the stock must be dropping again. The small farmer getting a calf, selling the calf as quickly as he could, fattening the heifers and trying to sell them and then going out of it again, is bound to affect the national herd. That did not seem to have been evident to the people who planned this if any planning was done with regard to it at all.

Even with that, we find a situation where people who applied for the calved heifer subsidy are finding it extremely difficult in many cases to get payments. The man who finds it more difficult than anybody else is the landless man, the man who takes grazing for one, two or three cows. It is a really extraordinary thing that if he succeeds in finding a neighbour— mind you, there are not many of them —who will give him the grass of a cow, the cow will be counted in with the herd of the man who owns the land and he as an individual does not count at all. The result is that poor unfortunate devils who are scrimping and scraping, trying to get a few pounds together, are being caught up by this sort of thing and prevented from getting the money which they are rightly due, simply because someone will not bend regulations.

I have an example where an inspector from Dublin visited three times a farm 45 miles from here for the purpose of examining and inspecting. Eventually he tried to bring it about that if the man could, by some magic way, own a piece of land for one day on which he would have his own cows, he then could qualify; otherwise, he would have to depend on the whims of the man who owned the herd with which his cows were running. The fact that all the other cattle in the field were bullocks and his was a cow did not seem to strike the gentleman who visited the herd at all. He still insisted on the regulations being adhered to. We hear a lot of talk in this House from Ministers about the interpretation of regulations and how the Minister gives a wide interpretation and does not intend that these things should happen. However, they do happen and the fact that they continue to happen is evidence that the whole thing needs to be changed.

We also have the question of payment for TB cattle. The number involved is pretty small but there is an inordinate delay in having payments made. I do not know why that should be. I do not know whether civil servants or the Minister appreciate the fact that if a man has a cow which turns out to have TB and he has to get rid of it, until he gets the price of that cow she cannot be replaced. That is ordinary economics and easy enough to understand. That being so, I fail to see how a man who has to sell a cow because she has TB in November could come to me in the month of May and say: "I never got paid for that cow. We have young children and we want the milk but we have not the price of a cow." Surely there is no reason at all for these things. A little bit of humanity should enter into it.

I am not saying the officials of the Department are going out of their way to be awkward but there is something wrong with the regulations which allow this sort of thing to happen. I do not have very much to do with the Department's officials. Any time I get in contact with them I find them most courteous and helpful but courtesy and being helpful is not the same as having the job done. I believe that it is actually the way the regulations are written which is causing the trouble and not the people who are interpreting them.

There is another matter which I raised in this House by way of question and it did not seem to be accepted by the Minister. I should like to get some further information on it, the eight grades of inspector employed by the Department. As far as I can find out there are in general two grades, supervisory and others, and they require to have mainly the same type or standard of education, experience and everything else. Despite that, the Department have broken them up into eight grades and there is a wide disparity between the wages being paid to the first and to the man on top, leaving supervisory people out of it.

In addition, there seem to be some peculiar arrangements about promotion. If promotion within the grade is allowed, how can it happen that on the Minister's admission, two people at least in those grades with 25 years' service have not got promotion? Either they are suitable for the job or they are not, and if they are suitable, surely they should get promotion in the normal way? I was told there was a system by which their salaries were being fixed, that they were being fixed in accordance with the regulations made under the conciliation and arbitration schemes. I asked at the time if it was true that in one of the grades there was nobody at all employed and I was corrected by the Minister who said that was not true, that there was in fact one man employed.

My information is that on this conciliation and arbitration board, each grade is entitled to two representatives. Can that man in whose grade there is only one man bring somebody else along to help him or does he have two votes? How does it work or is it true that a bad old system, which has been working in other places—and I would not be surprised if it is being operated by the Department—operates whereby when questions of wages or hours or conditions are being considered, the simple way to get over them is to give something reasonably substantial to those with a small number of people in the grade and their two votes will then have it carried against the votes of people in whose grade there may be up to 600 as against the one, two or four in the other grades? This is a very old trick which the trade unions kicked out of court long ago. If it is still operating in the Department, it should be changed as quickly as possible. The Parliamentary Secretary shakes his head.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Davern)

It is not operating.

Mr. James Tully

Well, it operated last year, so if it has been changed, it must have been changed this year. If the Parliamentary Secretary speaks, perhaps he would enlighten me as to how or when the change took place because it appears as if it needed to be changed anyway. Now it might be possible to get an explanation as to why it is considered necessary to continue with eight grades. Perhaps it would be possible to say that these could be cut down to two grades. It might be possible to say why those who are only a relatively short time in the service can get promotion over those who have been all their lives in the service of the Department of Agriculture.

With regard to the State farms, we are very glad that recently arrangements were made to introduce a sick pay scheme but let me say that that sick pay scheme is not something about which anyone will light any bonfires. I think I am correct in saying that the State scheme is the meanest scheme introduced by any employer in the Republic of Ireland.

We have in local authorities, in various private employments, in some State companies, sick pay schemes in operation. Those schemes usually cover a period from ten up to 26 weeks for what are generally called the servant classes—we still have the servant and the officials dealt with as if they were two different races. The servant classes are given from ten to 26 weeks but the Government, having decided to introduce a sick pay scheme, decided they would give only five weeks — exactly half the period being given by any other employer. I do not know whether the State felt it would break itself if it gave any more or if it thought that either single or married people, given five weeks' wages, would need no subsidy at all.

The cost of such a scheme must have been checked. If it was I wonder if the amount of money involved frightened the State so much that it decided to give only half what the next worst employer in the country was giving. The men employed on farms are important people. It has always been appreciated that farm workers, like farmers, are important people in the country's economic setup, and it is an insult to them to offer them five weeks as against the 26 weeks given to workers in offices. I am not complaining about what office workers get but the schemes were devised by people getting five times as many holidays, people who have hard necks.

We have been looking for a pension scheme for State employees on State farms but the State could not find it in its heart to introduce it. Nearly every other outside employer who employs people during long periods has introduced a pension scheme. The State could not do it, possibly fearing it would break itself. This was another decision, by the Minister who will get a pension after three years, and civil servants who will get substantial pensions and gratuities when they retire, against the men without whom they would not be needed. It is something the Minister and the Government might think about in their spare time.

I come to the matter of administration in the Department of Agriculture. During the past couple of days, I have been told reliably that the cost of administering a Department of Agriculture grant of £1 is £2. This is something I cannot prove and I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary if it is possible to say before the debate ends whether this ridiculous situation has been reached. The general public believe it is true that it costs twice as much as the grant is worth to administer it. If it is so, there is something radically wrong. I realise there are various types of grant and I know that officials, including inspectors, have to see that the work is done, but it is too bad if we have reached the stage when the cost of administration is higher than the amount available in grants.

I wish now to speak about the desperate—no other word is sufficiently strong to describe it—tragedy that has befallen the pig industry, the fact that bacon factories have had to close because pigs could not be got. It was said here yesterday that for the period ending in May, 1967, 565,000 pigs were delivered as against 687,000 during the same period last year. It makes one wonder whether somebody has made a colossal blunder. Twelve months ago the Government were talking about extra grants for larger piggeries despite the views of many Deputies that it would be a mistake to take away from the small farmers and the cottiers the job they had been carrying out so well in years gone by of rearing a pig or two each, and to try to centralise the pig industry by giving it to one or two big people who would rear pigs by the thousand, get them out more quickly as a result of which pigs would be, it was thought, more numerous and cheaper.

Events have proved how wrong this was. Now the small farmer feels he can no longer rear a few pigs. The cottier no longer bothers because he says the cost of feed is too high, and the Government will not give him a grant which would be worth a damn to him. As a result, pig numbers have dropped and there is not a darn thing being done about it. The fact is we have not been able to fill our bacon export quota and we have not been able to export pork at all. This is something that should be of serious interest to the Minister but, having read his speech, I do not think he realises the seriousness of the situation. The policy in the pig industry has been to take something more from the small farmers and the cottiers throughout the country. Turkeys are gone.

Mr. L'Estrange

Eggs are gone.

Mr. James Tully

Poultry in general——

Mr. L'Estrange

Even the Killucan turkeys are gone.

Mr. James Tully

People who were prepared to take a chance went into the broiler business and are prepared to stay in it but my view is that it will not last very long. Through the poultry industry and the rearing of a few pigs, small farmers and cottiers were able to subsidise their meagre incomes. Now they have been put out of the industry, with catastrophic results. The former Taoiseach said in this House some years ago that he felt bigger farms formed more economic units. Of course they do, but this country is made up in the main of small farms and it is up to the House and the Minister to try to keep the many small farms in business. We have heard people from EEC countries speak of the necessity to have bigger farms in order to compete in the EEC. There is not a snowball's chance in hell of this country being in the EEC in the next five or ten years and the spectacle of the Taoiseach going to the EEC capitals, following in the footsteps of Mr. Harold Wilson, is too ridiculous for words.

One of the top men in the EEC told me and my colleagues when we were in Brussels that our only chance of getting in was to go piggy-back with Britain. It does not look as if Britain will get in and consequently we cannot go in piggy-back. It is senseless for us to talk of going it alone when 75 per cent of our exports go to Britain. This, of course, is something being dangled in front of us—agriculture is in a mess and our answer is EEC membership. But those of us who can look at it plainly realise that our only solution lies at home. I suggest therefore that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture would be much better disposed if they had a good look at Irish agriculture and if they went about doing what has to be done to put it on a proper footing.

It is perhaps wrong to repeat it but we heard the story, when the Agreement was signed with Britain recently, about the benefits it would bring to Irish agriculture. It was grudgingly admitted that it might possibly help industry in a small way but that as far as agriculture was concerned, we were all going to thank the Taoiseach who paid a tribute to his Ministers, and particularly the Minister for Agriculture, who is now Minister for Finance, Deputy Haughey, for the excellent fight he made to get what was needed for the Irish farmers. Deputy Haughey, in the first flush of victory, got up in this House and said that the Irish farmers would benefit to the tune of approximately £20 million, on a conservative estimate, and that Irish farmers would be getting £7 per head more for their cattle.

What happened? The Irish farmers got approximately £15 to £20 per head less for their store cattle. Despite the fact that the price of stores and the price of fat cattle in Britain are now going up the price in the Dublin Market is still falling. Is there not something wrong? Mr. Peart and Mr. Blaney had discussions last week. I do not know what they talked about. The Minister for Agriculture does not seem to be desperately anxious to disclose what the talks were about but if we can judge what was said by the results he must have said to Mr. Peart: "Look, for God's sake, take whatever extra cattle you can and we will not mind the price". That seems to be the situation and that seems to be what happened.

There does not seem to be any bright light at all in the sky in this connection. I do not know in the dickens what is likely to happen. The Minister, instead of trying to help out the farmers who were deeply involved in this matter, if they attempt to mention that they are entitled to more for their produce threatens them with all sorts of dire consequences and it seems as if the Government are determined that agriculture, at any rate, will not get very much assistance from them.

We hear Ministers talking about all the extra millions which they gave to agriculture. If we analyse it, we find that of the extra millons only a very small proportion finds its way into the pockets of the farmers. I challenge contradiction on that. It is being spread around here, there and everywhere. It is quite true that the big farmers have got plenty of money. There are big farmers doing damn well in this country at the present time and they deliberately take advantage of every single shilling that is going but the little fellow, who really needs help, cannot get anything.

Take the Agricultural Credit Corporation. The money usually given by the Exchequer for the purpose of financing this was cut and cut, and at the present time they are not getting anything at all except what is got from outside investment. I am proud of the fact that the trade union I am associated with has invested heavily with the Corporation. We believe we are doing good for the country if we make money, which will be invested elsewhere, available to it. The first thing the Agricultural Credit Corporation want to find out from a man if he looks for a loan is whether or not he wants it. If he wants it badly, he will not get it, but if he can prove he does not want it, then he will get it. I had an example the other day of an unfortunate man who borrowed £300 from them. He negotiated for a further £600 and they agreed to give it to him. When he got it he got £294. He felt there was something wrong and he wrote back. What had happened? They liquidated his previous loan with £300 of it. They had taken the first six months' interest with the other £300 and he finished up worse off than he was before he got the loan.

Everybody seems to think that the farmers are a lot of damn fools and that they can be treated as fools. For that reason, I do not blame them when they become militant. The thing they have to learn is that along with being militant, they must have discipline among themselves. We learned that the hard way in the trade union movement. The farmers will learn it too and when they do, the Government of this country, let it be a Fianna Fáil Government or any other Government, will not be so anxious to throw them into jail and keep them there or have them sitting outside in the gutter and mud. I am quite sure the farmers will learn this in the years to come and when they do, we will hear more from the NFA. We will find that they will be doing things in a better way than they have been doing them over the past 12 or 18 months.

