Last night, before I moved the Adjournment, I referred to a leaflet issued in my constituency, a copy of which I received by post yesterday morning. This leaflet refers to the farmers and to the local elections. It gives details of the NFA rates campaign and ends up with three verses of a poem. It concludes with the words "Vote against Fianna Fáil candidates". It is published by C. O'Quigley on behalf of the candidates. Anybody getting that leaflet in my constituency would ask: "On behalf of which candidates?" Normally political Parties use their names, such as Fianna Fáil, Labour or Fine Gael, when they are issuing leaflets of this kind. I know that Mr. O'Quigley is a member of the Fine Gael executive in Carlow and to my mind, it is an attempt to mislead the voters in County Carlow into thinking that this leaflet has been issued by some organisation other than Fine Gael. It is typical of some of the stuff that has been issued by the county executive of Fine Gael in Carlow for the past couple of weeks. Irrespective of anything that Fine Gael may have said, anybody who travels through the country can see the results of the Fianna Fáil agricultural programme. Land has been reclaimed, houses have been improved, water supplies have been installed and many new farm buildings erected. Despite the fact that Fine Gael have tried to kill their morale, the farmers will still support Fianna Fáil.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 37—Agriculture (Resumed).
You hope.
The marketing of agricultural produce has been referred to and as far as fruit or vegetables are concerned, anybody who goes to Smithfield Market will see that there is quite a lot of waste in this respect. I do not believe, and neither does the farmer, that marketing can be done by the individual farmer. If a farmer grows tomatoes, potatoes or apples, he would not have them in sufficient quantities to grade them into sizes and to pack them and mark them. This is something that must be done by co-operation and I know that in some counties, not my own, efforts have been made in this respect, particularly in relation to apples. If you visit Smithfield, you see the way in which imported vegetables are packed and prepared for marketing and you can compare it with the way we are doing it. It is quite obvious that we have a lot to learn in this regard.
It would be impossible to get a policy which would be acceptable to every farming organisation, or indeed to every farmer. We know, for example, that in counties like Monaghan and Cavan, they want the price of barley reduced so that they can get cheaper feeding stuffs, while in counties like Wexford and Carlow, they want the price increased. For that reason, there must be discussions with the various farming organisations in order to get some agreement on prices but ultimately the Minister and his Department must be the deciding factor in regard to the price of barley or any other crop.
I hope that the NFA campaign will come quickly to an end because in view of the possibility of our entry into the Common Market, we must gear ourselves more and more for the exacting standards that market will demand. We must not just gear ourselves to produce on the farm, with the attitude that when the produce is loaded on to the lorries or the wagons, that is the end, because in effect it is only the beginning, and ultimately it will be the housewife in London, Brussels or elsewhere who will decide what price our produce will get on these markets.
The debate this year on the Agriculture Estimate takes on a very serious character because of certain happenings during the year and because of the re-activation of our application to join the Six. I propose, in a very calm and deliberate way, to review what has not been done, what might have been done and to make some suggestions about what can be done. I am sincerely glad that there has been a de-escalation, if that is the proper word, of the strain between a certain farming organisation and the Minister, and I hope that calm will be allowed to prevail for a while in that area. I would suggest to the Minister that he withhold for a period his proposals about a Marts Bill to allow for a saner and a more impersonal approach to the problem, if it must be tackled.
The Minister knows me to be honest when I say in a genuine spirit that I have no desire to see any fuel, or any petrol as it might be described, added to the situation by any precipitate action that might be quite wrongly misconstrued. The Minister knows as well as I do that when passions get to a certain stage, and when pride gets to a certain stage, transgressions result and decisions are taken which when they are subsequently re-examined, prove to have been a failure. I say that in a very deliberate way representing, as I do, an area in which we initiated cattle marts, and we have good cattle marts throughout my constituency and its perimeter.
There is no doubt that the Minister inherited a rather difficult situation. In a rather glib typically banal way, his predecessor, Deputy Haughey, then Minister for Agriculture, made extravagant claims about the rate of increased production he wanted in cattle, and the markets he had for them. When we get down the basic realities, we find that a completely independent organisation has now warned the Government that there appears to be a possibility that we will have a surplus of unsaleable cattle in the near future. At Question Time the Minister said to me glibly: "Get them for me", when we were talking about the price for calves at Bantry fair. To me it was a virtual tragedy to see that practically everything that came to Bantry fair was taken home again. It was not a tough fair; it was an impossible fair. I hope it is the worst one we will ever experience, because if things do not improve, holding on to this type of stock that cannot be disposed of will become a very difficult problem for the small farmers, particularly the man who strained himself to carry the extra stock.
I will not rub too much salt into the blisters but we have to be realistic. When we think of all the extravagant boasts that were made by the previous Minister, and his exhortations to hold on, and when we think of what the catastrophe means now, we are not being too harsh, surely, in laying a good deal of the blame at the door of the Department. When we test the sincerity of the ebullient blowhard with his 2,000 cattle for Germany—not one of which has been shipped yet—we have to say in a deliberate and positive way that the time has come for a resuscitation of hope and a building anew of some type of confidence between the agricultural community and the Department. There has been a tremendous breakdown of confidence between the farmers and the Department, and that is all the more tragic in a situation where there had been a broad expansion of the advisory services, and a gradual building up throughout the whole of rural Ireland of an anxiety to learn better methods, to improve their methods, to combine with and co-operate with the advisory services, to get their production geared to greater efficiency and to get an improved quality in the various progeny.
In the 20 years I have been preaching in this House, I have always felt that agriculture for too long has been bedevilled by the exigencies of political circumstances. We have seen that happen to a remarkable degree in recent times. If we take a calm, deliberate look at the situation, we will have to realise, no matter what side of the House we are on, that the time has come when we must have an overall master plan into which the whole of our agricultural policies will be systematically integrated, particularly if we have to face the fierce competition we are told we will have to face in a freer trading situation in an expanding Europe or in the EEC.
Basically we must attack the essentials in agriculture to get into that situation. We must improve the quality of our output. We must streamline production on the economic side in the most effective way possible. We must make our productivity lines the keenest, the most economic and effective, so that we can market them as first-class products at minimum production costs for the benefit of agriculture generally. To do that, we must improve our marketing methods. We must be able to gauge them and we must be able to instruct our farmers on the maximum production that is required in certain facets and in what the real marketing potential is for our finished products.
At the moment our farmers are in great difficulty. They are overloaded with stock of which they cannot dispose. I sincerely hope that circumstances may soon be such that a good deal of this stock can be sold quickly even at a loss, because there is instability now in other lines of husbandry and no matter how the Minister may talk about it, there is a serious crux coming in wool. I agree with the Minister that quite a number of our flocks are not yet shorn, but already there is a very clear indication in parts of my constituency where they tried to market wool that there will be a substantial drop of somewhere in the region of 1s 6d to 1s 8d in the lb. It may be too early to judge what the full drop will be. The Minister representing the type of constituency he does with a good sheep farming content, like West Cork, should be on the ball. With the fluctuations in the price of mutton and lamb, this could lead to difficulties in the sheep world.
We have already seen a spectacular and serious shortage of pigs because the cost of feeding them has gone up very considerably over the past 12 months, and the economics of the ultimate sale have become virtually impossible. In that area I want to direct the attention of the Minister and the Department to this. A very significant feature of our pig industry is the cottier pig feeder and the small farmer pig breeder. It was through that type of person we were able to get an expansion in pig breeding when the market was favourable. Agreed that these people took a hammering when gluts arose, but nowadays I find in areas in my constituency a reluctance to hold on to sows at all. It is common case that this is a tough, hardworking line of production to be in. If you want to make it pay, it involves a good deal of labour. In the small units, you will not have the automation of feeding and other things you may have in the big, highly-capitalised units. Above all, every shilling on the cost per cwt of feed becomes a vital factor. These people are not inclined now to take the chance, because they have no positive guide as to the production necessary or as to what the floor price of their animal will be. There is no great profit for anybody from our pig exports. Unless there is a considerable increase in the floor price, you will not get the type of production we want to keep this industry strong and geared for competition if we are to enter Europe. It is common case amongst us that, if we are going into Europe, agriculture will carry a substantial part of the load to provide the wherewithal to improve economic and general conditions at home.
It is not in a spirit of political controversy that I want to discuss our difficulties. Our farming community is diversified in production. My area is an area of highly-specialised creamery development with very big milk producers. We have there some of the finest co-operatives in Ireland. We are shortly to have a new processing plant which will ease our surplus milk problem. I am happy to be able to put on the records of this House that all this has been brought about by co-operation, by the farmers and creameries in the area getting together with big outside interests in order to provide entry to a vast market. It is all done on the basis of co-operation and understanding between all sections of the farming community irrespective of their politics. This is a significant example of the fact that, if we could get agriculture and its planned and orderly development out of the realm of politics, we could then plan for a sound agriculture here.
I am convinced that we will not be able within any reasonable length of time to get the kind of viable holding people are talking about—a holding of 45, 50 or 60 acres. We must face the fact that in the West, the North-West, the South and South-East, that would mean a tremendous upheaval and a denudation of population. Therefore, we must plan at present to make the type of unit we will have to have for a number of years economic for the tenant. Inevitably that brings the situation back to the simple dictum of the late Paddy Hogan, where you have to increase the capacity of the holding to carry extra stock, where you have to have additional investment by way of added manure or lime to improve the actual land itself and where you have to have the impetus to have your stock —whether it is a cow, a sow or a ewe—that bit better in order to make it more valuable. We must always get back to the reality that it costs as much to keep a bad animal as a good one. For the small type of holder— those of 30 or 40 acres in particular— you have to have a ready way of making available to him all the fruits of progeny research and also make available to him the animal that will give him the maximum possible return. In that maximum return he will find the profit to which his hard work entitles him.
I have always believed, and still believe, there are vast areas of the British market unexplored by us. People talk about the Smithfield Market. We all have our experience of it. I have had experience of Irish cattle in Taunton, Yorkshire and other places. Being present there, one takes sufficient interest to see what is going on. With the impetus towards a different type of sale and towards getting a more realistic value for the animal, there is a vast area of co-operation between this country and England which can be developed. No matter what can be said against the present Minister, I am certain he has the energy and verve to tackle this sort of problem, if he puts his mind to it. He represents the same type of economy in agriculture as I represent. I am urging him to give to the farmers as soon as possible an indication of what the real targets of production should be.
I was very critical of the heifer scheme when it was first introduced. I am more critical of it now. Everything possible was done in the way of increasing the number of stock, but the standard and quality of our cattle have certainly not been improved. I think the Minister will agree that much of our difficulty today is because we have substandard cattle, which are always difficult to get rid of. The problem has been aggravated by the fact that we ran into such difficulties during the past 12 months. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient liaison between our market and the capacity of the British market at a time when any reasonably-minded man would realise that not only would prices be depressed but that difficulties would be created as between the home breeders in England and our exporters here. We got the full effect of that when, for the first time, we saw resolutions being passed by outside organisations in the British Isles and Northern Ireland condemning us for overloading the market at certain stages.
We have to come back again to the question of what is to be the basis of our development. I hear of investments being made in all kinds of projects in our industrial arm and of very substantial grants for this, that and the other thing. I have always subscribed to the belief, and I still believe, that the investment that goes into the improvement of our land is the cheapest, the best and the most realistic investment this country can make all the time. The Minister is well aware that every extra acre we put into production is going to make our economy that much stronger. It may possibly create marketing problems but I do not think that if we can get effective economic production, marketing is going to become a problem. If we get down to the problems of making our costs right, we will be able to complete in quality and price against anybody.
I know that the contribution made by our agriculture to the general economy of the nation, particularly in regard to the export market, runs into an enormous figure but the return given to agriculture, no matter what the metropolitan dweller or the industrial arm may say, is not really equatable to that contribution. Agriculture is entitled to get, and the Minister is entitled to fight for, and I am quite sure, will fight for, a little more of the cake to help agriculture. We have to face the fact that an awful lot of the land of this country can and must be improved, that a lot of the marginal alluvial land will have to be brought into full production if we are to build our agriculture up to the strength it will need to fight for new markets.
That is going to involve redevelopment of and re-activation of the land reclamation scheme. There is no doubt that while major draining schemes are going ahead with the customary lack of speed, much of the work possible under Sections A and B of the scheme could be re-activated on the basis that it would not be cutting across work involved in the catchment areas of the big drainage schemes.
There is a genuine desire among members of the agricultural community to improve conditions. It is remarkable what interest has been created throughout rural Ireland in a comparatively short period. It is extraordinary how many people will now discuss with you what the land is short of and how they can improve it by availing of the various schemes at their disposal. The lime scheme was a tremendous success and over the years we have seen the vast improvement it has brought about in our grasslands. We have seen, as the advisory services expanded, how the various co-operative societies set up their own services and how they initiated pilot schemes for the general benefit of the agricultural community. It is amazing how deeply interested the young farmer of today is in the generics of his farm and how anxious he is to get everything extra he can out of it.
It is that spirit among our people that I want to have developed with evergrowing strength. It is in that spirit that I recognise the value of the various agricultural organisations which are now playing a great part in the development of this type of education, which are now doing so much for social development in rural Ireland. The problem we have to face with regard to our small farms is that of creating economic and social viability. If we cannot give different interests to people in the rural areas, we cannot hope to stem the evergrowing drift from rural Ireland to the metropolitan areas or abroad. There is no doubt that organisations such as Macra na Feirme, Muintir na Tíre, the NFA and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association are bringing real life into the agricultural community, and the discussions, competitions and rivalries they have created are doing a tremendous job for the improvement of methods of production generally. That is why I quite seriously welcome the quiet which is now reigning between the agricultural organisations and the Department.
These disputes do not do any good to either side. For our general agricultural impetus we require the co-operation of all sections of the farming community. We have to face the fact that the pig and calf feeders in areas such as mine are finding feedingstuffs and the various types of rations too expensive for economic production. That creates a problem, naturally, for the grower of barley or oats for sale in other parts of the country.
I realise that there is not a ready computer solution to the problem but there will have to be a general departmental survey to see what can be done by way of giving to the person in isolated areas his various bag rations at a price that is economic. The small farmer, whether he is producing calves or pigs or lambs, will not remain in production if the ultimate economic reward for his efforts is either a pittance or in some cases an even break or in other cases a loss, depending on whether he can grade properly or not.
I am not going to suggest to the Minister that it is an easy problem. I do not believe that these problems can be solved unless we have the courage to take a very wide overall decision and are prepared to make an enormous investment over a period of years in agriculture. I remember saying 20 years ago in this House that we had to face either of two things—the spending of millions on development in the West or the evacuation of the people from penury. There is no doubt about it, when you face the problem of the West today, with the South-West and the congested areas generally, you are still facing the same problem except that it is alleviated to this extent that there is a capability in these areas of vast tourist expansion and that over the years we have seen a tremendous impetus in that direction. It does not alter the fact that if people are to be kept gainfully employed in agriculture on the type of holdings they have, some method must be found of bringing the holding in the West up to even 30 acres and providing the type of stock, help and advice that will make production economic. That will not be done unless we are prepared to take a very bold stand and decide that agriculture merits enormous investment.
So much for the general question of what the fundamental policy should be. We now have to get down to considering what has gone wrong. Why had we the spectacle in the past 12 months of various organisations, completely out of character, conservative organisations, having to take the course of picketing Dáil Éireann or marching on the seat of Government to air their wrongs? What has gone wrong with the trend in agriculture? How serious is it? We realise that it must have a very serious impact when we find these people, who are normally conservative and inclined to be sedate, taking this line, completely out of character.
One of the basic reasons is wrong advice by the Minister's predecessor and, I think, a wrong estimation and a wrong appraisal of the heifer scheme by the Department, as a consequence of which there has been a falling off in the quality of our stock. Everybody knows as well as I do that where you have surpluses, the only stock that you have any chance of marketing is the very top quality, that the backward or the scrub becomes a tremendous liability. The farmer who is left with it does not accept any blame himself for the situation he might be in. He will blame the Department and he will blame the Government. Then you get the mounting consensus of opinion among farmers that the Department and the Government have let them down and you have this insidious lack of confidence growing, leading to unrest and uncertainty.
I am not suggesting for one moment that the Minister is the author of all this trouble. He inherited most of it. But he is not lacking in a kind of forthrightness that can create, perhaps, misunderstanding and differences. Let me say that I hope, whatever the nark between himself and the NFA was, that it is buried now and that relations between this organisation and the Minister will improve and that they will come to terms that may be for the benefit of the agricultural community generally.
I want the Minister to deal with a lot of the problems that have arisen about delays in payment of various types of grants by his Department. I know that there has been a change in amount in the case of some of them and a change in conditions in others but when certain types of problems begin to arise, they can accumulate and develop to a major stage very quickly. Where various types of grants are held up, the Department should deal with them as quickly as possible so that any uncertainty in relation to them will be allayed and the work for which they are provided, particularly farm improvement work, will not be slowed down.
There was a backlog in connection with various water schemes and certain schemes for farmyard facilities. I must admit that there has been an improvement and that a good deal of the backlog has been cleared. Again in a noncontroversial spirit. I should like to say that the Department and the Minister should bring these schemes up to date and ensure that there will be a basis for mutual effort between the Department and the farmers. Everybody knows that unless we can get agriculture right quickly, we will be in economic difficulties.
Perhaps the Minister has some method of getting rid of a lot of the surplus cattle. Even if they have to go into tins, it is better than having them as an excess burden on already overloaded land.
I do not know what solution the Department can give the Minister in relation to that, but I do think we all have to take very serious note of what the Agricultural Institute has indicated may be our problem. That is coming from a non-political source. It is coming, may I say with respect, from an objective source, and it is all the more incumbent on us to appraise it properly. If we do not, the Irish farmer who has fought so hard since the war to get into a strong economic position may backslide so rapidly that the problem will become a crisis.
