Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 May 1975

Vol. 280 No. 8

Agricultural Workers (Holidays) (Amendment) Bill, 1975: Second Stage and Subsequent Stages.

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Clinton)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The purpose of this Bill is to bring the statutory holiday entitlement of agricultural workers back into line with that of workers in other categories of employment.

Holidays for agricultural and non-agricultural workers are governed by separate legislation. For agricultural workers we have the Agricultural Workers (Holidays) Acts, 1950 to 1969 and for non-agricultural workers the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973. Prior to the passing of the latter Act both categories of worker had the same holiday entitlement of two weeks leave and six public holidays each year. Under that Act, which came into effect on 1st April, 1974, the annual leave for non-agricultural workers was increased to three working weeks and, by regulations made by the Minister for Labour under the Act, they are now entitled also to an additional public holiday with pay on 1st January. The present Bill is primarily designed to extend corresponding improved holiday provisions to agricultural workers.

The Bill accordingly provides in section 1 for increasing the annual leave of agricultural workers to the equivalent of three working weeks where the worker is continuously employed during the year and proportionately less where he has been employed for 11 or fewer months. The section also provides for the grant of annual leave in specified unbroken periods depending on the actual entitlement of the individual worker in any particular year.

Mr. Lalor

On a point of order, this is the second time we have had to complain about the fact that no script has been issued by a Minister on the Second Reading of a Bill. It happened already with the Minister for Defence. I wonder if the Minister has a script for circulation.

Mr. Clinton

My apologies. This means that where a worker has been employed for eight months or more, his holidays must include an unbroken period of two working weeks. If he has been employed for less than eight but more than four months his holidays must include an unbroken period of one working week and, if employed for less than four but more than two months, his holidays must be allowed on consecutive working days. The provision requiring the grant of holidays in specified unbroken periods already applies under the existing Agricultural Workers (Holidays) Act, but is being modified to take account of the increase in the annual leave entitlement to three working weeks.

Section 2 provides for the inclusion of 1st January each year as a public holiday for which agricultural workers will now be entitled to pay, thus bringing them again into line with non-agricultural workers. The section also empowers the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to make regulations appointing a day to be an additional public holiday for the purposes of the Bill. This provision would confer on the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries powers in relation to agricultural workers similar to those already conferred by law on the Minister for Labour in regard to non-agricultural workers and avoids the necessity of having a special amending Act with provisions such as are contained in section 2 for any new public holidays in the future.

I recommend to the House that this Bill be read a Second Time.

Mr. G. Collins

On behalf of our spokesman for Agriculture, who unfortunately was delayed getting to the House this morning, I want to say that we welcome this Bill for many reasons. It is always good to see legislation coming before the House which can be welcomed by the Opposition Party and it is a very pleasant way in which to start the day's business.

Everybody will be delighted to see agricultural workers beginning to get their fair due. They are fully entitled to their annual leave, just as are their colleagues in industry or in any other walk of life. For too long agricultural workers were the poor relations. While we welcome this legislation which will guarantee them three weeks' holidays per year and public holidays such as 1st January, it is fair to say there will be problems for the small farmers. They will have extreme difficulty in providing three weeks' holidays with pay for their workers, if they are lucky enough to have people working for them. However, I hope this will not prevent agricultural workers from obtaining their just entitlement.

No doubt many thousands of small farmers will look at this Bill with a certain scepticism, considering the depressed state of agriculture at the moment. Many of the transitional or development farmers will not be able to take a two-week or a three-week holiday for themselves; because of the nature of their business and the size of operations they are required to be on the job full time. However, it is only right that those who are lucky enough to farm in the better-off areas and who can afford to give three weeks' holidays to their employees should do so.

I welcome this Bill. I am glad the Minister brought it before the House and, so far as we are concerned, we will give it a speedy passage.