I mentioned also that the price of fat cattle had gone to the dickens. In May, 1966 the price of fat cattle in Dublin was 173/6 and on 1st May this year, it was 152/-, that is, roughly £10 per beast less in the 12 months.

Mr. L'Estrange

Small beasts.

Mr. James Tully

I am not talking about small beasts; I am talking about fat cattle. The Minister says that if the weather is fine and bright, the prospects for fat cattle are good. I do not know whether he believes that if the weather is not fine, the prospects are bad. In fact, as Deputy L'Estrange says, stores are very much worse. The fact that the gross output from agriculture in 1966 was down £5 million is something which has got to be considered. Do not mind the bad weather, the bank strike and the shipping strike. It is quite true that after the bank strike, £40 million was put into circulation which otherwise could not be given. The Government had a credit squeeze. The bank strike helped them. It is to their credit that when the strike was over, the banks honoured the cheques which had been drawn during the strike. Despite this, the £5 million reduction in the value of output for Irish agriculture is something which we have to take into account.

The acreage of crops fell steeply last year. Farmers were told it was down £6 million or 4½ per cent on the previous year. I heard Deputy Dillon talking about parish planning yesterday. I know in my own area that local farmers are attempting to do something which I think is one way in which they can help themselves, that is, forming co-operatives. When they come together and form themselves into co-operatives, they can help themselves greatly and improve their conditions. It is very difficult to tell an Irish farmer, if his next-door neighbour with a little farm like his has bought a new machine, that he should not buy one also just to be as good as his neighbour. This is one of the things they have got to learn. It is good to teach them this but the Government should set a headline and show that this is in fact the right way to do it. They do not seem to be interested in doing this.

Very recently I had a group of people who had some soil analysis made on the land in their area, much of which was under water through the years but which could be drained by an expenditure of £500 or £600 and which could grow certain types of vegetables and grow them pretty well. It could grow seed potatoes which are scarce in many parts of the country and in short supply. When they tried to get some assistance from the local agricultural officer, who was quite happy to give them whatever advice he could, he could not advise them and he certainly could not give them any money. When the matter was raised with the county council, they said it was a matter for the Government; and when the Government were asked about it, they said: "We have no money to do this job this year. We will put it on the list and perhaps next year, if they are far enough up and the money is available, we will consider doing something about it." This means that these people may scrap their co-operative effort and do as they have been doing over a number of years—struggle on with whatever few bob they can get from these bad farms.

The crops were down substantially last year, but it appears that this year the acreage of tillage is up. I do not know what the result will be. We have had in this country over the years a series of gluts and shortages. I would blame the Government for not attempting to regulate this. If there is any kind of damp season, such as we have had this year—in fact, it need not be terribly rainy—we see rows of waiting lorries outside the mills and drying plants. Some of the unfortunate drivers have to wait for hours, sometimes overnight and even over into the next day. I know drivers who come with a load in the evening and find they are still there the next day. There seems to be no system for testing the wheat. That is shown by the well-known trick of one man bringing in a load, having it rejected, taking it back, putting it on someone else's lorry and having it go through. I hope the fine weather the Minister was praying for a few days ago will come, but if it does not, I hope arrangements will be made so that we will not see another season with these unfortunate people hawking their produce around night and day in an attempt to sell whatever they can.

I was very glad to hear that our exports of boxed frozen beef are getting a grip in the United States market. We have had £8 million worth of exports. That is a substantial improvement. This is the sort of thing the Government should be congratulated on giving encouragement to. However, I have one comment. If we get a grip on a market, we should not do as we have done on other occasions, that is, lose our grip on it again by not being able to keep up the supply or the quality. Special consideration should be paid to this.

Milk production is the cinderella of this country. Everybody says that milk production is something which can turn in the quick shilling. The farmers know they get their milk cheque regularly and, whether it is good or bad, they do get it. However, I do not know, if they went to the trouble to find out what exactly it costs to produce the milk, if the farmers would be in a position to say they made a profit on it. But, as I say, they get their money regularly. We only hear about it when some poor unfortunate old man or woman applies for the old age pension and the social welfare officer arrives with a copy of the last milk cheque to show that there was a little more money there than was admitted. That is quite a common practice.

It is rather a pity that milk is only being turned into butter here, because butter, while we are getting a market for it, appears to be costing a lot to sell. I do not know if the figure of 1/7d per lb. subsidy for butter on the British market is still the same. We all agree that we must keep the floor under milk because, if we do not, Irish agriculture will collapse completely. It is unfortunate that the produce that comes out cannot be sold at a more economic price. When I was in Teheran recently, I was amused when one of the Government representatives on the delegation came to me one day and told me he had been speaking to a gentleman who has been in the news in the past few days, a representative from Kuwait, who said he ate only Irish butter. This Irish representative was very enthusiastic about this and felt he might be able to persuade the sheik that Irish butter could be exported to him. I advised him to remember before he went too far that the subsidy on Irish butter to Kuwait was 3/9d per lb. as far as I could recollect. I am afraid that had a rather dampening effect, but that was better than exporting our butter to the Persian Gulf and losing a lot of money.

I wonder if the Minister and the Department have ever seriously considered encouraging fruit growing in this country? I know certain schemes have been introduced and dropped. Over the past few years, I have brought a deputation every year to the Department to discuss soft fruit prices, particularly in the season when the fruit is coming in in large quantities and the market seems to disappear. One of the things these people are always complaining about is that there seems to be a considerable amount of fruit pulp imported here at prices above that being paid to the Irish growers. I know the question of the middleman also comes in, although not so much in regard to the fruit growers because most of the jam people collect the fruit themselves. It surprises me to find that so much soft fruit pulp, often inferior in quality, is being brought in. I often wonder if some of the jam being sold in this country at present at top prices, of which the main ingredient appears to be either turnip or beet, is a result of this imported pulp.

The now Senator Rooney first asked a question here ten or 12 years ago, and I have asked it since, about the amount of fruit pulp imported, the country of origin and the price. I had great difficulty in getting a reply last year and this year I was told that the figures were not available. If the figures were available in other years, they must be available again. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take a note of this and try to get me the information. I would rather do it that way than put down a further question. I want to know the amount of fruit pulp imported to the latest date in the last financial year, the country of origin and the prices for each variety. I am quite sure they do not mix strawberry, raspberry and blackcurrant, although the impression is given that they do.

This year there is likely to be a grave shortage of soft fruit because frost came at the wrong time. The Man Above selected peculiar times for frost. Frost came just when the bud was at a crucial stage and quite a lot of the buds have gone. Blackcurrants in the centre survived, but the others seemed to go. The situation in regard to apples can only be described as chaotic. While the best Irish apples are available for only a short period in the fall of the season, from about November right up to the following September or October, the only apples obtainable are Canadian, Australian, American and so on. Most certainly no Irish apples seem to be on sale. Of course, the prices of these foreign apples are suitable for the country of origin and the cost of bringing them in. The Department should make an effort to have a supply of Irish apples on the market the whole year round. If suitable encouragement were given, I see no reason why it could not be done.

The extraordinary thing is that at certain periods in the fall of the season Irish apples are being sold at 1d or 2d each. In fact, I have seen them sold in bags of a couple of dozen for as little as a shilling. In many places Irish apples have ended up as pig feed. It is a pity a better effort is not made. I know Deputy Crinion has definite views on these matters because he is associated with one of the industries doing something to try to encourage this. There is the difficulty in the system of private enterprise where there is no competition that the price is so low that there is no encouragement to the producer.

In North Meath there is the question of the damson crop. Some years ago I succeeded in getting a market in America for damsons from that district but some smart fellow came along and offered a couple of pence a lb. more for that particular period and he got the damsons but damsons were rotting on the trees the following year. This is the sort of thing that many of us have to put up with. However, there does not seem to be anything that one can do about it.

Vegetables are far too dear. The prices in the shops bear no relation to the cost of production. I cannot understand how it is that producers can hardly get the cost of the labour whereas half an hour later the price in the shop is as much as three or four times the cost of production. The North County Dublin growers have made an effort through their co-operative to beat this sort of thing but I do not know whether they have been successful or not. It does appear that the quality of vegetables coming on the market through the retail trade is not quite as good as it might be. There may be an export trade for the good vegetables but there would appear to be an awful lot of bad ones on sale, regardless of price. Again this is a matter on which encouragement and advice should be given by the Department.

Some years ago I asked a question in the House which I want now to repeat. In a number of countries, particularly Germany, there is a system whereby the vast amount of steam available from the cooling system of powered turbines is used to heat glasshouses in the surrounding area for the purpose of growing vegetables. Tomatoes are produced in large quantities in this way. I asked the question if the Government had ever considered encouraging the erection of glasshouses in the peat areas where the peat turbines are in operation and where there is an unlimited amount of heat available free and which is just blown into the air. This heat could be used and because the area is peat, the conditions would be far better than those in Germany and other places. The idea does not seem to have caught on here. Perhaps the Department might express a view as to whether or not there is some definite reason why this system cannot be adopted here and why encouragement could not be given. If this heat could be used, it would seem to be an ideal thing and, as a result, considerable quantities of cheap vegetables might be made available.

Now I want to deal with the question of the number of persons leaving the land. We know that the pattern in most western countries is that there is what has come to be known as the trickle from the land and in some places, as in this country, a flight from the land. It is too bad that the number leaving the land should be so high. There are two main problems which will have to be considered in this connection sooner or later, and rather sooner than later. The number leaving the land is said to be from 12,000 over a number of years to 14,000 last year. The number of persons engaged generally in agriculture over the past ten years seems to have dropped by almost one half. The result is that there will be a shortage of persons who will be prepared to stay in agriculture in the near future.

One reason why the farm worker is leaving the land, apart from the fact that he is being replaced by machinery to a large extent, is the fact that with the decline in the tillage acreage, there is a decline in the demand for labour on the land. The worker can hardly be blamed for leaving agriculture if his take-home wage from agriculture is less than £9 for a 50-hour week, whereas his daughter or son working in industry in Dublin or in some of the bigger towns can bring home a wage packet double or very nearly double that.

The small farmer's income is very small. Many small farmers who employ no labour other than their own have to supplement their income by going out to work. The farmer who has to do that in order to rear his family is in a pretty bad way but there are thousands of them doing it. Some of them come in to the building industry in Dublin. I met a farmer in Dublin from the district where I used to live. He had come to work in Dublin. This is a man who has nearly 30 acres of land. He is working on a building site. He works his farm at night and at weekends. He told me that he could not make a living for his family out of the land, that he could not provide for them the standard of living that he would hope to give them, that he was making £16 a week in Dublin, that he got up at 6 a.m., drove to Dublin, and arrived home at 7.30 or 8 p.m. He said that he would be a long time working on his land before he could make £16 a week.

There are the people who are leaving agriculture completely. It is a matter of only a short time when the Agricultural Wages Board must appreciate that they can no longer treat agricultural workers, not as second-class, but as fourth-class and fifth-class citizens, as they have been. They will have to put a floor under agricultural wages close to that being paid to industrial workers. The Government will have to see to it that farmers are put in a position to pay that type of wage.

I said there were two main problems which would have to be considered. One of them is the fact that the younger men, the sons of agricultural workers, do not want to go into agriculture now and we cannot blame them. They feel that they can do much better by emigrating to England or seeking work in building or in industry. The biggest tragedy is that if farmers have a choice when it comes to the question of dismissing men, the men they will let go are usually the oldest men. These are people who cannot be replaced. They are not included in the new retraining Bill introduced by the Minister for Labour. Agriculture is completely left out of that Bill. The result is that men who are dismissed from agriculture will be dumped out, will draw whatever social welfare benefits are available to them until they qualify for the old age pension. This is a tragedy. Men who have served a long number of years in agriculture have acquired skill and knowledge for which they should be remunerated and which would justify their retention in agriculture.

I would conclude by saying that as far as I am concerned—and I am glad that Deputy Clinton is here and that Deputy Nolan is not here—the effort which we made or were prepared to make a few weeks ago to mediate in the dispute between the NFA and the Government was genuine and I regret sincerely that, apparently, Deputy Nolan was not allowed to do—accepting that he would have to consult with other people—what he seemed to be prepared to do, was not allowed to go through with it. That decision taken was a personal one for himself and his Party. I regret even more that an effort should have been made to try to discredit Deputy Clinton and myself in our efforts. I hold no brief for Deputy Clinton. He was a neighbour of mine some years ago and he is a decent, honourable man and for that reason I was prepared to associate with him as I was with Deputy Nolan whom I know for a considerable time. It was a disgraceful situation that not alone were the efforts to mediate prevented but efforts were made to discredit both Deputy Clinton and myself as a result of the decision taken by somebody in the Fianna Fáil Party high enough up to prevent Deputy Nolan from doing what he wanted to do.

