I should also like to compliment the Minister on his very comprehensive opening statement which I read over the week-end. It is a very detailed and unusual resumé of the state of the agricultural industry at this time. Not only did the Minister show us a rosy picture here and there but he very concisely underlined the many problems facing the industry in the critical years ahead. The Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary and his officials have made quite an impact in their work. I was a little disappointed to read in the report of last Wednesday's debate a rather sharp attack on the Minister's performance by Deputy Collins. Perhaps that was a pity because I think the Minister has worked extremely hard. He came into his Ministry at the deep end, as it were, at the beginning of our entry into Europe. Despite what may have been quoted from the newspapers, his progress as leader of the Irish delegation on agricultural matters in the Council of Ministers has been significant to date.
His performance during the fixing of the common agricultural prices for 1973 and 1974 was a significant contribution on behalf of this country and of the farming community. On that occasion he had to take on not only the Minister and the people from the United Kingdom but also many other representatives from other member States. By and large, we came out extremely well with the increases in prices which were negotiated successfully from our point of view. Despite the tremendous opposition mounted by two of the most powerful members of the Community, the Minister won increases in the major products which we have to sell. The guide price for beef was increased by 10.5 per cent and for calves by 7.5 per cent. The price for milk delivered to creameries was increased by 5.4 per cent, for skim milk powder by 22.2 per cent, for pig meat by 4 per cent and for cereals by 1 per cent. Perhaps they were not sufficient for some but, nevertheless, back in the spring of the year, it was suggested that there should be reductions instead of increases.
I mention this because it is unfair to attack somebody for not doing a good job when the record shows that the achievements of the Minister and his senior officials who were with him and advised him during the crucial negotiations were a significant contribution. The ordinary market price within our country has considerably exceeded those guide prices. Statistics now tend to show that, since we entered the enlarged Community, agricultural prices in general have gone up well in excess of 30 per cent this year. All in all, Irish agriculture has benefited considerably from our joining the Community. The picture is good and there can be tremendous confidence in agriculture because, for the first time since this State was founded, we have a guaranteed system of prices. People can now afford to plan ahead and to raise capital to invest in their own farms in the sure knowledge that they have a definite and guaranteed price structure which we never had before.
The Minister was also reasonably successful in negotiating a fair beef incentive scheme. The negotiations on the hill farming policy document were difficult. This document did not make many of the headlines here but it is an important regulation for the Irish farmer. Too few people understand the difficulties which faced the Irish negotiators and people who spoke on these problems at any level in Europe. When that document came out first the scale of grants was aligned in some way to the height of the region. The general theory was something like this: the higher up the mountain the farm was, the higher the rate of grant. This would not suit a country like Ireland and it certainly did not suit Holland where so much of the land is under sea level. In the enlarged Community the difference in climatic conditions, in crop husbandry and in modes and ways of farming is fantastic. When people sit around a table to iron out price levels or new schemes the point of view of people representing these completely different regions and types of agriculture must be taken into account. The Minister and his officials and those of us who had an opportunity of speaking in the European Parliament on these documents have all contributed in some way towards making these proposals and regulations more meaningful and, perhaps, a little easier for the Irish farmer.
The Minister's most recent achievement is the fact that last week when the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Lardinois, announced details of his new amendment to the common agricultural policy, and after a vigorous campaign by the Minister pressing for the setting up of a common organisation for the marketing of sheep and lamb, he announced that provision would be made for a common agricultural policy on sheep. This is something for which we must thank the Minister in particular because our country stands to benefit mostly from it. At present our sheep farmers seem to be the only people who are not benefiting by the guarantees which are built in to the common agricultural policy. So, when the new policy comes into effect as I am sure it will, there may be some slight reductions possibly on the dairy side but, from a national point of view, this will be compensated for to a tremendous extent when stability is introduced into sheep husbandry and the production of sheep and lambs in Ireland.
Deputy Collins was critical of the fact that Ireland had applied for such a very small share of the funds available through the FEOGA grant. I find this a little difficult to take. As reported at column 1471 of the Official Report for 7th November, 1973, he said:
Ireland could have done better but for the bungling of the Government and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Advertising in the newspapers regarding availability of FEOGA grants is just not good enough. The Government can be charged, fairly and squarely, with lack of initiative in this instance, Emphasising the essentiality of continued capital investment in Irish agriculture raises the necessity of a proper expansionist long-term programme for development. At the very minimum the Government should have an agricultural development blueprint for the next four years, that is until the end of transitional membership in 1977.
