It can be said that Irish agriculture is in the doldrums. We have no grand plan for the future despite the fact that in a few years we may be in the EEC. What we want today is a grand plan or programme for the future so that the farmers and the nation will get the full benefit if and when we enter the EEC. Instead of co-operation and co-ordinated effort between the Minister, the Government and the farmers and their organisations we have the Government and the Minister—as we had them in 1966 and 1967—at loggerheads with the farmers. Yesterday Deputy O'Sullivan asked a question of the Minister and in reply the Minister would not admit that there was a dispute between the farmers and the Government. As I said before, words seem to have lost their meaning. It would be much better for the Government and the Minister to face reality, to face up to the fact that when the farmers should be adopting modern methods, becoming more efficient and co-operating in every way with the Government to get the best out of the land, there is a protracted dispute and again the Minister and the Government are standing idly by.
God knows we have enough trouble in the North with different sections fighting between themselves and we do not want that here; we should try to give an example. Unfortunately in the last few years we have been at the top of the ladder as far as strikes are concerned. While I admit that people are entitled to go on strike it is the duty of the Government before any strike takes place to do their best to bring the sections together and sit down around the table, as the Government and the farmers will have to do some time, I hope in the near future, and iron out their problems.
Can we not do this now for the farmers? Can the Minister not be man enough to say to those people: "Come in and meet me. I know you have your problems but as far as I am concerned I am prepared to do what I can to iron them out"? Deputy Burke was blaming the farmers and he asked if they could not do something for themselves. The farmers have done a lot for themselves over the years since the NFA, Macra na Feirme and other organisations were formed in trying to educate farmers to avail of new techniques, to adopt progressive ideas and they have done a great deal for the farming community.
Deputy Burke criticised the Labour Party for building a wall around Ireland and for cutting ourselves off, like a dead branch from a tree. Surely the Deputy must know that this is exactly what Fianna Fáil did in the past. It was they who told us that our best market was gone and good riddance. Mr. Frank Aiken said that if every ship on the sea was sent to the bottom and that if a wall was built around Ireland we could do very well without England or the rest of the world. Fianna Fáil preached and practised the isolationist policy that Deputy Burke is now criticising and their policy practically beggared the farmers and other sections of the community also.
We have selective justice in this country. I remember in 1966 when there was an NFA dispute the farmers marched from Donegal and Cork to Dublin. Farmers do not leave their homes and families and trudge many miles unless they have good reason. They sat outside Government Buildings for 21 days while the Minister and the Government refused to meet them. The Government tried to divide them and thought that in this way they could conquer them, and any time there was a chance of settlement fuel was thrown on the fire by an arrogant Minister for Agriculture who was then in power.
I remember when there was a rates campaign and the present Taoiseach went on television. He said that they would break the farmers' organisations and that they would not allow the organisations to disrupt the law and authority of the country. When the farmers paraded outside Leinster House they were arrested and lodged in Mountjoy Prison. At that time the Government used a bulldozer to crack a nut. I know many decent, hardworking farmers—among them the Minister's brother—and it was a disgrace that during that campaign television and radio were informed at six o'clock in the morning that the full powers of the State, including the Garda and the Army, were brought in to demand rates from these people. There was no necessity for this display of strength.
It might be a good thing if the Taoiseach would now make the same kind of speech about the anarchists we have in this country who are now getting away with murder and robbery without any action being taken against them. The farmers cannot be blamed if they are annoyed because when they paraded in a peaceful fashion outside Leinster House they were arrested. At least 20 or 30 other parades and public meetings have been held without hindrance but this was denied to the farmers. They were kept within half-a-mile of the gates of Leinster House and were obliged to conduct their meeting at the bottom of Merrion Square. Last week I saw a lorry which was used for a meeting parked in an area where there was a double yellow line. I am not objecting to those people being allowed to hold meetings but, equally, the farmers should not have been arrested when they came on a peaceful demonstration. The Government are afraid to deny the right to hold a public meeting to other groups because they know they will lose votes. Last week the students sent a deputation to the Minister and he had the television cameras on the spot in order to get publicity. This kind of selective justice is wrong.