The farmers are not getting a fair deal, and I believe that somebody in the Government must be strong enough to decide that the codacting being carried on by the Government for so long must be stopped, and that the farmers should be treated not as if they were some special type of criminals who have to be locked away and punished, and punished more severely than any criminals in the country or anybody who breaks the law. The sooner we get ordinary relations restored in Irish agriculture the better it will be not alone for the farming organisations but for the whole community.

I would again appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary, who is a young man in politics and who is, from my experience of him, an intelligent man who will appreciate from the situation in his own area, the difficulties which have arisen, to use his good offices to try to stop this nonsense, because it must be stopped. As I said earlier, if the war in the Middle East which is taking place now is to be settled, it will be settled eventually around a table, and that is the place to settle this dispute, too.

Mr. Crinion

Deputy Tully has said the Department of Agriculture is not doing enough for farmers. We have seen from the Minister's speech that £60 million has been put into agriculture this year, which is one-fifth of the national cake. I would ask him to compare that figure with the figure agriculture was getting when we took over office in 1957; it was less than half that amount.

Mr. Clinton

The £ is now worth 14/10d.

Mr. Crinion

The Deputy's Party dropped 10/- on wheat when they came into office in 1955. We never did the like of that.

Mr. L'Estrange

It is only worth the same.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps Deputy Crinion might be allowed to make his speech without interruption, too.

Mr. Crinion

There is a very steep increase in the amount given to agriculture in the past ten years, and it covers a very wide field, a much wider field than it used to cover. We are trying to cater for all sections of farming. One of the big difficulties is that farmers in various parts of the country are pursuing different lines of business. Even in each parish farmers have a different way of working. It is disheartening to me to hear people quoting other countries, where possibly 70 per cent or more of the farmers there would all be doing the same line of farming under the exact same scheme. This is not possible here because of the variations of climate and variations of soil structure. I do not believe there is any other country in Europe that has such differences in soil structure all over the country, and we are a small country. Naturally that means different types of farming and different plans. However, I should like to see an overall plan for farming getting back more to the Second Programme. It is unfortunate that when we do plan in this country, we merely give food for thought and food for the Opposition to decry the plan.

Mr. Clinton

To criticise constructively.

Mr. Crinion

I would not say that. When a plan is drawn up and a forecast is made, especially in relation to exports on which we are so dependent, it is very easy for something to go wrong in the international situation. Take the war at the moment, which could have an effect on petrol supplies. If, because of a change in the international situation, the forecast does not turn out to be accurate, that is grist to the mill for the Opposition. It is like the footballer on the field hoping his opposite number will drop the ball and that he can step in and get it. It is exactly the same with the Opposition. I should like to see more planning, but it is very hard to get this idea across to the ordinary farmer. When the adviser goes in, it is easy to tell the farmer how to grow a crop of corn or a field of meadow; it is only a question of putting down a bit of manure. What I want to see is overall planning. I should like to see the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary making a few speeches and doing some advertising to encourage farmers to go in for planning.

Deputy Tully has certainly answered one of the main criticisms that have been levelled against us as to why we did not give the beef subsidy direct to the farmer instead of to the factory. It is much easier to administer a grant to a factory. The records in the Department show when a beast was with a person, when the last TB test was taken, and it could be any stage up to 12 or 15 months, perhaps, to the time the beast was sold last October. Who is to get the subsidy? Is it the dealer who puts the beast into the factory and who only had it a couple of days? Is it the farmer who bought it and only had the beast for a month, or is it the person who bought it in the previous spring? One can see all the disadvantages which would be involved. It would mean the farmer would be three to four months without his money. There would have to be a big number of Department officials going around the country trying to find out who was the actual farmer who should get the subsidy. This would lead to chaos.

There has been a good deal of decrying of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. Anything that happened was not the fault of the Agreement. The situation would have been much worse if the Agreement had not been there. What happened was that the continental market closed last year when the price went under the target price in the Common Market. A big number of our cattle that went into England went straight on to Europe after a very short stay there. The figure would have been much higher than 160,000, because I would say that at least double that number of cattle went to England and then went on to Europe.

With regard to pigs, it is a pity the numbers are going down. The decrease is due to a few factors. In quite a number of co-operatives, for instance, a good price is paid for skim milk and, when the price is high, the farmers take the easy way out.

Mr. Clinton

It is being spilled down the drains.

Mr. Crinion

It is not.

Mr. Clinton

Does the Deputy know what he is talking about at all?

Mr. Crinion

It is not being spilled down the drains. The farmer is paid for it, if he does not take it back. That is one reason why pig numbers are falling. Last year there was a payment of £5 per sow after littering and that inducement is being continued for another year. As a result of the heifer scheme we have reached the target set from the point of view of numbers and had the same scheme been introduced with regard to pigs, we should have got the same result. Because of the opposition to the heifer scheme, it was decided to introduce a headage grant for pigs; had it been a headage grant for heifers, we should not today have got the numbers we have. In answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Minister showed clearly that the average grants given under that scheme were for small numbers. There were no grants for as many as 150 and only three over 100.

Mr. L'Estrange

They got them in other people's names.

Mr. Crinion

Farmers are not that gullible. I would like to see the Deputy trying to get grants in someone else's name. That was tried and those who tried it are in court today.

Mr. L'Estrange

It has been done all the same.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would Deputy L'Estrange, who is about to speak, allow Deputy Crinion to make his speech?

Mr. Crinion

The Opposition did a disservice to the farmers in being so critical of the heifer scheme. The only disturbing feature is the fact that the numbers today are just sufficient to replace our cow numbers. One would like to see them go a little higher than that. On the subject of cattle, I would advise the Minister to bring in a scheme to encourage the Shorthorn heifer. The numbers are falling in that breed. We need a certain number, particularly for beef production. With proper selection, the Shorthorn can be just as good as the Friesian. The whole breed should not be condemned just because there were a few failures. The Minister's advisers are, I am quite sure, fully capable of devising a scheme to encourage the Shorthorn heifer. A cross between the Shorthorn and the Friesian would stand up, I believe, to winter conditions here. Farmers now are moving towards in-feeding. That will help with the lighter-skinned animals like the Friesian. Other milking strains are not such a good proposition economically. In fact, some are inferior to the Shorthorn. The Shorthorn is essential in our fat cattle trade. We have the name of producing the best beef because our cattle are fed on grass, unlike their continental counterparts. Grass on the Continent of Europe cannot compare with our grass.

With regard to horticulture, there should be a good future in it for the small farmer and cottage plot holders. As chairman of a factory, I have seen the returns and the figures are quite startling. The only difficulty is that it is in the second year of production that the crop really begins to pay and the producer reaps a cash reward for his labours. Currant and apple production can be chancy because of frost, but strawberries and raspberries pay a dividend because, even if frost strikes, it affects only those plants which are in blossom. The prospects are good because there is a good export market.

Deputy Tully is not quite right in what he says about importing fruit. No factory here imports fruit until the home-produced crop has been taken up. Imported pulp is in a different category: it is cheaper. Sometimes it comes from behind the Iron Curtain. They may be short of sterling for some requirement and, in order to get it, they will sell whatever they can sell at a very low price.

It is unfortunate that it takes such a long time for apple trees to bear fruit. It is understandable that it is difficult to encourage people to plant the trees and to wait for them to come to maturity. If we had more surveys in relation to frost pockets, we could ensure that our apple trees would be planted only in frost-free pockets. Apple trees were planted near Dungarvan but had to be taken up again on account of frost.

Over the past few years, our factory has taken over disused orchards and is using the apples from them. We are keen on the Bramley apple which is for cooking but what is there for cooking apples is also there for eating apples. There are numerous orchards throughout the country which might be taken over by a co-operative society or some other body or even by a group of farmers. Frequently, advice is needed on spraying because spraying is necessary quite a number of times during the summer season and pruning must be done at the right times also. With care and attention, those orchards would come into full production again. There are other aspects to be considered also but they are of a technical nature. The farmer would then get a return. Only when the native apple crop is exhausted are imported apples permitted, under licence.

It is very easy for some Deputies to claim that our orchards are neglected. There is a market for apples but they must be of a certain quality. Some people just let the apples grow and do not mind about disease, and so on. We must export quality and our produce must be 100 per cent. I think our Buy Irish campaign is along those lines. You cannot turn a bad article into a first-class article just by putting it in a tin or cooking it, and so on. Likewise, you cannot make good silage out of rushes.

Possibly the Department's horticultural instructors could advise our farmers to spray their orchards. Grants are available for this work. I think that every county committee of agriculture is giving grants for this purpose and there is a market available for suitable apples. The same can be said about eating apples, though, because of our climate, the position is somewhat more difficult. I feel it can be done. When I was in Denmark, I saw that it was possible to keep apples from October until this time of the year in different storages and so on.

There have been fluctuations in our tillage acreage. Possibly the only acreage that is static is the oats crop because farmers use it themselves. There is a good and a fair marketing system for barley and wheat. If his wheat is millable, the farmer gets every chance. The tests are now as near to 100 per cent as one could ask for. The one aspect which is disheartening is our barley growing. We have possibly the most expensive way of getting our raw materials. I have in mind now the feeding of our pigs. Most of the barley is grown in the South and most of it is fed in the East and the West. In Denmark, for instance, barley is grown on the same farm as the pigs are reared on and the farmer has skim milk right beside him as well.

I would ask the Minister to devise some plan in relation to the transport of corn from one end of the country to the other. It comes from the South to Dublin and is then shifted to the west of Ireland. A good part of the sales of a mill in my constituency go to the west of Ireland. Surely there is something wrong when such big transport is involved? Rarely will the price ever be brought to £1 a ton. Pig producers, therefore, find it impossible to meet costs. The costs must be cut to the very minimum as pig profit is small when it is per unit.

Broiler production is increasing in my constituency to a large extent. I do not know if there is a full-time Department veterinary surgeon for poultry. Last year, some disease broke out in the poultry in a college and when the Department's poultry instructresses were unable to cope with it, they telephoned to Britain and a veterinary surgeon came over and diagnosed the trouble straight away and the animals were cured by a vaccine.

I am aware that a veterinary surgeon comes from Britain every month where a few big producers engage him to look after their stock. It is a free country and they are entitled to do it but there are smaller men in the industry who could not afford it. This is a service which the Department could supply. Even where one has really high production, one is in danger. Undoubtedly, the Department take the usual safeguards and the poultry instructress will come whenever she is needed.

When you increase production on grass, if you have manured it very highly, you run into quite a number of difficulties. It is the same with cattle. With poultry, in such large numbers, it is an ideal situation for bugs to breed in and you get a large number of diseases cropping up. We would do well to have a very specialised veterinary officer in the Department dealing solely with this matter. At the invitation of the poultry instructress, he could go out to the farm to deal with this situation as she might not be at ease in regard to some of the diseases.

Deputy Tully criticised the Agricultural Credit Corporation but if he looks at the figures for the past ten years, he will see that they are now lending about 500 or 600 per cent more than they were, particularly when his Party helped to form the Government. They were then lending about £1 million and now they are lending some £5 million to £6 million a year. They are one of the fairest bodies I know. Every case is thoroughly examined, particularly if it is being put up with a farm plan. Quite a number of applicants do not have a farm plan, which is a pity, and quite a big number of them are turned down. It is a different matter where the Corporation realise that the plan submitted is a practical one, produced by one of the Department's instructors.

In my committee, when an instructor does put in a farm plan—and the same applies in Kildare—it is submitted to the CAO and the two heads have a look at it and it is submitted. The great percentage of such applications are approved because the Corporation realise that they are good plans and the applicants will be able to pay them back. Sometimes they refuse a small loan but approve a big one because they realise that with the big loan, the applicant has a chance of attaining good production and being able to repay his commitments. I do not believe there is a more sympathetic body dealing with farmers. When a farmer is in trouble and is not able to pay his bills, they will give him extra time. When I say they will give him extra time, I mean at the stage where he may be six months behind his time, possibly at the stage where the solicitor or the sheriff has been coming to him. Even then, they will give him the extra time if they are asked for it. No bank or lending body in this or any other country would provide such facilities. If most of them had been with a bank, they would have had to sell out long before. I hope the Minister will take heed of my several requests and perhaps put them into operation in the year ahead.

Mr. L'Estrange

Agriculture today —and indeed not for the first time under a Fianna Fáil Government—is certainly in the doldrums. A serious crisis faces the agricultural community, and eventually the whole country, unless peace and prosperity are restored immediately to the agricultural community. I should like to appeal to the Minister to do something tangible for the farmers. There is one thing he can do and Deputy Clinton our spokesman for agriculture, and our Party, has been making the same appeal for the past six or eight months. It is to have the beef subsidy paid direct to the farmers. We pointed out that we believe it is wrong to have it paid to the factories because it is not being passed on to the farmer. The proof is there, and Deputy Clinton gave figures last week. There is a difference of some 40/- between what the British are paying for our stock and what the Irish farmer is getting. In England and in the North, subsidies are paid direct to the producers. We see no reason why a similar arrangement cannot be made here.