That may be true. I am surprised that Deputy Collins who was a member of the last Government, should level such a charge at the present Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and his Department. There was no forward planning by the previous Minister for our entry into Europe. Even in Northern Ireland the United Kingdom Government have applied for grants totalling £21.3 million in comparison with our application for £12 million. The criticism here should fall squarely on the previous Minister because there was no forward thinking or planning.
In every Department the EEC sections are not properly established. The sections are grossly understaffed and those of us in Europe found that this places us at a disadvantage. The previous Government were remiss in this because two years ago they should have arranged to set up sections in the various Departments with sufficient personnel to ensure that applications and schemes would be prepared to present to the institutions in Europe at the appropriate time. I regret it has to be said that this was not done.
I have been impressed with the civil servants of the Department whom I have met in Brussels. Many of the people seconded to work with the Commission have made a tremendous impression on their European colleagues and I should like to take the opportunity to pay this tribute to them. While it is a pity the cream of the civil Service have been sent to Europe, nevertheless it is good that in the many important posts we have been called on to fill, highly qualified Irishmen— many of them more highly qualified than the average—are carrying out their new duties with distinction and in a manner that is bringing credit to their country and to the positions they held before taking up their new roles in Europe.
I should like to endorse what Deputy Carter said with regard to brucellosis and other diseases. The most important sector of our economy is the export of beef, which amounted last year to £134 million, and it is important that we give it our closest attention. It is expected that this figure will be greatly increased this year because of the higher prices. It is a national scandal that unscrupulous farmers—admittedly they are in a minority—who should voluntarily go into the Department's brucellosis eradication scheme can avail of the new pre-intensive scheme for the eradication of brucellosis. These people are getting their cows and heifers tested at the expense of the taxpayers. Some of them are offering reactors for sale in cattle marts and thus are infecting good herds. I know that the managers and the committee members of cattle marts are doing good work and I am sure they do not wish to be a party to this kind of operation. The onus is on the Minister or his Department to draft a regulation insisting that every identified reactor must be marked so that there would be no doubt that the animal is a reactor. If there is no legislation to deal with this matter now, measures should be introduced as a matter of urgency. As the Minister rightly pointed out, we have only four years in which to finally eradicate brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis. This is a very short period and it will be a costly operation. People should not be allowed to spread the disease by offering for sale an animal they know is a reactor.
At the moment marts are selling diseased heifers and cows and this is aggravating the problem. People may not understand that even a champion animal, one that wins prizes at the show, may be a reactor. When they are isolated as reactors they should be clearly marked. The strength of the law must be applied in these cases. The present fines are inadequate and it is essential that more substantial fines be imposed so that they may be a deterrent. These people are attacking one of our national assets and unless we become a disease-free area we will not be able to export our livestock to the United Kingdom, to Europe or to the United States. The only way the Department can ensure this is to bring in a regulation directing that no heifer should be offered for sale unless accompanied by a disease-free certificate. This will cause a certain amount of difficulty and trouble for farmers but it will save millions of pounds.
The officials of the Department are too strict in their application of the regulations when paying compensation for reactors, even reactors to the bovine tuberculosis test. If a small farmer has a reactor it can cause hardship. A heifer calving for the first time can be quite weak if it had a difficult calving. If the vet comes at that time and a heifer which has been down—this is a technical term— should become a reactor, the value can be put at as low as £50. This would be the proper value to a meat factory. After a month these heifers will be back to normal. In the case of the small herd the potential value of these animals should be offered as compensation and not the value to the bone factory. Many cases have come to my notice where poor farmers in mountain areas, during the winter months when the cattle were thin, were unfairly treated. There should be flexibility here. Special provision should be made for such cases where it would be justifiable to have the Department's inspectors assess the potential value of the heifers which have had difficulty in calving.
The pre-intensive scheme for eradication of brucellosis, which gives a grant of £30 per reactor for slaughter, £20 after two years or £15 after three years, is an ungenerous inducement. The Department should have been more realistic. Their present prices are very much behind the market prices. It is not fair to expect the majority of farmers to accept this scheme. If these people put their reactors on the market they would get double the value offered by the Department. The Minister should look at this point and bring the price structure up to date. The price paid for reactors should be tied to the value of the replacement animal. Over the past 20 years we have spent a vast sum of money on the eradication of animal diseases. We enjoy a disease-free status which is envied by other countries.
I am amazed that no effort has ever been made to introduce preventive veterinary medicine to any great extent.