I do not like farmers' strikes. The farmers have more to lose than anyone else. If the law is broken and if there is a further drift towards anarchy the farmers, being property owners, will have to pay for any damage and losses that may occur. While I am a member of the NFA, I have always advised them to act as peacefully as possible. I believe that is their idea and intention at the present time.
In Fine Gael we believe in co-operation, co-ordination and dialogue. This is what we should have at the present time but, unfortunately, this is not the case. The war has gone on for too long and the Government are to blame. I remember the Taoiseach speaking a year ago about wiping the slate clean. That is what we want and we should like to see those ideas translated into definite action. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries should meet the farmers and make their contribution towards wiping the slate clean. The sooner this impasse is ended the better.
There is little use in holding out an olive branch in one hand and a cudgel in the other—this has happened too often in the past. It is just as well to tell the Minister and the Government that they will not trample on the organised farmers. The farmers are entitled to organise and it is fair to say that they now speak with a reasonably unified voice. The farmers are entitled to a fair crack of the whip but they are not getting it today.
If this war between the farmers and the Minister continues many innocent people may suffer. I have here an article taken from the Longford Leader of 13th February, 1971. It is headed “Non-purchase campaign: appeal for full support”. It lists agricultural machinery and new self-propelled and power-driven machines which the farmers are asked not to purchase. It includes new cars, tractors, lorries, new bulk tanks, new combine harvesters, new potato harvesters, new power saws, new bulldozers and diggers, new milking machines and coolers. Under the heading of “New Equipment” there is also listed: new tedder and all haymaking equipment, new ridgers, corn drills and sowing equipment, new sprayers and balers, new muck spreaders, new fertiliser and lime spreaders, new car and tractor trailers and horse boxes, new loaders and scrapers, new grain and milk bulk tanks, new cattle crushes, new mowers, new shearers, new grain dryers, new feeding troughs and feeding racks, new gates, new feed mixers and grain and milk equipment. They have also been told not to buy fertilisers or lime.
We realise that it would be bad for the country if this should continue and it behoves the Minister and the Government not to deny that there is a dispute. They should face up to their responsibilities. They should meet those people and as quickly as possible resolve the dispute. I shall give figures later to prove that the farmers have a just case because of the increased costs of production, rates, taxes, et cetera while the price of their produce has not increased at the same rate. It can be truthfully said that the failure of Fianna Fáil to introduce a long-term plan for Irish agriculture has, more than any other factor, been responsible for our failure to deal adequately with the nation's chronic social and economic problems and in particular to arrest the social and economic disintegration of large parts of the country.
The Government have no policy on agriculture. They have no printed programme or guidelines for the future. As in other matters concerning this Government, it is merely political expediency, doing what they think will get them the most votes at a particular time and paying little heed to what is best for agriculture or for the economy as a whole. Until the last seven or eight years agricultural produce constituted the majority of our exports, and our land and our climate were our principal natural resources. In recent years the development of industries capable of exporting has reduced our dependence on agriculture. At the same time agriculture plays a most important part in the viability of our economy. Prosperity cannot be assured without a comprehensive and dynamic long-term programme of agricultural development. The sooner the Government sit down with organisations like the NFA, Macra na Feirme and plan the guidelines and the targets for the future, the better for the farmers and for the whole country.
We know also, and we hear a great deal about it on television, that over the years large sums of money have been spent by the Government in an effort to improve the farmer's income or at least to prevent it from deteriorating too much in relation to that of other sectors of the community. However, support to agriculture has been essentially of a short-term kind— farm subsidies of various sorts designed to deal with the present social demands rather than to form part of a long-term plan to improve the competitiveness of agricultural production and the capacity of the farmer to face up to the more competitive period we are going through at present and which undoubtedly lies ahead.
