asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will implement Directive 161 in connection with fees for agricultural colleges and advanced courses in agriculture.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agricultural Education.
2.
Fees will not be payable for the training courses which I intend to introduce under Directive 161. The scope of the directive is, however, confined to courses specifically aimed at the training of persons already engaged in agriculture as their full-time occupation and does not cover normal agricultural education such as the existing one-year courses at agricultural colleges.
Will the Minister try to get some money out of it to provide courses for farmers if they are fully engaged in agriculture?
The courses visualised by the Minister, the departmental proposals, would provide for training courses, residential or part-time at both basic and advanced levels of a minimum duration of 100 hours but the directive does not provide for funds to be directly payable for courses run in residential colleges of the normal agricultural kind. That is the difficulty under the directive.
What type of courses would be provided for under the directive?
As I say, those that are supplementary to these full-time courses are the ones visualised under the directive and to that end the Minister will be introducing courses in the autumn that will be residential or part-time at both basic and advanced levels of a minimum duration of 100 hours specifically designed for those already working in farming.
They will come in under the directive?