Deputy Crinion spoke about blue cards and about going back 12 or 15 months. That is ridiculous. A blue card goes with the beast and whoever has the beast has the card. If he sends the beast to the factory, or sends ten or 20 beasts, he has to send the required number of cards. I see no reason why the Government could not collect those ten or 20 cards from the factories and pay the subsidy direct to the farmer. The farmers are losing confidence in the Government at present because they believe that instead of helping them, they are trying to humiliate them and to put the jackboot on their necks at every stage. That is wrong. If they got this little concession, it would do something to restore a certain amount of confidence to our principal industry. We also know that the British farmers' organisation are annoyed with and antagonistic to our beef trade at present because this subsidy has been paid to the factories for the past six or eight months.

I also want to say something which I do not like having to say. In our factories there are many decent, responsible people but there are others whose main aim is to grow rich as quickly as possible. If the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary, looks up the figures, he will see that the price of beef now is much higher than it should be because many of the unscrupulous factories are buying cows and getting the full subsidy as if they were beef and are doing harm to our beef trade. I believe the Minister should change this scheme and change it immediately. Before this debate ends, we will be told that the farmers, and especially the small farmers, are the backbone of this country. We know that Ireland is predominantly an agricultural country; we have roughly 12 million acres of arable land and over 2,000,000 people. We have very little underground wealth such as coal, steel or ore and in the last analysis, our standard of living depends on what the farmer and his worker are able to get from the land and export profitably.

In that regard I should like to say that I fully agree with what Deputy Tully said. It is lamentable that despite the fact so much depends on the farmer and his workers, the agricultural worker is so badly paid. As he said, it is the duty of the Government to put the farmer into a position in which he can live in ordinary frugal comfort, and pay his worker who works alongside him not for 40 hours a week but in many cases for 50, 60 or 70 hours. To give credit where credit is due, I will say this for the farming labourer. When a farmer is stuck in the hay field, he will work until 9, 10 or 11 o'clock at night. It is the same when there is work to be done in the corn field. We all know that our climate is not what we would like it to be but the agricultural labourer in the vast majority of cases works for long hours side by side with the farmer. He is entitled to justice, but unfortunately he is not getting it.

The farmer should be put in a position in which he can pay the agricultural labourer a decent wage because he is the man who is helping to increase production. I entirely agree with Deputy Tully in those sentiments, and with the statement he made. We know from the figures that the farmers represent about 35 per cent of our population. Directly or indirectly, they are responsible for over 60 per cent of our exports. I have not got the 1966 figure, but in 1965 they got 18.7 per cent of the national income. They got a little less than half of what they were entitled to. I believe that is completely wrong. Those people are entitled to a fair crack of the whip in their own country.

The farmers all realise that their income in relation to that of the industrial workers is falling. Indeed, as Deputy Tully said, it is hard for an agricultural labourer to be satisfied to work long hours on the land for £9 or £10 a week, and see his daughter or son working in Bord na Móna, or in an industry beside him, bringing home perhaps twice that amount, bringing home perhaps £18 or £20 a week. This gap between industrial workers and farmers should be narrowed. The Government told us on several occasions— they told us after the Budget last year —that it was their intention to see that that gap was narrowed. We all know that instead of that gap being narrowed, at the present time the difference between the income of males employed in agriculture and male workers in industry is £4 10s to £5 a week. We also know from the statistics available that there are 100,000 farmers with a weekly income of less than £5. No one can exist on £5 a week.

Mr. Davern

Would the Deputy mind quoting the statistics?

Mr. L'Estrange

The statistics are there with regard to farming in the West.

Mr. Davern

Would the Deputy quote the reference?

Mr. L'Estrange

A survey was carried out a few years ago. Some of them are earning less than £4 a week.

Mr. Davern

I should like the Deputy to quote the reference.

Mr. L'Estrange

The statistics are there and the Parliamentary Secretary has his officials who can look things up in a hurry.

Mr. Davern

They cannot look up things that are figments of the Deputy's imagination. I should like to check the source.

Mr. L'Estrange

This is not a figment of my imagination. Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell me why the population of Mayo has been halved in the past 20 years? These people are locking their doors and going into the towns, or emigrating.

Mr. Davern

The Deputy may be interested to know that the depopulation of the rural areas started in 1926.

Mr. L'Estrange

If the Government were interested in keeping these unfortunate people on the land, they would do something for them. What we would like to see in this country is——

Mr. Davern

Egyptians.

Mr. L'Estrange

——more houses for the farmers in which they could live and hear the patter of little feet in the kitchen, and see the smoke swirling up to the sky. Instead of that, we have the depopulation of the West, due to Fianna Fáil policy, because they have no regard for the small farmer. The Government pay plenty of lip service——

Mr. Davern

That is what the Deputy always does. If he was so concerned about the small farmers, why did he not offer his farm to the Land Commission?

Mr. L'Estrange

If the Parliamentary Secretary wants to get personal I can tell him that my farm was offered to the Land Commission; it was inspected, and it was not suitable for division. I was living with my wife at the end of a road four miles long and I thought it better to get on to the main road. I sold my farm. There was nothing wrong with that. I went to the bank and borrowed money to buy it. No one belonging to me ever robbed a bank in the guise of patriotism to buy it. It was my own. I bought another farm on the main road. There was nothing wrong with that. When Fianna Fáil have nothing else to throw at a man, they try to be personal.

Mr. Davern

No one belonging to the Deputy could ever assume the guise of patriotism. I will deal with the Deputy severely at a later stage and he will know the reason I got personal.

Mr. L'Estrange

I do not believe in personalities but I believe that if I am hit I am entitled to hit back.

Mr. Davern

The Deputy should hit people in the House and not people outside it.

Mr. L'Estrange

I sold my farm and bought another, and there was nothing wrong with that. What is annoying the Parliamentary Secretary is that he knows that not since the days of the Economic War has there been such poverty amongst the small farmers as there is today. He knows that since Fianna Fáil came to power in 1931, 227.000 people have been driven from the land of Ireland. The dead hand of Fianna Fáil descended on the country. I am old enough to remember the promise of the man who said no one should be paid more than a £1,000 a year and who now has £22,000 a year and when he said that if they were returned to power they would bring back all the emigrants and that the country could support a population of 20 million. Where are the 20 million today? He is enjoying himself, but the unfortunate people and their children have been driven off the land of Ireland, due to his policy, and now due to the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government.

If the Parliamentary Secretary wants the figures I can give them. In 1956, there were 422,000 people on the land. In 1966, there were 331,000 people on the land, a reduction of 91,000 in ten years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would the Deputy please give the reference if he is quoting the figures?

Mr. L'Estrange

Certainly. Question No. 191 addressed by Deputy L'Estrange to the Taoiseach for answer on Thursday 9th February, 1967. I asked for the total number of persons at work in agriculture. It might be no harm to tell the Parliamentary Secretary—and this is the same reference—that in 1931 when this Party were elected, who were to do so much for the small farmers of Ireland——

Mr. Davern

Which they did.

Mr. L'Estrange

——there were 608,000 people on the land. In 1966 there were 331,000, a drop of 277,000 people.

Mr. Davern

Living in what conditions in 1931?

Mr. L'Estrange

The Parliamentary Secretary has the audacity to tell us they did a lot for the farmers of Ireland. At the time of Cromwell, it was : "To Hell or to Connaught" but under Fianna Fáil it is : "To Hell or to England; get off the land; get out of the country."

Mr. Davern

You people have the biggest record ever. You should estimate the emigration in 1956.

Mr. L'Estrange

Do not talk about estimation. There was a time when you were interested in the small farmer. You were interested in the half-a-crown outside the chapel gate. Today you are interested in Taca and the man who can give £100 for a dinner.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with the Estimate for Agriculture.

Mr. L'Estrange

Talking about the dead hand of Fianna Fáil, tillage has decreased by 547,000 acres since 1954. There was a time when the Fianna Fáil Party prided themselves on being the tillage Party, and they referred to Fine Gael at one time as the grass Party, the ranchers' Party, and so on. This programme was initiated by one of our best Ministers for Agriculture, Deputy Patrick Hogan, whose policy was one more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough.

When we talk again we are entitled to talk about the dead hand of Fianna Fáil that has descended on the unfortunate people who were encouraged to go into tillage away back in 1954. There was an inter-Party Government in power then, not a Fianna Fáil Government, and there were 486,368 acres under wheat. In 1966, 12 years later, due to the magnificent encouragement given by this farmers' Party, this Fianna Fáil Party who do so much at all times for the farmers of Ireland, instead of an increase in the acreage under wheat, we had 131,300 acres of wheat, a drop of 355,068 acres—after 12 years of Fianna Fáil Government.

I want to know what answer the Parliamentary Secretary has to that. I know the wheat acreage has gone up this year through sheer necessity. Because of the catastrophic drop in cattle prices, the farmers had to turn to tillage as a cash crop to try to get money as quickly as they possibly can. We know there will be an increase. The policy of the Government, and the Party who told us they were the farmers' Party, that they were the tillage Party, after ten years' rule is to reduce the acreage of wheat to 355,068.

Let us now take oats. In 1954 we had 533,148 acres of oats. After 12 years of glorious reign, in 1966 we had 242,800 acres of oats, a drop of 290,348 acres.

Let us turn to sugar beet which is very important for many of our small farmers in certain parts of the country. In 1954 we had 74,017 acres of sugar beet and in 1966, it had dropped to 53,500 acres, a drop of 20,517 acres, after that 12 years' rule. The Government claim that they are interested in agriculture, and above all, they told us in the past that they were interested in the tillage farmers more than anybody else. That is what the dead hand of Fianna Fáil has done with regard to tillage.

When we take the total acreage under tillage, in 1954 we find the figure of 1,808,190 acres. In 1966, the total acreage under tillage was 1,261,900, a drop of 546,290 acres after 12 years of rule of the pro-farmers Government.

There is, unfortunately, another point to remember. I remember we were told that we should grow everything in this country. I even remember that Mr. O'Malley said in 1956 that we should grow an all-Irish loaf. We should grow enough wheat so that we need not import any from abroad. We know, of course, that with Mr. O'Malley, we have seen three or four launches but we should like to see a bit of superstructure shortly.

We believe, and it has always been our policy, that we should grow at home, and give employment on the land to our own people. Last year over £23 million worth of cereals were imported, when our adverse trade balance was bad enough, cereals that we should and could, if we had good government in this country, have grown at home. Where has our agricultural policy taken us? Have the Government got an agricultural policy; have they got any policy? Is it not true that they are drifting along and trying to make up their policy as they go along? If they have a policy for tillage, and we will be told they have, they will have to admit that those figures I quote are worth examining. I give the reference again : Question No. 192 addressed to the Taoiseach by Deputy L'Estrange for answer on Thursday, 9th February, 1967.

People may be inclined to ask why tillage has dropped. It has dropped because it was not an economic proposition for the Government. I remember in 1948, and that is a long time ago, the then Minister for Agriculture fixed the price of barley at 48/- per barrel and last year, almost 20 years later, and the pound now only worth one-half of what it was in 1948, the price fixed by the present Minister for Agriculture was 45/- per barrel, which means that the price of barley, if you take the depreciation in money values into consideration, is now only one-half what it was in 1948.

The Parliamentary Secretary might like to know the price paid by Guinness in the early 1950s for malting barley. It was £3 7s 6d and now, 15 or 16 years later, with the pound having depreciated in value, the price fixed by a benevolent Minister for Agriculture is £3 3s. Fifteen to 16 years later, that is what the farmer is getting for his malting barley. It is no wonder there has been such a colossal decrease in our tillage acreage. It is no wonder the people are fleeing from the land. They are ground down by high rates and high taxes and depressed prices for their cattle. To paraphrase the words of Goldsmith: Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, where rates and taxes accumulate and men decay; Blaneyites and Taca-ites may flourish or may fade; a breath cannot make them as a breath has made but a bold peasantry, once their country's pride, when destroyed can never be supplied.

Let there be no doubt about it that the Government have destroyed the flower of the people of this country. The small farmer has always been the backbone of this country and through bad government, bad prices, unfair treatment, these people have been driven off the land of Ireland. We got figures recently from the Department— I think they are given in the Minister's speech; the Minister for Labour gave them a few months ago in the press— which proved that agricultural production increased by roughly two per cent. But despite the fact that the farmers increased production by two per cent, the farmers' income was down by two per cent to three per cent and, if you add the three per cent increase in the cost of living to that, it means that the farmers' income last year was down by roughly—and I think the Minister gave the figures in his opening remarks—£6 million, roughly £60 per head per year.