We all welcome the State aids to agriculture but what the majority of farmers want is not doles or sops but fair and just prices so that they and their wives and families can live in frugal comfort. In an undeveloped country like ours where there is so much drainage work and land improvement work to be done, instead of paying doles and sops work could and should be provided in rural areas. Instead of giving the farmer a dole of £4 and £5 a week. which I claim can in many cases be degrading to the people that receive it, it would be much better to provide three or four days work or a week's work, if possible, at a good wage, on drainage or forestry. That, plus his small farm, would bring him in a reasonable return. More than anything else it would help to increase production and to bring more land into use. Since the land project was introduced I think 1,200,000 acres of land, scrubland covered with rocks, which could not be tilled for the want of proper drainage, has been made arable. That could be of vital importance to this country in the future.
When it is said that £100 million is given to the farmers in relation to agriculture, it should be pointed out to urban dwellers that out of that £100 million come the salaries of the Minister and officials of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the committees of agriculture, the salaries of the professors in the agricultural institutes and universities, the subsidies on lime, much of which goes to CIE. Even the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo expenses are paid out of that; and the subsidy to small farmers under £20 valuation. Figures were published recently from the Agricultural Institute which showed that farmers of around £30 poor law valuation are earning only something like £300 per year. Even the city people will have to admit that any small farmer under £20 valuation is entitled to derating.
The subsidy for the export of butter to Britain also comes out of this £100 million. It has been argued—and I think the suggestion has been made by Fianna Fáil Deputies—that butter should be given to our people at reduced rates. That is another problem. However, out of this £100 million come also the salaries of the inspectors operating the subsidy for beef production, the salaries of creamery managers and others engaged in the creamery industry.
All these items come out of that £100 million, and I doubt very much if £40 million of it goes into the pockets of the farmers. It is wrong to have this argument going on between the urban dwellers and the agricultural organisations. Someone should find out and tell the people of this country how much is going on all the items I have mentioned and how much is going into the farmers' pockets. I think less than half, and I think nearer to one-third of it finds its way into the farmers' pockets.
I heard Deputy Burke state here that in the last analysis the standard of living of everybody in this country depends on agriculture. We all admit that Ireland is an agricultural country with 12 million acres of fertile arable soil and about 2.8 million people. We have very little underground wealth such as coal, steel, ore or anything like that, although some has been found now, thank God. The standard of living of the vast majority of the people, whether they live in the city, the town, or the country, depends on what the farmer and his worker can get from the land and export profitably. We need the money from abroad to buy the raw materials to help to keep the wheels of industry turning.
We all welcome new industries. Great credit is due to the late Deputy Sweetman and the late Deputy Norton for bringing foreign industrialists here. I heard Deputy Burke speaking a few minutes ago about people building a wall all around Ireland. Up to 1956, Fianna Fáil had built a wall around Ireland. Our people were being exported. They were going to Birmingham and London and other places to work in industries. Full credit is due to the Government who came to the conclusion that, instead of having our people working abroad, it was better to scrap the Act that had made us a little island and allowed nobody in from abroad to start industries here. They decided to give incentives and to invite people from abroad with the technical know-how and the money to set up industries here. Within three months of the passing of a new Act— and it was vigorously opposed by the present Government—the Whitegate Oil Refinery came in here with £12 million, and hundreds of industrialists came since.
We all welcome those industries but, due to the fact that we have to purchase the raw materials abroad—and those industries certainly give valuable employment—out of every £50 million worth of goods that we export, we are lucky if we make £2 million profit for the economy. We are all satisfied with that because it gives employment to our own people. If we increase agricultural production next year or the year after, or even immediately, by £50 million, we will have perhaps £46 million or £47 million net profit coming back into the Exchequer to the distributed in the economy. It may cost an extra £1 million for fertilisers or some new machinery, but we still have the land and the people on it. Therefore, if we can increase our agricultural production by £50 million we have another £46 million or £47 million net coming into the country. Therefore, our aim and our object should be to make ourselves as efficient as possible and to give the maximum help to agriculture to increase production. When we have baked a bigger national cake we should give all sections, including the farmers, a fair and just share. The farmers are not getting that at present.