There is agitation in my area that the price of milk is still not enough. Therefore, we have to face another problem in agriculture: what diversification can be put into effect that may take off surpluses? As I have already indicated, in my own area that problem will become less with the going into operation of a very big new plant beside Ballineen. However, that does not deal with the problem because, as the Minister has properly said, there is a remarkably steady increase in the volume of milk going to the creameries which creates an increasing problem in regard to the take off of the surplus. There is a two-pronged problem there: if we are going to get the improved progeny I suggested as a result of aid and assistance from the Department, our milk production will become greater as the yield of each cow improves.
We must face the situation that has been bedevilling our milk production over the years, the fact that we have to sell our butter at an uneconomic price, and also, what is only a temporary position I hope, that a lot of skim is being run down the drain. It may be considered not worth while feeding skim to calves or bonhams, but whether that is temporary or not, it is to my mind, and I am quite sure to the Minister's mind, an appalling situation that that waste should occur. That is an area of investigation and development that the Department might very well actively pursue, particularly in view of the fact that increasing advisory services and the increasing availability of new and improved types of fertilisation will inevitably lead to a basic increase in cows of quality in creamery areas.
I know perfectly well that there will be a tremendous squawk from the grain areas and the cash-cropping areas against my arguments but it must be realised that unless we make the price of the basic ration for the small farmer economic, he cannot survive. Even though it may be heresy to say it, there are many grains grown uneconomically in the country and paid for on too high a basis to make it possible for the ration to be available to the small farmer at an economic price. Some alternative method of ration production has to be found because the shock of 6/- or 7/- increase per cwt. in the basic feeding for pigs in the past 12 months has nearly killed pig production in my constituency, which was the pride of old Ireland for the production of pigs. I remember when it was a thing of joy to see the couple of good quality sows and the bonhams at the cottages all around the wilder parts of Ireland, na háiteanna iargcúlta, mar a deirimíd as Gaeilge. Now the Department can tell me without any difficulty how many boars are not taken up down there, how the situation has dramatically changed. I know there may have been five or six big units established that are producing a tremendous number of pigs, but the fundamental strength of our pig production was the two and three-sow man, and he will have to get some reasonable basis on which to produce the pigs at a profit if he is to be got back into production with any enthusiasm and in any numbers.
I do not know what the cure is for the fluctuation we are having in ewe and mutton prices at the moment. It is most probably surplus stock and glutted markets that are creating certain difficulties, but if we can get the explanation, and get that explanation across to the producer, we shall be able to get a better atmosphere in regard to the problems of agriculture. I do not think we can expect any better relations until we realise that some of the things that were of benefit to the farmer have been whipped away from him. There was a situation in my constituency where the farmer, apart from his production on the farm and the cutting of his bit of turf, had his few months on the road; he had his horse and cart on the road which enabled him to earn a few shillings. They have raided the Road Fund to the tune of something like £1½ million and the road grants have been cut. That means that that source of work for these people has disappeared. That creates another hardship.
In considering this problem, one has to take all the factors affecting the make-up of the small farmer into account. Cattle prices have decreased. There is no market for wool. Pig production is uneconomic. Added to all this there is the fact that the bit of road work, which was a source of income, has now disappeared.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the organised farmer who is protesting because of the rough time he is having. It is the primary producer, in particular the small farmer, who is getting the lowest return for his work. Is it any wonder there are repeated complaints? If the production of cattle has to be cut for a time, then concentrate on the big rancher. He is the man who can bear the burden. But will he? I doubt it. It is the small man who is suffering now and it is the small man who will go on suffering.
In the calf heifer scheme, the small man who could carry another two or three animals did quite well, but the big rancher, with unlimited grass, reaped extraordinary benefits. I intend to get from the Department an analysis of the direction in which these millions went and I will have a bet with the Minister that his area and mine got a very microscopic part of the total benefit.
Our agricultural economy is bedevilled by problems. I hope the worst is over. There is no doubt that there is unrest and dissatisfaction in our basic industry. The only answer is intelligent and effective leadership and the Minister and his Department will have to go out and explain how the difficulties can be overcome and what changes can be made to offset the present, we hope temporary, crisis in cattle. I did not appreciate the size of the problem until I read the report of the Agricultural Institute. The fair in Bantry and the mart in Macroom are indications of the difficulties in agriculture. These difficulties stem from the stupidity of the Economic War. We cannot afford a repetition of that situation. I charge the Government with being a party to deliberate grave mistakes and I demand from them now the leadership and direction for which agriculture calls. If they cannot give them, then let them get out and let those who can do the job.
I am glad the Parliamentary Secretary is present because my introductory remarks will be directed to him. When the dispute with the NFA was in its very early stages, I remember appealing here in what I thought was a calm and cool way to the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Agriculture to meet the farmers and talk to them. Unfortunately that common-sense approach was not adopted. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary did make some very sensible overtures but unfortunately they did not bear fruit. This dispute has now been going on for something over six months and I appeal to the Minister and to the Parliamentary Secretary, in particular, to bury the hatchet. It is quite clear to everyone now that the agricultural industry is far too important to support a vendetta based on personalities, especially at a time when we are talking about going into Europe. Agriculture is the only industry which will save the country if and when we go into Europe.
I appeal, in all sincerity, to the Minister and to his Parliamentary Secretary to sit down and talk to the heads of the NFA. I do not want to introduce politics and it is most unfair to accuse Fine Gael of doing so, but it is only right that people should sit down and talk, and forget this situation which is doing so much damage to Ireland's greatest industry. At this stage, might I say that, just before I came into the House, I read the Bill circulated this morning under which the Minister now proposes to license livestock marts. I strongly appeal to him that, until such time as the dispute with the NFA is over, the Bill be withdrawn.
The Deputy will get an opportunity to discuss the Bill when it comes before the House.
I agree. In effect, what I am doing is saying that I believe this Bill should not come before the House at all. If my appeal is listened to, I shall not have the opportunity of discussing the Bill for some time yet.
Deputy Collins mentioned the problem in the dairying industry. The same problem is beginning to arise in the part of County Cork from which I come. I think we have arrived at the stage where there has been a great increase in milk production due to (1) an increase in the number of cows, (2) an increase in the quality and type of dairy cow and (3) an increase in grazing, feeding and housing conditions. The Minister must take a serious look at the dairying industry as we now find it. The big problem will be to get a market for milk or milk products.
There is an application before the Minister for a licence to establish a skim milk powder factory very near where I live. The application will have to be considered seriously and many factors will have to be taken into account before the licence is granted. It would appear that the increase in the amount of milk will create a problem to the extent that something must be done about limiting the size of dairy herds in certain cases. It may seem peculiar that I make that statement now in view of the fact that, last year, other Deputies and myself were appealing to the Minister to have the herds increased and to provide an incentive to bring about that situation. If an outlet cannot be found for the extra milk that is produced, then it would be far more important to tackle that problem now than to devote attention to the licensing of marts.
Deputy Collins reminded me about the Agricultural Institute. I have no doubt that the Agricultural Institute, in all its branches, is doing magnificent work. The one at Moorepark near Fermoy is doing tremendous work. I have seen the results of some of the experiments carried out there over the years. While any amount of money is spent on these experiments and research, the results, for good or ill, are not transmitted to the farmers and other interested parties. I appeal for more cohesion and a better relationship between the county committees of agriculture and the Agricultural Institute. I have no doubt that if the instructors of the county committees of agriculture were in possession of the full facts from the Agricultural Institute, they would deem it their duty to pass on the information to the farmers and others whom they serve.
Some weeks ago, I asked the Minister if he believed that the catastrophic drop in cattle prices at that time was in any way connected with the cattle subsidies which were being paid. I expressed the view then, which I now repeat, that those subsidies found their way into the wrong hands. It is my information and belief that the cattle subsidies were paid more to the factories than to the cattle producers. I believe that much of the problem in relation to the catastrophic drop in cattle prices at the time was due to the fact that factories bought many cattle when they were cheap at the end of last year and early this year, canned them and dumped them on the market. The Minister should examine that matter.
I have spoken before in this House about the problem for farmers in relation to the treatment of their cattle for the eradication of warble fly. Undoubtedly, many of them have good reason to be annoyed. I brought this matter to the attention of the present Minister as well as to the attention of his predecessor in office. I have in mind, now, people whose veterinary surgeon told them he believed the abortion followed treatment for warble fly. If that is the opinion of the veterinary surgeon on the spot, then it should be sufficient evidence for the Department to pay compensation but unfortunately, in many cases, that was not done. It is certainly no encouragement to farmers to dress their cattle. I appeal to the Minister to take a sympathetic view in relation to any cases which have not yet been finally decided upon. Goodness knows, it will not break the country to pay those people what I believe they are entitled to receive.
Whether a farm be 30 acres, 50 acres, 100 acres or 150 acres, every farmer must now have a certain amount of machinery to work his land and that involves financial difficulties for many farmers. Even to buy a tractor and the simple machinery that goes with it, to buy a milking-machine, to buy a mower, without talking at all about the combine-harvester, would mean an expenditure of £1,500 to £2,000. The wear and tear on the machinery is very severe. Most farmers borrow money to get this machinery the life of which is only a few years. I was wondering if this machinery could be bought on a co-operative basis.
Many farmers have the machines lying idle for practically 11 months and a fortnight every year and all that money is tied up and thrown there and the machinery is depreciating considerably. I cannot see any hope that people on a 30-acre, or 50-acre or 100-acre farm can make money out of that machinery. Perhaps the Minister could devise a scheme whereby such machinery could be purchased on a co-operative basis. If I include in a most modest way a combine-harvester with the other items I mentioned then anything up to £5,000 would be invested in machinery on a small farm. It would be very difficult to reap any dividend from such large expenditure. They have paid interest on the principal in the bank.
I want to make a brief reference to the pig industry. Deputy Collins referred to the decay of the industry in west Cork and I am going to refer to the decay of that industry in east and north-east Cork. At the week-end I saw figures from the Cork Co-operative Marts in regard to the sale of pigs and they were frightening in the extreme. Practically all the pigs, whether bonhams, stores or fat pigs, are now channelled through these marts. The figures published last week showed a decline of over 50 per cent on the figures for last year and we know that the figures last year were 50 per cent less than the previous year. I wonder what the cause of this is or what is the cure. It is a rather futile exercise to be building modern bacon factories if we have not got the produce for them.
Like Deputy Collins, I think that some method must be found to subsidise small farmers in regard to feeding stuffs for these animals. The Minister should take a serious look at the bacon industry. Everyone these days is deploring the flight from the land and there is no doubt that if there is to be any future for the small farmer, he must be encouraged to breed pigs and they must be one of his greatest sources of income if he is to stay.
Too many people in the Government and in this House still believe that Dublin is Ireland. I appeal to the Minister and to the Government to realise before it is too late that rural Ireland is keeping the rest of the country going, including Dublin. Until such time as they realise this, and announce it publicly, country people will not have the heart to work and stay on the land. If my appeal is only heard in a halfhearted fashion by the Taoiseach and the Government, I will be quite happy, once I can see that from now on more attention will be given to rural Ireland.
There are too many people, particularly on the Government side, laying down the law about agriculture. It has been proved that they know nothing about it. One example is the heifer subsidy scheme. It is some time since this scheme was introduced and we are feeling the effects of it. It was introduced to help the small farmers, to subsidise their incomes, but in fact the scheme helped people who are not directly concerned with agriculture at all. There are many examples of this which I could give but there would be little sense in doing so. However, I will give one example. There was one man who never had a cow or calf in his life but only a few dry cattle. When the heifer subsidy scheme came along, he collected 13 sums of £15 and eventually sold off the cattle before the slump came. Along with this the scheme was responsible for the introduction of a lot of scrub cattle. Prior to that we had cattle of which we could be proud, and which could compare with any breed of cattle in any country, but the standard and quality of our cattle have deteriorated very much since this scheme came into operation.
The Minister who introduced it has a lot to answer for. He was relieved of his post, and his successor was relieved and probably the present Minister will be relieved when he will not be able to find a solution to our agricultural problems. Most of our problems started with the introduction of this heifer scheme. The man in the west of Ireland looks to the price of cattle to see how he can pay his rates and run his household. It is significant to note the difference in the price of cattle here and in the United Kingdom. On March 13th, the average price per cwt. in the United Kingdom was 185/-and in Dublin, it was 158/-; on March 20th, it was 188/- in the United Kingdom and 156/- in Dublin; on March 27th, it was 198/- in the United Kingdom and 161/- in Dublin; on April 3rd it was 198/- in the United Kingdom and 160/- in Dublin; on April 17th, it was 198/- in the United Kingdom and 166/- on the Dublin market. Of course the price in Dublin looks all right—it is low and it should be our idea to get the same rate as in the United Kingdom—but further back from Dublin, in the west of Ireland, the drop is from 10/- to £1 a cwt. less than the price prevailing on Dublin Cattle Market.
The NFA wanted the Minister set up a meat marketing board which they maintain would cure the ills of the small farmer. There is much to be said for their idea. While they might not be altogether right, it would mean that producers in the West would get a price comparable with the price in the Midlands, or with the price to the English farmer. It is no joke for a man in Tuam or Dunmore to get 140/- a cwt. and realise that if he could have afforded to have brought that beast to Dublin, he might have got £1 a cwt. more. The Minister should set up some kind of marketing board and he should not think that if he does so, he is giving in to the NFA. Such a board is necessary for the farmers of the West.
Recently the National Agricultural Council was set up and yesterday the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister said that if all the parties who were invited to attend did attend, it would be a huge success. What is the point in any Minister appointing a board on which he has a controlling interest? There is no sense in setting up a board if you can dictate to it. I thought the idea was to get the views of all people and bodies representing agriculture so that some solution might be arrived at to get agriculture out of its present position. This is like the Minister picking two teams and acting as referee himself. Whichever side he wants to win will win. This is what the NAC means.
Last summer I tabled a question to the Minister about the sale of wool. At that time the price was 4/6 a lb., which I felt was not good enough for the producer. Later the price fell to 3/-, and if you sell wool today, you will get 2/6 a lb. Surely this shows that there is something wrong with our marketing system? In Galway many farmers look solely to the price of wool for the greater part of their income every year. Now they are offered 2/6d a lb. It is a good sheep that will give eight lbs. and at 2/6d a lb., that is £1. Ten years ago they got £2 for the same amount of wool. Do the Government and the Minister feel they are giving fair play to these people in the west of Ireland when they are being offered 2/6d a lb. for their wool? Of course they are not. If those people continue to elect them to office, and if they keep reducing the price of wool, that is their business.
With regard to the price of sheep, and particularly the price of lambs, it must be 15 years ago that I saw the same price for store lambs as the price today. Can the Government honestly say that the cost of living to those farmers has remained the same as it was 15 years ago? It certainly has not. Something must be done to give the farmers in the west of Ireland a greater income. We are not getting the price for our lambs to which we are entitled.
Recently in the Budget the farmers were supposed to get great benefits from the derating of agricultural land. For the farmers in the West, it means only 1/6d. When old age pensioners are given an increase, it is usually 2/6d a week or 5/- a week, but to these farmers this means only 1/6d a week. That is a very mean contribution from the Government to the farmers. Of course the farmers do not fully realise that it is so little, but when it comes to the end of the year, they will find that this big derating is not what is was promised to be.
The most serious thing the Minister and the Government should look at is the decline in population in the rural areas, and the decline in the numbers who work in agriculture directly or indirectly. One man who has done more for the farmers than any Government for quite a number of years is Father McDyer of Donegal. He has brought groups of farmers together and, mainly through his efforts and ideas, they have become a viable group and they can live on what they have.
In Galway and along the western seaboard, people are moving out of their homes. Unless they are kept there the Government are failing to do exactly what they should do, that is, to give these men, women and children a decent standard of living in their own country. The Minister should have some plan, or system, or idea, whereby he could group these holdings together in a similar fashion to what has been done in Donegal to hold these people in the West. It is necessary to keep them there because a country's wealth is its people, and the day we lose the people from the West of Ireland, the West will disappear.
It is not for me to blame the Government completely for this dispute they have with the NFA. In Galway the chairman of the country council represents the Fianna Fáil point of view. He seemed to have nothing better to do than to have a correspondence in the local press between himself and the NFA. I read in the local papers that he said that members of the NFA and farmers in general grow neither one acre of beet nor one thing essential to the economy of our country. That was the Fianna Fáil point of view. Surely if the Government think the farmers and particularly members of the NFA grow neither one acre of beet nor one thing essential to the economy of the country, they think very little of the NFA.
Another thing that affected the incomes of the farmers of the West, and particularly around my own area, was the abolition of the minor employment, the bog development, and the rural improvements schemes. They were always a source of income to the farmers.
That would be a matter for another Minister.
It affects the farmers. By the abolition of these schemes, the income of the farmers——
Are they not back on the Estimate again this year?
Under Local Government.
We cannot have a discussion on the minor employment schemes on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.
There is a 25 per cent reduction in the road grants. To these farmers who were employed on these roads schemes one way or another it meant a certain amount of income but under present legislation there is a reduction of 25 per cent in the road grants.
We are not discussing the road grants.
I know.
If the Deputy knows, he should get back to the Estimate.
I am merely trying to point out that the income of those concerned in agriculture is affected by the fact that there was a 25 per cent reduction in the road grants——
The Minister has no responsibility for the road grants.
——plus the abolition of the various schemes under the Board of Works.
That does not arise either.
I will not argue the point with you. Recently the farmers who were in jail were released unconditionally. The main reason they were released was the fact that we are to have the local elections on 28th June. This was not done in consideration of those who were in jail, or their families, or dependants. This was a completely political decision, a decision by the Minister for Justice who said: "We will let these men out and we will probably get sympathy throughout the country. That will probably return us in control of the county councils we now have and perhaps in control of some we have not."
The people of Ireland are not now as blind as they were in the past. If you give them free money here and there, they will no longer vote for you on that account. They will look back on the things that happened over the past few months, on the arguments between those who depend on agriculture and the Government, on the way the farmers have been treated by the Minister, and this will have an effect that the Fianna Fáil Party will never forget.
I hope the Minister will find some solution to the farming problem. Recently it was in the news that we will have a surplus of cattle this year. The main cause of our cattle problem was the introduction of the heifer subsidy scheme. Here we have the backwash of that scheme and this year we will have a number of cattle for which we will not be able to find sale. Why should the Government ask any group of farmers to produce something, and when they have produced it, not provide them with a market for it? We will have the same problem again next November, December and January when the farmers come to sell their cattle and there will be no market for them.
