Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 29 Feb 1968

Vol. 232 No. 14

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

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be reduced by £2,600 in respect of subhead K.K.6 —National Agricultural Council.

—(Deputy Clinton).

Mr. L'Estrange

We on this side of the House are in favour of the greater part of this Supplementary Estimate. We believe that money spent on agriculture is money well spent, that agriculture is our greatest industry and we want to see it progressing in the future and at all times. We definitely have made our position clear in regard to the amount of money voted for the National Agricultural Council. We are against that and at a later stage I will give the reason. Let it be remembered that under this Government agriculture is at present in the doldrums. Indeed, not for the first time under a Fianna Fáil Government, the farmers are becoming second-class citizens and are being victimised by the Minister who is making them hewers of wood and drawers of water.

The Minister today spoke about the serious foot and mouth epidemic which started in Britain last October. I want to say that we on this side of the House gave the Minister one hundred per cent support. We thought he was reasonable in his efforts and in the action he was taking to keep this disease from reaching our shores. At the same time, we must thank Almighty God for the fact that this disease did not reach our shores because during the month of November, when there were as many as 17 and 18 cases a day in Britain, as Deputy Clinton mentioned today, farmers were coming over from Britain and going to markets in this country.

On 9th December, Deputy Clinton instanced a case of a man from my own county who went over to Britain. He went to a funeral in an infected county, came back, crossed the Border and was not stopped to be disinfected and was not questioned. Indeed, let it be remembered it was only when the National Farmers Organisation got volunteer workers and helpers and sent them up to the Border and started themselves to appeal to the people to have their cars disinfected, in order to arrest this disease, that the Minister really opened his eyes. While credit is due to certain people we were definitely very lackadaisical during the month of November. As a matter of fact, it was only in the middle of December, when the disease was on the wane, that we really took effective measures here to prevent the disease spreading. We should all thank the thousands of Irish boys and girls who, on being appealed to, forfeited their holidays and stayed in Britain. Our best thanks are due to those people.

The Minister has mentioned the fact that our veterinary staff helped in co-operation with the British veterinary staff. I am glad to see this co-operation: it is a good thing. It is an awful pity we did not have it 30 years ago under this Government but perhaps it is better late than never. The Minister stated he was recently able to announce some relaxations, as a result of which trading generally may be resumed at marts and fairs on and from 29th February. We raised this matter a fortnight ago and the Minister behaved in a most vindictive way in regard to marts. We know there was only one reason for it. We know that the present Minister undoubtedly has energy which he can display at by-elections but if he would display the same initiative and energy in dealing with farmers' interests, then he could certainly do something worthwhile for them.

The Minister on this particular occasion showed how vindictive he is. He definitely demonstrated to the farmers and to the people of the country that he wants to continue the row which was started last year by his predecessor, Deputy Haughey, when he refused to meet the farmers' organisation and left them sitting for 21 days on the steps of the Department of Agriculture. Many of those people had marched 200 miles. They did not leave their wives and families for nothing. They left them because many of them were getting it hard to eke out a living because things were so bad.

I want to know, and to put it to the Minister, if it was right to allow hunting and dog racing, to allow people to go over to rugby matches in Britain and come back here and to allow dealers in this country—the Minister knows this—to travel the length and breadth of Ireland buying cattle, why he could not allow marts to be fully and effectively opened until 29th February. There was only one reason for it. He still wanted to keep burning the fires he helped to light last year and to keep the bitterness going. It is time the hatchet was buried in this regard.

The Minister also said in regard to the foot and mouth outbreak:

The view is commonly taken that imported meat is probably responsible. The British Government have temporarily suspended imports from certain countries where the disease is endemic.

We all agree with that. I believe an important announcement on next Monday will affect seriously, one way or another, the price farmers will receive for their cattle in the next few months. If the British Government agree to allow in the Argentine meat, the danger is that the price of cattle here may slump as it did last year under this Minister, when the price dropped to an all-time low and when calves were given away, as they were in certain parts of the south and west of Ireland.

If cattle prices are good today, the Minister can claim very little credit for it. That situation is due to the unfortunate epidemic of foot and mouth disease and the fact that the British Government has stopped the import of foreign meat. If this ban continues, it will be a glorious opportunity for this country. We know there was a time in the history of the Government when they had no regard for the bullock or for the British market. They did not realise the importance of this. Due to that fact, untold harm was done to the farming community, to the agricultural industry and indeed to the economy of the whole country. If the British Government continue this ban, I claim that there is a glorious future for the cattle industry and for the farmers in this country if the Minister gets working and working immediately in their interest.

We had a heifer scheme a few years ago and many of us on this side of the House found fault with it. We think now that there should be a change and the Minister should give a different type of subsidy on calves to encourage immediately the production of more calves so that we will have more beef to export next year or in a year and a half to Britain. The Minister stated that the view is commonly taken that imported meat is probably responsible for the disease spread in Britain. If the British Government continue this ban there is a glorious future for us and the Minister and the Government, in co-operation with the farmers of this country, should be ready to jump into the breach and take full advantage of it. It is hard and it will be hard to do that unless you have co-operation and we have very little co-operation between the Minister and the organised farmers of the country at present, and nobody is responsible for that but the Minister.

In the next paragraph of his speech the Minister claims that the additional expense incurred by his Department up to 31st March in connection with the operation of our various restrictions and controls is estimated at £147,000. Under that heading the Government paid for advertisements in different newspapers. In newspapers that differed politically from this Government down through the years they paid for advertisements but there was one particular paper which is purchased by 95 per cent of the farmers of this country and is read by them, and, indeed, manufacturers of fertilisers, agricultural machinery et cetera, know the value of this paper but because the editor or people concerned with this paper had the audacity to criticise the little dictators in the Fianna Fáil Party the Minister used his power to keep Irish taxpayers' money from going to this particular journal and because they were not prepared to toe his Party line he used his powers. He should not have the power to withhold taxpayers' money from any political journal whether it agrees or disagrees with the Government.

Despite the fact that this cost us £147,000 so far, and thousands have been paid to other journals and papers, I think it is a retrograde step and it illustrates the way the Minister treated this particular journal. We cannot expect anything else from a man as vindictive as the present Minister whose sole aim seems to be to keep the farmers divided and to foment class warfare.

The Minister on page 3 said that the total Exchequer payments in support of creamery milk prices in 1967-68 are now estimated at £19.2 million, the highest figure ever recorded. We support the payment of this money to the people who are already producing milk but I think the time has come when the Minister and the Government should examine this whole question. I think we are at the crossroads as regards milk production and, indeed, we may be at saturation point. The EEC reports are anything but favourable and, therefore, I think that the Government should consider whether it is wise to encourage other people to stop producing beef, mutton, pigs, veal and other produce for which there is a ready market and encourage them to go into milk production.