The farmers represent roughly 30 to 32 per cent of the people of this country. It cannot be denied that they are responsible directly or indirectly for 65 per cent—and some say 70 per cent—of our exports; last year they got 16.1 per cent of the national income. Does anybody blame the farmers for being at war with the Government? They have been in many wars. I heard Deputy Burke mention the economic war when pigs, he said, were selling at 7s 6d and hens at 1s. We know who was responsible for that, but let us keep away from the past. The farmers have been in many wars, national, social and economic and they played their part but their income is dropping. In 1968, their percentage of the national income was 17.4. I asked the Taoiseach a question yesterday and he referred me to an answer to a similar question on 23rd July, 1970. On that date I asked the Taoiseach to state:
"The percentage domestic incomes in the following categories for the years 1967, 1968, 1969 and May or June, 1970 (or the latest available date): (a) farmers' incomes, (b) other domestic incomes and (c) industrial profits; and the number of people covered in each category." Under the heading wages and salary, they get 62.7 per cent. The exact number engaged in agriculture and fishing is 286,136 people. They got 16.1 per cent of the national income. Therefore, we have one-third of the people getting one-sixth of the national income. These are the Government's figures and they cannot be denied. These are the people who work hard. For them there is no five-day week. They have to work seven days in the week. They have to work Saturdays and Sundays. On Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings they have to milk the cows. Many of their sons and daughters are not inclined to do that now.
Let us take another sector of the people. "Others" include people in industries, solicitors and so on. There are 77,858 of them and they get 21.2 per cent of the national income. Remember the figure: 286,000 people get 16 per cent and 77,000 people get 21 per cent. Fianna Fáil often speak about cherishing all the children of the nation equally. Will they admit now that the farmers have not been cherished equally? Deputy Burke asked why do the farmers go on the roads and why do they strike. Will he not admit that when other sections of the community took similar action their incomes were immediately increased and, indeed, increased to a very high level?
It will also be admitted that one of the things galling the farmers is that the gap between their wages and those of other sections of the community has widened to over £8 10s per week. We got that recently in answer to a question that was asked in the House. In 1948, the average income per head of those engaged in agriculture was £3 3s; in industry it was £4 0s 9d, a difference of roughly 17s. In 1953, the average income of those engaged in agriculture was £5 4s; for those engaged in industry it was £5 9s 7d, a difference of only 5s 7d. In 1958, the average income per head of those engaged in agriculture was £5 10s; for those engaged in industry it was £6 15s, a difference of £1 5s. In 1963, for those engaged in agriculture it was £7 7s; and for those engaged in industry it was £9 7s 4d, a difference of £2 4s.
In 1966 those engaged in agriculture had £9 7s; those engaged in industry, £12 2s 9d, a difference of £3 5s 9d. At present the gap has increased to £8 10s. Is it any wonder then, with that huge gap, that the farmers are dissatisfied?
Is it any wonder they are demanding what they believe to be their right, a fair and reasonable return for their work? The number of farmers in this State is dropping severely. I asked the Taoiseach on 17th February, 1971, the total numbers of farmers in the State in 1956, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970. I was told:
The estimated number of farmers in the State which are available for census of population years only were 235,331 in 1951; 210,331 in 1961 and 200,625 in 1966. The last census of population was taken in 1966.
Therefore, between 1951 and 1966 the number of farmers in this country declined by 34,706. There is a very good reason for it. The farmers today are being crushed with rising rates and taxes and overhead expenses and they are not getting a corresponding increase in their selling prices so that they and their families could live in frugal comfort.