Mr. B. Desmond

Unlike Deputy Collins I do not welcome this Bill and I shall explain my reasons to the Minister and the Deputy. I suggest that when the Minister has heard my reasons he may not wish to put all Stages through the House today. There are no agricultural workers in my constituency but I am sure most agricultural workers will be perturbed about what is in this Bill. With respect to the Minister and the civil servants who drafted it, it is loaded with discrimination against agricultural workers. As a backbencher on the Government side, I am appalled that the Government are introducing such discriminatory legislation. In a two-page Bill, it discriminates on two or three fronts against agricultural workers in terms of their relationship with other industrial workers.

An adult non-agricultural worker who works at least 1,400 hours per year—120 hours per month—is entitled to annual leave but, according to this Bill, an agricultural worker who works the same, or a greater number of hours, is not qualified for paid annual leave for the appropriate period if he is absent due to illness or injury or if he is absent for four days in a period of one month. For example, if an agricultural worker is sick for four days in a month and if he returns to work and works 150, 160 or 180 hours, because he was absent for four days he does not qualify for annual leave. If an industrial worker is ill or is absent from work through no fault of his own but if he does 120 hours in the month, automatically he qualifies for annual leave. There is a built-in discrimination in this Bill and provision should be made to ensure that it is removed forthwith.

A non-agricultural worker is enentitled to paid leave for public holidays if he works 120 hours per month, or 110 hours if he is less than 18 years, in the immediate five weeks prior to the holiday but the agricultural worker must work 125 hours in order to qualify. Why is there discrimination between one group of workers and another? I would urge the Minister to remove that anomaly.

There are approximately 14,000 permanent and 9,000 temporary agricultural workers. We cannot have a situation where a Bill like this, with at least two areas of discrimination, is passed by this House. As the Minister knows, the meat processing plants have made a fortune in the past 12 months on the intervention scheme.

I know of nobody in this country who cannot afford to pay any agricultural worker that little difference which would mean the removal of discrimination between the industrial worker and the agricultural worker. If the agricultural worker is absent for four days in a month, even if he has worked 150 or 160 hours, he is disqualified under annual leave provisions. The ordinary factory worker may be out for ten days in a month but if he comes back and works 120 hours during that month he qualifies. There is discriminanation there. There is also discrimination in relation to public holidays. It takes 125 hours for the agricultural worker to qualify and only 120 for the non-agricultural worker.

As a trade union official I represented agricultural workers. I know of no provision in the 1950 Act, in the 1961 Act, or in the 1969 Act which makes it obligatory for a farmer to keep a record of the number of hours worked by an employee. My understanding is that if a farmer keeps a record and if he is subsequently prosecuted he must produce it. How will this Bill be enforced? If the farmer does not keep a record of the number of hours worked by an employee and if he goes to court he cannot produce a record.

As far as I know in this Bill and in other legislation there is no provision for the payment of cessor pay to the next-of-kin when an agricultural worker dies. I do not often speak harshly of public servants but I often wonder what goes on in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in relation to industrial legislation to meet the needs of agricultural workers. Since 1969 I have been trying in this House to get the Agricultural Wages Board abolished. I suppose it would be improper to take the name of the Ceann Comhairle in vain but he has an honourable record in that regard too. The late Seán Dunne berated this House for years in an effort to get the Agricultural Wages Board abolished. We are on the verge of it but we are not sure whether the verge is next year or this year.

Mr. G. Fitzgerald

The Deputy is not supposed to go back on the Ceann Comhairle's history in the House.

Mr. G. Collins

We might be tempted to balance the scales. Then we would have fun.

Mr. B. Desmond

The Ceann Comhairle carried the cudgels for agricultural workers when it was neither popular nor profitable. There is no provision in this legislation to enable the State to comply with international regulations or indeed with EEC instruments. There is one for Deputy Gibbons down in Carlow. He can tell all those large, wealthy farmers he knocks around with that it is time they observed EEC regulations in relation to the agricultural worker.

Mr. J. Gibbons

There are a good many things they would want to observe. They would want to observe how they are getting on under the Labour Government.