Despite the fact that industrial production was down, industrial earnings increased last year by six per cent. That is very unfair and unjust. Many people in the Fianna Fáil Party give lip-service to the Proclamation of 1916 about cherishing all our children equally. Surely in the Government, in the State at the present time, there is nobody, not even in the Fianna Fáil Party who could claim they are cherishing all the children of the State equally. I do not see the farmers becoming better educated at the present time. I do not see any reason why those engaged on the land of Ireland should be content to remain the underpaid drudges of society.

Let us be fair to the farmers. They have been in the frontline trenches in every war in this country, national, social and economic. I believe they are entitled to a fair and just return for their labours. They ask no more and seek no less, but they are certainly not getting it at the present time. Unfortunately, when the Government give anything to the farmers—let it be in the Budget; recently they gave complete derating on the first £20 of valuation—there is an awful hullabaloo about it. We, in our policy, as far back as 1961, recommended complete derating for farmers up to £25 valuation. But in any case what the Government failed to point out to the people is that four-fifths of the first £20 was already derated.

I asked a question about a month ago as to the average benefit to the farmers of Ireland, and I got the answer that the average benefit was £3 17s 9d per year. The loaf went up 2d, and a little over 400 loaves, which would be used in any farmer's house in half a year, completely takes away any little benefit given in that regard. But then many of us remember that the farmers of Ireland were promised complete derating of their agricultural land in order to get the votes to enable Fianna Fáil to get into power. Unfortunately, they got their votes; they got into power and at that time, the average rate was between 6/- and 7/6 in the £. The lowest rate in this country today is roughly 50/- and the highest is around 90/- in the £. At the same time, this Government are kicking up a hullaballoo about derating for the farmers. They promised them complete derating, and they got their votes, as I say, but rates increased from 6/- to 7/6, then to 80/- to 90/-, as they are in some counties today.

Now, we are talking about justice and in time the Government in their Budget, increases the price of milk. A couple of years ago they told us they had to put 2d on cigarettes to give an increase of, I think 1d to the farmers. If any other section is getting an increase, they do not go along and say there will be 2d going on cigarettes. This is an attempt to start class warfare: the farmers are getting so much from the taxpayers. If the Parliamentary Secretary looks up the figures for civil servants, he will find—we will take a round figure for temporary and permanent civil servants, roughly 30,000—that in 1964 their salaries amounted to £19 million. They got the ninth round status increase and, in 1965, that figure increased to £30 million, an increase of £11 million for 30,000 people. There is an awful dance in this House then if the Government give £5 million to 300,000 farmers. I do not believe this is distributive justice.

These people are now paying only lip-service to the Proclamation of 1916, which states that the Government should cherish all our children equally. Indeed, to keep one's eye on production, without thinking of the producers, of the farmers as human beings, leads logically in the wrong direction, because we all know from the history of Europe and of the world that some very efficient jobs of production were done in ancient and in modern times by the use of slave labour. Unfortunately, we shall have to admit—no matter how we look at it—that that is what is happening in this country at the present time. The small farmer, and especially the small farmer with a family, is nothing better than a slave; he is being crucified by high costs of production, a record high cost of living and the catastrophic drop even in the sale price of his cattle. The small farmer is suffering more than anybody else.

Despite the promises made when the Trade Agreement came into operation of an increase of £5 to £7 per head in cattle prices, instead of the farmers getting that after June of last year, the price dropped £15 to £20 per head. It is ruining the small farmers, many of whom are on the verge of desperation at the present time because they can see no future. Already this year—and if the Minister does not know it, let him go to sales or fairs in any part of the country; I know he might not get them at Donegal fair—young cattle are selling for £4 to £4 10s per cwt., and cannot be sold at many sales and fairs. That is a very bleak future for the small farmer.

The Minister for Agriculture, on 30th May, 1967, to quote from the Dáil Debates, Volume 228, column 1705, when Deputy Clinton was speaking on this Estimate, interrupted to say :

Perhaps the Deputy would give me some lead as to what Minister said the farmers should hold their cattle in May last year?

He went on to say:

My recollection is that he did not say at any stage to hold them in the springtime, and that what he said really meant that after the Trade Agreement the return on cattle would be worth money representative of the figure the Deputy has mentioned, not that the price of cattle would increase by that amount.

Let us take the then Minister for Agriculture, on 24th of March, 1966, speaking about this wonderful Trade Agreement. I quote from volume 221, column 2243 :

The increase of 10/- per live cwt in the guaranteed price for fat cattle and the increase of 3/4d per 1b dead-weight in the guaranteed price for fat sheep and lambs will apply both to Irish stores fattened in Britain and to the quantities of Irish carcase beef and Irish carcase lamb on which British guarantee payments will be made under the terms of the Free Trade Area Agreement. The value to this country of these price increases is quite significant. The increase on cattle is equivalent to about £5 per beast and on the 638,000 stores we have undertaken to supply to Britain this would represent over £3 million.

He tells us the increase on cattle is equivalent to about £5 per head. That was promised because that was before the Presidential election. There are various other quotations we could give. They even sent a Mr. Desmond Fricker down from the Department to my constituency in Longford and he told the farmers they would get £5 to £7 per head. We know that did not take place.

Deputy Crinion tells us today that when we are dealing and selling in international markets, it is very hard to forecast. For what length of time were they forecasting? We had the Minister forecasting for three months ahead and instead of the £5 to £7 increase, cattle went down £15 to £20 so that his forecast was out by £20 to £27. Deputy Crinion said we did not know the EEC were going to close their markets to cattle on 1st April, 1966. In the name of goodness, were the Minister and the whole Department of Agriculture asleep? I believe that the officials of the Department knew quite well that on 1st of April, 1966, six days after the Minister made this statement, EEC markets were about to close but the Minister, for political reasons, would not inform the farmers of this country because the Presidential election was about to take place. Surely if we have anybody in our embassies abroad, he should have known on 24th March, 1966 that the EEC markets were to be closed to us on 1st April, 1966. They closed on 1st April, 1966.

The Parliamentary Secretary knows as well as I know that in 1965 we exported 160,000 stores to the EEC countries. He also knows that Britain purchased 427,563 stores from us. He also knows that Britain after feeding some of our Irish stores in Scotland and in England for two or three months and in some cases for a shorter period exported, it is reckoned—the Parliamentary Secretary can contradict me if I am wrong—about 200,000 of those to the EEC countries. Surely the Minister, if he wanted to give the full facts to the Irish people on 24th March when trying to make political propaganda in this House, should have said, instead of telling them they were getting an increase of £5 to £7 that the clouds seemed to be looming overhead, that the EEC markets would be closed to us in a week's time, on 1st April, and we were going to be left with 360,000 cattle that we had a market for but have not a market for this year.

Mr. Davern

The Deputy must think that the Minister is a magician. The only one who makes political propaganda in this House is the Deputy. There is not room for anybody else.

Mr. L'Estrange

The then Minister, Deputy Haughey, must have known on 24th March, 1966, that the EEC markets would be closed to us on 1st April, 1966. Surely, if there is any contact between "The Fugitive's" office and the Department of Agriculture they should have known they would be closed? Is that not a rational question to ask the Parliamentary Secretary? I believe the Department officials knew it. I believe they informed the Minister but I believe that for purely Party political reasons, the Minister withheld it from the people. In order to get the people's votes, he wanted to pretend that they would get this big increase in cattle prices after 1st June.

The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned magicians. As far as forecasts are concerned, the Fianna Fáil Party, the Ministers and especially Deputy Haughey certainly have not proved themselves to be magicians. For Party political reasons, he misled the farmers on at least two occasions.

Let us take the Dáil debate of 12th October, 1966. Deputies may remember that on 11th October a motion was being discussed here. Deputy Haughey——

An Ceann Comhairle

The correct title is the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister for Agriculture informed this House that he had wonderful things to announce to the Irish people and many of us believed him. There was a debate going on that night and there was supposed to have been a filibuster and Mr. Haughey did not get in.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have asked the Deputy to use the correct reference, the Minister.

Mr. L'Estrange

I am sorry, Sir. The Minister for Agriculture did not get in to speak that night. The Irish Press stated there had been a filibuster by the Fine Gael Party to prevent the Minister giving the wonderful news to the Irish farmers. Radio Éireann and Telefís Éireann had a similar announcement, that the wonderful news which was to be given could not be given last night, that the debate was carried over but that it would be given the next day. We came in here and waited and the Minister made his announcement. The Minister for Agriculture said on 12th October, 1966 in volume 224, at column 1148 :

For some time, we have been pressing the German Government and the Commission in Brussels to afford us facilities for the export to Germany of a certain number of our cattle in what is commonly known as the "off the grass" season. I am glad to say that we have met with a great deal of sympathy and understanding by the German Government and by the Commission in Brussels.

"and by the Commission in Brussels" should be underlined because they have since denied it.

The Minister went on:

It has now been agreed with the German Government to afford us facilities during the coming weeks for the export to Germany of 2,000 head of cattle, either in the form of live cattle or beef.

Where did that magic get us? Surely the Minister for Agriculture should have known, first of all, whether the Commission in Brussels were sympathetic and helpful? They have denied they gave any such impression. The present Minister for Agriculture stated here since that Deputy Haughey, as Minister, did not make any such statement. I have given the statement as he made it: "the export to Germany of 2,000 head of cattle in the next few weeks". Surely 2,000 head of cattle is only a drop in the ocean? You would get them in a big mart in Mullingar or in any other town in Ireland. At column 1149 of the same volume, the following occurred:

Mr. L'Estrange : If that is the good news we are waiting for, it is God help Ireland.

Mr. Haughey : This is a very important, significant and useful concession and indicates that——

That is as far as he got because Deputy Blaney stepped in:

Mr. Blaney : I do not wish to interrupt the Minister but is it 2,000 a week?

Mr. Haughey : Two thousand head in toto.

He went on, at column 1150 :

I have every confidence that the offtake of these 2,000 cattle from our markets in the coming weeks will have a very beneficial effect indeed on the whole situation. I regard this arrangement by the German Government as a significant and valuable concession and it is one for which we have no hesitation in expressing our appreciation.

In the name of God, what must the German Government think? We are importing from them many times the amount they take from us and because they promised to take a drop in the ocean from us, we get up here and laud them instead of getting our people abroad to put the case before them that we are buying far more from them than they are buying from us.

That was on 12th October and the Minister spoke about "the coming weeks". Are we not entitled therefore to ask now what has happened about those 2,000 cattle? They have not yet been exported. Was it the deliberate intention of the Minister and the Government at that stage to mislead the Irish farmers? They were misleading them when they told them that in the coming weeks the export to Germany of these cattle would have "a very beneficial effect indeed on the whole situation". There is an old saying that he who knows not and knows he knows not can be a wise man but he who knows not and knows not he knows not can be a fool. I am not saying the Minister for Agriculture is a fool but I say he was not in good condition when he made his forecast for the Irish cattle trade. He misled the farmers and let them down very badly.

The Minister spoke about marketing in his introductory statement. It will be agreed by all that our marketing system is antediluvian. We are therefore entitled to ask what do the Minister and the Government intend to do about it. There is a wide gap in beef prices which is doing damage to the whole agricultural community and to the general economy. The average rate per cwt. in the UK to farmers on March 13th last was 185/8d. The average rate for fat cattle in the Dublin market on that day was only 158/- and the factories were paying 158/9d. per cwt. On April 17th the average rate to UK farmers was 198/-. The average rate at the Dublin market for fat cattle was 166/-, 32/- per cwt. less. The average factory price on that day was 174/-, and the factories got the 6d subsidy. In the past there was generally a difference of from 17/- to 22/- or 23/- between the price paid to British farmers and the price paid here. The gap now is far too wide but the Government do not seem to be doing anything to close it.

Often in the past we have advised that we should have in our diplomatic service modern-trained aggressive young salesmen so that our marketing abroad would not consist of an aping of the big powers, with dinners and so on. We have said that our people abroad should get out and get markets for our agricultural produce.

Deputies spoke about the heifer scheme. In 1961, my Party advocated a calf subsidy. They have a calf subsidy in Northern Ireland and we believe we should have one here so that any small farmer with eight or ten cows would get a subsidy, let it be £5, £6 or £7, whatever sum could be agreed on between the Department of Finance and the Department of Agriculture. The Government, for reasons best known to themselves, were not satisfied with that type of scheme and introduced a heifer subsidy scheme. It is a well known fact that the scheme has done untold harm to the cattle population of the country. There has been an increase, perhaps, but the quality has deteriorated. There is no doubt that the Department during the past 30 or 40 years have worked hard to improve our herds but this scheme, during the two years of its existence, has undone the work of years.