In my opinion we have reached a saturation point. I was talking to a creamery manager recently and for milk powder he told me they were getting £120 a ton up a few months ago. Now it is unsaleable and the price has dropped to £40 or £50 a ton. In Land Commission places that have been erected cow tying has been put in for 16 cows. I think it is unfair to the people who are already in milk production and the burden is a very big one on the taxpayers. It is unfair to the people who are already in it if we encourage other people to leave beef, mutton or pig production and entice them to produce milk for which according to the EEC report the future is not too bright.

The time has come when the Minister and the Government should give serious consideration to this problem. Let it be remembered that there is a shortage of meat and especially of beef throughout the world today and that we can produce the best beef and, I say, the best mutton in the world. There are markets for it and if there are, as there are in England, in Europe for the American forces and throughout the world, why should we try to entice the farmers to leave that? It will be better for the country in the future if there is more emphasis on producing mutton, pork and veal because the markets are there and I think the taxpayers will not have to subsidise it to the same extent.

The Minister has shown a certain amount of anxiety here because in his speech he dealt with the rate at which the total bill is mounting. He spoke about the sum of £4,900,000 which is needed to meet the cost of the support payments on the record exports of carcase meat to Britain during the past year. We welcome that and as far as we are concerned we still believe, as I have stated, that there is a future in that direction.

We have appealed on numerous occasions to the Minister to make that money available to the producers. Recently—about a month or a fortnight ago—a scheme was started. From the information I have received it is a complicated scheme and very few of the farmers or of the producers can avail of it.

We also welcome the export of boneless manufacturing beef to the United States or to any other part of the world. It would be much better if we had both the stores trade and the export of boneless manufacturing beef because the export of boneless manufacturing beef means employment for our own people in our own country and we have the other raw materials so that we are of necessity giving employment to our own people at home and, therefore, I think any money spent in that direction is money well spent.

The Minister referred to the setting up of a board with promotional functions in relation to the export of livestock, cattle and sheep. It is three years since the NFA, when they were on terms with the Government and with Deputy Haughey, contacted the Government and made a recommendation in this respect. It is a fact that though we produce the best in the world, our marketing system is ante-diluvian. Therefore, a meat marketing board is necessary. Deputy Haughey promised such a board in October, 1966. He was speaking in the House. A month later, the Minister for Agriculture, speaking at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis, promised it and told delegates that it would be set up immediately.

That is 15 months ago and we find, on the eve of 1st March, 1968, the Minister telling us that arrangements for the establishment of such a body are well advanced and "I hope to make a more detailed announcement before very long". I should like to know what "before very long" means. Questions have been asked in the House during the year and we have always been told that arrangements for the setting up of this body are well advanced and that the Minister hopes to be in a position to make an announcement shortly. Why the dithering? When the farmers marched on a particular day and were supposed to block the roads, the Government lost no time in arresting them, in bringing them to court and in putting them in prison. When it comes to doing anything for the good of the farmers or of agriculture, however, the Government dither. We are entitled to know now from the Minister what his plans now are and when he intends to finalise them.

In relation to this board, if the Minister is to continue to put Fianna Fáil stooges into it as he did in the case of the NAC he will not get anyhere. He should take a leaf out of the book of the British and the Northern Ireland Governments where producers are properly and justly represented on those boards. If the proposed board is an effort to give more thousands to some Taca men and to Fianna Fáil Party henchmen and yes men, it will not do anything tangible for agricultural production or for our exports. Now the Minister is being given an opportunity to give the premier agricultural organisation fair and just representation on a board. When it comes to setting the board up, the NFA, the ICMSA, Macra na Feirme, Macra na Tuaithe and other voluntary organisations who are doing such valuable work should be given fair representation. We do not want to see any more candidates going forward in county council elections, being defeated and then being put on those boards.

It is time the Minister began to realise that it is difficult to get farmers' co-operation if he continues to carry on as he has been doing. The farmers can see through him. They see what he has done in the past and I hope that on this occasion he will show a little more justice.

The Minister spoke of pig production and he referred to pig cycles. During many years the small farmers and cottiers went into pig production as a means of helping them to increase their incomes. Unfortunately, the rising prices of feeding stuffs in the past few years have made pig production uneconomic and it is hard to expect people to continue in any line unless they are getting a reasonable and fair profit for the hard work they put into it. With the latest increases in the price of meal and other feeding stuffs, farmers in pig production cannot get that return. It is easy to understand why people in pig production give it up when they see the cost of feeding stuffs and the cost of living go up and see no increases in the price paid by the factory.

Therefore, the Minister need not talk in terms of pig cycles. He need not cod himself or try to fool his Department by asking them to look at pig cycles. The depression in the industry occurred when production was not profitable and increases in production occurred when there was some profit, no matter how small, to be made.

I wish to congratulate everybody concerned, including the Department, in relation to the warble fly scheme. However, it must be remembered the scheme was begun on a voluntary basis by the NFA in co-operation with the creameries and the artificial insemination centres and it was at least two years before the Department of Agriculture woke up to the situation when the British Government told us they would refuse after a particular date to take our cattle unless they were free of warble. It was only then that the Minister for Agriculture and the Department realised the necessity to clear cattle of this pest; it was only then that they took an active part in a scheme which had been started by the NFA, with their own money and with the co-operation of the farming community. It shows what can be done through co-operation.

The time has come when the Minister should have in every county an animal health committee—call it what you will—and greater emphasis should be placed on trying to rid cattle of warble fly, brucellosis, fluke and all other parasites and diseases which affect young cattle. It is agreed that at least £10 million to £15 million is lost every year due to those diseases and because an all-out effort has not been made to bring home to the people concerned their own responsibility in the matter and the fact that they have not attacked those diseases at their early stages in order to have cattle cleared completely.

The Minister referred to wheat. I do not know whether it is in order to mention the long delays there were last year outside mills at the delivery stage but I hope that improvements will be made this year. Wheat acreage is now only half of what it was a few years ago. We can remember when the people on the far side of the House were supposed to be the wheat farmers and they said that the people on this side were only in favour of beef. I do not know what has happened since but there seems to have been a great change. Certainly the fact that the Government have changed their opinion in regard to beef production and the value of the British market is good for the economy and for the people, but it is only right to point out to the Minister that the acreage under wheat is only little more than half what it was in 1954 and 1955. Today the farmers, taking into account devaluation and the decline in the value of the £, are not getting in real money terms what they were getting 12 or 13 years ago for wheat. I should like to ask the Minister if there is any section of the community which is asked to work today for less than they were getting ten or 12 years ago? There is no section which has been asked to do so by the Government except the farmers. Last year we imported £24 million worth of cereals, which, if we had proper advice and a proper lead from the Government, could and should have been grown in this country. If it had been produced here, it would have brought more wealth and given more employment to our people and would no doubt have helped our balance of payments.

I am glad to see that a sum of £400,000 is required to meet additional expenditure on grants to farmers under the Land Project. That is money which is more than well spent. When that scheme was introduced many years ago, it was condemned bitterly by the Government, and we are glad to see that they now realise that it is a good scheme, that it is in the farmers' interests and in the interests of the nation to have land drained and properly fertilised and to make certain, as Deputy Dillon said when introducing the scheme, that two blades of grass could grow where previously only one blade grew. I remember him saying in 1947 that at that time there was not even a thimbleful of ground limestone in the country. When he started that scheme, he appealed to the farmers to avail of it to the full, and said that as far as he was concerned, he was prepared to help them in every way to have their lands drained and tested and to have the proper manures put on their lands in order that they might get the maximum production.