Unless some sensible marketing board is set up, there will be similar agitation by the NFA and we will find farmers in jail again next year. The Minister will be changed. There will be a new Minister and he will be the new white hope and the people will be the main sufferers in the final analysis. The people who work in agriculture must be kept in agriculture. The Minister must devise some scheme which will help to keep the people who work in agriculture employed on the land because at present we are exporting something like 25,000 people off the land every year. If we continue that way, I will not be in the House and many Fianna Fáil Deputies and other Deputies will not be here either in the years to come.
We heard a lot, both before and since this debate started, about the NFA and the Government. As Deputy Barry said a short time ago, it is time this fight was ended. It is hard to convince oneself that either the Government or the Minister has made any effort to end it. Recently we had in the House the Agriculture (Amendment) Bill, relating to county committees. The Minister gave some reasons why he wanted to amend it, but it would have been much better if he had left it over until this dispute was settled. We also had the question of the licensing of cattle marts. If the Minister thought it was necessary in the interests of the country generally to license cattle marts, again he could have left it over. It would not have made any great difference because these marts are in operation a long time now without being licensed. When the original Act was amended in 1964, it was for the purpose of compelling local authorities to give representation to people outside the county council.
The Deputy has a majority in his constituency.
The Deputy and I had words about this before. I am talking about my constituency and he is taking about his. We are both right. In the constituency I represent they did not do it, but in the constituency the Deputy represents, they did.
You have a majority in your constituency.
Since when did we have a majority in the constituency? But I can tell you this: we will have a majority in a few days' time. I am satisfied Fianna Fáil can do right and wrong. They are doing wrong in my constituency and they are probably doing right in his.
There is no question of "probably" about it.
I was making the point that the Minister should have compelled county councils that were not prepared to do so to give representation to people associated with voluntary bodies, such as Muintir na Tíre, who are doing such tremendous work in the interests of agriculture.
My remarks will be confined to the people I represent—mostly small farmers farming ten, 20, 30 or 40 acres, although very few of them farm 40 acres. Over the past 30 years, 50,000 people have left that constituency, and I do not think the Fianna Fáil Party or Government have done anything to stem that. It is all right to tell us occasionally that the tendency of emigration is to drop. It is bound to drop if 50,000 have emigrated from one rural constituency over a period of 30 years. There is a limited number of people left working on small farms trying to make a living. We all know these people are finding it difficult to do so. I myself, being a businessman and farmer, have fair experience of it. I have not been able to make any money on my land for some years past. I may be told I am not farming it correctly, but I am farming it to the best of my ability and to the extent I can afford. I am dependent indirectly on other people making a living from the land. One has only to listen to the grumbles of the farmers and the farmers' wives, people who up to a few years ago were well able to pay their way but are not able to do so now. They come to business people trying to get extended credit until they can sell off something or something increases in price. The business people in turn are trying to get increased overdrafts from their bank managers, and anybody who has experience of that, as I have had, will know it is a very sad experience indeed.
We all know that the price of cattle has collapsed. What brought about that collapse? I would blame either of two things, or perhaps the two together. The first is the 1965 Agreement, when the previous Minister came back to this House and told us—and, the Lord forgive us, we believed him—that the price of cattle would go up from £6 to £7 per head. In any fair in any town in my constituency, such as Ballyfarnon, Boyle and Mohill, you will find no increase of £6 or £7 a head. In fact, there is a reduction of £6 or £7 a head. It is even worse than that. If you were selling suck calves or store cattle, you would be glad if anybody asked you where you were going and how much you would take for them. I sincerely believe the Government do not realise that the situation is as bad as it is. These unfortunate people cannot get any market for their cattle and will accept any price offered.
Some remarks have been made, particularly by Government speakers, that the quality of our cattle is not so high. If the quality has dropped it is because of the heifer scheme. Again, the Government cannot close their eyes to that. It is their scheme. They told the small farmers about the benefits to be derived from it. As a previous speaker said, if some small farmers got three grants of £15, the big farmers got ten, 20 or 30 grants of £15. There was a very considerable difference between the amount of money going to the big farmer and that going to the unfortunate small farmer. Anybody with experience of agriculture will admit we are 30 years trying to get rid of the scrub bull. The heifer scheme has brought back the scrub bull. He is there available. All you have to do is to go to any mart or fair in the west of Ireland and you will see the production of the scrub bull. Those who brought about that situation should hang their heads in shame.
I also represent an area which is an ideal one and which should be looked at by the Minister. My colleague, Deputy Gibbons, lives much nearer to it than I do. I refer to the Arigna area, where the farmers' income is supplemented by working in the coalfields. Were is not for that, they would not be there. It is because of the employment in that area that these people are kept in the districts of South Leitrim, North Roscommon and North Leitrim. If the Government are serious about keeping the small farmer on the land, his income will have to be supplemented in one way or another. Thank God, the heavy hand of the Government could not fall much harder on the Arigna coalfields.
I do not see how the Deputy can discuss coalfields on this Estimate.
I am making the point that the farmers' incomes will have to be supplemented. The Local Authorities (Works) Act gave employment to people who needed it and did good work but this scheme has now been done away with. It did a tremendous good for the land and was an advantage to the farmers. We have had a reduction in the road grants.
The Deputy may not roam all over the country on this Estimate. He is confined to agriculture and its problems.
I am making the point that the income of the small farmers must be supplemented.
That will be a matter for another Minister and the Deputy might raise it on another Estimate.
Our small farmers get no advantage from the subsidies on wheat, beet and barley because the land on which we live is not suitable for tillage. Their holdings are very small and for that reason their incomes must be supplemented. One way in which the Minister could increase the incomes of the small farmers outside of pilot areas would be to constitute all of South Leitrim and of North Leitrim a pilot area. That would give increased grants to the small farmers in those areas.
When one looks at the number of pigs delivered to the bacon factories in the past month or the previous month, it seems as if we are going to have difficulty in filling our trade commitments with Britain, due to the scarcity of pigs. It seems as if the majority of small farmers have stopped feeding pigs and the reason for that is obvious. The margin of profit he is getting from his pigs is small and it is calculated that in some cases he has sold them at a loss. That is due entirely to the increased costs of feeding stuffs. If my memory serves me correctly, feeding stuffs have increased by 6/- to 8/- per cwt. over the past 12 months. Because of that, it is practically impossible for these small farmers to produce pigs and sell them with a reasonable margin of profit.
If we examine the whole structure of the agricultural community, we find that the prices of cattle and sheep, lambs and wool are down. We find that the margin of profit on pigs is substantially down and while the farmers are asked to accept less for what they produce, we find that the prices of bread, flour, clothes and all household goods have increased. The Government cannot close their eyes to that situation for the reason that a great deal of these increased costs is due to the turnover tax and the selective tax introduced by this Government.
I would like to make reference to the Agricultural Institute which I think is doing a tremendous job of work. I live near one of these institutes and there is another in my adopted constituency and I fear that for some reason they are not communicating the results of their experiments to the agricultural community. Some scheme should be devised between themselves, the office in Dublin, the county committees of agriculture and the Department whereby statements should be issued by the Agricultural Institute at least once every 12 months conveying to the farmers the results of their work.
The cattle subsidy should be paid direct to the producer and not to the factories as at present. There seems to be a tremendous grievance about this and I would suggest to the Minister that he consider changing this practice and give the subsidy to the producer.
From my travels in my constituency, I can see that there is much to be done to give to the small farmer some encouragement to remain on the land and to improve his position on the land. We have just passed through a very severe winter. Prices were low towards the end of last year and everybody was hoping that when they got to January and February of this year, there would be some improvement so they put their best efforts into the keeping and rearing of their stock. What happened? Every week was a week worse and today we have reached the worse stage of all.
It is very difficult for our small farmers to adjust themselves to the change from the prices they were getting two years ago to the present prices which are almost as low as those they were receiving during the Economic War. There are now plenty of calves to be bought at £3 10s and £4 each and year-and-a-half-olds and two-year-olds of the inferior type to which some Deputies have referred can be bought at £20, £22, £23 and £25 each. It is very hard for people to reconcile themselves to such prices, particularly in view of the increase in the cost of living and in the price of everything that goes into the running of a farm, be it big or small.
This is the shearing season, and at this stage people are beginning to wonder about wool sales. Some people think the demand will be very bad; others do not know. I handed in a Parliamentary Question yesterday to which I hope to have a reply from the Minister next week, as to the market for wool. The market collapsed at the latter end of last year. I hope that this year producers will be able to secure a market and that there will be a price for their wool in keeping with the prices they have to pay. In the past nine months very heavy losses occurred in sheep stock. Last year, lambs were at give-away prices. During the severe winter, there were heavy losses as a result of lambs dying and fluke in sheep, particularly in the West.
I remember speaking in this House when the heifer subsidy scheme was introduced. As I live near the Border and have a fair idea of how the calf subsidy scheme worked in Northern Ireland, I pointed out to the Minister that a calf subsidy scheme would be a far greater encouragement to farmers than the heifer subsidy scheme, and certainly that there would be more equitable distribution of the money involved. Admittedly, the Government put an enormous amount of money into the heifer subsidy scheme. The results of that scheme are to be seen at fairs today. Every type of heifer that was capable of carrying a calf was turned out on the land until she earned that £15. That was the approach and the result is inferior cattle and a surplus of about 150,000, as was mentioned in the Press this week.
Even at this stage, the Minister for Agriculture should re-examine this matter. If the farmer knew that every calf dropped in his shed would earn even a small subsidy he would take a special interest in his cow and calf. That is not the position when there are officials racing down from the Department, offices being set up in all the big centres, cars flying around with officials to investigate what the herd was last year and the year before. If a farmer bought a farm of land with a herd on it, that herd was included in the calculation of the purchaser's herd. That was a very disappointing aspect of the heifer scheme. Every week Deputies find themselves being asked about this aspect of the scheme. I would ask the Minister to consider this scheme very carefully. Herds are increasing in number. A farmer can keep only a certain number of cows and, regardless of subsidy, must stop at that number.
I have dealt with the prices for wool, sheep and cattle. They are very bad. In Sligo-Leitrim the farmers are entirely dependent on farming and the majority of the holdings are small. In other areas there are local industries that provide employment for surplus labour. In Sligo-Leitrim, there are no such outlets and boys and girls have to emigrate if they do not secure positions in this country.
If good prices were obtainable for their produce the farmers would work for these prices. If there is a surplus in every haggard next October or November, prices will fall. Until there is a board set up that will guarantee prices to the farmers the Minister need not expect that he will get the farmers to work hard. It is the lack of prices for farm produce that is causing emigration. Even in the west of Ireland, the land is quite capable of increased production. Local industries should be set up to absorb surplus production and this would provide an incentive to production.
Some few years ago a group of enterprising young men collected about £16,000 towards a food processing factory in the Grange area. They were promised that if they collected so much money their project would receive sympathetic consideration. The small farmers contributed generously. The money is now lodged in the bank. A small plant has been established but it is of no value, employing only a few men. These young people who made an effort deserve consideration. A foreigner coming into the country would collect £40,000 or £50,000 and might start an industry as an experiment and might fold up after four or five years and that would be the last we would hear of him. That would not happen in a case where local people and local money were involved.
There has been enough said here about the NFA and the dispute that has been going on. However, it is no harm to say here that if protection had been given to the farmers, if they had been given better prices, there would have been no need for the farmers to go out demonstrating and protesting against the treatment they were getting. It was a question of having to take this line. It has not happened since the days of the Land League, and let us hope that before long prices will improve and that all these things will straighten themselves out.
Every year we are told about the credit facilities that are available to our farming community. I know a few substantial farmers who undertook a considerable amount of farm building in order to improve their home and to avail of the grants for this purpose. Due to the bad prices for cattle, they decided they would apply for a loan which was to be had over a short period at an interest of about 7½ per cent. After a few months, in October or November they got a letter to say their case would be considered the following March. That is no way to treat the farmers. These people had to sell their cattle in order to pay their contractor and get the job done instead of waiting for the Agricultural Credit Corporation to consider their case the following March.
Again, I know of a young man whose stock is valued at about £5,000. Due to bad seasons, he could not sell his stock. He brought six cows to a mart about a week ago and he could not sell one of them. This man asked me to make representations to the Agricultural Credit Corporation. If what the Minister says is genuine, there should not be this waiting. It should be evident that this man's position is quite sound, that his land is well stocked, and this money should be given to him.
The number of pigs going into the factories fell considerably during the past six months. It is easy to know why that happened. Nobody will have anything to do with pigs except the person who is doing it in a big way. Most of the young people have gone off the land. Nobody can afford to have home farm produce; the cost of turning out the pigs properly graded is so great that it is necessary to turn out something in the region of 20 or 30 pigs per week to make it a success. Not every farmer can go into that overnight. It takes two or three years to become established, and by the time he has himself established, two or three others have fallen out, because the job is a pretty heavy one. That is the reason why pig numbers have fallen and why the factories are finding difficulty in getting supplies.
Another matter which I should like to bring to the Minister's notice is that of horsebreeding. In my part of the country, it could cost £6 in transport alone to go to a centre where a good registered stallion is available. At the moment horses are in great demand and command a great price. If the type of horses that are earning big money were placed more conveniently throughout the country, there would be a greater number of horses, and the trade in horses would be worth much more than it is today. In many parts of the country it is nearly impossible to get a horse. Almost the whole area from the Longford border right down through County Leitrim and County Sligo to Bundoran is without a thoroughbred. There should be one of those placed down towards the Manorhamilton area in North Leitrim. This matter has been brought up at various meetings of the committee of agriculture in Leitrim. It has also been brought to the notice of the Department, to which we have come on a deputation in this connection, but still no horse has been placed in that area. I would respectfully ask the Minister to give this matter careful consideration.
In regard to the Land Project and drainage, the problem that exists in many parts of my constituency is that rushes are taking over due to the poverty of the land. A Department inspector will come along and direct a hardworking farmer to go into, perhaps, the driest field he has and drain it; he will outline on a map how these drains are to be made, and not in a lifetime or any time could that field become waterlogged. Manures or chemicals should be given at a cheaper rate than are available at the moment to deal with the rush problem. In Leitrim particularly, rushes are taking over on what was really good land ten or 12 years ago and it is obviously due to poverty that this is happening. A special case should be made for the western counties that do not get any subsidies for barley, wheat or other crops. These farmers should be subsidised rather than those who have good land. As I said earlier, the young lads have gone and help is very scarce. This land will grow over if something is not done. I am sure the Minister knows this as well as I do, coming, as he does, from the neighbouring county of Donegal.
That is the position, as I see it. Before it is too late, more money will have to be channelled into agriculture. Any money that is so channelled will pay a dividend. There is no doubt about that.
There is a good deal of talk about the tourist industry and a sum of £80 million. We have a great respect for that industry certainly, but it would be much more profitable from a national and an economic point of view if we kept our people at home all the year round in their own country. They would be much more profitable than the transients during a couple of months in the summer. The reason why our nationals are leaving the country is that there is no return in farming. The farmer has no five-day week; he has no halfday. His week finishes on Sunday evening and commences all over again on Monday morning. The time has come when there will have to be some guarantee of a good return for the work the farmer puts into the land.
With regard to the subsidy on sheep, last year that subsidy very nearly created trouble at some of the fairs in the West. Inspectors came in and picked out certain lambs and left others. The lambs were grouped side by side; one group was selected and another was rejected. The animals seemed to be identical. Had the Minister been present, he would have had considerable difficulty, in my opinion, in explaining to the farmers why some sheep were selected and others rejected. All this occurred in very bad weather, which made the situation that much worse for all concerned. It is very hard to convince people that there is not something wrong in the method of selection. Perhaps the inspector could explain, but I think some other method will have to be found. The rather peculiar situation did arise in which lambs rejected by one inspector were found quite suitable by another. When that sort of thing happens, it certainly gives ground for thought.
It is difficult to find anything original to contribute at this stage of the debate, but I have some queries to address to the Minister. It is obvious from the debate that every Deputy is influenced by the type of farming carried on in his own constituency and the problems that confront the farmers there. That indicates how very difficult it is to direct or administer agriculture on a national basis.
I am interested primarily in the milk suppliers and the dairy farmers because I represent a predominantly milk-producing area. We have some of the best farmers in this part of the world here in Ireland. The creamery milk suppliers are at the moment uneasy about the problems that exist at creameries, both Dairy Disposal creameries and co-operative society creameries. The Dairy Disposal creameries are not accepting the skim milk. This is a serious problem for the farmers concerned. There is no point in giving the farmers an increase of 2d per gallon of milk when thousands of gallons of skim milk are poured down the drain every week, because there is apparently no market for it.
I and the other Deputies representing the constituency attended a meeting of milk suppliers recently and we were asked to arrange for a deputation to the Minister in relation to the problem of milk. We were told at that meeting that a large co-operative society creamery was quite prepared to buy the skim milk from the Dairy Disposal creamery but were prohibited from doing so because of some regulation. The Minister should look into this matter to see if some solution can be found.
The price of milk varies from creamery to creamery. In no case have I known a Dairy Disposal creamery competing with a co-operative society creamery. There is something wrong in that. We had a very interesting case recently in which a Dairy Disposal creamery closed down and 60 pretty large suppliers found themselves with no outlet for their milk because, for some reason or other, the neighbouring co-operative society creamery would not be allowed to collect the milk, which the creamery was quite prepared to do, and the Dairy Disposal creamery would not be allowed to deliver the milk to the co-operative society creamery. It seems a ridiculous situation. Why should farmers be debarred from a competitive market? This sort of thing breeds inefficiency. If one creamery can pay 1d or 2d per gallon more than another, there is something radically wrong somewhere. The Minister should examine into this situation. If a farmer can get a better price for his milk, then he should be able to take that price. That might possibly lead to the closing down of some creameries, but if creameries are not in a position to compete and pay a competitive price, then they should close.