It is known that people went out and bought heifers nobody would touch and put them in calf to scrub bulls. As a result, farmers will have cattle for a long time because they cannot sell them. Deputy Crinion said the average amount paid in grants is very small. I do not know what scheme the people there use but in my county people who never milked a cow in their lives are bragging that because of this scheme they have been able to buy large farms with the money they got from it. I do not know how they worked it. Therefore, this scheme has done untold damage to farming, particularly as far as small farmers are concerned. In the past, big farmers bought their calves in the South. I saw Hereford bull calves going for £35 and £36 each. I saw good Friesian bull calves sold last week at £3 10s each. Let no man tell me that the dairyman is making more profit than he was two years ago. He must take into consideration as well as the price of milk the price of calves and if he gets 1d or 2d per gallon extra for his milk on an average the fact is that he is selling his calves for £15 to £20 less than he was getting a few years ago.

That is what is happening today. I saw a small farmer's cattle sold last week for £19. I do not know what future is facing the small farmers but there is no denying that the ill-conceived hoifer scheme has done untold harm and is still doing it. It would have been much better if the Government from the very beginning had a calf scheme. Even if they were to limit it to the first eight or ten, they would have been doing something worthwhile for Irish agriculture.

The Agricultural Credit Corporation have been mentioned here by different speakers. Deputy Crinion gave them great praise. I have heard people state in the past that to get money from the Agricultural Credit Corporation you would want to prove that you were a man who did not need the money. I will give credit where credit is due. If there is a good case put to them, they try to meet the particular applicant. Still and all there are many farmers today in a bad way through no fault of their own. Some of them have less stock now than they had four or five years ago. This is no fault of theirs. Many of those farmers with large families might have had bad health and had to sell their cattle and then with the catastrophic drop in prices, they are getting less for their cattle today. Those are the type of men who need help and they are the very type of men for whom it is impossible to get money from the Agricultural Credit Corporation.

I want to ask the Minister if he is aware that agriculture is undercapitalised. If he is so aware, or perhaps if the Parliamentary Secretary is so aware, what plans have the Department for making money available to increase production and what plans have they to ensure that if we have increased production, this produce is sold at economic prices? Remember, there is no use in increasing production unless the farmers have markets for their produce. That is why farmers are losing confidence and that is why they are disillusioned at the present time. Very often in the past they found the moment they increased production the bottom fell out of the market, and that it would be much better for them to produce less.

We can see this when eggs are scarce. They may be 5/- or 6/- a dozen. When eggs become plentiful—Deputy Tully spoke about this today—the bottom falls completely out of the market. I have seen eggs at such a time selling in rural Ireland at 9d a dozen and at the same time, you will see them selling at 3/6 and 4/- a score in the stores in Dublin. The same may be said with regard to potatoes. I know a farmer in rural Ireland who could not sell his potatoes two months ago. He brought a man out to a field and he said : "There is a pit full of potatoes. It would not pay me to bag them. Any of my neighbours who want them can have them". He gave them to his neighbours. Today they are 4/- and 5/- a stone in the city of Dublin. There is something completely wrong with our marketing system in that regard.

Irish agriculture must be helped to increase and expand production. This will be of great benefit to the nation if we have markets available for the produce, whether it be in England, Europe or anywhere else. The farmers must be given a firm basis on which they can plan ahead. There must be stability. The Government, let it be through consultation with farmers' organisations or through co-operation, must be in a position to plan ahead. The hills and hollows of farming, as we have called it in the past, must be eliminated.

The Government and the Minister for Agriculture, in consultation with farmers, must draw up a firm basis on which to plan ahead. The Minister should draw up a long-term programme of expansion and provide long-term assurances where they are needed. Better credit facilities are needed. I know it is hard to get farmers in many cases to avail of credit facilities. There are some who will tell you they have never borrowed. Irish farmers do not appear to be inclined to borrow. Many of them will tell you that their fathers borrowed during the last Great War and they have been trying to repay the money since. We know at that time unfortunately it put many farmers outside the door.

Deputy Crinion spoke about the Agricultural Credit Corporation and the length of time they give to people to pay their debts. He said that no bank in the country will do that. I do not think it is fair to criticise the banks.

Mr. Davern

Surely he was not criticising them?

Mr. L'Estrange

It was indirect criticism. I want to say that the banks have given farmers a very fair deal over a long number of years.

Mr. Davern

We appreciate that, but no bank will give them the facilities the ACC will give them.

Mr. L'Estrange

I know that, but I also know that if on behalf of some of the small farmers you get on to the bank manager, he will say : "If you are prepared to guarantee the debt of this man and see that he pays so much money per week or per year, we will make the money available to him. It does not matter whether it takes him ten years to repay the money, we will give it to him." I was looking at some figures recently. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary can get them from the officials of his Department. While we have only 15 per cent to 17 per cent of the value of farmers' land and holdings borrowed from banks or the Agricultural Credit Corporation, in European countries this ranges from 30 per cent to 45 per cent. If the farmers could borrow more money at the right time, they could hold their cattle over longer.

The Minister stated last week that it was his ambition to see more cattle sold in the spring and fewer in the autumn. That is what is doing untold harm to farmers for a long number of years. They have to sell their cattle at the wrong time. I would be 100 per cent behind the Minister in what he said. It is a very good idea. The Department of Agriculture give grants for silage and for sheds. We should be encouraging more farmers to avail of those grants and to feed more cattle indoors. Unfortunately with our climate, and especially, as Deputy Crinion said, if we are going over to Friesian bullocks, it is necessary to keep the cattle indoors in the winter. Friesian bullocks do well when they are indoors in the winter and are fed on silage but they lose weight quickly if they are outdoors. Great encouragement should be given to our farmers on a long-term basis to borrow more money to erect proper sheds for their cattle and silage pits to feed more of their cattle indoors in the winter.

I also believe—this was spoken about here on numerous occasions—that proper marketing boards in which farmers' organisations are represented should be established to help to sell their produce.

In the marketing of agricultural produce it is essential that farmers play a bigger role in determining policy. Recent events have shown the disastrous situation which has resulted from the Government's refusal to accept the urgent representations made by voluntary farmers' organisations as far back as 1962 for the establishment of a meat marketing board. Despite the clear warning given, especially in 1963, that the increased production of cattle and sheep would certainly result in a collapse of prices unless some steps were taken in advance to ensure the orderly marketing of the increased production, nothing was done and we have the consequences today.

I recognise the urgent need to establish a meat marketing board with adequate powers to ensure the orderly marketing of meat in Britain and the development of markets in other areas. Let us admit that Bord Bainne have done wonderful work. When Deputy Haughey was Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, he promised the setting up of a meat marketing board. At the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis last October, the matter was raised and the present Minister was criticised by his own delegates. He promised he would look into it and said he would make an announcement shortly.

We hear a lot of talk about the collective responsibility of the Cabinet. Why is it then that when there is a change of Minister, the new Minister does not continue the policy of the old? Are there not vested interests at work in this country at present to see to it there is not any sort of meat marketing board set up? It is a well-know fact that there are. It is time this Government or any Government in the interests of the producers, who should be their first concern, faced up to those vested interests and said : "As far as we are concerned, we will take no dictation from any vested interests, no matter what contribution they may make, directly or indirectly, to our funds. We will see to it that we will set up a proper meat marketing board and that the primary producer of cattle, sheep and wool will get a fair and just price for his produce."

It must be three years since a commission was set up to deal with the marketing of wool. They issued a report. The Government have no hesitation in bringing in Bills to licence cattle marts or a Bill such as the one we had yesterday to repeal an Act passed in 1964. Does the Parliamentary Secretary not know that today farmers are being offered from 1/6 to 2/- per 1b. less for wool than last year? Does he not know that seven or eight years ago wool was as high as 6/- per 1b.? Last year it was in the region of 4/- and this year it is about 2/6 to 2/8 per 1b. What are the Government doing for the small farmer in the West who is producing sheep and wool? The Minister knows well that last year, despite the fact the Government gave a bounty of 10/- or a £1, lamb prices went down from 1/- to 30/-. These small farmers producing sheep will go out of production in the future just as the pig producers have gone out of pig production.

I remember about a year and a half ago, when Deputy Haughey was Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, asking him a question at a time when pigs could not be sold. I said people were trying to sell them at £4 and that there would be chaos unless something was done. He told me I was talking through my hat and that the pig industry would never go back. We know now what happened. Factories are closing down and the workers are on shorter hours. Compared with one or two years ago, only about threequarters of the number of pigs is being sent to the factories.

We should have proper marketing boards so that the farmers can get a fair return for their labour. Deputy Dowling talked about the city housewife being fleeced. Unfortunately, that very often happens and in all cases it is the farmer who is blamed. But you may find that a head of cabbage a farmer sells for 2d or 3d goes up to 1/- or 1/3 when being sold over the counter. It is wrong that the man who has to buy the plant, put it into the ground, weed it, till it, and cart it into town gets 2d or 3d per head and the man who sells it over the counter gets four or five times as much. That is happening at present. If there were a proper marketing system, you could put an end to all that.

The Minister talked about the drop in farmers' income and the increase in his overheads and the cost of living. We know that, despite the promises made in the past, the cost of living is an all-time record. That is gravely affecting the farmers. The farmers today, like other sections of the community, are crushed between increased rates and taxation and reduced prices. I suppose the farmers have become so used to crushing burdens under Fianna Fáil that they have become like punchdrunk boxers. They can absorb punishment without seeming to be affected. It is time the Minister realised they are being affected very seriously. Like the punchdrunk boxer, they have lost initiative and ambition, and it will be a very bad day for this country if they lose the competitive instinct. At present they have become animated punchbags for the multi-fisted pummelling of rates, taxes and reduced prices. Those things have all come upon them because of the broken promises of the Government, and especially of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Deputy Crinion said today that things would be much worse, were it not for the last Trade Agreement. We were told then that, for the first time in our history, we had free and unfettered access for our cattle to Britain. As Deputy Dillon asked, what use was that? Were we sending them over to race around Ascot or Liverpool? It was no use unless there were markets. Let us face facts and tell the truth. Up to 1934 or 1935 we had free entry for our cattle to Britain. In 1931, the number of animals exported to Britain was 687,897; in 1966, only 427,563 cattle were exported to Britain. There is very little use in Deputy Crinion or anybody else telling us about the wonderful results that accrued to the people from the Free Trade Area Agreement. If there is credit due to anybody, it is due to Deputy Dillon who as Minister for Agriculture negotiated the 1948 Trade Agreement with Great Britain. As everybody knows, at that time calves were selling for £1 a head. Deputy Dillon negotiated the cattle trade agreement and calves went up to £35 and £36 and fat cattle went as high as £100.

There may be people in the Fianna Fáil Party, including the Parliamentary Secretary, who are inclined to say that had they been in power in 1948, they would have negotiated a trade agreement equally good. They proved in 1966 that they could not. It may be no harm to remind them that from 1939 to 1945 Britain was in the midst of a world war, that her ships were being sent to the bottom of the sea and that the British people were rationed to two ounces of meat per week. The arch-patriots of the Fianna Fáil Party have always told us that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity. There was England's difficulty and there was Ireland's opportunity. What did we do? We sold our cattle to John Bull, whom we were to starve out in the past, at give-away prices during the war and it was only when the war was over that Deputy Dillon, Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Norton went over to Britain and negotiated a trade agreement that secured for the farmers of Ireland a relative degree of prosperity for the succeeding 15 or 16 years.

There is something wrong with the Fianna Fáil Agreement that was signed last year because the promises they made have not materialised. The figures and facts are there to demonstrate that to the people.

There are small farmers in one county whom I would certainly like to congratulate, namely, the small farmers of Donegal because, despite the fact that they have two Ministers, two Senators and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle representing them and despite the fact that the cumainn told the farmers to bring out their cattle to Donegal fair and that the superintendent issued a statement saying that it would be all right, not a beast turned up at the fair. Unfortunately, that riled the Minister for Agriculture and since then he has been using the jackboot and trying to put his foot down on the farmers of this country.

As I said already, the bogey of the farmer is that when he increases production he invariably finds that prices fall. He has experienced this discouraging state of affairs so often in the past that he is chary of increasing production for fear the markets will not be there for the increased production. This brake on enterprise must be relaxed if the country is to obtain the full benefit of its great agricultural potential.

Let us remember that the farmers have never let the country down. If markets are available, if there is any incentive, if the call goes out to them, they will answer that call as they have answered it so often in the past. They have answered it during various wars. They saved the people. They worked long hours in the fields during the war from 1939 to 1945 when there was very little equipment available in the country. They rallied to the call at that time and saved the people.

Increased production should carry with it greater reward. If any section of the community other than the farmers increase production, they secure greater reward. Increased income is the incentive the agricultural producer needs. The farmer is inclined to ask if he increase production will it leave him, despite his effort and investment, no better off. On the answer to that question will depend whether our farmers can go forward hopefully or drop back into a state of disillusionment.