I am not sure about the exact amount of land that has been reclaimed but I think it is well over one million acres. That was money well spent, despite the fact that this Government, and indeed the Minister, were loud in their condemnation of it at one time. I am glad the Minister has been converted and now realises the value of the scheme. We welcome the fact that additional money is necessary. So many people believe in this scheme that there is a very long waiting list, and in my county people have to wait for as long as two years. I wonder if the Minister could do anything to shorten this waiting period. If farmers are willing to improve their land, it should be remembered that this is in the interest of the nation, because then they can produce more and by producing more, they can export more. As the Minister and the Department have been pointing out for the past few months, we live by exports, and by exporting more, we can have a larger national cake and every section of the community can get a larger slice and thereby help the whole country. I should like to see the waiting period reduced because if farmers show this initiative, they should be given the permission to go ahead as quickly as possible.

The sum of £2,600 is required to cover the travelling and subsistence expenses of the National Agricultural Council in the first year of its existence. This sum should be knocked out of this Estimate because this body as it is at present constituted has done no useful work for the farmers. It is putty in the hands of the Government. As a matter of fact, it is being used by the Minister and by the political Party of which he is a member, to keep warfare going between the different farming organisations. His idea is to divide and conquer and the vindictive action taken last year is still being taken and this Council is the vehicle he uses to keep alive the embers of that fire which he did so much to light last year. If there is the slightest chance of this dispute ending, the Minister comes along and throws more petrol on the fire. Recently when the NFA were prepared to co-operate in any and every way to help keep out the dread foot and mouth disease, the Minister again showed how vindictive he was. There was a sum of £147,000 for that scheme and not one penny of that was paid to The Farmers' Journal. He showed his vindictive spirit——

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely we have been over all this before?

Mr. L'Estrange

The NAC is being used by the Minister to keep this war alive. We, on this side of the House, believe in the rights of all sections to organise. We believe that farmers, or labourers, or anyone else, are entitled to organise in their own interests. The Minister for Agriculture and his colleague, the Minister for Labour, are the servants of the people and it is the duty of the servants of the people to meet the people and have consultations with them. It is no part of their duty to treat the people as some organisations have been and are being treated.

It is well known that the General Council of Committees of Agriculture by an overwhelming majority—I think, 48 votes to eight—called upon their representatives to withdraw from the NAC. Fianna Fáil are members of these committees and it is quite obvious now that these committees have no faith in their own representatives on this body. They were called on to resign. They did not do so. They now represent nobody. To make a real farce of the entire situation, the Minister is himself chairman of the National Agricultural Council. He prepares some scheme and, when he wants to get publicity for that scheme, he goes to the National Agricultural Council and tells the Council the Government have agreed to such and such and he wants to give the Council the credit for it: he tells the Council: "We will issue a statement that the National Agricultural Council recommended so and so." A week later the Minister makes an announcement and tries to put it across to the people that the National Agricultural Council are doing wonderful work for the farmers. It is no harm to point out to the Minister that in 1957 there was a National Production Council in being and the NFA had four representatives on it. It was set up by, I think, Deputy Dillon. I saw the names of the four representatives a few days ago; three of them were Fianna Fáil. I do not know the political affiliations of the fourth.

As I said, the Minister is now using this National Agricultural Council to perpetuate the war he started between the farmers' organisations. His aim seems to be to play one organisation off against the other. I should like to advise the organisation that is in his pocket at the moment that, if the Minister succeeds, but he will not, in walking on or breaking up, the existing farmers' organisation, the largest in the country, it will be a very short time before he rids himself of the other farmers' organisation.

The Minister spoke about the additional sums he is now seeking in respect of such items as beef and dairy produce subsidies. He went on to say:

... the total of State expenditure in relation to agriculture in 1967-68 is now estimated to be in the region of £69 million....

Last year the Government took a full page in the daily papers to point out that so much money was being paid in subsidy. It is only right to point out that the farmers do not want doles or subsidies. They want fair and just prices for their produce so that they and their wives and families can live in ordinary frugal comfort. They ask no more and they seek no less.

The yardstick by which any policy can be judged is the numbers of young people who benefit by that policy. Using that yardstick, one must admit that the policy of the Government in regard to agriculture has been a failure. If agriculture were progressive and if those engaged in agriculture had a reasonable income, there would not be the flight from the land. There would not be emigration. That is the pattern throughout the length and breadth of the country, despite the £69 million the Minister says is paid in subsidy. The Minister should be fair. Included in that £69 million are the salary of the Minister and travelling expenses, the salaries of the officials of his Department, expenditure on county committees of agriculture, the salaries of agricultural instructors, poultry instructresses, the Agricultural Institute, the subsidy on lime. With regard to the latter, the greater part of that subsidy goes to CIE. Included in that £69 million are the Botanic Gardens, the Zoological Gardens and the subsidy to the British to eat our butter. Irish butter can be bought in Britain at 2/7d or 2/8d a lb, whereas the Irish housewife pays 5/- a lb. Every lb of butter sent to Britain is wrapped in a 2/6d postal order. That subsidy comes out of the £69 million. We approve of all the expenditure except the expenditure on the National Agricultural Council.

Mr. Coughlan

I shall confine myself to two items in this Supplementary Estimate and I shall try to be as constructive and as helpful as possible because the Minister has a gigantic task in handling our largest industry and he needs not only the advice of his own officials but the advice of every common-or-garden agriculturist throughout the country. Different types of agriculture are indigenous to different areas. I do not want to be critical of the Minister or to support the accusations that have been made against him, but I would recommend him to take another look at the formation of the National Agricultural Council because the country is too small and the industry is too big to have conflicting bodies looking after it. I refer in particular to the differences that exist between the ICMSA and the NFA. It is not an impossible task to bring them together and have some semblance of unity so they can all go the road together and face the difficulties on that road that are presenting themselves every day of the week. Without being critical or aggressive, I would ask the Minister to look at the situation again and try to reconcile those differences in the national interest.

I want to deal now with the oversupply of milk. At present we are swimming in it. We were swimming in it last summer and it looks as if we will have increased milk production this summer as well. I would ask the Minister to direct his attention now to the subsidiary dairy industries, in particular the manufacture of cheese. From cheese we get the skim milk and the whey which we will be discussing later in relation to the bacon industry. There is a growing demand all over Europe for Irish cheese and I would ask the Minister to make available whatever money is needed for the expansion of this industry. The demand is much greater than the supply and it is, therefore, up to the Department to see to it that this surplus milk will be diverted into something for which there is a demand. There is a demand for cheese and as a result we will also have the whey for the supply of pig feed.

