asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries when the grants-in-aid to the IAOS, ICA and Macra na Feirme were last increased; and the amounts in each case.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Farming Organisation Grants.
41.
The basic annual grant to the IAOS was increased in the financial year 1969-70 from £12,000 to £20,000. I have informed the ICA that their grant will be increased from £9,500 to £11,500 a year for the three-year period 1972-73 to 1974-75 and Macra na Feirme that their grant will be increased from £8,000 to £12,000 a year for the same period.
I should like to welcome the Minister's announcement and I should also like to ask him if he has considered the necessity for a further increase in the grant-in-aid to the IAOS in view of the fact that, now that we are entering the EEC, there is a most urgent need for co-operation particularly in the field of export marketing, creamery rationalisation and the development of group farms? Is the Minister aware that the funds available to the IAOS, £20,000, are quite inadequate in the face of the wide need——
The Deputy must be quite well aware that these are not by any means the only funds available to the IAOS. I think it is not unfair to the IAOS to say that until the fairly recent past their efforts in the matter of creamery rationalisation and the extension of farm co-operation in general were rather slow. I do not seek in any sense to leave the blame completely at their doorstep, but the fact remains that creamery co-operation and farm co-operation generally did not advance at a fast enough rate. The reason was not the absence of available funds. So far as the immediate problems that confront the co-operative dairy industry are concerned, this is a matter primarily for themselves to work out in co-operation with the Department and the IAOS.
Would the Minister agree——
Question No. 42. Deputy Bruton has had three or four supplementaries on this question.
This is the second supplementary on this question. Would the Minister agree that one of the major reasons for the delay in the introduction of creamery relationalisation was the failure of his Government to introduce legislation in relation to friendly societies? Would he further agree that new co-operatives are not in a position initially to subscribe to the IAOS because they are short of funds? It is only when they are established that they can subscribe. If new co-operatives are formed it may be three or four years before they will be able to subscribe to the IAOS and, therefore, there is an urgent need for an injection of capital now.
That is a debatable point. If the Deputy considers the rapid development of the marts system which we now have throughout the country and also remembers that the initiative for this came from the farmers themselves, he will find that the substance of his contention seems to collapse under that argument.
The Minister did not answer the question at all.
Indeed I did.
After that long discussion between Deputy Bruton and the Minister I want to ask the Minister a simple question. I noticed that there was an inference in his reply that the IAOS were to blame. Would I be right in thinking that down through the years relations between his Department and the IAOS have not been all they might have been?
I cannot give an historical review of the relations between the IAOS and the Department since the establishment of either or both of those two bodies, but I am glad to say that relations between the two at present are excellent and I propose to see that they continue to be so.
Did the Minister not say they were very slow to do this?
I said that until fairly recently——
Could we move on? Question No. 42.
Were the Department slow at all?
The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries have given splendid service to this country down through the years.