This is an aspect of veterinary practice which has been neglected. When we consider the large amount of money we are spending on the eradication of diseases it might be a good idea if we could perhaps short-circuit the whole procedure by introducing a system of preventive medicine. This would have to be done by the ordinary practitioners even if it were initially introduced as a pre-spring calving or pre-autumn calving inspection. The practitioner would look at the herd and advise the farmer on the preventive practices they might adopt to curtail the spread of the disease or prevent the disease flaring up in the herd. The Department should set up a treatment organisation.
I strongly urge the Minister to encourage this practice immediately. I do not know how costly it might be but it would be a modern way of attacking the problems which have not been solved. Nobody can say that the efforts to eradicate bovine tuberculosis have been successful over the past 16 or 18 years. That leaves something to be desired. There have been instances of the disease reappearing after a number of completely clear tests. This in itself would indicate that there is a need for preventive medicine in this sphere. There should be a campaign to highlight and advocate greater care and instruction in the use of antibiotics, especially the more dangerous ones. Perhaps they could be restricted but I would not like to see complete control.
Mr. Hynes, the head of the veterinary section of the Department, said some time ago that tuberculosis or brucellosis testing could be done by technicians. I would agree with this line of thought. Antibiotics as cerates for mastitis and minor ailments, which are quite a problem could be applied by farmers or herdsmen. There is need for care and for instruction since the careless use of these cerates can be dangerous. But to deny farmers the use of them would be short-sighted and might very well negative the benefits one would like to achive by controlling their use. In the Animal Diseases Act of some five or six years ago an effort was made to control the use of both antibiotics and cerates. It was not successful and rightly so. However, there is some thin ice there and something should be done on the lines of instruction to alert the farming community to the dangers that could result by the indiscriminate use of these products and by a lack of proper care in their use. Indeed, that can apply right across the board in veterinary practice.
I should like to pay tribute to the CBS Board and its chief executive for the progress they have made in the short time in which they have been in operation. Their promotions abroad have been reasonably successful.
Now that we are going in with the common agricultural sheep policy it is important that standards should be maintained. Heavy penalties should be imposed for any infringement of those standards. Quality control should take precedence in the case of exports such as beef, lamb, mutton and bacon and heavy penalties should be imposed for infringements of standards.
Our export of meat will be one of our most valuable assets. In the June census the cattle population showed an increase of over 500,000 and I have seen a figure of ten million for our cattle population before 1980. I believe that we will still export cattle on the hoof in about the same numbers as we have been exporting them up to this. Large numbers will be exported in the processed form. This will give additional employment in the meat processing industry, particularly when we get chilled transport and more roll-on-roll-off ferries. There is the difficulty of some get-rich quick merchant wanting to make a quick buck by substituting old ewes for lamb. That happened some years ago when they started exporting lamb to the Paris market. We must have standards and vigilance must be exercised to ensure that the goods we sell live up to their reputation.
The reaction of Europeans, especially the Parisians and some Italians, to the initial shipments of Irish beef and lamb over the last few months has been very heartening. I think too much emphasis is being placed on the Charollais and the Fleckvieh. Europeans have commented on the succulence of Irish beef and I believe it is the fat that everybody is against which gives that extra flavour to Irish beef. One does not get the same flavour from continental meat. Most continentals have not yet had experience of our Irish beef but those who have have expressed satisfaction and pleasure. Our meat was a tremendous success at the Cologne Fair this year and I wish the CBS continued success in their efforts. But the Department must impose standards and must supervise to ensure that those standards are maintained.
I believe commercial beef production will be the worst off section of the agricultural industry in coming years. Commercial beef production uses the least imported raw materials. It is a product which provides jobs in fertiliser factories, meat factories, cattle marts and transport. We export almost 100 per cent of the product on the hoof or on the hook, but the beef farmer gets the least aid compared with other sections. This section has been neglected for far too long. It is relegated to second place behind the dairying industry. I hope the dairy people will not take offence at this, but commercial beef is the most valuable single export we have. The Department could have been more generous with the beef scheme and the other aids which should go to this valuable industry. Farmers should be encouraged to stay in beef production.