Our rivals, the Danes, the Dutch, the Scots, are not wasting any time at the present moment. The Danish Minister, the Scots Minister, the English Minister are not warring and quarrelling with the farmers of their respective countries. They are up and doing: they are improving bulls, fat cattle, milch cows, sheep and pigs: there is co-operation between the farmers and the Government. Unfortunately, at the present time we have not got that co-operation in this country between the farmers and our Minister for Agriculture.

If we are to hold our own in the EEC we must be up and doing. We must not trail behind. We should not waste time as we are wasting it. We should be out in front. We cannot afford to be lackadaisical, as we are, unfortunately, to day. We must aim at producing better livestock than that produced by our rivals and at doing that in as short a time as possible. We must get our hands to the plough and go forward steadily and fearlessly.

Today, unfortunately, there is wrangling. The next few years may be heavy with destiny for the Irish people. Political decisions taken over the next few years with regard to our entry to the EEC may settle our fate and, indeed, the character and prosperity and future of our nation for generations to come. How we will fare depends for the most part on how we equip ourselves for the task that lies ahead. Let there be no denying that we are facing a challenge to our ability to survive in the face of intense competition. In the markets of Europe, we will be facing keen competition. There is no soft trade on the Continent. The EEC will be no bed of roses. We must prepare ourselves for the new conditions that will exist when we enter the EEC. We took a gambler's chance in 1960 when the Government at that time thought we would get into the EEC. When we did not, they had no proper plan for agriculture. The future prosperity of the farmers and ultimately of the whole country depends on the preparation we make now for the years ahead.

It must be admitted that Irish farmers have always had to compete without protection for the British market for most agricultural produce against the countries of Europe and, indeed, of the whole world. Irish farmers need have no fear. They survived the Economic War and various other wars. By their skill, they can produce more cheaply than most European farmers. They are not afraid of competition. They must be given in their own country the tools and the equipment they require. The Government must see to it that there are markets for agricultural produce.

There are, unfortunately, in Ireland today thousands of farmers who are unequipped and who have not got the money to take advantage of our entry into the EEC. I say to the Government that active and courageous measures will have to be taken, and taken at once, to put the agricultural producer into a position to avail to the full of whatever benefits there are in this Agreement for our farmers. It is time we told the farmers the truth, that they must prepare for this competition, that they must be on the ball, that they must be ready to adopt any techniques or any new methods for increased production. Above all, we must have a more progressive and aggressive marketing system than we have at the present time. We cannot re-adjust ourselves overnight for this, and the Government should be encouraging and helping the farmers in every way to prepare for this competition.

It would take years to repair the damage done to farming in Ireland through the Fianna Fáil policy of high rates and poor prices for agricultural production. I have already mentioned the tillage acreage which was still falling sharply up to last year; there may be a slight increase this year. I mentioned the reduction in the acreage of beet, wheat, oats and potatoes. Barley was the only crop that increased. All the others had decreased, and they decreased for one reason and one reason only, that the farmers were not getting a fair crack. Three hundred thousand farmers have been driven off the land in the past 20 years and what is worse according to the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, it is envisaged that a further 60,000 farmers will be driven off the land between now and 1970. That is a crime against humanity. It is something the Government should face up to, that those who have been the backbone of this country can see no future here.

I should like to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that all the exhortations in the world will not increase production or our exports if an inefficient administration administers wrongly-conceived policies, and that is what has been happening for the past few years. The Government's agricultural policy is wrong, and the Fianna Fáil Government seem to have no plans for the future, although, according to themselves, they have been planning for years. They are always promising us pie in the sky. The Minister blamed the bad weather for the situation over the past few years; he was sure that if the weather was good, the future would be bright for Irish agriculture. I have been listening for a long time to Fianna Fáil Taoisigh and Ministers for Agriculture telling us we were going round the turn, were breasting the hill, but we have never yet got over it. If you read the statistics which I quoted today in regard to cattle prices and the acreage under tillage, you will see that instead of going up the hill, we seem to be sliding backwards for a long time. What we need is less talk, more example and, perhaps, more hard work.

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary does he, the Minister or the Department believe that Irish agriculture is prepared for the chilly winds of the EEC and the fierce competition which farmers will encounter, and, if not, what do they intend to do about it. We all know that Ireland's policy towards the Common Market is conditioned by our traditional trading ties with Great Britain, which is our greatest market, to which we sell something like 75 per cent of our exports and from which we purchase at least 50 per cent of our imports. If Great Britain joins the EEC, it is essential that we also join because the Rome Treaty lays it down that any nation which joins the Common Market must erect tariff walls against all countries outside it. The relevant tariffs are set out in List F of the Rome Treaty. They include tariffs of 16 per cent on cattle, 16 per cent on carcase meat, 24 per cent on butter and 80 per cent on sugar. If Great Britain joins the Common Market and if, for any reason, we do not, she will raise these tariffs against Ireland. Since we are largely depending on Great Britain, our nearest market, we can see how important it is for the two countries to join together if at all possible.

Deputy Crinion spoke here today about the large amount being put into agriculture, and said that only half the amount was being spent in 1956. Of course he did not tell us that, compared with 1956 or 1957, the £ is now worth only 14/-. What the farmers want is not does or sops but a fair return for their produce and their work, so that they and their families can live in frugal comfort. We all know that there is no Fianna Fáil Government or any other Government who can promise the farmers, or any other section of the people, that they can be as wealthy as the people of America or, perhaps, Great Britain, but, with good government, they can certainly be promised that they can earn a reasonable living in their own country, that they can be happy and content in their own country. That should be the aim of the Government.

The Bishop of Cork, Dr. Lucey, has on many occasions stated that the yardstick by which any Government should be judged is the number of boys and girls being born and staying at home in their own country and earning their living there. If that yardstick is used as far as agriculture is concerned and as far as the people on the land are concerned, then it must be admitted that the Government's policy has been a dismal failure, because instead of keeping people on the land, they have through their policy, banished them from it. Unfortunately they are still going and this little nation of ours is bleeding to death because of bad government and the mismanagement of our affairs and particularly our agricultural affairs by Fianna Fáil for so many years.

We are very often told about the millions that are spent on agriculture. I often wonder that the Minister with all his officials and experts, would not tell us exactly what percentage of that goes into the farmers' pockets. Included in that money that is supposed to go to agriculture are the Minister's salary, the officials' salaries, education, and the Agricultural Institute; even the Zoo is included in it. Much of the lime subsidy goes to CIE. Included in that also is £5 million that the Agricultural Credit Corporation gives out in loans to farmers but which has to be paid back by the farmers themselves. This House and the people should be given a rough idea, at least, of the percentage of all this money that goes into the pockets of the producers. Such information is long overdue. We all know that in the farm subsidy game, predominantly agricultural countries are bound to lose unless they are in the position in which Britain is. Britain has a prosperous manufacturing industry, an industry responsible for 80 per cent of the wealth of the country, and can therefore subsidise agriculture. We have no such industrial arm capable of carrying the taxation necessary to subsidise agriculture here.

Introducing his Estimate here on 30th May, the Minister spoke at some length about the dispute with the NFA. I said yesterday—I repeat it today—that we believe this dispute is doing irreparable damage to the agricultural community and to the economy as a whole. It is time it was ended. It is time all sections worked together in harmony. The Minister painted his side of the picture. There are two sides to everything. The Minister's statements over the past few months have been nothing but a cold, callous and deliberate effort to start class warfare here between the urban and the rural dweller. That is a very bad thing. There was a split in this country in 1922, when brother was against brother and neighbour against neighbour. The effect of that unhappy split lasted unfortunately for almost 40 years. That split did untold harm but, thanks be to God, the youth of today were beginning to forget the past. Old sores and old bitternesses were being healed. That was an excellent development. But we have now a Minister for Agriculture who, when he sees the flames of hatred and bitterness dying down, promptly rushes for the petrol tin to start the flames all over again. That is a bad thing. All I fear is that brother today will be turned against brother and neighbour against neighbour, in a calculated effort by the Government, for purely political reasons, to turn the urban dweller against the farmers.

We do not want class warfare. We want peace. We want harmony between brother and brother and neighbour and neighbour. We want harmony and co-operation between farmers. We want harmony between town and country. No matter what towns people may think about the farmers, their standard of living, in the last analysis, depends on what their brothers and sisters in rural Ireland can produce from the land of Ireland for export. It will be a bad day for the country if this struggle is allowed to continue. It is time the Minister climbed down off his high horse. Let no one deny it; there are certain punchdrunk young Ministers in the Government anxious to use the jackboot on the farmers. The Taoiseach seems to be anxious to settle the dispute, but there are others who are not so anxious and they are keeping the flames of bitterness burning brightly. They have been doing so for the past few months. One can build a good foundation on co-operation, discussion and consultation, finding common ground; one cannot build on fighting and wrangling. One cannot make progress while there is a war going on between the voluntary organisations and the Government. The farmers are disillusioned and the Minister's only ambition seems to be to aggravate their frustration.

The Minister told us about the number of times the Department had met the NFA. What did they do for the NFA? What did they do for the farmers? That is the question. We have the agricultural statistics, ample proof of the fact that farmers' incomes have decreased instead of increasing. Cattle prices have collapsed. Wool prices are down. They have got less for their sheep than they got eight or ten years ago. There is little use meeting the farmers when nothing is done for them. Lord Melbourne, talking about fooling people and, how a government can do it, said: "Ponder, pause, prepare, postpone, and end by leaving things alone; in fact, earn the people's pay by doing nothing every day." That is how the Minister for Agriculture Deputy Haughey, some months ago, fooled the NFA. That is well known. He met them but very little came out of these meetings.

No credit is given to the voluntary organisations which have done such marvellous work for agriculture over a long number of years. The Government want to take all the credit. We have now the National Agricultural Council in the hands of the politicians. Talk about dual purpose! The Minister, as well as being Minister for Agriculture, is now chairman of this body and he will try now to give the credit to the National Agricultural Council. Possibly he will tell us that the Council settled the war in the Middle East because he is apparently prepared to claim it can do anything. The voluntary organisations which have done such good work all down through the years should get the credit they deserve and proper recognition of their work.

There are farmers in jail. There are certain circumstances in which it is respectable to go to jail and there are circumstances in which it is not respectable. Our people have learned to make a distinction between those who break the law to defend a public cause or a public right and those who break the law for their own advantage under cover, in secret, or through malice. I do not believe that there is any stigma attached to the former. From the earliest days of this State, we have always been a law-abiding Party. Those people gave even three or four weeks' notice that they intended to block the roads. If the Government were so concerned about keeping the law, why did they not stop the blocking of the roads? Is it not now quite plain that they wanted them to do it because they wanted to make political capital out of this whole matter?

The Minister said :

It is regrettable that one farming organisation—I refer of course to the NFA—should have elected to depart from the normal procedure of consultation and collaboration with the Government and to embark instead on a course of action designed as a challenge to orderly democratic government.

That quotation is to be found at column 1692 of the Official Report of Tuesday, 30th May, 1967, Volume 228.

He went on to say:

Deputies will recall that, although the Minister for Agriculture met the NFA about 64 times between the beginning of 1964 and mid-August, 1966, and had agreed to a further meeting on 26th August....

Nothing came of it. There are two sides to this story. This started with the "farmers' rights" march. The farmers marched from all ends of Ireland to Dublin. Many of us witnessed their march through the city of Dublin. It was a well-organised and responsible march by law-abiding people through the city of Dublin. The farmers would not have left Cork, Donegal, Galway and other distant places and marched 200 or 300 miles, leaving their wives and their families and their work behind them, were it not that things were bad. They were not getting a fair crack of the whip. They wanted to air their grievances and the injustices under which they were trying to exist. They came here to Dublin and held a meeting.

As a Deputy, I believe I am the servant of the people of my constituency of Longford-Westmeath. If I meet the richest or the poorest person on the street, it is my duty to listen to him or her if I am stopped and to do whatever I can about any grievances expressed. No matter who he may be, how arrogant or dictatorial a man he may be, I believe that the Minister, as a servant of the people, should meet the people. On this particular occasion, the Minister refused to meet the marchers and his reason was that they did not submit a memorandum. There is the kernel of the whole problem.

Even if the Minister had not the money, he could have met the marchers on that day and said to them : "We have not the money at the present time; we may have it in a few months and, if we do, we shall try to do something for you". But no, the Government or the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Haughey, refused to meet the farmers and left them sitting in the gutter for 20 or 21 days, simply and solely, as the then Minister said and as the Government Information Bureau said, because they had not submitted a memorandum.