The Minister mentioned hostile interests. I do not believe in that kind of talk at this stage. There is no such thing as hostile interests. If they are hostile, may be they have been provoked into their hostility. You do not get people grumbling and fighting merely for the sake of carrying on an agitation. They do so only because they think they have a legitimate case. If their fears were allayed, their hostility would disappear and we would have the unity so necessary in the running of such an important industry.

I do not think sufficient money is made available to the Agricultural Credit Corporation to do their job. We all have had experience of what happens when claims are made on the corporation on behalf of the smaller farmers in our constituency. We get industrious young farmers trying to set up a decent herd or trying to cultivate their land to the modern standards necessary in preparation for our entry into the Common Market. Their applications have been refused by the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I have had legitimate cases, in which I thought there would be no trouble in securing a loan from the corporation, turned down.

I want to direct the Minister's attention to the exorbitant profits being made by the meat-processing factories. I read the reply to a question concerning the profits these factories have made and it dismayed me to find that for some months of the year they were getting over 9d. per lb. on the beef they processed, leaving out altogether the sale of that commodity. When I made it up on the basis of an ordinary baby beef beast, averaging 9 cwt, these factories get a subsidy of £40 or £45 from the Minister instead of passing that back to the producer. The Minister has promised to investigate the matter. These people have become millionaires overnight to the detriment of the producers. It is unjust and unfair. I hope the Minister will come down with a hard and vicious hand on that type of manipulation, where these processing factories are allowed to get away with that much subsidy, thus depriving the supplier of what he is justly entitled to. I am not asking them to work for nothing. I know they have heavy overheads and that they give good employment. But there should be a fairer distribution than what there is at present.

I want to come now to the matter I am most interested in, the bacon industry. I have spoken here on many occasions on the decline of that industry. I have been assured by the Minister and his predecessor that there was no need to worry about the future of that industry. Figures were thrown out to me purporting to show that the pig population was higher today than yesterday and would be higher again tomorrow. They can throw out regiments and legions of figures any day of the week. Since Templemore there is nothing more deceptive than figures. The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.

At one time we had four bacon factories in my own city, some of them working practically 24 hours a day. Now we have two bacon factories and a lame one. Not alone are the two not in full production, but one of them let 35 male workers go a fortnight ago because the pigs are not there. If they are there, as the figures I was given would seek to show, the fact remains that not alone in my city but in Cork and Dublin these factories are either closing down or letting go their staff. These factories have been brought up-to-date. Some of them, established for generations, have re-organised themselves and brought themselves up to the conditions necessary for our entry to the Common Market. The result is that while the machinery and gear are there to process more per minute, per hour, per day, we have not got the supply.

If the Department had been alert, they could have seen what anyone with half an eye could see, that the bacon factories were being mechanised and were being brought up to handle perhaps two or three times the number they handled four, five or ten years ago —if the Department were alert, which they were not. If they were, they would have said to themselves: "In that case we have to do something else. We have to increase our pig production." Instead, they sat down idly on their haunches and did damn-all about it. I want to say this without being critical. I want to be critical, but at the same time, I want to be constructive. I want to stress this point. The Department, together with the Pigs and Bacon Commission, have failed hopelessly and completely. I want to repeat something I said here in the past. It is about time the Pigs and Bacon Commission was re-organised, the present one scrapped, and the members of it sent home to look after their own business if they are capable of doing that. Let us get men with foresight and ability, men who are prepared to work, to constitute the Pigs and Bacon Commission.

I want to be helpful. I know something about the bacon industry and I want to advise the Minister on this. When cheese is processed, there is a liquid left which is called whey. This is a first-class food for pig-rearing. It is cheap. The greatest expense in regard to whey feed is transport costs. A gallon of whey costs between 1/2d and 3/4d, which is little or nothing. You can get thousands and thousands of gallons of is every day from the cheese processing plants. Delivery, transport and storage costs are the only expense. I admit whey causes erosion. Any pig producer who produces pigs in numbers from 200 to 300 upwards will tell you that whey causes erosion in the tanks, and they have to be relined every couple of years perhaps. That is a small job and it is not expensive. It is the only expense incurred in whey feeding, apart from the transport costs.

In Limerick city, thousands and thousands of gallons of whey are thrown into the Shannon every day of the week by the Condensed Milk Company. You can see the whey mixing with the Shannon water, turning it white and flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. If that is not the greatest waste of good fattening food I have ever seen, I do not know where to look for it. It is tragic in a city like Limerick that this whey is not diverted into pig production. I attended a seminar a short time ago in Limerick organised by the Pig Rearers Association. This matter was discussed at length. Pig feeders from practically every county in Munster attended to give their views. These pig feeders are men who rear pigs in hundreds and that is the only way to do it economically.

These men were of the same opinion about the price of the pig compounds which have to be purchased from the different millers, and at at very handsome profit to the millers, but to no advantage, good, bad, or indifferent, but at a loss to the pig producer. They are organising now to turn to this whey food. God between us and all harm with regard to the Department of Agriculture where the bacon industry is concerned. Factories are closing down every day of the week or, if they are not closing down, they are letting men go every day of the week because they have not the pigs to kill, and the work is not there. The demand is there. The Minister admits that the demand for bacon and pig meat is there. We cannot supply the need. That is why I would impress this on the Minister in the interests not only of the farmers but of all the workers engaged in the bacon industry.

No city is nearer to the bacon industry than Limerick. In the past, the Danes came to Limerick to learn something about bacon curing. Now they have beaten us to the punch and practically wiped us out but the tradition is there in this industry. God help the Department and the Pigs and Bacon Commission. If this is left in their hands, I know where the whole industry will finish up. I am glad the Minister said:

At the moment I am having a special look at the position in regard to pig and feed prices and I am hopeful that it will be possible to make some adjustments which will give greater encouragement to pig producing, especially in the West where increased pig production could do much to add to the income of small farmers.

He does not say when. This is the Promised Land again. We got it last year and the year before, and we will get it next year unless something is done. I want to tell the Minister that if something is not done very soon—and when I make this statement, I do not want to throw out any threats of violence or anything else—with regard to the bacon industry, he will have a much more serious claim and case on his hands than he had with the National Farmers Association.

In Limerick, we have men who are gone beyond any kind of retraining service or retraining education thrown out to walk the streets with their hands in their pockets, and go to the labour exchange. Unless something is done, there will be an emergency on this issue. I do not want to be destructive; I want to be helpful. I am warning the Minister what will happen if this problem is not tackled with energy, courage and foresight.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Blaney)

I am sorry for my absence from the House but I thought Deputy O'Higgins was about to offer when I left. The debate did not throw up anything unusual or new. To a large extent, Deputies dealt on a critical note with the actions of the Minister where there was anything to condemn and with the actions of others if there was anything to praise. This is fairly typical of the Opposition. The NAC was mentioned, as was the cattle trade and foot and mouth disease, and I propose generally to say something on these particular matters later and, perhaps, a few words on matters of lesser importance that were also mentioned.