An Foras Talúntais and Irish agricultural advisers readily admit that this country grows grass with the highest protein content in the world, never mind Europe, and that is why we are able to produce such excellent beef. Yet the emphasis for far too long has been on milk. It is annoying to hear people say in Europe that by 1980 the Irish will have doubled their milk output. That is a nice figure to quote, especially if you are trying to knock down the price of milk or to knock the common agricultural policy in toto, but expressed as a percentage of total EEC production even double the present Irish production is insignificant. Nevertheless, people bandy this figure around to show that we in Ireland, despite what we say, want to cripple the German and the UK factory workers by calling for more subsidies to double our milk production.
We should put more emphasis on beef production. I hope that our beef conversion scheme will be given every possible aid by the Department. We have not given sufficient thought to our beef breeds here. I must be 16 or 17 years on a county committee of agriculture. In that time the emphasis has always been on dairy breeds. Indeed the premiums paid to herd owners to keep dairy bulls have been twice or three times the amount paid to a farmer who keeps a beef bull.
Perhaps we should have a rethink on the kind of beef breed that will sell best on the butchers block in Europe, in the UK or wherever we are going to sell over the next few years. We must get down to a long term policy for this important part of the industry. The "in" thing of course is the Charollais. This breed is one that has its disadvantages, mainly at calving time. There is perhaps a greater risk with this breed than others. The Fleckvieh to a lesser extent is gaining in popularity. I think for a distinctive Irish flavour it is hard to beat the Hereford, the Friesian or a cross of both. Yet the Department have always shied away for opting for either a beef or a dairy or even taking the dual purpose. Perhaps there is room for everything here.
I was looking at some statistics for Norway recently, prepared when Norway was thinking of coming into the EEC. I found that 60 per cent of their herd are Ayrshires. This is a breed of cattle that is not terribly popular here. It seems to be, perhaps like the Kerry, a very economic animal to feed and when crossed with some of the European beef breeds has produced extraordinary results. The difficulty here is that there is some antiquated regulation which prohibits the use of semen for cross breeding with this dairy breed. I wonder whether the time has come for the Department to have a re-examination of many of these old regulations which were originally brought in by breed societies. Even breed societies ought to move with the times and if by a clever cross we can produce a better type of animal to suit our terrain or Irish conditions the Irish farmer should be given the advantage of this kind of animal.
I have mentioned our hopes for the beef industry. I think the people who compile the figures can be relied upon to have done a good job and they say that our herd will increase to ten million by 1980. Their projections, back over the years have been, wholly accurate. What worries me is that, while we have projections of what our exports will be for the coming years, there is no long term policy to ship cattle, either alive or dead. This is a vital national industry and we should have a long term gilt-edged policy on shipping. Since the B & I are now a semi-State body they should be given the responsibility of seeing to it that adequate tonnage is available to ensure that the Irish beef industry will not be handicapped for the want of adequate shipping capacity in the years ahead. Those people, and indeed private enterprise, have not shown such a great interest in this aspect of Irish life. Perhaps they are right when they say it is not a very viable operation but it should be made viable. There is no use in producing ten million cattle if we cannot ship them. They will not fly out. We must, as a matter of urgency, have a long term policy on the export of meat both on the hook and on the hoof. This should be drawn up within the next three months.
We must also look now at our cold storage capacity for dead meat. We should provide adequate cold storage here because an increased amount of our national herd will be exported in a processed form. The demand in Europe seems to be for meat—whether it is bacon, mutton or beef—in a processed, polythene-wrapped form. We must also be able to transport our major produce to the most lucrative markets in Europe. Only 17 per cent of our total exports of fresh or chilled meat is transported out of this country in Irish transport. This puts us in a very insecure position. The semi-State organisations concerned must consider it their duty to the national economy, to the farmer and to the workers in the meat factories, to ensure that no one's position will be endangered because of inadequate transport facilities. That transport must be Irish-controlled. So far as I am aware CIE have only three trans-European lorries. This is not a sufficient number. The Italians have a regulation whereby meat imported into their country is accepted only if it has been transported on a vehicle owned by the country of the origin of the produce. A lack of Irish-owned transport would result in a curtailment of our exports. In respect of a trade which, last year, was worth £134 million, the Government should be in a position to direct the B & I and CIE to get together and ensure that there would be adequate transport for our meat exports.
Perhaps, too, CBF might consider erecting modern-sized deep-freeze depots at points between some of the major cities in Britain and also on the Continent so that produce could be left there from the juggernauts for easy distribution on whatever happened to be the most lucrative markets. This would be a worthwhile exercise because it is not the best idea to leave the final distribution of our products in the hands of people from other countries who might not have the same diligence in regard to our products as our own people would have.