Let us contrast that with what happened when the Dublin Tenants Association marched to Leinster House. Some 15,000 or 20,000 of them marched. What did the Minister for Local Government do? Did he sulk inside in the Department and say : "I shall not meet those people"? He certainly did not. Because local elections and Dublin Corporation elections will be held this year, he telephoned Radio-Telefís Éireann and the newspapers and said, in effect : "Be down, boys, as quickly as you can with the cameras. I am meeting the Dublin Tenants Association and I want to get all the publicity I can get out of it". That is what happened. They came to the gate of Leinster House. The cameramen, the newspapermen and the television cameras were there and, that night on television, we saw the Minister for Local Government receiving the representatives of the Tenants Association.

Why have one law in this country for one section of the people and another law for another section? If it was right to meet the Dublin Tenants Association because local elections and corporation elections will be held on 28th of this month, was it not equally right for the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to meet the farmers who marched from the ends of Ireland instead of leaving them in the gutter for 21 days? As reported at column 1693 Volume 228, of the Official Report, the present Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries continued :

One of the first things the present Taoiseach and I did, after assuming our present offices, was to meet the association on 21st November for a session which lasted four hours.

Yes, we know he met them. Why? There were two by-elections coming off. He did not want the farmers sitting in the gutter while the Kerry and Waterford by-elections were coming off. He was to meet them again later, but he did not. He thought it more important to rush down to Kerry, State car and all, and to promise to build Valentia Bridge rather than to try to bridge the gap that existed between the Government and the NFA. For the following three weeks, he was not to be found here or in his office. The farmers could not get in contact with him. He was down in Kerry fighting the by-election. He took the farmers out of the gutter and off the streets because he knew that if they were left there, it would be bad publicity for the Government and might have sideeffects in Waterford and in Kerry.

Unfortunately, the farmers were not as clever, politically, as the wily politician who today occupies the position of Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Had they been, they would have seen through the hollow action of taking them off the streets. I will guarantee the House today that the farmers will be let out of prison before the local elections are held on 28th of this month. I hope the farmers have more wisdom now than they had in Kerry and Waterford and that they will see through the wily tactics of the Minister and the Government and that they will not be too easily fooled in the future.

The Minister went on again, of course, to blame the farmers in any and every way he could. I said, earlier on, that any time there was a chance of the flames of hatred and bitterness dying down, the Minister, or some Minister of the Government, rushed out to throw petrol on the flames.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is repeating himself.

Mr. Foley

Does the Deputy want a drink?

Mr. L'Estrange

No, thank you. I never took one in my life, thanks be to God. We know that, two days before the NFA were to nominate members to the National Agricultural Council, the farmers were arrested and put in jail. We have spoken here about selective justice. I do not like the setting of one farmers' organisation against another but that is what the Minister is trying to do. He is trying to crush the NFA first and then if he gets his way, he will crush the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association and other organisations. The Minister says it is the duty of the Government to govern and that they will govern. He has the zeal of a convert when speaking about law and order and about governing. Yet we are entitled to ask why there was different treatment for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association who paraded outside the Dáil, were arrested and fined in May and there was no settlement made for five months afterwards; they were allowed five months in which to go free before there was a settlement, before the fines were paid. In the case of the NFA, their members were lodged in Mountjoy in less than one month, in the very week the farmers were to meet to nominate members to the National Agricultural Council.

It is time the Taoiseach showed his authority, showed that he is prepared to lead and to put his heel on the power-drunk Ministers in the Government at present. The Minister also spoke at length about the no rates campaign, et cetera, but it is a well-known fact that all county executives of the NFA and those engaged in the rates campaign met and instructed their representatives that the rates campaign was to be called off the following week at a national council meeting in Dublin. The Government knew that quite well; yet they went out and used a bulldozer to crush a nut. They sent out the Army, the Garda, armed detectives and tracker dogs and at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the morning, they arrived at farms to seize property. This was despite the fact that the Government knew quite well that the whole thing was to be called off in three days' time. The tactics displayed by the Government are doing untold harm.

The Minister also referred, at column 1694, to the intimidation of farmers. Deputy T.F. O'Higgins has dealt with this very well. I do not know if there have been any proven cases of intimidation. I have read the newspapers and the reports concerning many people who were summoned but as far as I know there were no proven cases of intimidation. If the Government members make the type of speech the Minister makes, it must be driven home to the Government and, incidentally, to the people, that as far as the NFA are concerned, they did not, and do not now, question the authority of the elected Government. What they do question and what they criticise and condemn is the manner in which the authority has been and is being misused and abused. The Minister consistently confuses these two points in an effort to mislead the people. It is easy for this to be done by unscrupulous politicians who have the resources of the State at their command. They have the resources of the radio and the television and of press conferences. The Minister on television, and even here in the House, can pretend to be a very reasonable man. He will always pretend: "I am trying to settle the dispute but it is the other people who are to blame". In Gorey, on 29th May, he said: "It is becoming increasingly clear that what the association is trying to do is to take on the Government in a straight fight".

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Deputy give the reference?

Mr. L'Estrange

The Irish Times of 30th May. The obvious implication is that the NFA wish to challenge, contest, or perhaps supplant the elected Government. That is false and it has been denounced as false by NFA leaders on numerous occasions. In so far as any organised group in Government employment disagree with the Government over the question of pay, hours and conditions of employment and as a last resort take strike action, it is ipso facto taking on the Government in a straight fight about such things and only about such things. To give an example, the Irish national teachers in 1946 took on the Government, if you want to use the term, in a straight fight; the Garda Síochána in 1962 took on the Government in a straight fight; the Association of Secondary Teachers in 1964 took on the Government in a straight fight. These people took strike action against the Government over salary claims, et cetera. There was no denunciation of their action as a paranoiac dream or as an effort to thwart the Government or as being ruthless and dictatorial. I am quoting from Deputy Blaney's speech in Gorey. Why then are the organised farmers hounded, vilified and threatened with dire consequences for protesting vigorously against the conditions under which they work and are trying to live or exist?

The Minister spoke about intimidation by NFA members of those farmers who refused to support them in their efforts. At column 1694, Volume 228, of the Dáil Debates for 30th May, 1967, he said:

The association's campaign, which has discredited the organisation and does not represent the true feeling of more than a handful of farmers— most of them very large farmers indeed—has created a great deal of bitterness and unrest. A new and disturbing feature of this campaign has been the apparent attempt of late to coerce farmers to join the association or to punish those who refused to be associated with its unlawful activities. To mention only a few examples, there was the case of the man who, because of his opposition to the methods used by the NFA in their campaign, has been threatened with expulsion from the committee of his creamery society; there was the County Kilkenny farmer whose catering contract with certain marts has been cancelled simply because he provided a meal for gardaí who happened to be on duty in connection with seizures for non-payment of rates; or there was the County Westmeath farmer who is not permitted the use of a neighbour's corn drill apparently because of his refusal to join the NFA.

When the Minister speaks of intimidation by the NFA members he is using loaded words in a petty, snide attempt to mislead. Let us admit that all trade unions and professional bodies as a rule expel, and have expelled in the past and refused to work with, any member who refuses to co-operate with his colleagues or who actively opposes them when action is taken in support of legitimate claims.

We could give many examples. One is the example of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland who expelled those who refused to co-operate in the 1964 strike by superintending examinations or marking candidates' papers. They refused admission to non-members who had so done, and even those who refused to pay a strike levy of £2 were similarly dealt with. Their teachers refused to teach in schools that gave employment to any defaulting member. If that was intimidation and victimisation, then those organisations were guilty.

I went into a chemist shop recently and I asked for a certain ointment, the product of a certain firm. I was told : "We do not sell that. Those people sell direct to the farmers and we have boycotted that firm. We will not deal in any of their products or sell them to the community." What is the difference? Are we to have one law for one section of the community whereby they can have, if you like to call it, intimidation or boycotting, and a different law for the farmers? This is just what the NFA are doing. They are refusing to co-operate with those who do not co-operate with them. They do not threaten death, physical injury or the burning of property, the use of which is the strict connotation of the word "intimidation".

The Minister alleges that NFA militancy is turning neighbour against neighbour and threatening rural disruption and dissension. The word "militancy" is most interesting. It is derived from the Latin word miles—a soldier. It is true that the NFA marched to Dublin, a couple of hundred miles. They did not get very much at the end of it. They got the back of the hand from the Minister and they were left for 21 days——

Mr. Davern

When Deputy Dillon was Minister, he did the same to the ICMSA. I well remember that.

Mr. L'Estrange

In 1951 or 1952, Deputy Dillon said that there were too many different farming organisations. He is the man who more than anyone else is responsible for the farmers coming together. We believe that everyone in Ireland is entitled to a fair crack of the whip, is entitled to have a trade union, to be organised and to get a fair share of the national cake. We believe that the farmers are entitled to a fair crack of the whip.

Mr. Davern

And so do we.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister's figures are there. Not long ago I asked the Taoiseach a question and I was told that the farmers represent 35 per cent of the population. They got 18.7 per cent of the national income in 1965.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has gone all over that before. He is now repeating himself.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Parliamentary Secretary challenged me. He said that they wanted to give the agricultural community a fair crack of the whip.

Mr. Davern

Twenty-five per cent of the national budget is devoted to agriculture.

Mr. L'Estrange

The farmers are not interested in sops or in doles. They are interested in a fair price for their produce so that they can earn their living on the land where their forefathers lived. It is a sad day when they cannot exist on their own land because of the Government's bad management, the high cost of living, high rates, high taxation and poor prices. The facts and figures are there to prove that they are being driven off the land, and have been driven off the land by the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Davern

Depopulation in rural Ireland started in 1926 when Cumann na nGaedheal were in power. Let us not get away from the facts. Was the Deputy born then?

Mr. L'Estrange

I was born at that time.

Mr. Coughlan

Was the Parliamentary Secretary born then?

Mr. Davern

No.

Mr. L'Estrange

The depopulation of the country increased and the graph started to rise in 1932. The dead hand of Fianna Fáil descended on the country. As I said earlier, it is true that the NFA marched but was it the NFA who called out the soldiers from the Curragh and all the paraphernalia of war to make a seizure on a lonely farm in the early hours of the morning? In that regard the Government certainly did not set a very fine example, and they were certainly using a bulldozer to crush a nut.

The Minister said the NFA were turning neighbour against neighbour, but it is the Minister who is turning neighbour against neighbour. He is trying to set one farming organisation against another. That is No. 1. There can be no denying No. 2, that he is trying to drive a wedge between the leaders and the members of the NFA

Mr. Davern

That is not true.

Mr. L'Estrange

It is quite true. Despite the fact that we are supposed to have an ecumenical spirit in this country, it is a well-known fact that Fianna Fáil people have said that Mr. Deasy is a Protestant.

Mr. Davern

That is untrue.

Mr. L'Estrange

I heard it myself from Fianna Fáil people.

Mr. Davern

It is not true and the Deputy knows it. After the scurrilous attack the Deputy made on a gentleman on the bench, I would not be surprised at anything he says.

Mr. L'Estrange

They said that Mr. Deasy was a Protestant, throughout the length and breadth of the country. We are all entitled to our religion.

Mr. Davern

The Deputy inferred that it was said in a derogatory fashion.

Mr. L'Estrange

That was said by Fianna Fáil to turn the ordinary farmers against their leader. It was also said that he was in the British Army, but it is a well-known fact that he was in the Irish Army. Fianna Fáil will say one thing at national level but when you get down to the boys at the cumann those are the things that are spread.

Mr. Davern

As a matter of fact, the Deputy did a disservice to the nation and to this House by his scurrilous attack on a district justice. I am informed fairly reliably that he was not thanked by the NFA for doing that.

Mr. L'Estrange

I do not look for thanks for anything I do. I am glad to hear Fianna Fáil speaking with the zeal of converts. Let us forget the past.

Mr. Davern

When the Deputy attacked a man like that in this House, he did the House no honour and did not add to the dignity of the House.

Mr. L'Estrange

It was not with their tongues that members of the Parliamentary Secretary's Party attacked people in the past. It was with something that caused bloodshed in many cases. I do not want to be lectured by the Parliamentary Secretary about law and order.

Mr. Davern

I was lecturing the Deputy about decency and good manners.

Mr. L'Estrange

Members of the Parliamentary Secretary's Party were character assassins.

Mr. Davern

They pale by comparison with the Deputy.

Mr. L'Estrange

We want to see an end to the present impasse. It is time the Government stretched out the hand of friendship, that this bitterness was ended, and that all concerned for the future of the country worked in the interests of the country. The Government have a duty to govern, to control the economy, to balance all factors one against the other and to see that all sections get justice and a decent living in their own country. The Government have failed to do their duty. The more we look at the sad history of this country for the past six or eight months, the more we realise the Government's responsibility for our present troubles. Let there be no denial that the dictatorial attitude of some of the brassnecks of the Fianna Fáil Government and their determination, instead of meeting the NFA and other organisations, to crush them, has led to the crisis that afflicts the Irish people today.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.