It has been contended by more than one speaker that the NAC is of no value. In fact, the sole reason given for moving to reduce this Supplementary Estimate is the few thousand pounds out of the millions in this Estimate that it will cost to operate the NAC for 12 months.

The first thing that should be pinpointed is that none of the people in the NAC, although many calls are made on them for attendance at meetings, is paid anything. There is nothing in it for anybody, if that might be suggested by the viciousness of the attack made on these people and the attributing to them of political affiliations all of a similar nature, allegedly Fianna Fáil. This is a very stupid line of attack and one known to those who made it to be untrue. I shall not go around the NAC members and give their whole political outlook, but I shall say categorically that there are people sitting around the table of the NAC whose views are known right through their lifetime to be anything but Fianna Fáil, and I have no reason to think that since they joined the NAC, they have changed their outlook and are Fianna Fáil today.

Out of the total membership operating at present in the NAC, I have nominated four. Remember there are ten now sitting. The other six were put forward by representative organisations so that the charge that I hand-picked these people and that the NAC is merely a tool of the Government and the Minister is without foundation. If there should be any foundation to that charge, then the charge is being laid at the feet of the three organisations who have each done their part in supplying two members, namely, the ICMSA, the Beetgrowers Association and the General Council of Committees of Agriculture.

The fact that I have not put on the two further members that I have reserved the right to put on is for the very good reason that there is one organisation that has so far not joined the NAC, the NFA. I have not added my final two nominees to the group because if the NFA were to put on their two representatives, they might really be duplicating the two I might put on leaving gaps in the all around competence of the body of 14 which I hope will be the total membership. Gaps might be left so far as specialist knowledge is concerned, and so I still reserve these two although I shall not do so for very much longer because there are elements in the NAC that need strengthening and I must shortly exercise my prerogative to aid those elements by appointing the additional members. It would be better—and I would still hope for it—if the two from the NFA were forthcoming. When I saw what their particular specialist knowledge was in their own line of agriculture, I would then exercise my prerogative by appointing two others to bring the membership to the total of 14 I still hope to achieve. If this does not happen, I may shortly add one or, perhaps two more members, as is the stated intention.

I have been taken to task here today for foisting on the country an unwanted national so-called agricultural council—I think that was the description given. The very Deputy who made this charge, Deputy Clinton was followed by little Sir Echo himself, Deputy L'Estrange. It was Deputy Clinton who chided me at the General Council of Committees of Agriculture a year ago that I should get on with this more quickly than I was doing and set up a council. He suggested at that meeting that if I did not get on with the task, he felt the General Council should set it up themselves. As it turned out, I did set up the NAC shortly afterwards and why Deputy Clinton should be so short in memory now as to suggest it was an unwanted and uncalled for move when he himself was one of the first to call for such a body and to suggest that the General Council should sponsor its setting up, is something I do not understand.

It should not go without notice here that this Council as constituted does represent a very good cross-section of the agricultural community. Without wishing to be argumentative, I would say that so far as the organisations represented on it are concerned, they together represent more individual farmers than the one body outstanding that has not joined the NAC. Yet, listening here, one would imagine that these other organisations count for nothing and represent nobody, that the ICMSA is of no account and the Beetgrowers Association is of no account, and the thousands of members who belong to both are of no account, merely because they belong to organisations other than that to which Fine Gael would like them to belong.

Then we have the General Council of the Committees of Agriculture also, apparently, representing nobody. As a politician and as an ex-member of a committee of agriculture in a county council for nine or ten years, I reckon that the two people from the General Council of Committees of Agriculture are more truly representatives of farmers than any of those who may be suggested at any time to go on such a council, because they are not only representative of their committees but, remember, they come from rural areas; they have been elected by what is mainly an agricultural and farming electorate. If they are not representative of our farmers, then I do not think any other organisation of a voluntary nature can claim to represent farmers. If the elected representatives do not represent the farmers from whose areas they have sprung and have been elected to their councils and subsequently to committees of agriculture and then to the National Agricultural Council, then there is not any of us anywhere in any capacity who can claim to do so.

So far as the individuals I have put on this committee are concerned, I will again challenge the Opposition that even the four I have put on out of the ten are not all Fianna Fáil and, in fact, have been known not to have been Fianna Fáil down the years. Again, I will mention no names because this is so evident to Fine Gael that I do not have to state it, but it is quite true, quite evident and quite well known to them that of the four I have put on, I have not got a majority of them, never mind all of them, known Fianna Fáil supporters or, indeed, actual Fianna Fáil supporters, as far as is known of their careers up to date. So it is not a Fianna Fáil dominated group by any means.

There are six elected by these three very reputable bodies of high standard, representative of a vast number of farmers, four put on by me for their particular special knowledge to add to the six already there and two of the four, at least, known to be other than Fianna Fáil all during their days. Fine Gael know this better than I do. Fine Gael should take note of it and not be castigating their own friends of the past merely to have a swipe at some of my friends today, all with the intention of knocking the NAC and trying as best Deputy L'Estrange can to stir up trouble and to attack the NFA and the NAC in this House, whereas his colleague, the night that he was with me on a television programme had the good sense to suggest that the matter should not be raised or discussed there at all as it would not do anybody any good. Deputy L'Estrange does not seem to have that view but he should have a talk with the shadow Minister on his own Front Bench and he may be brought up-to-date. I do not want any row in this House but the things that were said cannot be let go unchallenged and I still say that the few thousands of the total millions going into agriculture that go on the cost and expenses of running this council for the past 12 months is probably the best value for money of any of the £69 million we are spending up to 31st March.

The cattle trade has been talked about here and, of course, we have the usual approach by the Opposition, Fine Gael speakers talking about the good prices of today and suggesting that it was only because of the disaster that overtook the British in the foot and mouth disease that we have these prices today and had such a good year. The fact is that were it not for the advent of foot and mouth disease in Britain, we would have had a better year because our supplies to Britain were badly curtailed in the past four or six weeks because of the outbreak. Our output to the British Market would have been higher and it had already gone to such a pitch that, taking our beef and cattle exports and the value received for them during the previous part of the year, the sum total, even with the slow down in the month of December, has all added up, despite that handicap in the last month of the year, to new record export figures both in volume and in value and this story that foot and mouth disease is the only reason that there are prices for cattle today is completely without foundation.

I have been challenged as well, of course, to say what part the Government, the Department or myself may have played in any way during last year in these more happy circumstances of the cattle trade than in the previous year. I would claim that our continuous advocacy from earlier than this time last year to farmers to sell their cattle when they were ready, if and when they would get a reasonable price and had a steady flow of output from the country, would be our best plan during 1967 and then we would not have a glut at the back end. The months from April to August will bear out that what we advocated, in fact, was done and that the big carry-over from 1966 had been completely liquidated by the end of August together with the normal crop of animals that would have been ready during that period. These were the things that really had the effect of leaving us without a surplus at the back end. This, together with the expanded American market for boned cow beef, which is another very substantial and big contributor to the very lively and good trade we enjoyed last year. It was not just the 200,000 or 300,000 cows that have been cleared out of the country that was important, or even the good prices paid for these animals. The fact is that this is a type of product for which we had no other market during 1967 and if we did not have a lively market in the States we would have had this type of product thrown on our own home market at bad prices, substituting for and taking the place of prime heifer or bullock beef and depressing these prices accordingly, the effect of which would have been felt throughout the entire cattle trade.