Every Deputy has referred to the problem of the small farmer. Irrespective of Governments and Ministers, the problem of the small farmer will always be with us, but it is high time the Government and the Minister sat down and considered how many small farmers the country can afford to carry. I doubt if the Government or the Minister has ever indicated what a viable unit is. There is a lackadaisical approach to the whole matter. The problem should be tackled. A long-term permanent solution will have to be found. We have in part of Cork at the present time a pilot area which is making great progress. We had a special meeting of the county committee of agriculture and we had a report. The whole matter is very encouraging. Increased grants, land reclamation grants, advisory services, and so on, are provided for the farmers in the area. I would ask the Minister to expand this scheme to cover small farmers in other areas. This is one step in the right direction. The pilot scheme has achieved wonderful results in that it has encouraged farmers and induced them to produce more.
As I am dealing with this matter, I might as well say that I think the advisory services as a whole are a great asset. There is no doubt that the service, as it stands at present, could not extend to all our farmers. I assure the House that the day of the horse and the plough has gone. We have a more modern and a more specialised system of farming. No matter how experienced he may be, no farmer can have full knowledge of his occupation without adequate education in all aspects of it. Take, for example, fertilisers. Grassland management is essential. Nowadays, every young man taking up farming as an occupation should spend at least a few years in an agricultural college. As a small farmer, I have practical experience of all this. Agricultural instructors have visited people near my own place and advised them on, for example, the cultivation of grassland and the importance of the rotation system. Production, as a result of the advice, was very encouraging. Unfortunately, it is impossible for the agricultural instructor to visit every farmer. The day has come when those engaged in agriculture must be properly geared for it and the agricultural advisory services must be stepped up considerably.
In the South, brucellosis is very prevalent this year and our farmers have suffered considerably as a result. I am told—it is open to contradiction —that where there is an incidence of brucellosis, the farmer is free to dispose of the animal. I do not know if that is correct but, if it is, it is a disgraceful state of affairs. It is little wonder that the farmers in the South have suffered very heavy losses in the past year or two. Some are inclined to blame dressing in respect of the warble fly eradication scheme and some think it is due to something else. With regard to the cases which have been brought to the notice of the Department, the Department have stated otherwise. I should like the Minister to deal with brucellosis when he comes to reply to this debate.
There is the problem—it is not common in the South—of firms collecting dead animals and some parts of those animals being used as dog meat and available throughout the country. This is a terribly dangerous thing. The Minister would be well advised to look into the matter. It could be and would be responsible for the spreading of disease.
There is no doubt that the experience of our farmers in the past 12 months will have an effect on them for a long time. The severe drop in the store cattle trade is very annoying to farmers. They are very perturbed about it and also about the collapse of the cattle trade.
The Minister has given an increase in the price of milk to creamery milk suppliers. There is no point in giving an increase in the price of milk if the farmers will lose in some other way. In the past 12 months, the dropped calf is down by at least £10 to £15 per head, according to the breed. This is a considerable sum to the farmer with 20 cows. He would need to get nearly 4d extra per gallon to compensate him for it. What is annoying our farmers today is the fact that the Minister, the Department and some other people are not conversant with the problem and not aware of the seriousness of the situation.
Several Deputies have condemned the in-calf subsidy scheme. That inducement was offered to the farmer to produce more cattle and, naturally, production rose in a short time. There was no market but that was not the most serious aspect of the problem. This scheme is responsible for the production of a type of animal that is not saleable. The farmers are anxious to know, and the Minister should clearly state, what is the future of the cattle trade. Farmers with cattle on their hands are anxious to know whether it would be better to feed them or to dispose of them.
What does the future hold as far as our cattle are concerned? This is very important. There is no point in the Minister introducing an Estimate here and saying that, weather conditions being favourable, this year should be a good year. That sort of thing is not good enough. It is something the farmers will not accept. They are anxious to know their position, particularly as far as the store cattle trade is concerned.
Much has been said here about the problem of the NFA and the NFA versus the Minister. I do not intend to dwell on it. Deputy T.F. O'Higgins stated the case very clearly as far as we on this side of the House are concerned. There is no doubt that nobody can condone the breaking of the law but one cannot support the Minister or the Department in provoking persons to break the law. The former Minister, Deputy Haughey—admittedly, he met the farmers many times but there was nothing forthcoming—made certain promises which he did not fulfil. When he visited my constituency as Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, he told the farmers that there was no necessity for them to march to Dublin as he would go to Cork or even to Bantry— where the march started—to meet them. When they marched to Dublin, the Minister refused to meet them. That was his first wrong move and there is where the trouble started. If the Minister had pocketed his pride at that stage and asked the farmers in to have a chat, even if he had nothing to give them—as he had not—things might have been different but the trouble has gone from bad to worse. I hope there will be a favourable and a lasting solution of this problem in the not too distant future. It is not in the interests of the Minister, of the Department or of the farming community to prolong the dispute and the longer it continues, the worse it will get.
Cow-testing associations are very important. Anybody who is a member of a cow-testing association will realise the difference between a bad and a good cow. I have personal experience as a member of a cow-testing association. Our farmers should be encouraged in that respect. The dairy farmer with a stock of cows might have three or four passengers and not be aware of it. It is very important to every farmer to know exactly the fat content yield from every one of his cows. It is essential and it is something the Department and the Minister are inclined to ignore.
Those of our farmers who are members of a cow-testing association have the milk tested at least once a week and are in a position, at the end of the year, to know the value in pounds, shillings and pence of every cow and, at the end of the year, have an opportunity of disposing of the passengers. When Deputy Dillon was Minister for Agriculture he was very keen on all that and I could not agree more with it, because it has been my experience as a member of this association. It is something which has produced great results. This is the only way in which the farmer can get together a high yielding herd. This applies especially to proper grassland management and the proper application of fertiliser, which is very essential. This is highly desirable and I recommend it to the Minister. It is something the advantage of which is not yet apparent to many farmers.
I agree with what Deputy Foley said the other night about the vicious middle-man. There is no doubt that there is a great difference in the price paid to the producers of vegetables and potatoes and the price paid by the housewife. The difference is fantastic. I do not know how the Minister can control this problem. To my mind, it would be nearly impossible but it is something which should not be allowed to continue, if there is a remedy. I have seen cabbage and potatoes being bought from farmers and sold in the cities and towns for nearly double the price paid to the farmers. This is annoying to the farmers and should not be allowed to continue.
There is no doubt that some concession was given to the small farmers in the Budget in regard to derating. The Minister is inclined to look on this matter with a favourable eye. As far as the derating of agricultural land is concerned, it has been our experience in Cork over the past six months that building costs have gone up by nearly 200 per cent in some cases and therefore they are being given something with one hand and it is being taken back with the other. There are ways and means by which the small farmer's problems could be dealt with. The denudation of rural Ireland is one of the greatest problems today and it will have to be tackled in a realistic way. As far as tourism is concerned, the farmhouse holiday scheme, particularly in the South, is fairly remunerative and the scheme should be encouraged. This is one of the ways in which the problem could be solved.
We may talk about industrial development but this country is primarily an agricultural country, and if the small farmers got a fair deal, they would be the hardest working farmers in Europe. They are not getting a fair deal. It is not right that farmers with 200 or 300 acres should get the same grants for land reclamation and so on as a small farmer. This is something the Minister could examine. In regard to the extension of the pilot areas scheme which is giving wonderful assistance to the farmer, I have seen farmers in my area reclaiming land, particularly on the mountainside, at great expense which they are not able to afford.
Another matter which I shall mention only in passing, as it may be the responsibility of another Department, is the flooding of agricultural lands. In Cork County Council, we have received deputation after deputation of farmers in regard to the continual flooding of their lands. These would be fertile lands and lands which are highly rated. Time and again we have passed resolutions about the Local Authorities (Works) Act. However, this is something I intend raising on another occasion. The problem is causing great hardship to farmers and it is preventing them from cultivating lands and growing crops. In conclusion, every Deputy referred to the problem of his own area but there is one countrywide problem, that is, the problem of the small farmer. It is the problem that will have to be tackled in the near future.
I join with the last speaker in appealing to the Minister to look much more seriously than either he or any other Minister before him has looked, at the problem of the small farmer. Day after day in the West, we witness the sad spectacle of small farmers leaving the land—not as heretofore for seasonal work—closing their doors, selling off their stock, if they can sell it, and the whole family clearing out. This very day in Dublin I saw two families from the West clearing out, bag and baggage. That is a very sad sight. Very recently I saw ESB workers unloading in my yard some 70 or 80 poles which were put down seven years ago to bring electric power to small farmers in my area. The Minister can check those facts if he wishes. The poles have now been moved off to some other place, having been removed from the vicinities of farmhouses. An employee of the ESB told me that no fewer than 500 homes have been disconnected in the vicinity of Swinford and Foxford and that area in the past two years. This will remind the Minister of how serious the problem is.
I have said before in this House that in my native village, situated four miles from Foxford, I once employed 17 people in the egg export and poultry business. That business had to be shut down and these workers let go, and in consequence, where once there were 26 happy homesteads, there are now 12. That is not progress and what I have related here is typical of many areas in the West. The Minister can check this in the Department among the registered egg exporters from the Foxford, Ballina and Swinford area. If he walks over to his Department in Merrion Street, he will find that I withdrew my licence as an egg exporter because I could see no future in that industry.
The Minister is well aware that in years gone by the majority of smallholders in the West depended, in the main, on the sale of eggs during the year to buy their ordinary groceries, the necessaries of life: tea, sugar, bread, butter and flour. They also had store cattle, a few small cattle, perhaps a year and a half or two years old, to help them to pay the rent and the rates. Pigs were another traditional method of supplementing their income. That type of business has gone out. The egg industry has gone out, as we knew it would. The pig industry is certainly going down and down, and over the past one and a half or two years, particularly since the introduction of the heifer subsidy scheme, small store beef are almost unsaleable in the West.
The Minister comes from an area pretty much like mine except that he is nearer the sea, and in his county there is probably more fishing activity than in mine. How does he expect small farmers to live in these rural areas? I will tell him how they have been living. They have been depending on the money they received from members of their families in England, America and elsewhere. In some cases, but not so many, it was possible to find local employment. In my own town of Foxford, it was possible to find employment for about 250 people. Their smallholdings could not keep them. They did not look for a very high standard of living, but when their way of making a living was snatched from them, it was up to the Minister, and it was the duty of the Government, to do something about it.
Side by side with that, there has been an increase in the cost of living, and the price of flour, tea and sugar went up. This had a further crippling effect on these people with the consequences I have mentioned. This is a sad picture. It is sad to find whole families going. The position is so serious as we all know, that a committee was formed in the West known as the Defence of the West Committee. Distinguished churchmen, bishops from western counties got together, and churchmen of different denominations stood shoulder to shoulder appealing to the Government to try to do something about it but the position, far from having improved, has deteriorated in recent times.
The few people who are left—and they are fewer all the time—tried to swing around to other sidelines. They tried to get some dairy cows. Many of those people had experience of that kind of activity in England. It was not new to them. Their problem arose because their holdings were small, and it took time to purchase the right type of cow, to get rid of the old timers, the passengers, as Deputy Creed called them, and to build up a dairy herd. It is true that quite a lot of progress has been made in this regard in the West in recent times, but not as much as we would have liked. It would be all right if it were possible to press a button and produce that type of activity in a hurry, but everyone connected with farming, and everyone who understands the problem of building up a herd, knows that it is a long drawn out process.
There is the question of the area of land. There is the question of suitable cow byres and of having sufficient feeding not only for the summer months but for the winter months also. In the West we cannot afford to buy what is called "shop stuff" or "bag stuff" to feed animals if we are to make money on milk. It might be all right for a couple of weeks, or for a short period, to have to resort to that, but if it were to go on for a protracted period, it would be absolutely impossible for these people to make any money on this undertaking.
The problem of financing these projects is a serious one, and one which the ordinary smallholder in the West cannot cope with because he cannot get capital. Some of them can, but the majority cannot. Many people who were anxious to engage in that type of activity were unable to do so because of the problem of capital. When we consider how difficult it is to get credit for worthwhile projects today, we realise how hard it is for farmers in the West to borrow money, and we realise that these people were up against it. I have dealt with this problem myself and I know it was absolutely impossible for small farmers in the West to get credit from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, or from any bank, because any lending company, be it a commercial bank, the Agricultural Credit Corporation, a hire purchase company or otherwise, always takes into account the risk involved not only in getting the interest but in getting back the money lent.
Certainly the West was not a region which was favoured from the point of view of lending money. One reason given to me by a person engaged in the banking business was that it was all too easy for a small farmer in the West to sell out in a matter of days, fold his tent, go to Birmingham or London, get a job there for himself and perhaps his wife and family, and leave the bill on the books. I was also told that because of the number of people who actually did this, these smallholders are not considered a good risk. Consequently the problem of getting into the dairying business was aggravated.
I was in a certain part of my constituency with Deputy Calleary and Deputy Lindsay a few nights ago. We were invited to a meeting in the Killala area where the dairying industry has expanded far beyond my highest expectations. It was pointed out to me that while the farmers' costs had increased year by year, there was no corresponding increase in the price of the produce he sold.
I am going to refer now to the pig industry, which is linked very closely with milk production and the dairying business generally. This particular problem—the problem of providing a balanced feeding ration for the production of pigs—had the effect of further reducing the farmers' income. We all know that the cost of these feeding stuffs has increased every few months and has increased substantially. In consequence, the farmers' income has been cut down drastically. It is not surprising, therefore, in the light of these facts, that farmers are leaving the land. They are not all small farmers either. Many farmers of 40, 50 or 60 acres find that, year after year, their income has been cut. On the other hand, they hear of awards to civil servants, high court judges, county council officials and all the rest with a five-day week. It must be remembered the farmer has to work seven days a week, and very often 16 or 17 hours a day. These people have asked my colleagues, Deputy Lindsay and Deputy Calleary, and myself to make the case that the compound for feeding bonhams and pigs should be provided more cheaply for the people of the West. These people have experienced this increase in cost for the past few years and it has caused loss of income to them.
Deputy Creed and others spoke about the problem of skim milk. Skim milk is part of a useful ration which can be fed to pigs, particularly young pigs. It is an economic way of disposing of some of the skim milk, although it is not possible to dispose of it all in that way. It was also pointed out to us at that meeting of a local development association, representative of every Party, that it would be of great benefit to the industry if a skim milk plant could be centred somewhere in County Mayo or County Sligo. They did not want it in their own parish, as the former Minister wanted to tell me on one occasion when I was speaking on the same subject. What they are concerned about is that it would be provided in some local region in the West so that the surplus skim milk could be processed. That, in turn, would make it possible for the farmers to derive certain advantages from the milk producing industry. I would stress the importance of having this plant established somewhere in the West. I understand some co-operative group were prepared to consider coming in there. I hope that if any proposals come before the Department of Agriculture, or any other Department dealing with the matter, they will get a speedy passage.
I have been a member of Mayo County Committee of Agriculture for a long number of years. We have monthly meetings of that committee. We have there representatives of the farming community belonging to the different political Parties, although, by and large, politics are not introduced at the meetings. Month after month resolutions are passed by men on the spot who have been dealing with the problems of agriculture in the West and elsewhere. They are sent up, but I think that they get very little heed. We get a formal acknowledgment that the matter is receiving attention. A month or two afterwards, we get another type of printed letter stating that the matter is receiving further attention, but you can be sure in 99 cases out of 100 that no action will be taken. A certain local priest in my part of the country used to say that some of these letters were printed at the time St. Patrick came to Ireland, and I do not think that he was very wrong.
Deputy McLaughlin was very concerned about the problem of rushes, and so am I. I see them growing now in what was the finest of farm land four, five or ten years ago. In Sligo-Leitrim, where he comes from, I think the problem is worse than in my part of the country. The Leitrim part seems to be covered entirely in rushes, although they are growing in Mayo and Sligo as well. So serious is that problem that it would want to be dealt with at national level. The extraordinary thing is that they seem to be spreading from field to field. I do not know whether the reason is the seeds or what, but the finest of land is being destroyed by them.
Any agriculture adviser will tell you that the one sure way of killing rushes is to grow good grass, because the rushes have to get lots of daylight before they can survive. The land has to be well limed and fertilised. By that means you can get rid of the rushes, but the small farmer in the West cannot cope with that problem today. We can see the seriousness of the problem at a time when we are told we are carrying something like 150,000 store cattle for which we have no market. Where are we going to provide winter feed for these cattle that are going to be on our hands? Where are the farmers who were hoping to be able to sell these cattle? This is the type of beast they traditionally sold down through the years—the one to one-and-a-half year old beasts, nicely fed and looked after. These people cannot feed them because the land is overgrown with rushes. They may not have the capital to buy fertilisers and lime to solve the problem. The problem should be treated as a national emergency, and I agree with Deputy McLaughlin or anyone else who pointed out how serious it is.
I appeal to the Minister to have another look at the Land Project. It has been a very useful scheme for the small farmers and it is true that under Section A, as it is known to everybody, it is possible to improve one's land, provided one has some capital of one's own. With the help of one workman, I reclaimed 11 acres of land under that scheme and today I can drive a lorry in there and load it with hay where before there were only rocks, stones and briars. You do require some capital of your own before you can successfully undertake reclamation work under that scheme.
I would ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at the whole matter and to restore Section B, if possible. Under that section, it is possible to go to a Land Project contractor and have him undertake the whole work at a certain figure. I am well aware that there were abuses of that scheme. There are abuses of every scheme and there will always be people ready to "get rich quick" by such abuses. It should be possible to run such people to earth and if a local officer is turning a blind eye to such abuses, a responsible regional officer should see that the local officer is not long in the job. I have heard of cases where drains were opened, a slapdash, happy-go-lucky job done, the drain closed in and the money paid. I have never got proof of that but I believe that while the supervising officers did their best, they were fooled in some cases and money was paid out by the Department which should not have been paid.
