asked the Minister for Local Government (a) when the £17 agricultural rates abatement allowance was introduced and (b) the difference between the value of the pound then and now.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rates Abatement Allowance.
17.
The maximum employment allowance of £17 was introduced in respect of the year 1953-54. I understand that in February, 1968, £1 would purchase the same quantum of goods and services as 12/8d in 1953.
(Cavan): Would the Minister agree that the rate of agricultural wages has increased very considerably since 1953 and that the allowance of £17 does not now provide to any degree the same incentive to farmers to employ labour as it did then and would he take steps to increase it?
The employment allowance is availed of only by about one in ten of the rated occupiers of agricultural land, and as the Deputy knows, the total amount of the agricultural grant in relief of rates on agricultural land has increased since 1953-54 from something under £5 million to over £17 million.
(Cavan): Does the Minister not agree that this £17, if it is meant to be an incentive, has now lost its value completely as compared with when it was introduced in 1953?
I do not think it was ever very effective as an incentive.
The Minister is being realistic at last.
Is the Minister aware that this matter has been raised on very many occasions at the General Council of County Councils and at the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, and that if it were not a matter of concern to a considerable number of farmers, it would not be repeatedly coming up? It is difficult to understand the Minister's resistance. If it was just in 1953 to give £17, surely it is not just today?
Considerable further relief has been given since then——
Not to the same farmers.
——but in a different way and in a way which reaches more of the farmers and those most in need. The amount has gone up from under £5 million to over £17 million, a substantial increase in the amount provided by the rest of the community in relief on rates on agricultural land.
And still more people leave the land.