In regard to the two things, then, to which I attribute the improvement last year, we feel we had some hand in them because the records are there from January of last year of our advocating on every occasion the clearance of animals as they became ready, not holding them over for bigger prices that might never materialise, the insistence that farmers should try to sell them regularly and to phase the supply month by month and thereby not only get rid of big numbers but avoid a crushing backlog such as might be pushed into the back end of the season, which is partly what happened to us in the previous year.

Of course, if we were transporting ourselves back 12 months and discussing here a Supplementary Estimate 12 months ago, there is no doubt whatever that whatever was happening then or had happened in the cattle trade would be directly attributed by the Opposition to the action or inaction of the Minister for Agriculture. Because of the fact that circumstances have changed, that the market has been good, that our exports have been at record levels, of course, the Opposition feel compelled to go out of their way to point out that the Minister and his Department and the Government have had nothing whatever to do with the improved situation. It is the old story. If there is anything on which to knock the Government, then the Government are to be knocked right down the line, even including the bad weather. Right up the line, including the bad weather, everybody, except the Government can be given credit for improvements. This is typical, negative, Fine Gael tactics in this House and referred to by me merely to put them in proper perspective, lest there still may be anybody in the country who may be taken in by them.

Foot and mouth disease is a scourge which, so far, we have escaped. We have escaped it by the diligence with which all of our people at every level, here and abroad, took heed of the warnings which it was the duty of the Minister for Agriculture on behalf of his Government to give from time to time. People abided by the regulations made from time to time and had to put up with certain hardship, difficulty and inconvenience. Nobody was more conscious of this than the Department of Agriculture and I who were charged with the ultimate responsibility of advising the Government when these things were to be done, how far we were to go, for how long these restrictions were to be imposed. Ours was the burden to carry in that connection and we were quite conscious of the difficulties we were creating for people, but, in retrospect, it can be said that our handling of the matter is appreciated by the public as a whole. If they had not appreciated that we were handling the matter in the way they felt it should be handled, they would not have given us the full and utmost co-operation we got. This, I think, disproved any charges by the wild men of Fine Gael who merely want to have a swipe at the Government regardless of what is at issue, whether it is the question of these people who were inconvenienced, a number of whom are still inconvenienced and will be for some considerable time yet, or anything else, but Deputy Esmonde here said, in complete contradiction to what Deputy L'Estrange said, that he believed that these things had to be done in the best interests of the country.

Deputy L'Estrange reckons that any restrictions up to now on marts and fairs, which have been removed as from today, were purely generated by vindictiveness or viciousness on my part against the NFA. What it has to do with the NFA at this stage I do not know. Perhaps Deputy L'Estrange knows more than I do. When dealing with the cattle trade, the marts and the fairs, I am not dealing with the NFA; I am dealing with farmers in a very broad spectrum throughout the country. Holding up on their sales and hindering them in any way is not something I would wish to do, and is certainly not something I would do merely to have a swipe at the NFA, or even at Deputy L'Estrange. I would hope I am slightly more mature than that. I just want to put it on the record that Deputy L'Estrange is not only talking through his hat but is talking out of turn and out of tune with the other Member who spoke from his own benches a few minutes before. He was not here to listen to Deputy Esmonde and probably does not realise how contradictory he was in his speech in relation to what Deputy Esmonde said.

To Deputy Tully, speaking for his Party, I wish to record my appreciation of his indication that his Party were behind the Government and the Department in anything we had to do and that they felt we were the best judges of the situation. They were taking the view which is that shared by 99.9 per cent of the people regardless of their politics.

In so far as the rest of the debate was concerned, there was nothing useful said here today, nothing that could really be of any value to me. I was hoping that on this very large Supplementary Estimate, there would have been a variety of useful and reasoned contributions, either as constructive criticism or as suggestions which would be of use in the future. Certain information was requested. Brucellosis was mentioned, and for the information of the House the eradication of brucellosis is proceeding satisfactorily. County Donegal will be declared brucellosis-free at a very early date. Indeed, it would have been declared free but for the fact that the foot and mouth outbreak interfered with our testing, and, therefore, it did take a number of months. The second round of testing in Donegal is practically finished and, as I say, in a very short time we will be declaring the area brucellosis-free. In Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo and Leitrim the second round of testing is starting tomorrow, 1st March. In Roscommon it is intended to commence testing later in the year. In regard to BTE, there has been some breakdown so far as the eradication of bovine tuberculosis is concerned, and there is a special team investigating these breakdowns that have occurred to try to ensure that they do not occur in the future.

The mountain lamb scheme was given scant praise and slight criticism, and was talked about with little knowledge of what is involved in the scheme. One criticism was made by Deputy Clinton which could not have been correct, complaints he heard when he was in Dingle from hill sheep farmers who complained they had to take their sheep up to 30 miles to have them passed for this new subsidy. He might well have been referring to criticisms that could have been made the previous year, because in that year the number of testing centres was not enough for the sales outlets, because the sale was one of the prerequisites for benefit under the scheme in 1966, and the number of centres at which inspections took place were very few. During the past year we set up no fewer than 550 inspection centres in 15 counties. If it could be that people were 30 miles from any of these centres in such a prominently mountain sheep county as Kerry, then we would certainly need to look at the situation again. However, I should think that in Dingle, in mountain country where there is a big sheep population, the adequacy of centres, certainly from a distance point of view, should not have been a real problem. Lest we have in some peculiar way slipped up there, we will see to it that it will not happen again. But the real point about this new scheme is that it is less restrictive than was the scheme last year. It applied to all lambs of the mountain and Cheviot breeds, and the good quality that was presented and the fact that we paid out so much more money over and above what we paid out last year is a fairly true indication of the manner in which it took on as against the wether and hogget ewe scheme of the previous year.

The accredited pigs scheme was discussed. This scheme was introduced in 1960 and its purpose was to combine and accelerate the effectiveness of the litter progeny testing. The number of participants in 1964 was 155, but this had declined to 90. There was a decline in the activity in the pig industry, and nowhere was this more noticeable than in the accredited pig scheme. We have discussed the problem of the decline not only in pigs generally but in the accredited pig herds scheme, and proposals for the payment of financial inducements to encourage participation in the scheme are being further discussed with the very important Department of Finance without whom none of us in any Department can do any really effective work if it is going to cost any few shillings at all.

The warble fly scheme was talked about in many ways but the nigger in the woodpile was Deputy L'Estrange. He had nothing but criticism to make of the Department and the Minister. He took the credit from where it belonged and, of course, gave it to the NFA. He criticised us very seriously for making a good job of a scheme he alleges these people started.