If this scheme were available, it would be a great help to people who are unable to undertake the work themselves because of lack of capital. It is not always possible for a farmer and his family to do the work in one season and his cheque is tied up until there is proof that the limestone and fertilisers have been delivered and spread. The problem of the merchant in providing credit for these people is also a difficult one. If cattle prices are good, the merchant may get 50 per cent of the amount due to him, but if the cattle are unsaleable, it is difficult to collect all the money for the fertilisers for a year or two and the merchant has to pay spot cash for these materials if he hopes to get a small discount. If that scheme were restored, it would be possible to help many a farmer who has not the necessary capital himself.
I am convinced that the land of Ireland has great potential, if it is properly looked after. I cannot say what our present lime deficiency is but much more could be got out of our land if it were possible to bring up the lime content to the proper level. We are dragging our feet at an alarming rate in this respect and it should be clear to the Minister and his Department that there is something seriously wrong when such a state of affairs exists. There is a serious deficiency of phosphates and potash. I have picked up a bunch of clover and found the leaves weak and riddled with holes because of potash deficiency. I have noticed this on more than one occasion.
A special case can be made for giving to the small farmers of the West phosphates and potash at a cheaper rate than their better-off neighbours in other districts. The Department are afraid that if such facilities were given to the small famers of the West, there would be abuses of the scheme, but it should be possible to have proper supervision through the county committees of agriculture. I cannot imagine any man west of the Shannon getting a few tons of cheap lime, potash or phosphates, loading it on a trailer and selling it to someone on the other side of the Shannon. There might be some danger of this happening near the boundaries but it should be possible properly to supervise the scheme which would bring very beneficial results for the farmers.
At the moment the farmers of the West are faced with the problem of selling their calves for £1, £2 or £3 per head, and a really good calf might fetch up to £6. Calves seem to be a drug on the market. I heard of a man who brought in a white bull calf to the market in Ballina and, having failed to dispose of the animal, offered it to several people for anything they would give for it, rather than bring it home again. Finally, he did get rid of it without any charge. I know that cannot be quoted as being an average happening. It is outside the usual run of things that calves are being sold for 10/-, 15/- and £1.
There is another serious problem. It is almost impossible in any butcher's shop to get a proper piece of liver. Sheep are riddled with fluke in the west of Ireland. Liver is a most valuable food and that should not be allowed to happen. It is no credit to the farmers or the Department of Agriculture or to anybody concerned that in a world that is starving some of the liver produced in this country is not fit to feed to dogs. That is a sad comment to have to make but it is true. I know a little bit about the meat trade and the butchering trade. I used to try to get a little bit of liver here and there but I gave up trying. It is impossible to estimate the loss to the country on that item alone. The Department should consult veterinarians to see if there is a solution to the problem and they should try to secure the co-operation of all the farmers in regard to this matter. Not alone is the liver lost, but fluke has the effect of keeping the beast in poor condition.
I want to say a final word on the new methods of poultry production. When I began my speech this evening I spoke of the old traditional methods of rearing 50 to 100 chickens and a few cockerels and selling them off, and of keeping 40 or 50 turkeys. These methods have disappeared and I do not believe they will return. For better or worse, the big unit has taken over.
It should be borne in mind that the production of broilers is a serious challenge to our fresh meat trade. In small towns like Swinford with a population of 700 and Foxford with a population of 900 or 1,000, there are 400 or 500 oven-ready or cooked chickens bought at the week-end. People will not take the trouble now to buy meat from the butcher's block: they buy broilers. This is a serious challenge to the beef, lamb and mutton trade. It is a good thing that these broilers are produced from the land of Ireland but it is a turn of events that has its effect on the meat and cattle trade.
If it were possible by way of subsidy to encourage broiler production as a sideline, in a small way, by the smaller producers, there would be certain advantages for the uneconomic holding. The housewife was always independent of the boss and his cattle money when she had her own egg money. If she felt like buying a packet of cigarettes or the odd "half-one", she could always earn a little while she had control of the poultry production. That source of income for the housewife has vanished. I deal with these people and that is why I am so conversant with their affairs. I am sorry for the womenfolk who have lost that source of income to purchase the little luxuries they used to enjoy. I would appeal to the Minister to help smaller producers to get into broiler production.
In every country there are poultry instructresses who are certainly not as busy now as they used to be because they have not to visit so many small units in isolated areas. If broiler production could provide a little cash income, if only £50 or £100, the housewife would appreciate it. This type of production would also provide a good natural food for our people.
I would again appeal to the Minister to take very serious note of what is happening, particularly in the western regions, Kerry, and other mountainous areas, perhaps even in Donegal, where the ESB are engaged at the present time in moving the poles put up a few years ago for the purpose of providing light and power. If our Government were doing their duty, they would not allow a situation like that to develop to the proportions it has now reached.
My contribution to this debate will be on general lines. I do not wish to go into details or to take it on myself to explain to the Parliamentary Secretary, who is the only member of the Fianna Fáil Party present in the House, why it is more profitable to produce cattle than to engage in mixed farming. I leave the decision as to the best crop to produce on a particular farm to the farmer concerned. A public representative and the Government should confine themselves strictly to their terms of reference. It is a Government's duty to provide markets and advisory services. The final decision as to the method of running his farm should rest with the farmer.
If I am to speak generally, I must ask myself what have the present Government and all the previous Fianna Fáil Governments done for agriculture? To answer this question one must go back a number of years. One man in the recent history of this country who has been sadly forgotten is the late Horace Plunkett. I would venture to say that if any Member of this House visited a national school and asked the pupils what they knew about Horace Plunkett, not one child would be able to say that he had heard of him or knew what he stood for. The policies which Horace Plunkett adumbrated 50 years ago would be suitable and healthy policies if applied today. His belief was that industrial development—which the present Administration are trying to foster— could be carried on a strong agricultural economy.
Now we know for different reasons why people did not listen to Horace Plunkett. I do not claim that had I been alive and been mixed up in the trends of thought that were then current, I would have been any different, but there were men in those times who supported the views of Horace Plunkett, and there were men who in spite of their background otherwise were prepared to accept that the greatest industry this country had was agriculture, that agriculture must be given a chance, that the emphasis must be on agriculture, and that if this were done, this would be a very strong country economically.
The fundamental idea in his policy was co-operative farming. He believed deeply in drainage, land reclamation, farm buildings, fertilisers. These were the days long before ground limestone was mentioned or even thought about. If one reads anything about this man, one will see certain references to lime and limestone. His belief was that if agriculture were given a chance, if these things were promoted, if they were publicised, if they were made available to the farming community, the farmers would increase production. Let them produce by whatever means they wished; let them select whatever crop they proposed to grow. His belief was that if these things were done for agriculture, then the farmers would produce; if the farmers were producing and the Government were opening markets, then this country must go in the one direction.
These ideas which I am putting forward in paying tribute to that man could be said to be modern. I could be repeating the words of some Deputy speaking before me in this debate. These things are still necessary to give agriculture a chance. No one can overemphasise the need for using fertilisers. I would go as far as to say that very few fields in this country produce the amount of grass they are capable of producing. I would go even further and say that if it were the case that an advanced store in a field of grass came up with a mouthful every time he put down his head, then beef could be produced in this country. But I do not believe this to be the position. If one could preach the gospel of land reclamation and carry it through to its ultimate conclusion, then one would be preaching good gospel to the agricultural community. However, we know that so many of our rivers are in desperate need of drainage that even the Land Project Office have refused even to consider applications from certain people because they have not got enough fall to drain their land. This is after 50 years of self-government. This is 50 years after it was pointed out, in the early teens, that these things were vitally necessary and should be given top priority in agricultural policy if we were to make any success of self-government.
What more are we spending today on drainage than we spent when we set up government in the early twenties? What progress have we made in erecting farm buildings in relation to the amount of work that was done in the early twenties? Admittedly, progress has been made but, in my humble opinion, progress has not been at the rate at which it should have been made. This to me is one of the reasons why we have unemployment, emigration, a lower standard of living and everything else that goes with bad government and bad times. I am convinced that if agriculture does not prosper, then the effects are felt at every level of society, in every walk of life, in every business, and in every home in the country.
Why has it come about like this? I submit that when Horace Plunkett was converting the people who were claiming to be more nationalist than he was and basing their claims on certain deeds in another field, when he was converting these people, I believe that certain other forces were in action undoing that man's work and discrediting him. However, he had one disciple —there may have been others—the late Paddy Hogan who carried on the tradition, preached the same gospel, promoted agriculture, as it were, with one arm tied behind his back during those years which are best forgotten, the middle twenties.
This policy was adhered to as much as it could have been adhered to until the change of Government in 1932. At this point agriculture was relegated to second or third place in the Fianna Fáil Party programme for economic expansion. It may have come about through forces beyond their control. It may have come about through statements made by the then Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party that certain policies would be implemented if he were elected to office. It may have come about unnoticed, without any prior thought on his part. Whatever way it came about, the fact is that when the Fianna Fáil Party took control of this country in 1932, they refused to pay the land annuities to Great Britain. In retaliation, the British Government said: "Fair enough. You refuse to pay the land annuities; we refuse to take your cattle." Hence we had an Economic War, and we tried to fight what was then the might of the world on the simple argument that it was morally wrong to have to pay land annuities. It may have been wrong for any Government outside the 32 Counties to claim land annuities, but the price which we paid to enforce that was far too high. Since that time, livestock, which represent close on 75 per cent of our total agricultural exports, have been relegated to second, and possibly third, place in the list of priorities of the Fianna Fáil Government.
These may appear to be simple words and the story may appear to be simple, but, in order to examine the cause, one has to look at the statistics for the year 1930 and base one's argument on the number of cattle exported in that year as against the number exported in 1966; it is then one appreciates the point I am trying to make. In the year 1930, 720,000 cattle were exported, after ten years of self-government. That was when there was a change in thinking; that was when there was conversion to the principle that, if this country were to thrive, agriculture would have to be given a new deal. What happened? Lo and behold, the throats of the calves were slashed and farmers were paid 5/- a head to do away with their calves. It may be considered an impertinence for one of my age group to go back to that time and, if that interpretation is taken, then I apologise. But in mentioning these things I am not motivated by impertinence. My sole purpose is to spotlight the reason why the Fianna Fáil Government and their predecessors embarked on a certain policy and, in doing so, became so mixed up that this country today has a declining population, the highest emigration figures in Western Europe, the lowest standard of living and the highest cost of living.
I do not know anything which would contribute more to bad economic conditions than the things I have outlined When the history of this State comes to be written, the historian of the future, dealing in detail with that period, will be compelled to assert that one of the biggest blunders any Government ever made was to ignore the cattle and livestock industry. As a butcher, I am concerned with the price of livestock and, speaking as a butcher, I would consider the ideal situation that in which a certain pattern obtains in relation to the price of cattle so that at one period of the year butchers will not be forced to pay excessive prices and at another period find themselves in the position of almost obliging farmers by buying their stock.
I am not the first to refer to the farming industry in these terms. In volume 156 of the Official Report at column 1266, the following appears:
During the past year, the farming community has found that far from there being reason to congratulate the Minister or his Department, the markets, which are the mainstay of the farmers, are in a chaotic condition. The egg market is something that is fast disappearing; the market for cattle is up and down, one day up and the next day down; and as everybody knows, a fluctuating market in livestock is anything but healthy for producers.
I do not propose to ask the Parliamentary Secretary who made that statement. It is attributed to no less a person than the present Minister for Agriculture.
......as everybody knows, a fluctuating market in livestock is anything but healthy for producers.
That was 2nd May, 1956. The present Minister for Agriculture was then on this side of the House, throwing everything at the Government except the benches.
Would the Deputy say what the price of cattle per cwt. was at that stage?
It is not relevant, but I can tell the Parliamentary Secretary it was more than £4.
What was the figure?
I do not know exactly but, from memory, I would reckon the price in 1956 was £5 to £5 10s per cwt.
Check again.
If the Parliamentary Secretary sold in a bad market, he should not blame me. At any rate, the Minister maintains that a fluctuating market is anything but a healthy market for agricultural producers, and I agree wholeheartedly with him. That was 11 years ago. What have successive Fianna Fáil Governments done to create price stability in agricultural markets? Could I not make that statement now and could anyone on the Fianna Fáil benches say it was not a fact?
This is the Minister who today appeals to the Fine Gael Party to refrain from causing friction between the Government and the NFA. When Horace Plunkett preached his fundamental philosophy for agriculture, that was accepted by the late Paddy Hogan, who was then Minister for Agriculture. Let me remind the House that the fundamentals of those days are basically the fundamentals of NFA policy today which was sent, with certain revisions, to the Department of Agriculture three years ago. Had the present Minister and his predecessors kept themselves up to date in relation to agriculture, they would have accepted these principles as the healthy foundation on which to build a thriving agricultural economy. But that is not the way Fianna Fáil think. Fianna Fáil believe there are more votes in the city of Dublin than there are in the village of Bridgend; they believe there are more votes in the city of Cork than there are in the town of Raphoe. They believe that, to stay in power, they must please the urban voter, and to hell with the rural voter. That is the reason why agriculture has been relegated to second place in the priorities of Fianna Fáil.
I want to pose a question. If the farmers of Donegal had been told two years ago that instead of the Government building a factory for Potez on the outskirts of the city of Dublin, the £1½ million would be spent on the drainage of our rivers, on land reclamation, on providing limestone free of charge, on providing fertilisers so that the land could produce its maximum or that loans would be made available free of interest to farmers, repayable over, say, a ten year period, I wonder out of which proposition the best return on the investment would be forthcoming. This is another example of how the present administration have relegated agriculture to second place and believe in handing out money, at the expense of agriculture, to people who come across with flashy ideas on how to create industries in this country —which industries are used by the Fianna Fáil Party to promote propaganda before and during elections. Deputy Cunningham knows as well as I do that a few of these industries were promoted in Donegal and he knows the success they have met with.
Name one.
The Deputy does not want me to mention the factories in Donegal which he should know all about. He represents the same constituency as I do.
Which factory?
Which factory is the Deputy talking about?
It is Deputy Harte who is talking.
Deputy Harte, without interruption.
I am listening.
I heard the Deputy: one does not hear a person listening. Deputy Cunningham knows as well as I do that there are certain industries which have been attempted in Donegal and into which State grants have been poured. He knows as well as I do that, but for certain factors, some of them would have stood as a monument to bad foresight and bad planning. Deputy Cunningham was canvassing in a village in the early days of this week close to which is a building erected with the aid of a huge State grant.
For what?
It was built as an abattoir.
It got no State grant. No meat factory anywhere got any grant.
I said a grant was given towards Carrigans meat factory.
I am telling the Deputy that he is wrong.
Very good. Let the Deputy prove it. Deputy Cunningham knows as well as I do——
OK; Deputy Harte is proceeding on a false assumption. No grant was paid.
——that the factory I have spoken of is a monument to bad foresight. At a later date, because it did not transpire that there was any business for it as an abattoir, they turned it into a place for tiles and it employed 13 juvenile females who earned the princely amount of £2 10s to £3 per week. But, after three months, it closed down for major renovations. That was about seven years ago. It did not re-open until about 18 months ago when a firm from the North of Ireland came in. I do not know the terms of the tenancy agreement but they are making a reasonable success of it. The point I wish to make is this, I am in the meat trade. The humblest of my workers could ask the question, on being told that they were building Carrigans abattoir: "Where will the meat come from?" because it was four times the size——
The Deputy started off by saying that it got a grant. Carrigans meat factory got no grant. Let the Deputy ask his colleague who is sitting beside him if any meat factory in the country got a grant.
What about Donnellys? Donnellys got £200,000. What does Deputy Cunningham call Donnellys? It certainly is not a slate factory—and it could not stay in the business. The humblest of workers could have foretold that there was no future for an abattoir in that area. Money poured into similar projects in the county of Donegal and there were various investments of which Deputy Cunningham knows more than I do. If this money had been poured into agriculture, if this money had been spent on draining the Cloone Burn for which Deputy Cunningham took great credit a few months ago but which I understand he should again visit, then farmers in that area would have been given a chance to employ people who, in turn, could keep their sons and daughters at home and, ultimately, everybody would benefit from agriculture. But Deputy Cunningham is a stern disciple of the preaching of the Fianna Fáil Party since it took office in 1930 and even since the late 1920s.
We drained the Cloone Burn.
You have not done the work satisfactorily yet. Deputy Cunningham would think it better to spend £1½ million on erecting a monument to Monsieur Potez on the outskirts of the city of Dublin than on building houses in County Donegal or draining land in County Donegal and on providing facilities by which farmers would be enabled to earn a better living for themselves and thus protect their families against emigration. If these are the things in which Deputy Cunningham believes, he should get up here and say so. He should say here and now that he believes in the policies outlined by the present Government. He should say: "I believe it was right for the Fianna Fáil Party to jail farmers for claiming what they were justly entitled to claim, for pointing out in a democracy that the policies being implemented by the Fianna Fáil Party are unhealthy and will lead to disaster and that, ultimately, the farmers will have to pay for the tune played by the Fianna Fáil Party and that in turn, the economy of the country will suffer." If these are the things in which Deputy Cunningham believes, why was he not man enough to participate in this debate and to say: "This is what I stand for. These are some of the things in which the Fianna Fáil Party believe. This is why I am a member of the Fianna Fáil Party." Deputy Cunningham wishes to have it both ways.
I wonder if the preachings of the men who advocated healthy, basic principles for agriculture in the early 1920s had been listened to and if instead of playing to the gallery, the then leader of the Fianna Fáil Party had said: "This is a healthy policy, a policy which we will continue if we are elected to office", what would be the state today of the economy. I do not know what progress we would have made but certainly it would have been far in advance of the present standard of living to which our people are committed simply because a few people were too proud to admit they were wrong and adhered strictly to gospels which appealed to the people but which were shortsighted, dangerous and expensive.
Deputy Blaney, speaking as an Opposition Deputy, said at column 1266 of the same volume: "At the same time we have ups and downs in the bacon trade and the pig trade". What is the position 11 years later when Deputy Blaney is Minister for Agriculture in a Fianna Fáil Cabinet and directly concerned with agriculture? What steps has he taken to ensure stability in the bacon trade and in the pig trade and to eliminate the ups and downs? He has done nothing. If the position was as he described it in 1956, then it is chronic today. The number of pigs supplied to bacon factories in 1966 was exactly 50 per cent of what it was in 1956. These facts cannot be ignored. Surely if there is any sincerity in any Member of this House——
On a point of correction, the second highest record number of pigs, at 1,640,000, went to the factories in 1966.