In the last few years there have been enormous increases given to the agriculture labourer. He is entitled to them. The agricultural labourers, along with the farmers, have worked hard down through the years, trudged together in the fields in hail, rain and snow for long hours. Despite the increases that have been given, I asked the Taoiseach on 17th February, 1971, the total number of people employed on the land in 1956, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970 and the reduction each year. The Taoiseach replied that in 1956 there were 430,000 employed. It had dropped in 1966 to 330,500 employed. There was a further reduction in the following year to 313,000. We found ourselves with 303,000 in 1969 and in 1970—the figure is a preliminary estimate subject to revision—291,000. In 1968 there had been a drop of 9 per cent, in 1969 a drop of 10 per cent and this year it is estimated that there will be a drop of 12 per cent. In the 15 years from 1956 to 1970 there has been a decrease from 430,000 to 291,000, a drop of 139,000.
Ten or 12 years ago there was an allowance of £17 given by the Department of Agriculture to encourage farmers to employ workers. While the pound has lost value, that £17 has not been increased for the last eight or ten years. We appealed to the Minister to increase this allowance and this has been refused. Instead of the doles and sops that are being given, it would be much better if the allowance could be increased and encouragement given to the farmers to employ more workers, because they need them. There is no use in saying that farmers do not want extra labour. The agricultural labourer is not getting nearly what he is entitled to, but unfortunately many small farmers are unable to pay that rate because many have not got it for themselves. The Government should come to the aid of those people and subsidise them so that they could keep more workers. This would decrease emigration and it would also help to increase production and from the increased production every other sector of the people would benefit.
There is no reason why those engaged on the land should continue to remain the unpaid drudges of our society. There is no use talking about increased production unless the Government are prepared to help those engaged in increasing production. To keep one's eye on production without thinking of the producers and those who work with them leads logically in the wrong direction. In ancient and modern times very efficient jobs of production have been done with slave labour, but that day is gone. Those working on the land are entitled to a fair deal. The farmer is entitled to think of distributive justice and he is not getting it. The day has passed when the man on the land can be expected to provide increased production, to provide luxuries for others and get nothing himself. If one goes into the big hotels in the city or bars throughout the country one can see that others are having luxuries but the farmer or his son or his daughter have very little luxury.
Those of us who were in places like Donegal and Wicklow found it depressing to go into farmers' houses and find nobody except people of 60, 65 and 70 years of age hobbling about on sticks. They will tell you that their sons are not prepared to put up with what their fathers did and I do not blame them. If there are three or four boys in a family and one or two go off to a city and get reasonably good jobs with a five-day week and come home on Friday night rattling money in their pockets and having a car, going off to socials and dances, the young lad at home on the land getting £1 or 30s from his father on Saturday night will not stay at home. He cannot be blamed.
It is time the Government faced up to that situation and did something about it. Appeals to patriotism and sense of duty will fall on deaf ears unless those who make the appeals show real patriotism and even sacrifice. If the farmers see selfishness, waste and inefficiency around them, it will be hard for them to have any respect for moral appeals directed towards them. When he sees the squandermania involving £100,000 and much more of the taxpayers' money, he cannot be blamed. It is little consolation to the farmer to be told that if the gap between his income and that of the city worker gets any greater, the Government may take action. That is all he has been told in the past. The gap is well over £8 10s a week now.