We should also record our appreciation of Deputy L'Estrange who recalled to our minds the part played by the NFA in regard to disinfection at the Border, a claim they do not make themselves. Apparently, again, nothing was being done or could have been done if they had not started it. This is an old ramp on the part of the Deputy and it is rather boring as well as tiring to have to listen to him. Still, he keeps going in the hope that he can cause trouble even where no reason for trouble exists.

Deputy Clinton spoke about fluke. He was critical that we were not doing much about it. We are. We are trying to find ways and means of eradicating it as one of the prime loss causers in our herds as of now. It is our hope that we can follow the eradication of tuberculosis, brucellosis and warble fly with the eradication of fluke in our animals. We would hope to get to grips with fluke infestation and eradicate it. It costs us a great deal each year in losses as well as in deaths of our animals. It is a well worth-while job. We have been fully alive to this matter for a considerable time. A new committee was formed. It is representative of the Department's research laboratory, the veterinary inspectorate of my Department, the agricultural advisory services, the universities, An Foras Talúntais and the Irish Veterinary Associations. If Deputy L'Estrange heard that list read out he would say it was composed merely of henchmen of the Minister and could not possibly perform the job. We shall leave that to him for another day.

Deputy Tully wanted information on the Land Project in County Meath. He wanted to know if we had improved on the 12 months time-lag between application, inspection, allocation and approval of grants under this scheme. The answer is that we have. We have brought down the delay from 12 months, on average, to between three and four months. Were it not for the diversion of some staff to foot and mouth disease duties, we would hope, at this stage, to have it somewhat lower. It is our intention to try to reduce this time-lag and to make inspection as quickly as possible after initial application not only for County Meath but for the country as a whole.

We are fully alive to the fact that, when a farmer fills up his application and sends it in, he has his mind made up to do a bit of drainage. Unfortunately, this is usually in the depths of winter or in the very early spring. He has in mind, a few months beyond that, breaking in a particular field, tilling it, maybe re-grassing it, and so on— all of which brings a great deal of urgency to his mind in relation to that particular field. This happens so often that a time-lag of any number of months can mean the difference between his doing the job in the year he intended to do it and utilising his field or the possibility—if we do not do it that year—that we may put him off his stride and he may not follow it up the next year. All of us who are anxious to operate this scheme to the fullest advantage of the agricultural community would wish to reduce the time-lag between the various stages of application, inspection, subsequent allocation of grants, inspection of the work and, finally, payment for the job done by way of grant.

Deputy T. O'Donnell spoke about pigs. He said that we might give him some results of the survey carried out by my Department on the pig fattening stations. The informations we got on that survey must, of necessity, remain confidential. That is the basis on which we sought the information. If we had not sought it on the basis of observing confidence in relation to it, our hopes of getting similar useful information in the future would be very much reduced.

Suffice it to say, having got the information, done the survey, and taken what lessons we could from what the survey turned up, we are of the opinion that it highlights a couple of things that may, in themselves, be weak in some of these stations as of now and, indeed, might help us to avoid similar weaknesses in the future. One is that management is of the most vital importance in all of these large pig-fattening units.

Anybody with any knowledge of pigs must fully realise and appreciate that—regardless of any of the other factors—the man on the spot, responsible for the situation, is a most vital person. If the right man is not there, nothing else matters because he will not have a successful or a profitable pig-fattening unit. Top-class management is essential: otherwise it cannot succeed.

There are a number of co-operative efforts taking shape in different parts of the country, in addition to those that are already there. The reckoning is that the local capital input, by way of subscribed capital, has been on the low side and, in some cases is far too low. The local input of capital must be much higher in the future. If only £3,000 or £4,000 is local capital and the rest—maybe £100,000—is made up by various loans, it leaves the local members with very little personal commitment. Very often, a great deal of that small local capital will be subscribed by people in business rather than in farming and they will have merely an indirect interest in getting the project going. They will not participate in any executive management of it. They have no great knowledge of the business.

Very small local participation in an effort means that there is no personal identification with it nor is there any feeling among a great number of people that to make a success of it is really obligatory on them. If it goes well, fair enough. If not, the attitude is: "Why should one fellow more than another step out of line to try to put everything right?" This has happened in some cases and has brought expense and trouble on the heads of those who participated. We do not regard it as fatal in all cases.

We would hope that cognisance will be taken of this weakness and that probably up to one-third of the capital input, ideally, should be subscribed by local co-operative members rather than top-heavy borrowing which has been the pattern in a number of those efforts which we have surveyed to date. There is, we believe, a future for this type of station, provided we have local participation of quite a considerably higher degree than we have had up to now, that we have an interested and vitally personally concerned group of people as a co-op running it from a committee point of view and that, above all, without fear or favour, the management is top class, first class and no second-rater need apply. This is obviously what goes to make success in this particular job and we feel, and I have a very strong belief, that there is room for many more of these large central fattening stations in the country. I would hope that they would avoid the pitfalls some of the earlier ones fell into and that in the future they would help to stabilise the pig industry by providing a ready and guaranteed outlet for the young store pigs coming from the breeders, without whose participation and without whose breeding, of course, we cannot have a pig industry.

It is as simple as that, and therefore I would like to say that I regard large central pig-fattening stations as a very important factor in the future of the industry. This is not to say, and should not be taken as indicating, that we are putting the private producer of small dimension out of the pig industry. I do not think this is so; rather do I feel that the two require strengthening, that we should have more private feeders even down to quite a small scale but side by side with the private feeder, we should have a central fattening capacity of about 50 per cent of the total that are fattened, the other 50 per cent being fattened by the various small men who breed their own and feed them right through. However, this is a matter which is being dealt with in our full consideration of the whole pig and bacon problem and about which we hope to be saying something more in the not too-distant future.

Deputy Esmonde talked about grain prices, the price of wheat and the price of barley. His main plea was that our wheat prices and our barley prices should have been increased. As Minister for Agriculture, I certainly would feel very happy in doing the popular thing of inceasing the price of wheat and barley. Nothing would be dearer to the heart of any Minister for Agriculture than to be able to walk in here and say: "Prices are up by 5/- or 10/- a barrel." The realistic situation, however, is that the price of wheat in this country is more or less in line with the price in that much sought-after community, the EEC. We hear elements talking about how much more they are getting for other agricultural commodities there but here is one commodity for which we at this present time and for the past couple of years have been enjoying a price at as high a level as the Common Market members are obtaining.

So far as our barley is concerned, we have been told by Deputy L'Estrange, and others who have the same sort of mentality, that the price was higher in 1948. This is a long story. It is a long time back and I am not, on this Supplementary Estimate, going to tell that story. I think the main point is that we have come a long way in the growing of barley since 1948. We have immensely improved our production, our yields per acre, our quality and our varieties. We have learned a great deal in that time and our farmers are doing a very useful and efficient job in the production of barley today as against what was capable of being done in those days to which Deputy L'Estrange would hark back.