In the ten years after 1956, half the number of pigs have been supplied to the factories.
That is not 50 per cent. If it is half, it is 100 per cent.
We will not get mixed up in arithmetic, but I say the Deputy is incorrect.
Normally I think half is taken as 50 per cent of the whole.
Does Deputy Fanning wish to contribute to this debate?
He did, last night.
Order. Deputy Harte.
Deputy Blaney went on to say:
The year has not been a satisfactory one and there is no indication that the year to come will be any more satisfactory.
Many people who will read the newspapers tomorrow, or the Dáil Debates next week, will say that those remarks can be related very much to the present situation. At column 1270 Deputy Blaney shows us how far removed from the problem he was. He was speaking about the price of barley, which the Parliamentary Secretary knows is one of the most important crops a farmer can produce at this time. He was referring to guaranteed markets for barley and he asked:
Where is he going to purchase the barley at a guaranteed price? Where is it going to be stored? What sort of agency will be responsible for the taking up of surplus barley in the counties which grow it? How will the barley be distributed in the counties which require it as a feeding stuff?
There is no surplus barley at the moment. It is unnecessary to store it at the moment. It is in demand by farmers who want it for feeding stock but at that time Deputy Blaney, now Minister for Agriculture, for the sake of being destructive, for the sake of kicking up a row in the House, could use every argument, just as Deputy Fanning tried to do, and he used every opportunity to create a furore in the House for the sake of the public press.
Is the Deputy going to follow in his footsteps?
I am only relating to Deputy Fanning what Deputy Blaney said in 1956, and in case Deputy Fanning was not listening——
Is that not propaganda now?
It is not; I am reading from the Dáil Debates. These are factors which must concern us today. Deputy Blaney spoke about marketing. What has he done about marketing? In this House members of the Fine Gael Party advocated a meat marketing board, and Deputy Blaney said——
The Minister for Agriculture.
The Minister for Agriculture said it was unnecessary. I do not wish to go into the details of whether it is necessary or not but if our livestock trade is to have any prospect of success, markets must be developed. A few months before Christmas, we had the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Haughey, going to the Continent under duress and pressure brought about by protests from the NFA. I remember reading the press reports that evening and they said that the Minister when he arrived at Dublin Airport, announced that he had sold 2,000 cattle in Germany. The way he described it, he had just sold a few beefsteaks. When did these cattle go to Germany? This was a great achievement. Possibly 2,000 cattle would supply the central meat market in Glasgow or Stanley market in Liverpool for four or five days and this is what the Minister considered a great achievement, but the fact of the matter is those 2,000 cattle are still somewhere in the 26 counties.
The Parliamentary Secretary wishes to be advised about the price of cattle and takes 1956 as a bad year. Cattle in 1956 were averaging from £5 to £5 10s per cwt; cattle in 1966 averaged from £6 to £6 10s per cwt. If that is related to the value of the £ in 1956 and the value of the £ in 1966, the Parliamentary Secretary will realise the difference in the price of cattle.
I am glad Deputy Cunningham is in the House because prior to the 1965 general election when Deputy Smith, who was then Minister for Agriculture, introduced the £15 heifer subsidy, this was greeted with a fanfare by members of the Fianna Fáil Party, and Deputy Cunningham, like every other member of the Fianna Fáil Party in the two constituencies of Donegal which I am more concerned with, used this fanfare to further his political advance in that election. Deputy Cunningham was on a platform with a Senator of the Fianna Fáil Party and, as reported in one of the local papers, he stated that Deputy Harte had voted against the £15 heifer subsidy which was introduced in this House. That was reported in the local papers.
That is not so.
What is not so?
What you have said.
I am asserting it to be a fact.
I am asserting it is not.
I am stating categorically that a Senator who is now the Chairman of Donegal County Council until the end of the month stated at a public meeting——
The Deputy said I said it.
The Deputy should listen more closely.
It is another case of slates and tiles.
I said Deputy Cunningham was present——
The Deputy said I said it.
——when this was said by a member of the Fianna Fáil Party who is a Senator and Chairman of Donegal County Council until after the county council elections at the end of this month. He stated that I voted against the £15 heifer subsidy when it was introduced in this House. I did not vote against it because there was no vote on it, but if there had been a vote on it, I would certainly have voted against it, and had there been a vote on it, no doubt Deputy Cunningham would have voted for it.
One of the biggest mistakes made in the livestock industry, the cattle industry, in the recent past was the £15 heifer subsidy, for as many reasons as Deputy Cunningham, or the Parliamentary Secretary, or Deputy Fanning——
I do not agree.
The Deputy is the only Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party who could say that and believe it. It has done more damage to the quality of cattle, more damage to the type of cattle, and more damage to the cattle industry in general, than any other one factor in the past five or six years.
Would the Deputy say that the standard of cattle in Donegal has deteriorated?
I would say it categorically.
It has not.
It has. Deputy Cunningham knows as much about a fat bullock as a fat bullock knows about him.
I would say that a fat bullock would know a lot about you. You are well matched.
Deputies should allow Deputy Harte to make his speech.
I earned a fairly good living in that business before I came into this House, and if it ever comes to pass that I am not in this House, I will continue to provide for my wife and large family from that industry.
Order.
Does Deputy Fanning believe——
I wonder would Deputy Harte address the Chair for a change?
Through the Chair, may I ask Deputy Fanning does he agree that the £15 heifer subsidy has reduced the quality of cattle in Tipperary?
Not one bit.
You must have had damn bad cattle there. Deputy Nolan is here. Through the Chair, may I be permitted to ask Deputy Nolan does he agree——
I wonder would Deputy Harte make his speech and abandon this cross-examination? We are not in court.
I agree.
Will the Deputy please address himself to the Estimate.
Why do you not ask rhetorical questions?
The reason I am using this method is that Deputy Cunningham asked did I agree that the £15 heifer subsidy had done harm to the cattle industry.
It was the scrub bull.
Why was it the scrub bull?
What is a scrub bull?
Do not run down the Donegal cattle industry.
I am not running down the Donegal cattle industry. I believe that every small farmer, because he was living on a meagre income, and because he was tempted to grab this £15 subsidy, had every heifer that he owned serviced so that he could claim the £15, and claim it legally. That, Deputy Cunningham, is the reason why a certain type of cattle are substandard in Donegal. If you do not take my word for it, perhaps you would speak to some of your colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party who are contesting the county council elections, and if they are manly enough, they will tell you I am right.
I asked the CAO and he told me differently.
You are talking as a school teacher—theoretically. The £15 heifer subsidy has resulted in what Deputy Nolan, a Fianna Fáil Deputy from Carlow-Kilkenny said last night——
What did I say? I said it was the scrub bull.
Deputy Nolan described it as being the result of the scrub bull.
Exactly.
There is a difference between a bull and a heifer.
There is a difference between a bull and £15.
The scrub bull was encouraged by the £15 which was dangled in front of the farmer's nose——
A scrub bull would not know what a £1 note was. Do not talk nonsense.
Never mind £15.
He would know what a bad heifer was.
He knew nothing about the subsidy at all.
Only for the interruptions, the Deputy was gone five minutes ago.
In spite of what Deputy Cunningham says—and I will take him to task at any chapel gate on the next two Sundays——
We will ask the CAO.
You can, if you wish.
I have done so.
I do not have to. We also had the statement by the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Haughey, when he returned to Dublin immediately after his visit to London with the former Taoiseach, when he announced that the trade agreement between Great Britain and this country would result in £10 million being put into the purse of the farmers of this country——
In the first year of the Agreement.
——in the first year. He was challenged during that long drawn out debate by practically every Deputy in Fine Gael and Labour to say exactly how he calculated that——
Deputy Harte voted for that Agreement.
No, no.
Yes.
Deputy Corish will agree that the Fine Gael Party——
I do not know what you did. We voted against it.
Deputy Nolan might read the debate. We voted on the principle of it but not on the details. We believe that there had to be a trade agreement between this country and Great Britain and, remember, this has been the policy of the Fine Gael Party since the inception of the State. Might I remind Deputy Nolan it was not always the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party, but we are glad they have been converted to our way of thinking. If we voted for it, it was because we believed in this approach.
A few moments ago you were criticising it.
I am criticising the details of it. I criticised them during that very long debate. The previous Minister, Deputy Haughey, was asked during that debate by practically every Opposition Deputy how he calculated £10 million would be put into the pockets of the farmers in the first year of the Agreement, but he declined to answer. In fact, £6 million less went to agriculture in those 12 months. This is another example of the muddled thinking of successive Fianna Fáil Ministers for Agriculture. Five or six weeks ago, the present Minister announced he had new ideas about agricultural committees, but this was a complete turnabout from what the same Minister voted against last year in the House. Fianna Fáil Ministers have the knack of saying the popular thing. The Minister's predecessor considered it was popular to come back to Dublin Airport and mention he had sold a few beefsteaks to the Germans, but those beefsteaks must still be in the deep freeze. Twelve months before that, he announced that £10 million would go to agriculture in the first 12 months of the Trade Agreement.
Agriculture is a major industry in this country. Unless the Government, irrespective of what Party are in power, have the confidence and goodwill of the agricultural industry, the best cannot be obtained from that industry. By no stretch of the imagination can one say that goodwill exists between agriculture and the present Fianna Fáil Government. That may be for different reasons. Certainly, the present Minister and his predecessor have done nothing to create harmony and closer relations with the organised bodies of the farming community. I heard a wisecrack made at a street corner in the last week that one of the reasons why the Minister's policy would not grow was that the men he had planted would not blossom.
I ask myself, when the Minister sees fit to appoint all outsiders to the NAC, persons not elected to this House, how he can relate that to the fact that he considers those elected to local authorities the best representatives on committees of agriculture. I have no axe to grind with any member of the NAC, and I wish that body well. I hope it makes a success of agriculture. But if the Minister had invited the NFA and other organised bodies who have given such great service to the agricultural community to play a more active part in the NAC——
I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but did the Minister not invite the NFA to join the NAC?
If the Deputy would kindly listen——
Did he not invite them?
These organised bodies gave great service to agriculture. They are composed of men who came together to promote, organise, co-operate, discuss and do everything good to create better conditions in agriculture. They did all this, free, gratis and for nothing. If that service had been acknowledged and they were invited to play a more prominent part in a national association, I believe—and so does Deputy Fanning—that the NAC would have a brighter future. Deputy Fanning asked me were the NFA not invited to nominate two members to the NAC. The answer to that is that they were. But my point is that, if the Minister had allowed more people who had no committed political views to be associated with the NAC, then its future would have been more secure than it is at present.
I do not wish to be associated with any controversy between the NFA and the NAC, nor indeed any controversy which would not help in the present dispute between the NFA and the Government, but I am free to express the opinion that people prominently associated with the NFA, particularly in Donegal, have organised that association not for self-glorification but because there was a need for it. They have done this at great expense to themselves. They have been blackguarded by people who disagree with the actions of the NFA and who say that this was for their own personal gain. I do not have to spell out the names of the people I am thinking of. The people of Donegal know that these are prominent citizens who have given great service to agriculture, free, gratis and for nothing, not because they needed to organise markets for their own financial gain and not because they had to become involved in agriculture to earn a living. As Deputy Cunningham knows, most of these people could earn a living outside of agriculture. I would like to think they have organised the NFA, have become prominently identified with it and have accepted public remarks made by Ministers—remarks which were unbecoming to their office—for the sole purpose of creating a healthier agricultural community in Donegal.
The point I was making when Deputy Fanning interrupted me was that if people like this, who have the sole interests of agriculture at heart, were invited to give their views, even if those views were not accepted, they have much more to offer to the agricultural industry than Deputy Fanning or Deputy Harte. Deputy Fanning is a farmer. He is trained in his own line of thought, the line of thought that is most beneficial to Deputy Fanning as a farmer running his own farm. It is likewise with every other Member of this House who is engaged in farming. But it should be remembered that men who have made a study of agriculture, men who have associated themselves with the problems of the smallholder, with the problems of what we describe in Donegal as the muck farmers, have a broad approach to our agricultural problem. It is unlikely in the extreme that they do this work for their own special gain or self-glorification. I am not a bad judge of human nature and therefore I must conclude that in the ranks of the NFA throughout the Twenty-Six Counties and in the ranks of the other agricultural organisations men of overall ability are to be found. These men would not have reached leadership in their own organisation if they did not have the qualities of leaders.
Therefore, I cannot see why a new Minister for Agriculture, taking office when the NFA and the Government were at each others throats, should embark on a policy of promoting a new association and of ignoring the qualities which these men have and which they have been giving to agriculture for the benefit of agriculture and for the good of every individual in this country.
Not all of them.
Perhaps not all of them, but certainly most of them. I am convinced that it is now time for the Minister to take politics out of the NAC. If he does that, he will be congratulated by me and by every other member of the Fine Gael Party. I know that in County Donegal this body was received with very mixed feelings and that now it is lost in despair and it is felt that no good can come of it as long as the Minister for Agriculture cannot sit down as chairman of that body in the full feeling that he has the goodwill of every section of the agricultural community. No Minister for Agriculture can succeed in conditions in which he has not full co-operation of the farming community. The Minister sits in the hottest seat of Government and we are only kidding ourselves if we think that any Minister can succeed without the goodwill of the agricultural community.
That is a prerequisite for the success of any Minister and I would strongly urge that the Minister should take the earliest opportunity to sink his pride and come to the sensible conclusion that no success can be gained until such time as he comes to terms with the NFA. I do not want to become involed in the question of whether the NFA are right or wrong. They had certain claims to make and in a democratic way, they went about claiming their rights. I support the view expressed by other members of this Party that they were wrong to use the tactics they used during the road blockade. But people from that walk of life are not criminals. It has been said by more important people than I in this House that the will of the people can never be wrong, and if the vast majority of responsible people are driven to take action similar to that taken by the NFA in the middle of January, it surely emphasises the strength of thought which was rampant in the NFA at that time.
I do not wish to repeat the story of how that row started. It is sufficient for me to say that no matter who was right or who was wrong, the position is that unless the Government sit down and accept some of the views of the NFA, some of the views which some backbench members of Fianna Fáil have described as being healthy views in relation to agriculture, unless the Government thrash out their differences with the NFA, then not alone are the farming community going to bear the burden of these differences but every other individual in every other walk of life is going to have to pay for the blunders made by the Government.
In conclusion, may I reiterate the opinion that if the farming community are given an opportunity, they can produce the goods? If they are given that opportunity and if the Government face up to their responsibility in relation to major drainage, land reclamation, and in making available to the farming community limestone at a reasonable cost, then a great step forward will have been made.
One of the major difficulties in agriculture at the moment is lack of capital. Therefore, the Government should make available to smallholders credit free of interest repayable over a short term. It would have been a more profitable and more successful policy if the Agricultural Credit Corporation had given proper service to the people most in need of capital.
When Deputy Nolan was speaking last night, I interrupted to ask him did he know that one farmer got money from the Agricultural Credit Corporation to buy a Mercedes car. Deputy Nolan seemed to think that this was a slanderous statement on my part. The fact of the matter is that two years ago I raised this matter on the Adjournment and the present Taoiseach, who was then Minister for Finance, is on the records of the House as having stated that he had at that time given a directive that money should not be lent in this direction any longer. If Deputy Nolan does not accept my word, if he speaks to me privately, I will quote the volume where he can read the report of the debate on the Adjournment.
I conclude by saying that unless the agricultural industry is promoted to first place in the list of priorities by the Government, prosperity is not even around the corner for the country: emigration will continue; unemployment will be a major problem; our people will be condemned to live in the social conditions which they must tolerate at the moment. These problems can be solved if agriculture is given a new deal. If the Minister or the Government or any future Government accept that any organised group of farmers who agitate for better conditions are doing so because they believe that agriculture must get a better deal, and not in the spirit that these are a gang of crooks and cranks parading and demonstrating for their own glorification, then many things I would have liked to have seen in this country long ago can be achieved in the not too distant future.
As a rural Deputy, I have always considered the debate on the Estimate for Agriculture to be one of the most important, if not the most important, of the debates that take place in this House. Every aspect of agriculture has been covered in this debate, possibly more adequately than I can cover it now.
It is a pity that in this year of 1967 there should be any division of opinion between any farming organisation and any other farming organisation and between any farming organisation and the Government. The Government of a country as small as ours have an obligation to help the major industries. They have a duty to help the primary industry and the one that is sociologically the most important. It is a tragedy that there should be in this day and age any division of opinion between the Government and a major farming organisation.
I have never said anything in public about the dispute between the Government and the farmers because I would hesitate to do anything that might widen a breach that might do untold harm not alone to the farmers but to the economy of the country and to the image of this country abroad. But I do know that the NFA have done remarkable things for agriculture since they were established. There have been many and varied farming organisations which did their best for their own branch of agriculture. The NFA set out to weld together the many and varied farming organisations, and to do more than that. They set up a panel of experts to examine every aspect of agriculture so that they themselves would know the exact position with regard to production, with regard to selling, with regard to markets and the success that might be achieved in other markets. They got their experts to examine every facet of Irish farming, something that was never done before.
They also established a paper which in its own right can compare favourably with any farming journal in any country in the world. That in itself is a remarkable achievement for which they deserve credit not alone from the farming community but from every citizen of the State. As I have said, it is a tragedy that there is a difference of opinion between the Government and that organisation. I firmly believe that the former Minister for Agriculture made the greatest mistake of his life when he did not meet the farmers on the day they marched into Dublin. Had he met them on that day, there would be a different situation existing now. If he had told them that he had not the money to put into operation the things they demanded—and the things they demanded are the things farmers are entitled to get and will have to get eventually, regardless of what Minister gives them to them— we would have a different climate of opinion and a different situation in the country today. However, it did not happen. It is more difficult every day to find a reasonable method of approach to the NFA, and every day that goes by will make it still more difficult, but it is the duty of the Minister to attempt to find a method of meeting the NFA and getting over the difficulties that exist in negotiations between them.