Regarding pilot development schemes, the Department should be a little more ambitious and should endeavour to find people who are prepared to try out new ideas and to allow their neighbours to watch the progress that is being made. This could be done in conjunction with the pilot extension farms or in any area where it would be possible and desirable that farmers should try out new means of production. Slatted floors, for instance, are quite common where pigs are concerned, but I notice a development now whereby floors of this type are being used also for cattle and sheep. New ideas are being put forward, too, in regard to the construction of pighouses. If the Department wish to propagate this development they should endeavour to find farmers who would be prepared to implement their idea and, perhaps, compensate them by way of extra grants under the pilot development scheme. I can foresee a very good future for hoggets on slatted-floored fattening houses especially for those farmers whose stocks in the past were subject to attacks from dogs, et cetera. The idea should be tried out in as many areas as possible and as soon as possible. It will be highly desirable to have it implemented by the time that the CAP policy is extended to include sheep. It is a pity there are not more places where farmers could see these fattening houses in operation because it is more effective for one to see something than merely to read about it.
Anyone engaging in any such a project should be entitled to something over and above the usual grants. There is precedence for this in respect of the extension demonstration farms which are to be found in various parts of the country.
One aspect of agriculture that I did not hear mentioned during the debate is that of land use. It is time we concentrated on land use throughout the whole country and not only in urban areas. Our future in respect of agriculture is assured by reason of our membership of a Community of 254 million people. Therefore, the use to which we put our land will be of great importance.
Starting on 1st January a retirement pension scheme will be introduced by the Minister for Lands and I hope it will prove successful. In my view this scheme is a big advance on the inducement that was built into section 12 of the 1963 Land Act and now it might be possible to reorganise, readjust and reconsolidate our small holdings to a greater degree. I hope this scheme will contain sufficient flexibility to enable farmer's sons to settle.
On the question of land use, it is my view that we should have a land use authority. Such a suggestion may sound grandiose but we are in a new situation. We are entering a new era and consequently we should be more concerned about our land and its use. People do not seem to bother about the land or whether it is being used to the fullest extent. I am not suggesting that we should have inspectors telling people what to do but with a growing tendency between now and the end of this century towards famine throughout the world because of a general protein shortage, it is a shame to see potentially good arable land being planted by the Forestry Division. This land could be used for the production of beef or the type of protein that is in such short supply in the world.
In this regard I feel it is a pity that so little thought has been given to the people of Ethiopia over the last four dry seasons they have had. Irish people, looking back in history, tend to look unkindly on the people of Britain who allowed so many of our ancestors to starve to death in the late 1840s. We are nearer to Ethiopia today than the people of Britain were to Ireland in the 1840s and, therefore, I am justified in asking how interested are we in the plight of the people of that country.
We are within one day's travel of the starving people of Ethiopia whereas the British people in the 1840s would have had great difficulty in reaching the west of Ireland. We ought to be concerned about the people of Ethiopia and we should have made a greater effort to alleviate the hunger, starvation and malnutrition in that country. Ethiopia is one of the nicest countries in Africa and it has a very charming and cultural people. I am aware that some aid went from this country but it is terrible that the world looked on and did so little. We have done very little.
Agricultural organisations and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries—the Parliamentary Secretary might mention this to the Minister— should give a lead in this regard. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, one of the best organised Departments, should be able to lead public thought in this respect and should be able to divert some protein foods which we are at present endeavouring to export throughout the world. I do not think it would break the Irish coffers if we gave more generously than we have done to these people who have had a difficult time over the last number of years.
Returning to my suggestion of the establishing of a land use authority, I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what thought he, or the Minister, has given to the considerable tracts of land throughout Ireland on which Bord na Móna has ceased work. Is the Minister alive to the fact that this semi-State body is compulsorily acquiring potentially arable land from Irish farmers for £20 per acre? When the turf has been removed the land, in my view, is worth at least £400 per acre. This matter should be of concern to the Department, the section of the Government responsible for the welfare of the farmers of this country. Are we to have in a few years time huge farms owned and operated by a semi-State body, Bord na Móna?
I should like to remind the House that Dr. F. Cole in Lullymore is, and has been for some time, carrying on interesting experiments on such land in his district. He is carrying the equivalent of a bullock and three-quarters per acre on this reseeded cutaway bog left by Bord na Móna. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of this potentially arable land throughout the country which is at least worth £400 per acre. Where does the nation stand in this regard? Is it fair or right that a semi-State body in the name of the taxpayers of this country should compulsorily acquire land and pay £10 or £20 per acre for it and when they have their mineral wealth extracted from it leave it idle?