In so far as the price of today is concerned, if one were to ask: "Is it not justifiable that this price should go up as against last year's price?" One can point to the fact in regard to both wheat and barley, that the yield out-turn last year in both of these crops was certainly well above the normal average and that there is no reason why, given reasonable weather and a reasonable season, this high yield out-turn should not occur this year, and indeed why it should not be further improved. This being so, then, we take a look at the situation and ask ourselves in all fairness does the price of barley require to be put up; does it require an added boost by way of support price to get it grown in the same quantities next year?

Our belief is that it does not, and if that were not sufficient in itself, we have the undoubted related problem that arises that as you put the price of barley up, or indeed the price of wheat you also directly affect the cost impact of the feed that goes into the much talked about pig and this creates its own problem and ultimately must be paid for by increased Exchequer subsidy through the export of our bacon to Britain, on the one hand, about 50 per cent of our production, and on the other hand, increased prices to the consumer on the market which includes of course most of our farmers as well.

Therefore we just cannot take it in isolation and say: "Wages may have gone up; rates may have gone up; electricity may have gone up; and therefore the barley should go up," if the barley out-turn per acre is going up corresponding or greater in its return at present prices than is the added increased cost and having regard to the other repercussions that an increase in the price of barley would have. These are the circumstances in which I have not been able this year to do as my predecessors have done, to come along and say: "The price of barley is rising again." It is not, but we still feel, and we hope, that the farmer will get more out of his barley during 1968 than he did in 1967.

The interim agreement mentioned by our friend in Paris not so long ago with the EEC would be simplified by Deputy Esmonde into an interim arrangement; it would be in his estimation a trade agreement. If only we had the President of France and Deputy Esmonde together for five minutes, it is quite possible that all the problems of the EEC and all its difficulties could be wiped away. He has that belief. Unfortunately I have not. I think it is a much more difficult situation, much as I would like to agree with Deputy Esmonde. It would be a grand thing to know that all I have to do is go to Paris and stay there until I got a deal. Much as I might like a few days in Paris, if such a deal were to be presented to me, I would much prefer that Deputy Esmonde would take it and stay in Paris until such a deal were finalised because it would be too long for me to wait. I would much prefer to be at home. This, in my estimation, is a serious proposition. The best minds in this country and in the adjoining country and in other countries have been examining this situation of an interim arrangement with the EEC as pronounced by the President of France when our Taoiseach visited him. It is still being debated as to what exactly this was about and Deputy Esmonde's interpretation of it, while it would be very popular, I do not think can be taken too seriously at this stage.

We had Deputy Clinton moving on to fertilisers. He wanted to complain that fertiliser prices had gone up and that this was an increase in cost and he asked was that increase to apply in full to the farmers. So far as I am aware, and I take it that my knowledge at this stage is good enough for Deputy Clinton as he asked the question of me, the increase applies in full. It is not being abated in any way by a Government subvention beyond that which we are already paying on phosphates and potash and insofar as it takes place it will be paid by the farming community on the fertilisers they have got to purchase. We feel in this regard that this increase is due largely to the effects of devaluation, that it was unavoidable and that its impact will not be of such a nature as will in any way reduce the import of fertilisers by our farmers during this current year. Indeed, far from it.

We hope that the rising trend, which was apparent last year, will continue right through this year because indications in the first few months are that we are spreading fertilisers as much as before. This will have the effect of displaying to our farmers as a whole that fertilisers, even though the price has increased, are still the cheapest commodity they can buy because so sure as they buy and utilise them, every £ spent on them, without making a plug for the fertiliser manufacturers, as they say, will bring back three. I would say from experience that every £ spent would bring back two. This is one of the greatest things in farming. They get a very good return for every £ spent. Therefore, I would advocate farmers to keep in mind the worth of fertilisers which they have found over the years and which greater numbers are finding out in the last few months, and to continue to spread fertilisers to the fullest possible extent.

I think it was Deputy Clinton who talked about the effect of the stoppage of the importation of beef from the Argentine. This is a matter over which we have no control, for, as I mentioned very briefly in passing in my introductory speech, insofar as we could make our views known to the British, who are the deciding factor in this matter, we have already done so in very definite terms, that until we know and are sure that they have taken steps to ensure that the foot and mouth disease, and any other disease, is not being brought in by this beef, it should be kept out and restricted in a very severe way. As I say, we have made this known to the British Ministry and for what it counts, the position will be that they are under no illusions about what we feel about this and we are under no illusions that, apart from the disease, we would not be in the gold rush if the Argentinian meat were wiped out from the British market altogether.

Imports from the Argentine to Britain last year were 118,000 tons of beef, which is roughly equivalent to 475,000 head of cattle. This is a surprisingly low figure to those who may have thought that if only the Argentinian beef were kept out of Britain, we could regard the importation of our cattle in there as being equivalent to gold dust. This is not so. Those are the figures for 1967. This is not to be compared with the total importation into Britain, and even if the Argentinian beef were re-introduced into Britain, it would not knock us in any way, in my estimation. If it were, there might be a harder type of market, but we had to live with that in the past and I am sure we can continue to live with it, if we have to, in the future. The only reason we would be against the importation of Argentinian meat into Britain is if it is proved it was a source of danger in regard to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. If it is not, then it is Britain's decision whether she brings in such meat or not. So long as she continues to take our cattle at reasonably good prices, we do not mind where else she shops.

There was then another suggestion which sounded so simple that one could almost believe it, that is, in regard to exporting cattle to the EEC countries, even against the present levies and duties. I think it was Deputy Esmonde, again, who remarked that the price was £12 a cwt in the EEC and if you could buy here at £7 and get £12 there for a 12 cwt bullock, you would pay £84 here and get £144 there, and why could we not do it. The facts are that you are not sure that you will get £12 in the EEC. At this particular time, I would love to see anybody get £12, £9 or £8 a cwt in this market. You would have to add on a duty of £40, which is something Deputy Esmonde forgot about. You would add the £40 to the £84 and 16 per cent duty, which goes on top of that, and there are also freight costs and certain veterinary costs, and naturally some profit for the man who is going to risk all this to shift his cattle there. The fact is that you would not get this money there. You could buy animals here under £9 but you are not sure you will get £12 a cwt there. You have to pay the £40 duty, plus the 16 per cent, and if you drop below the 12 cwt, which you would have to do, because the general run of our animals here are not that weight, then you would be in real trouble.

I would say to Deputy Esmonde that if he went over there with cattle, he would probably stay in Paris, under the bridges maybe, and he would have sufficient time to work out a deal with General de Gaulle while he was there, but there is no use codding the people that there is something to be held out for them there. Until some new arrangement is worked out and a very severe reduction in the levy of duties takes place and the member countries in the EEC are more interested in getting our cattle than they are at the moment, it is only a messing job.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Does the Minister intend concluding today?

Mr. Blaney

Not really.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It is all the same to me.

Mr. Blaney

We have only another few minutes to stick it out. I have not any great hope to offer at the moment in regard to the EEC countries and our cattle. I have no more hope to offer now than when I mentioned this some months ago. At the same time, I should not like it to get around that there is anything much to be expected from it unless we could do some special deal, which we have been trying, and which we hope to get at some time.

Progress reported: Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 5th March, 1968.