The time has come for the Government to act if they are sincere. Does the Minister believe that any section of Irish workers will stand idly by in the face of official indifference, falling incomes, rising costs, rising rates and official blunders? At one time the farmers of the country were promised complete derating by the Government and by the Fianna Fáil Party. The average rate at the time was 6s 6d in the £1. The average rate in Ireland today is nearly 90s in the £1. The Government have fooled the farmers down through the years. Possibly some of them have deserved this. They have been like the faithful collie dog which the Fianna Fáil Party can kick under the table and which comes back again wagging its tail. There is an old saying that "one can fool some of the people some of the time, but one cannot fool all the people all the time". I hope that the present Government will not be able to fool the farmers any longer. If Irish farming is to be anything more than a hit-and-miss affair —and it should be an industry contributing manfully to the expansion of exports and to the whole economy— the principle of semi-parity with the urban and industrial incomes must be accepted. The farmer's income should be brought up to that of the urban dweller. As our principal producer the farmer is entitled to such income.
I cannot blame the present Minister for the rows between the Minister and the farmers. Deputy Blaney, a former Minister for Agriculture, made cold, calculating and deliberate efforts to start class-warfare between the farmers' organisations and between the urban and rural dwellers. The idea was "divide and conquer". A firm foundation can be built on co-operation, discussion and consultation, and by sitting around a table ironing out the problems and finding out what we all have in common instead of bickering, fighting and wrangling as has happened in the past. The farmers are disillusioned with the present situation. The Minister stated that there was no row between himself and the farmers and this aggravated their frustration even more. I would not blame them. The farmers have been humiliated.
The National Agricultural Council was set up a few years ago. We pointed out that it would not be a success. We would like to know when this body last met and what has happened. Why is the Minister not trying to set up another body? The different organisations representing the farmers— whether NFA, Macra na Feirme or other farmer groups—and the women's organisations connected with farming, should all have a say on this particular board. The setting-up of this organisation was welcomed but the very day the NFA were to meet to nominate their representatives on the board, the Government arrested many of the farmers and lodged them in Mountjoy. That was the climate at that time. This organisation was started three years ago. Nothing has been done. Why? Why were the Government not showing the hand of friendship to the farmers and assuring them that they knew and believed the farmers were entitled to organise just as other sections of the community do?
The Government should have said that they were prepared to meet the farmers and to co-operate with them and to sit and discuss the problems and to give the farmers what they are entitled to, which is a fair share of the national income. The Government should have had a programme for the future as a guideline so that the farmers would know where they were going. Unfortunately, there are peaks and valleys in farming. Every time the farmers increase their production the value of the produce falls. Last year eggs were sold at 1s 3d a dozen. This year eggs are scarce and they are selling at 6s or 7s a dozen. The same problem exists for the farmer's wife who is trying to market her turkeys. If there is a plentiful supply, the price drops. If there is a scarcity, she gets a reasonable return. The farmer, when he increases production, gets lower prices. This is very discouraging and makes him chary of producing more than he believes he can sell. This brake on Irish farming enterprises must be relaxed if the country is to get full benefit from its agricultural potential. The potential is there. Agricultural production should carry greater rewards. Increased income is the real incentive. Everyone needs that. If the farmer gets increases through greater production, he will increase his efforts and invest more in his land. He may, perhaps, try to work harder to increase production, knowing that he will get extra income.
Will our farmers go forward or drop back? The Danes and the Scots are not wasting their time. They are improving their bulls, fat cattle, milch cows, sheep and pigs. We become too lackadaisical and we cannot afford that.
An Foras Tionscail is doing good work. It is to be congratulated. It could do more valuable work, perhaps, in the years ahead by assessing the resources of our land, assessing the incomes of our farmers, in planning and developing programmes, introducing new techniques and helping farmers to prepare for the more competitive period which lies ahead. The majority of our farmers are hard workers, but in order to face up to the competitive period ahead they will have to become more efficient.
We have been told in the past that farmers are conservative and lacking initiative but that is not true of young farmers. Macra na Feirme and the NFA have done good work in this regard and they are anxious that education be provided for young men. Something like 4,000 young men enter agriculture each year. Many are anxious to be educated but there are only about 500 or 600 places in our agricultural schools and even of that number only about 150 to 200 go back to the land. Many of them go into industry and more luck to them; the education they have got will help them. There should, however, be greater facilities for agricultural education for our young people. The Minister did mention that he intends to move in that direction.