What the NFA are demanding are, in fact, the rights achieved by trade unions from the day Jim Larkin came out in Dublin town and organised the first trade union against the might of a British Empire, and with bloodshed. Trade unions achieved the right to negotiate and to put forward their views. It is only right and just that the members of the greatest organisation in the country should have that right accorded to them. The Minister will be accepted as the greatest man of all time if he achieves that.
The jackboot is not the method of dealing with a farming organisation. Farmers fought for the land of Ireland against tyrannical laws and against tyrannical landlordism. They fought with might and main in days when their subsistence was very low, in days when they were barely able to live. That engendered in the farmers an independence of spirit. That spirit is still there and will, please God, exist for all time. That independence of spirit makes it more difficult to approach a farmer, but it is an independence of spirit that every Irishman will admire. I would appeal to the Minister, even at this late stage, to come down off his high horse. We are a small country. There is no need for the Minister to act like a minister in Katanga or any other African state. We are a mature State here today. The Minister will not lose face if he meets the NFA. No Irish Minister will ever lose face by meeting the organisation of people of his own country, particularly people in the basic industry. Now is the time for him to meet them, and every day that it is postponed will make it more difficult.
To come to some of the organisational matters in the Department, in the rural areas, as the Minister well knows, particularly in the area from which I come, the pilot areas have been established. During the last year or two the pilot areas have been getting concessions. They have been getting advice and instruction also from the instructors. I would ask that an interim report be issued from time to time if not to the general public, at least to the members of the county committees of agriculture to tell them how this thing is getting along, what results are coming from it, whether one field is making greater progress than another. We in the county committees of agriculture are vitally interested in this. Through lack of knowledge we are not able to say whether or not an additional instructor should go to the area, or whether or not the instructor is a good enough man for the job.
As a member of a county committee of agriculture, I am more interested in that branch of education—because a branch of education it is—than in any other type of Departmental education brought down to farming level. The members of the committees of agriculture know everything about the local area. They are familiar with every aspect of it, and they would be good judges as to whether or not the work of the pilot areas was going according to the clock and whether the best results were being obtained from the methods used or whether the methods might be changed. I would appeal to the Minister to have an interim report issued on progress in all the areas.
Now the areas have been increased and I believe the decision is that areas alongside the existing ones will be taken in. There are two schools of thought about that. In my county certain members of the committee thought it would be better to take in other areas in the county that had a more varied type of farming, but the majority view was—and I agree with this myself—that it was better to take in the immediate areas, to enlarge the existing one so that the instructor or instructors, if it was necessary to put in another one, would be branching out in a widening circle rather than taking small areas here and there and attempting to do something in them. From the reports that we do get, though not officially, I have a feeling that progress is being made in the pilot areas. That is a good sign and it is something I am sure farmers on all sides of the House will be glad to hear.
The result of the calved heifer scheme has been talked about here from varied angles during the debate. However, the news the other day that we had over 100,000 extra cattle in the country for which there was no market surely must have shocked many people. It may mean we shall be faced with a depression, but it must mean that we shall be faced with depressed cattle prices in the market before the end of this year.
The scrub bull was mentioned here earlier and it was looked upon as a bit of a joke. I am sure the Minister and his Department and every officer of the Department throughout the country know well that scrub bulls were let loose and that the type of heifer used for progeny was not one for which any standard had been set, so that every farming Deputy knows we have in the country at the moment a great number of sub-standard cattle. If the 100,000 or more extra cattle we have were of good quality, it might be possible, by some Government action, to have them slaughtered and to have markets sought for them or even to have them kept in deep freeze for a certain period. However, they are not cattle that can come to any marketable value or weight in the near future, and I am afraid they will be a drug on the market for a long time to come. I know the Minister can say he had nothing to do with that. At the same time, I disagreed with the policy from the start in the county committee of agriculture and elsewhere. Although I am no expert, I foresaw that a situation like this could arise. If we had an unlimited market or if the markets some of the Fianna Fáil people used to talk about had materialised, then we would not have this number of cattle on our hands today.
I would appeal to the Minister to take action now. He has been given the warning sign. He has been told that the cattle are there, and it is the duty of the Minister and his Department to explore every avenue to get shut of this large number of cattle that will be a drug on the market, and also to ensure that the people who are rearing them will get adequate prices for them.
I do not know if the figures have come to light from the acreage of tillage this year. I would have imagined that due to depressed cattle prices, we would have an increase in tillage. However, the acreage of wheat has fallen. The acreage of beet has fallen. The acreage of barley may have risen, and I would expect that it would; I have not the figures at the moment. I remember some time ago when everybody on the Fianna Fáil side of the House said that if we could grow enough wheat, this country would be out of the wood. Wheat was glorified as the crop to grow.
Everybody knows that up to a certain point the growing of wheat is an excellent thing. Great work has been done in the Institute in breeding better types of wheat, and I see no reason why we should not keep our wheat-growing to the maximum, but we have to face the fact that we can buy wheat in the world market at a lower price and we can sell the loaf of bread baked from that wheat at a lower price to the consumer. One has to strike a balance. Balance is important from the point of view of our external balance of payments; it is important from the point of view of labour content and potential; it is important from the point of view that a native product gives the farmer some return. Unfortunately the growing of wheat is gradually declining.
I am sorry, too, to see a decline in beet acreage. The Sugar Company did a remarkable job of work in the early years of its establishment. I know that Fianna Fáil claim that they established the Sugar Company. I shall make no claims beyond stating the fact that it was established in 1926 under a Cumann na nGaedheal Government. That company has done an amazing amount of good work. It put a great deal of money into research in order to breed better seed and find suitable pesticides and weed killers. It did work that no organisation ever did before in this country and it has achieved remarkable results in the breeding of a better type of seed and improved methods of production, to say nothing of a higher sugar content able to command a better price. Whether or not beet growing will continue to be viable is a question, I find it difficult to say. It is said we are paying the highest price in Europe for our beet. We are also getting the highest sugar content per ton. If that is so, I cannot see why it should not be viable. Why are farmers not inclined to grow beet? There is machinery at their disposal today that they did not have ten and 15 years ago. Beet has become a completely mechanised crop. The right kind of fertiliser has been found for it, a fertiliser which will give the best suger content.
No; we have a higher acreage this year than last year.
It decreased by 30,000 acres.
Why did the Sugar Company refuse contracts?
I do not accept that. The Sugar Company could take twice as many acres if they could get them.
The point is they do not. Why did they refuse contracts? How could they not have enough if they had too many?
Deputy Lyons, without interruption. This is not a cross-examination.
I have here the Minister's statement. The figures are supplied presumably by the Central Statistics Office. In the year 1963, we had 88,300 acres; in the year 1966, we had 53,500 acres. That answers the Deputy's question. I want to know why it is the beet acreage has decreased. I am a firm believer in beet growing and the day beet growing goes out will be a bad day for farming.
It may have decreased in the West.
The land west of the Shannon can grow beet but it cannot grow as high a tonnage per acre as other parts of the country. The soils are not suitable. Secondly, more fertiliser has to be put in in order to take out a certain tonnage and, the more fertiliser you put in west of the Shannon, the lower the sugar content because basically the soil is lacking in the proper nutrients. The question of labour enters into the picture, too. The farmer in the midlands has the advantage of mechanisation. Beet is mechanised from start to finish. The machines are there. I see no reason why beet growing could not be upped in the midlands and even in the West to some extent.
In the West oats can be grown quite successfully, but the growing of oats has not been encouraged since the British left the country. The same consideration has not been given to oats as has been given to barley and wheat. There has been no research to find the right strain to suit the different conditions. The Agricultural Institute are to be congratulated on the work they have done in breeding different varieties of seed designed to give the best yield and to stand up instead of lodging. If a subsidy were given in the West for the growing of oats, I believe there would be an improvement in the present situation. Oats produce more food than any other cereal, and a better type of food. It may be a little more expensive but the finest men in Ireland in the past were reared on oatmeal stirabout. If a calf is not thriving, he gets oatmeal and the juice of oatmeal to bring him right.
The subsidisation of oat-growing in the West would help the small western farmer. I specify the West because it is my firm belief that agriculture should be zoned; areas in which particular crops can be grown successfully should be allowed to grow those crops. We can grow oats and potatoes in the West as good as anywhere else in the country. It is well known that there may be lime deficiencies and that there are lime deficiencies which we should like to see made up in the western areas but it is possible to grow oats and potatoes where there is no lime.
I appeal to the Minister and his Department not to stay in any rut. The time for new thinking has come. There is no use in saying that we will stick to a policy which gave results in the past. The Government and the Department must look to the future, must try for something new. They must try to obtain from each area the production it is capable of yielding.
I give great credit to the Agricultural Institute for the work they are doing. A booklet is published and is distributed to Members of Dáil Éireann, to members of county committees of agriculture, and so on. I think the work of the Institute is not brought down fast enough to the level of the CAO and the local instructors. More and more courses should be held for instructors. They should be brought at intervals to the Agricultural Institute and shown the progress made from month to month so as to keep abreast of events rather than think in terms of what they heard when they came out of an agricultural college ten or 15 years ago. There is a need for courses for people engaged in all aspects of agriculture, and the more of them the better.
I hope the Minister will find the money fast for the drainage and reclamation of land and for the other projects in which the Department is interested. We are well aware that, when he was Minister for Local Government, our present Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries was famous for telling us, across the floor of this House, that there were wagons of money around the corner. On every occasion on which he was asked a question, the money was always there and, fair play to him, he got away with it even when the money was seldom there. When we asked our local authorities if money was available for this grant or that grant or for this purpose or that purpose, we were told: "No, not yet". The Minister was able to do that kind of thing. I know he understands agriculture himself; he comes from a county of small farmers.
I asked the Minister earlier to try to make a break-through with the NFA and to finish for all time any antagonism that may exist between the Government and the farmers. I ask him to take as much money as possible from the Minister for Finance for the farming organisations already established by the Department and in order to establish new ones to help the farming community.
Having listened to the debate to-night and to what the previous speaker has said and having read the debate over the past week or so on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture, I must congratulate the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary and the officers of the Department for the concise and accurate manner in which they prepared the Estimate and the report. I intend to speak on this Estimate in both a favourable and a critical manner.
First of all, I do not agree with previous speakers from the Opposition benches who stated that the former Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and the present Minister have made mistakes in relation to their attitude to the campaign of the NFA against the Government and against the law of this country. I think that both the NFA and the Fine Gael Party feel they have made mistakes in relation to this campaign. It is rather evident now that the Fine Gael Party are as sorry as the NFA are in relation to the stand they have taken, both privately and publicly, against the State, against the Government and against the authority of the people of Ireland.
I congratulate the Minister on obtaining the finance for the payment of unemployment assistance the whole year round to thousands of our small farmers, particularly those in the West and the South-West. I congratulate him on obtaining additional finance to enable derating of the first £20 of land valuation and to enable additional subsidies and grants to be made available for small farmers such as for the provision of milk coolers, and so on.
I should like to refer in particular to the services being provided by the county committees of agriculture. The existing CAOs and the local agricultural instructors are doing an excellent job. Perhaps the Minister would take a hard look at this service. I feel that, in lieu of the existing services, if we had a scheme which would provide for pilot farms in each county, rather than an agricultural instructor in areas in the county, it might benefit the farming community more. If we had a pilot farm covering certain areas in each county the farmers in the area would look at the farm as a pilot one and, provided it was run in an economic fashion and showed profits and showed a way, the agricultural community in general in each area would benefit from the experiment. The agricultural instructors and the agricultural service as a whole would benefit from this experiment.
The establishment of small co-operatives would go a long way towards the solving of problems in agricultural communities such as exist at the moment in the South and West. I refer to small co-operatives which would cater for pig fattening stations, for a pool of machinery for the benefit of the farmers in the co-operative, and also, perhaps, for small minor industries that could supplement the earnings of the farming communities in these areas. I was very glad to note that the Minister for Finance provided in his Budget for special development schemes in the underdeveloped counties which have county development teams at present. The bulk of this £¼ million should be channelled into such minor co-operatives and the schemes should cater in a large way for the smaller farmers in these areas.
Particular attention should be paid to the disposal of skim milk which is now posing a problem in many areas, particularly this year when milk production has increased beyond all expectations. I recommend to the Minister that he should give special consideration to any proposals put up to him and his Department for the disposal of skim milk. The Land Project is serving a very worthy purpose at the moment and I have no fault to find with the way in which the scheme is administered. I do feel, however, that special consideration should be given to applications for a second grant in cases where the operation of Section B of the Land Project proved a failure in the past. I know of some cases where schemes carried out under this section have not measured up to the schemes carried out under the previous section.
I should also like to refer to the £15 heifer scheme. The scheme was originally designed to increase the cattle population and despite the Opposition's criticism, it has achieved that purpose to a great extent. When this scheme was introduced, the Fine Gael Party did their best to take credit for it in so far as they stated that they had first hinted at this scheme in one of their written policies.
To speak on an Estimate such as this, embracing as it does the whole field of agriculture and fisheries, is to undertake quite a comprehensive survey of all the things that matter, of all the things that affect farmers, big and small, fishermen, big and small, all over the country and around our coasts. I have often felt, and still feel that in spite of the fact that there is a small farms division in the Department of Agriculture, the economy agriculturally is the economy of the good land, the economy of the wider tracts, the economy of greater scope, the economy that allows for mechanisation and all other modern methods that can be employed in agriculture. Deputy Lyons referred to the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of employing these modern methods in what he calls small fields. I therefore think that the small farms division in the Department of Agriculture and the various arms and advisory services that extend from it, via the Agriculture Institute, should be more publicised and, in the result, more advantage taken from it and, coincidentally, gained from it in that way.
Until such time as we take stock of the fact that there are these two divisions of the good land and the broad acres and the less good land and the smaller fields, then I do not think we will achieve the balanced result that is sought to be achieved from both official moves and voluntary aid directed to what they call the saving of the West and, of course, the saving of the West must include the whole coast from Derry to West Cork. Now, how could that be done? Certain steps have been taken; some of them have been successful and some have yet to be proved, but by and large enough is not being done at official level. It all springs from the fact that at official level neglect was so monstrous over so long a period that it is difficult now financially to curb this tide of population erosion in the West and the flight of people from it. There is no use now blaming this one or that one, this Party or that Party, for what happened. Everybody knows where the blame lies but the cure will not be effected by perpetually pinpointing blame, unless at the same time every effort is made and every possible source used to the full to improve the situation.
I do not think that enough use is being made of the advisory services. The advisory services are there. They are limited, of course, to some extent but I doubt very much if the people know sufficient of them to be able to avail of the great advantages they confer; nor, on the other hand, do I think there is sufficient communication as between the advisory services, either on the national or the local level, and the people they are meant to benefit. Something must be done in a very big way in the line of propaganda in this respect. It is no use going out on occasions prior to a local election or a by-election and saying: "We intend to set up a pilot area here or there; we are going to have a scheme for mountain-sheep farming somewhere else", if the gap between the promise and the performance is wide, as the gap generally tends to be when the promise is prior to some political activity, and once it is over the necessity for the performance slips away into oblivion.
These services should be more extended and, over and above that, the greatest advantage probably that any Government or any Department of Agriculture could confer upon the people in the smallholdings where things are difficult at present would be to make available to them lime, phosphates and artificial manures at the lowest possible prices. I should prefer to see some of the money that is being wasted at present, and was for a long time past, directed towards a subsidy to be used for this purpose. We are living now, particularly in the west of Ireland—and again in the west of Ireland, I include all the areas of which I have spoken—in times when the fairs have been turned from conventions of profit and enjoyment into meetings of gloom and cynicism, where small farmers walk their cattle long distances to the nearest fair day town or village, and in the evening walk them back again, not having been asked in the course of the day where they were going.
It must be a source of immense sadness—and indeed it is—to the father of a family, or the head of a household, who took his animals over the past year or so to fairs of this type and brought them home again, when he set out with hope that with the money he would get, he would be able to pay the rates, or buy the extra clothing that might be needed, or set aside a little for Christmas and for other necessaries or contingencies that might arise from time to time. How the people who are depending on these fairs nowadays are managing to overcome these difficulties, I do not know, but this is something of which the Department must take cognisance.
I recall—I think it was in January, 1966—when we were discussing the terms of the then new Trade Agreement, and I think it must be said fairly that we all, perhaps without enough study, welcomed the change in the qualification period for the British subsidy by its reduction from three months to two months. I am told that in the three-month period which obtained up to the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement the big cattle, the strong cattle, had to wait too long to qualify for this subsidy or bounty, but that the three-month period was necessary for the small cattle to overcome the hardship of being brought from distant parts of the west of Ireland via accommodation grass to the cattle marts, then to the ships, then to more accommodation grass, and then to as far inland in England as York, Nottingham and such centres. In the three months, the cattle which conformed peculiarly to this area, that is, the west of Ireland, were able to regain that loss.
Now what is happening is that the demand for strong animals continues. There is no demand for small animals because they cannot within the two months make up the loss of weight caused by the hardships I have described. Accordingly, they are not profitable to the cross-Channel buyer. That is the argument I have heard used to explain the slackness at fairs in those areas where the small cattle are, and where they are so conformed, as I am told, that they cannot survive the test of the journey and the fast. Perhaps that is something that could be examined. If it is examined and it is revealed that there is any substance in it, I am sure the experts in the Department will be able to do something about it with their counterparts on the other side, because certainly the situation as it is is a frightening one, frightening not only to watch on the days these things are happening, that is, the fairdays, but frightening to contemplate in its consequences.
Reference was made to the calved heifer scheme. While there may have been merits in this scheme—and I am sure there were—they do not seem to have redounded to the profit of the small man again. It was easy under this scheme for a speculator to take large tracts of land, get hundreds of heifers in calf, have them examined and passed, and collect the £15 subsidy per head. For the small man, it involved extra time and extra room, and the benefit to him, while it was a benefit of a minimal kind, was nevertheless not great enough, and I am sure not as great as was originally intended.
