asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will consider introducing a training scheme for farm workers similar to the scheme in operation in Britain.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Training Scheme for Farm Workers.
5.
A farm workers' training scheme devised to meet conditions in Britain would not necessarily be a suitable one for this country where the conditions are very different. The British scheme is, of course, still in the process of development and no real assessment of its merits is possible at this stage.
Has the Minister under consideration any form of training school or is he giving consideration to the matter at all?
Does he ever think of farm labourers?
At the moment we are considering the re-introduction of the short farm courses which were in existence some time ago. As well, we have looked at this but without reaching any conclusion. The first big difference we encountered is that in Britain they have 150,000 farmers employing about 300,000 full-time workers, whereas we have 215,000 farmers of over 15 acres employing only 35,000 workers. Clearly this poses a vastly different problem for us than under the British situation. That, then, allied to the fact that recognising this situation, we have had these night classes mainly for farmers but also for the workers, if they care to go. We have rural science classes in our technical schools and agricultural colleges, and we also have the inservice horticultural courses. It is rather difficult to make any true comparison between the two situations. We have gone into the British scheme, and indeed they themselves are finding difficulties in it at the moment. A lot of criticism has been voiced about it from various aspects. Perhaps some of the experience they are gaining may help us to formulate something better than the British scheme would provide at the moment.