Problems such as this could be solved by a land use authority. Legislation should be introduced soon to enable farmers to lease bog land to Bord na Móna rather than having it compulsorily acquired. Provision should be made for the return of this land to the farmer when turf cutting operations have ceased on it. Earlier this year I had occasion to intervene in a case where Bord na Móna served a CPO on a small farmer for 40 acres of his land and offered him £800 for it. It is grossly unjust that civil servants, who are well insulated from the economic breezes sitting in the better off areas of Dublin, are able to decide on the power and strength of an Act that goes back to the early forties. It is wrong that they should cast a greedy eye on a piece of land the acquisition of which inconveniences and destroys the potential viability of a holding. Such acquisition is carried out without any long term planning or any knowledge of what is to be done with the land when turf cutting operations have ceased.
Under the common agricultural policy there is overproduction in some lines of agriculture with the result that the EEC are not anxious to bring some land into production. However, I feel that farmers should be given the opportunity of leasing their land to Bord na Móna for a number of years and when turf cutting has ceased on it that it should revert back. At that stage the farmer would qualify for reseeding and drainage grants to help him prepare the land for full crop production, because at that stage the additional acreage would make the small farmer's property a viable holding. It is a pity that with all the agricultural trials and experiments we have had, whether carried out by the Agricultural Institute, the Department or the universities, little has been done about mountain farming. The authorities must have been aware for some years back that a considerable amount of money was available for mountain or hill farming projects and for farming pursuits in the less productive and less developed areas, but in this country we have had no official experiment carried out on high altitude farming. To my knowledge, there is one such experiment and that is being carried out on the Cappard Estate, Rosenallis, County Laois, where an individual farmer is endeavouring to break the pan on the Slieve Bloom Mountains.
He experimented this year there with some 40 acres and had some cereal crop at a height of over 1,000 feet. If this method of introducing a huge bulldozer or plough on the slopes is successful on the 40 acres, it will mean another 50,000 potentially arable acres in that region at a level between 100 and 1,000 feet.
This is the kind of experiment that should be made. The only support this man got from the State so far is that the Land Commission have served notice of inspection on him. I am disappointed at this: if a person is prepared to invest a considerable amount of private means in the sort of experiment that will obviously enhance the fortunes of a large number of people living in higher regions, the Land Commission should be a little more discerning and should, perhaps, wait and see what is the real potential of this land. With the tendency for starvation and, perhaps, famine to spread across the world before the end of the century we need as much land as possible available for protein production. Therefore, somebody should be charged with responsibility to assess the potential of land in various regions and at various altitudes.
Now that we are in the EEC there should be a regrouping of the agencies that have been successfully aiding the agricultural industry. Perhaps we should join the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Department of Lands, the ACC and the Agricultural Institute and divide them again among a number of Ministries in a more meaningful way. At local level the time has come when the personnel of the land project, the farm building schemes, the ACC and the local advisory services should be housed in the same buildings, in other words, co-ordinate the local services for agriculture. This could be done if we built on the existing structures of the county committees of agriculture which, by and large, have served the farmers and the economy very well over the years.
We should now examine closely the possibility of launching a new rural development authority. This thought has been around for some time. I am not dissatisfied with the work of any of these organisations individually. Their contributions to Irish agriculture over the years have been significant, each working in its own particular field, but for the competition we must now face we need greater co-ordination of effort. For instance, for the World Bank loans one must have a five-year farm plan. The best possible way to achieve this, at least in the transitional period, is to have all the people engaged on the various schemes working at local level under the one roof. This should certainly ensure greater co-operation; the people would know each other much better and the benefits accruing to the farming community would be significant.
In the past few years I have noticed a growing discontent in the advisory service. The Minister must have given some thought to this problem. I think the agricultural industry, as never before, now needs the help, advice and guidance of a top class advisory service. From my observations and, perhaps, cursory examination of advisory services in the eight other member states of EEC I am convinced that our own services are ahead of the rest in their organisation and availability to the community. The discontent within the service stems from the fact that there are too few rungs in the service, not sufficient promotional opportunities. We have only 27 county agricultural officers and 31 or 32 deputy CAO's. This does not give sufficient promotional opportunities for a service comprising over 600 advisers. We need some promotional grades, not just to provide promotional outlets, but I think the time has come when, as farmers, we should have the benefit of specialist advisers.