Perhaps the calved heifer scheme has been a success for some and a failure for others, but there is one irritating aspect of it, in so far as it relates to the west of Ireland, at any rate, that is, the almost unbearable delays in payments after herds have been inspected and passed. If the money were allocated in sufficiency in accordance with any kind of accurate peep into the future, these delays should not take place. I have to write to the Department, much more often than I should like, on behalf of people who tell me that as far back as 1965 and early 1966 their small herds were examined and passed but no payments made yet. In one case I had to write to the Department of Agriculture at least seven times and in reply to five of those letters, received communications to the effect that my letters had been received and that they were looking into the matter. By persistence we have been successful in getting payments for all of them, with the exception of one case which is outstanding since 1966. This is stalling of the most awful kind because it is stalling on people who cannot afford to wait. I urge on those responsible in the Department to speed things up as much as they can.
Reference was made to milk. In the notes on the Department's activities, though four or five pages are devoted to milk and its by-products, apart from a reference to deliveries back to suppliers, there is no mention of skim milk. Deputy O'Hara referred to this point. Recently in Kilalla the three Deputies for North Mayo attended a meeting. Many things were discussed but the one which seemed to agitate the farmers present most was the question of a market for skim milk. The case was put very strongly for the creation of a market through some process or other. Vague references were made to the fact that a large co-operative in the south were interested in going to the west, particularly Mayo. I had heard something about it but had also heard that there is a tug-of-war between North and South Mayo as to which of the two constituencies would be selected for the factory. Of course the odds are in favour of South Mayo, with two Ministers tugging hard on the one hand and Deputy Calleary trying to get a foothold on the other. We hope such a tug-of-war is not taking place. Indeed it is not necessary because, wherever the factory is sited, if and when it is, the only requirement would appear to be proximity to flowing water. So much for that. I hope the Minister will deal with the problem of skim milk. It seemed to excite the people at that meeting.
What I deplore about not alone the Department of Agriculture but every other Department is this Annie Oakley performance that goes on—"anything you can do I can do better"—while the citizens, driven into cynicism, wait for a better performance. Reverting to cattle prices, we had the example, on the Free Trad Agreement, of the then Minister for Agriculture coming into the House on 24th March, 1966, and, on the Vote for Agriculture, saying, as reported at column 2243 of the Official Report for that day:
The increase of 10/- per live cwt in the guaranteed price for fat cattle and the increase of ¾d per lb. 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. A very substantial proportion of this sum will be reflected back in the prices paid for the stores here.
Cattle are down by virtually £20 per head. In the face of the stories of today, this fairytale of yesterday makes unpleasant reading. At the time it was meant to be something to inspire and create joy but now it is a very mournful wail indeed. The House and the country are familiar with another promise of that time, namely the finding of a market for 2,000 cattle in Germany. I do not know what happened to them. Did they ever go?
Not yet.
Where are they? On 12th October, 1966, as reported at column 1148, the then Minister for Agriculture said this:
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. 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 our cattle either in the form of live cattle or beef.
That was in October, 1966. I do not know where the 2,000 cattle are. This raising of people's hopes in a matter of this kind is bad. It is bad citizenship and it is bad for the economy. It is bad for the morale of the people, whether in agriculture or in any other sphere. This Annie Oakley demonstration can be produced as food for the electorate. I am listening to Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries all over this country talking of progress in agriculture, talking of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, the targets, the dynamic approach, the small farmers, what is happening to everybody, everything great and glorious, that we are marching along the road to prosperity, greater prosperity and greater production as every year passes.
Here is the Party of wheat. I remember when I came into this House first in 1954. I remember I was then opposite and I was listening to the stalwarts across here, one after the other, promising an all-Irish loaf, deploring the then prices and weeping for the wheat growers of this country. Included among them I remember was the present Minister for Lands, who made a tremendous frothy speech in favour of wheat growing.
It would not be the first time he was frothy.
What is the position under this Party of wheat? In 1959 there were 282,200 acres of wheat. In 1960, there were 365,995 acres, a very substantial increase but by 1961 it had gone down to 344,800 acres, not a very substantial decrease, but nevertheless a decrease. In 1962, it was down to 314,000, a decrease of 30,000 acres. In 1963, it was down to 232,700 acres; in 1964 to 214,400 acres, down again; in 1965 to 182,170; and in 1966 to 131,300 acres. Those are the people who used to talk about the dead hand of the Coalition. There they are. There is the dead hand. In every year the dead hand is smiting the ears of wheat. All that means, of course, that the wheat growing farmers are in their thousands every year losing confidence in this Administration.
I will not go through them all, year by year, but in 1959 in respect of oats there were 462,000 acres. In 1960 it was down to 425,000; in 1961, it was down to 367,000; in 1962, down to 346,000; in 1963, down to 331,700; in 1964, to 288,600, down again; in 1965, to 284,392, down almost by 100,000 acres; and in 1966, down to 242,800 acres. Where is the progress? Where is the faith of the farmers? Where is their confidence in this Administration? It is not to be found in this gloomy progression in the oatfields of this country.
What about rye?
Rye is so small that it is not necessary to mention it. The highest figure for it was in 1959 when it was 2,800 acres. In 1966 it was down by 1,400 to 1,400 acres. Sugar beet is definitely gone. It is obviously fighting the county council elections, as an Independent probably. In 1959 the acreage of sugar beet was 69,200. It was 68,306 acres in 1960, a small drop. It was up by 10,000 to 78,600 in 1961; it remained static at 78,000 in 1962, but it was up by 10,000 in 1963. It was down by nearly 9,000 in 1964 to 79,000 odd. It was down in 1965 to 65,548, and in 1966, last year, it was down to 53,500 acres. Where is the progress we hear about regarding the growing of beet?
In relation to wheat and other cereals, and bearing in mind the litany of decreasing production to which I have just referred, £24 million worth of wheat and cereals were imported in 1966, which could have been grown here in our own country, giving work to our own people and keeping them at home in lucrative employment. Instead of that, people are rapidly leaving the land. The land itself is lying fallow and unproductive, altogether presenting a story that certainly is not in keeping with the dynamic approach we hear about from people like the Minister for Transport and Power and Posts and Telegraphs. Of course, he is a great statistician and he would probably find some statistics to support his view that there was progress somewhere.
Now I want to deal with fishing, if I may, for a few moments. Is fishing in order in this debate?
We are dealing solely with agriculture on this debate.
That is a pity. I would have liked to deal with fishing.
The Deputy will get an opportunity.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I should like to know from the Minister, despite the fact that there are remarks in the notes by the Department of Agriculture, what has happened to our pattern of pig breeding. How is it that the pig seems to have disappeared from vast areas in the country, and how is it while pig prices are low—and indeed this applies to beef, mutton and lamb as well—that the price of the finished article, or end product, continues to be high? I am told that it is no longer economic for farmers to keep the small number of pigs they have been accustomed to keep—a few for sale and a few for home consumption. I do not know if that is true and I do not know what the opinion of the Minister and his officials is on this. Will we be driven in agriculture too into what I would call the supermarket group?
How does the Deputy get on with the sale of his own pigs, lambs, mutton and beef?
Very well, thank you. I am grateful for the Deputy's concern but I can manage these things very well without him. It is pertinent to ask why, when the prices for livestock are low, with virtually no demand, the prices for the end products continue to be high. I do not think there is anything startingly controversial about a query of that kind. Some people, of course, prefer to make controversial interruptions without making a constructive speech, even a maiden one.
I see in the notes on the activities of the Department a small paragraph at the bottom of page 35 on the Gaeltacht and congested districts. It says:
In addition to the county and general Departmental schemes, special schemes of agricultural instruction and production are operated in the Congested Districts. These include the location of bulls and rams on special terms, the distribution of seed potatoes and seed grain at reduced prices and the establishment of plots to demonstrate proper methods of cultivation, improvement of grassland, etc. The Gaeltacht Glasshouse Scheme, initiated by this Department in 1947, is continuing in operation but the number of participants is decreasing according as the houses, now 20 years old, are wearing out. Under the new General Glasshouse Scheme introduced by Roinn na Gaeltachta in 1966-67 grants for the erection of glasshouses are available to suitable applicants in any part of the Gaeltacht.
Nobody would welcome more than I, or Deputy P. O'Donnell here beside me, the introduction of schemes into the areas we represent, but, for goodness sake, will the Minister, or those responsible for the giving of directions, urge on the people going down to examine applications, status, conditions and worthiness generally, to stop the red tape performances that are going on? Red tape is used to prevent expenditure and to keep the schemes from ever coming into the lives of these people and the slightest excuse is seized upon to deprive an applicant of a scheme.
I remember an occasion when I received a bitter complaint from a person who could not get a Gaeltacht housing grant. I was quite surprised because I knew this man well and knew him to be a fluent Irish speaker. However, the inspector reported back that he could not get a grant because Irish was not the spoken language of the household. There was nobody else in the house with this man; he was a native speaker but there was no one in the house with whom he could speak. However, I am glad to say that he got the grant.
The glasshouse scheme does not seem to be a great success. In these notes it is stated that as the houses are wearing out, the number of participants is decreasing. The note is very summary for the Gaeltacht and con gested districts, amounting to about a quarter of a page only.
Deputy J. O'Leary, whether by accident or design, came in here a little while ago to make a speech on this Estimate. He spoke with some feeling about the activities of the National Farmers Association and deplored the campaign against the Government and the country. I would have thought that a rather harsh description. I would have thought that what has been happening has been a campaign for the betterment of the conditions of the members of the particular organisation. He also said this campaign was a campaign against law and order and against authority but he said he felt that the Fine Gael Party were ashamed of their activities, both public and private in this regard. The Fine Gael Party are not ashamed of any activity, public or private, in relation to the trials and tribulations, and humiliation of the farmers by this Government.
The blocking of the roads and the intimidation.
You intimidated more farmers in Kerry; what about the day of the count when the returning officer was not even able to announce the result?
Irish farmers were lying and sleeping in the gutter in Merrion Street and they were taken out of it by a hoax by the Taoiseach and by the Minister for Agriculture, so that Deputy J. O'Leary could win South Kerry.
Despite what you did, he won it anyway; he came back here as a Fianna Fáil Deputy.
It is a rather curious coincidence that on the eve——
Now, the Deputy——
Will Deputy Geoghegan keep quiet? At least one credits him with a certain western courtesy. But it is a rather curious coincidence that that happened prior to two by-elections, but that now recognisances to keep the peace and be of good behaviour have been lifted prior to the local elections.
By the courts.
Let me say this—I know as much about the courts as Deputy Geoghegan—I, no less than many more people, was, to say the least of it, not a little surprised by the uniformity of punishment meted out to farmers in the district courts from north to south.
Deputy Lindsay will appreciate that that is a matter for another Minister, the Minister for Justice; it does not arise on this Estimate.
But recognisances have been lifted by the courts in the case of farmers who were in jail. If it was proper to do it yesterday, it was improper to impose it five weeks ago.
This does not arise on the Estimate for Agriculture; Deputy Lindsay is quite well aware of that.
Somebody here said there were a big number of farmers in the Fianna Fáil Party—I think, Deputy Allen—and Deputy Clinton replied: "If you have that number of farmers, they must have very little influence on the plans made by the Cabinet in your Party". I am amazed that the farmers in the Fianna Fáil Party have allowed a situation to arise in which we had this humiliation of decent men and women, the backbone of our country. Whether we like it or not, whether we are in business, in industry, in any profession, or anything else, our real wealth emanates from the soil of this small island, and comes from the toil and energies of the people who work that soil. It amazes me—and will never cease to amaze me—that a Government, supported by a Party with so many farmers, could ever have allowed this situation to develop, much less extend in the manner in which it did extend, leaving a very bad taste in the mouths of the real breadwinners of our nation.
I hope it is over, and I hope there will be greater understanding as between the Government and the governed, particularly the farmers, who comprise 35 per cent of our people and are responsible, directly or indirectly, for 70 per cent of our exports, and who in 1966, being responsible for 70 per cent of our exports, got 16.8 per cent of our national income. Is that fair or just? It certainly is not a state of affairs that could be tolerated, much less even contemplated in a society that would claim the term "just" for itself.
On a point of order, has Deputy L'Estrange not spoken? Is it proper that he should keep on speaking now?
You got your opportunity last night at 7 o'clock and the Minister refused to take it.
Order.
We are not here to convenience you.
If you are not careful, we will call for more of you to listen to more of it.
As I have said, I hope it is all over, that good relations will be established, and that we shall never again witness this humiliating spectacle. It must certainly be unique in our history, but it must always be remembered that the farmer as well as any member of any other trade union, through his own organisation, has a right to strike, to withdraw his services, his goods and his cattle within the law. Lest anybody might have thought we on this side of the House condoned what were the technical offences of January last—technical offences—it must be remembered that if an ordinary citizen were brought before the courts in similar circumstances, the Probation Act would be applied, or he would be ordered to put something in the poor box. He would not be rammed into jail.
Let this Government, or any government, recognise the fact once and for all that freedom carries with it the right to maintain that freedom. If the maintenance of that freedom involves the withdrawal of goods and services and labour, then that weapon must be used to maintain it. No man, no body of men, no Government, have a right to deprive the people of that, and I want to warn the Minister that if he is thinking of bringing legislation into this House to cripple or crush the farmers in their organisation or in part of it, by licensing marts in order to curb any activities he does not like— perfectly legal ones—he will get a very ready and quick answer from the only place in this country which is the last bastion of freedom in testing the constitutionality of bullying legislation. We in Fine Gael will not stand for that kind of thing. We will oppose it here, we will oppose it in the country and we will oppose it anywhere it can be challenged on proper grounds, and no threats, no intimidatory speeches by a Minister or by a Parliamentary Secretary when he grows up sufficiently to become intimidating rather than charming——
Thank you.
——no amount of this kind of stuff will terrify our people into bending the knee or going prostrate before a Government who are out of touch, whose members are wallowing in arrogance but who have lost the confidence of the people.
Since when?
Since the last Fianna Fáil national collection.
A success, you will be glad to hear.
And well before it.
You are only in for a while, son.
You are in for a few more shocks.
They will be preserved to work this Department or any other Department for only so long as the Government operate through large subscriptions from the moneyed few.
Many of us have been going around to the church gates in recent times and we are getting the feeling of the people and I think it is here we should express that feeling. I never saw so much disgust or dismay as there is among the farming community, and I am a city Deputy. When I can get that impact in the few days I have been out, the Minister should know the position. There is no confidence whatsoever in the Department of Agriculture. The people even do not know who the Minister is. They are asking: is it Mr. Haughey, is it Mr. Blaney or who is it? The fact is they do not care. They know for a fact that it is one who is not fit for the job, irrespective of who he is.
A while ago we heard Deputy Molloy saying that the small farmer could look to a Fianna Fáil Government with security and hope for the future. My colleague, Deputy Geoghegan, knows the position in regard to the small farmers in the West. He knows the position in regard to the policy of Fianna Fáil over the years. There was a glasshouse scheme but they begin to see through the glasshouses. Tulips were to be grown on the Aran Islands but the only tulips they ever saw there were Ministers with big rosy promises. That is as far as the tulips have gone. We could sing "Tulips from Amsterdam" instead.
The small farmers of the west, the mountain sheep farmers, asked for representation on this Agricultural Council. How far did they get? How far will they get? They would like to know. Possibly Deputy Molloy who was challenged in the public press by this group will tell them what Fianna Fáil are going to do for these people who have to depend on the wool and the little bit of mutton and who have to pay dearly for everything they have to buy. Could the Parliamentary Secretary at this stage—I am prepared to give way for a few moments—say what hope he holds out for those unfortunate people or will Deputy Geoghegan who is a representative of that area rise to the occasion and let them know? Will he let them know at the church gates next Sunday?
Mind you, they want the answer to this question and all praise to those small farmers. In my area there is not one NFA man, not one, but like the Donegal effort where we had a boycott of the fair—and there were NFA in Donegal—there was a boycott of the markets in Galway. Not one head of cabbage came into the markets, not one egg came into the markets. These are the small men, not the big farmers Fianna Fáil say are in the NFA. There is a solidarity among the farming community north, south, east and west which the Minister should take cognisance of. Of course he will wait until the 28th of this month. He will get his answers in that respect.
Now, Sir, they talk about the NFA blocking the bridges for a few hours but I remember a time when the gentlemen on the opposite side blew the bridges up and they were blocked for more than a few hours.
You put some people on them when they were blowing them up.
That has nothing to do with the Estimate.
The unfortunate farmers had to pay for those bridges.
You blew up a lot of things.
Contain yourself. Ordinarily you are a decent gentleman so let us not cross swords. We were told by the then Minister, Mr. Hee-Haw or Mr. Haw-Hee—whichever you like—that is what the donkeys around our country call him——
They are familiar with him?
Yes, I can see them from here. He came into this House after coming down the gangway with big smiles coming home from England and telling us that he had a great agreement made in England. He came into this House and sat there and told us we would all have red faces before long because of the great effort that he had made. The red faces are on the wrong side of the House tonight. He promised us that 2,000 cattle would be going to Germany before long. What do we hear today? We hear that there are, I think, 150,000 too many cattle in the country at the moment and no outlet for them.
Before this year is out, there will be a lot more people marching than there have been up to the present and it will not be the NFA alone. There is a very bleak outlook for the farming community. If the farmer is hit, the townsman is hit, and the day the townsman and the farmer are hit, it is God save Ireland and God save Ireland from Fianna Fáil.
I should like the Minister to let us know what he proposes to do to help the small farmers who are now going to be deprived in my county of road work and, mind you, to eke out a livelihood, they have to work on the roads.
We cannot discuss the question of roads on the Agriculture Estimate.
If you will allow me for a moment, Sir—they are depending 50 per cent on road work and 50 per cent on agriculture——
The Minister is not responsible for the maintenance of roads.
I do not think any of them is responsible for anything but £78,000 worth of road work has been stopped.
I hope the Deputy will be responsible and come back to the Estimate.
Somebody will have to be responsible for a lot of the things that happen in the country. Not alone will the road workers be marching but I am afraid the TDs and all will be marching with them.