I should also like to refer briefly to a speech made by the Minister to the executive committee of the General Council of Committees of Agriculture in Dublin, in which he referred to the reorganisation of our advisory service. I would ask him to hasten slowly in this regard. He said that there had been very little change in its basic organisation since 1899. That may be so. He said also that the services were based on the county so that, in effect, you were organising 27 independent units and there was dual control of the service by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the county committees of agriculture. He also stated that in his opinion the system did not meet either of those objectives and he had the impression that there was a general consensus in favour of a national, unified system. He also said that he was aware of how opinions differed about how this unified system should be brought about. I think the Minister is wrong. It will be a retrograde step if he brings the control of the agricultural instructors and the advisory services under the control of the Department.
Our farmers may have been conservative to a degree and it took a long number of years to educate them to avail of the facilities which were available to them, but perhaps there was a good reason. For 700 years we had a foreign usurper and in the past the majority of officials were pro-British and the people would not co-operate with them. When we got a native Government, many of our farmers and people were wary of any officials. When I first went on a committee of agriculture a very small percentage of Westmeath farmers were prepared to avail of the excellent educational services available through our agricultural instructors and poultry instructresses. I was often told by a farmer: "I will put a graipe through one of them if he comes near the gate". That was the mentality, but the committees of agriculture have done excellent work since in overcoming that mentality. Those committees consist of unpaid servants and they have done wonderful work down through the years for the farmers, in encouraging them and helping them to start classes and getting them to avail of the assistance that was available.
It would be a bad thing if the Government infringed further on the rights and duties of these committees. It would be a good thing if there was less politics involved. Farmers' organisations should be allowed to nominate members to the committees. About four years ago, the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, introduced a Bill, which was passed, which gave local committees of agriculture authority to elect one-quarter of their members from outside county councillors or farmers' organisations. When Deputy Blaney became Minister and had a row with the farmers' organisations, he bulldozed a Bill through this House which took away that right. That was a retrograde step. If the Minister wants to improve the system he should not do it by taking away the existing rights of committees. He could extend their rights and allow them to take in representatives of the various farming organisations. If you have government from the top and if you have people coming down from Dublin dictating to the farmers they will resent it, but if you have the local committee co-operating with the farmers and co-ordinating their efforts, then there will be some advance.
I want to give full credit to the chief agricultural officers, to the agricultural instructors, to the poultry instructresses and the home farm economic advisers the vast majority of whom are doing excellent work. The Minister should be slow to take away this dual control because the local committees can get across to the farmers the type of information we all would like to get across to them. It might be no harm to state at this stage that we believe agriculture is under-capitalised. The Agricultural Credit Corporation have been doing reasonably good work in the last few years but if we are to prepare ourselves for entry into the EEC, then first of all the farmers' wives must have up-to-date houses and up-to-date kitchens, because if they do not have those, girls will not come to live in rural Ireland; they should have water and sewerage services and so on. The farmers should have up-to-date outoffices and the most efficient ways of feeding their cattle, sheep and pigs. They should also have the most up-to-date farmyards. Farmers who have visited Denmark, Britain or other places return saying: "Oh, you should see the farmyards they have abroad".
All this costs money and if the farmers are to adopt efficient methods and modern buildings, then they will need extra capital. In the past, our farmers were wary about going to the banks and, indeed, it might be no harm to say that there is a type of credit squeeze on farmers today. It should be remembered that if a farmer did run an overdraft to £500 or £600, he has land, he has good security, but if the bank manager says to him, "I want that money back inside one month", he could cripple that unfortunate farmer. I have seen bank managers in County Westmeath crippling farmers because they demanded that overdrafts be reduced within a very short time. If the banks could go on strike and remain out for eight or nine months, they should give the farmers a reasonable time to reduce their overdrafts.