Mr. B. Desmond

I would suggest that in this legislation there is no provision for observation of EEC instruments and international obligations. There is no provision for the payment of cessor pay to the next-of-kin. That should be there. Every other worker in the country has that. It is some years since I was in the trade union movement on a full time basis so here I am working on memory but I am not sure there is any provision in the 1950 Act, in the 1961 Act or in the 1969 Act which would enable a trade union to take proceedings for the recovery of cessor pay. One can hardly expect the unfortunate widow of an agricultural worker to go chasing after a large farmer who has left her high and dry with perhaps £40 or £50 due to her. Who will chase the farmer for the money? In other legislation there is a provision under which action can be taken.

If this Bill is enacted as it is proposed the present anomaly affecting the pay of agricultural workers in respect of public holidays will remain. I regret that I did not have an opportunity of talking to the Minister about the Bill before standing up to speak. The representations I have received in regard to the Bill have come rather late because, as he knows, we only decided this morning to take the Bill. I find it difficult to understand why the Minister should amend the 1950 and the 1969 Acts when parity in holidays could have been achieved by repealing the 1950 Act, the 1961 Act and the 1969 Act. This would be far better. Section 2 (1) (6) of the Holiday Act, 1973 could also be repealed. This is the provision which excludes agricultural workers. By repealing that section parity could be achieved between agricultural and industrial workers. If this Bill is enacted as it is proposed farm workers' holidays will then be covered by no less than four separate and complicated Acts when the 1973 Act could cover the whole thing.

My regard for the Minister is in no way diminished by the fact that he has brought in this Bill. I still regard him as the finest Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries this country has ever had, and that includes those of his own party who held the office in the past. I have no doubt that from his wide experience at EEC level in the past 12 months he will see the merit of the case I have made. I have no doubt that Deputy Collins will also put down appropriate amendments for Committee Stage. That would be his privilege. Unfortunately, I am precluded from doing so on this side of the House.

Mr. G. Collins

The Deputy is not. The Deputy is perfectly entitled to tell the Minister that he is in complete disagreement with the introduction of the Bill as it is.

Mr. B. Desmond

It is not my duty to do the work of the Opposition for it on this occasion.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Deputy is replacing Deputy Burke as the official whipping boy.

Mr. B. Desmond

I look forward to a healthy debate on the Bill. I would suggest to the Minister that the Bill should be amended along the lines I have suggested because in 1975 in the Republic of Ireland, professing to be a Republic, professing to end the discrimination between Irish people north and south, within the north and within the south, we should not discriminate between about 14,000 permanent full-time agricultural workers and another 8,000 to 9,000 temporary agricultural workers and the workers in other sectors.

Mr. G. Collins

Take the Minister out of his misery and tell him you are going to support the Bill.

Mr. B. Desmond

I look forward to support from the Opposition benches for the amendments I have suggested to the Minister and to the Minister considering the amendments on Committee Stage.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Deputy will vote against the Bill, naturally, because of its short-comings? After all, the Taoiseach does it.

Mr. B. Desmond

Deputy Gibbons will be denied that privilege. I, therefore, recommend to the Minister that he should re-examine the Bill and consider it again.

Mr. G. Collins

Is the Deputy suggesting that it should be withdrawn? Consultation did not take place. The Deputy was not consulted about the Bill. Neither were the Deputies on this side.

Mr. Browne

I understood that there had been agreement more or less to give all Stages of this Bill to-day. I am somewhat surprised at Deputy Desmond's approach to the Bill although it is understandable in some respects. We all understood that this Government were an open Government, that everything they did was discussed at their own party meetings and at Government meetings. It would appear from what Deputy Desmond has said here this morning that he certainly, as one Deputy on the Government side and an important Deputy at that, being Assistant Whip to the Government, has not been consulted. One wonders how far his opposition to this Bill will go. Will it go as far as voting against the Bill or putting down amendments?

Like Deputy Collins, who led for this side, I should like to welcome the Bill. In my constituency there are still quite a large number of agricultural workers but the number is decreasing as the years go by and farm workers are a very scarce commodity indeed in many counties. For many years agricultural workers were regarded as the Cinderella section of the nation. It was not the fault of the farmers who employed them but they were treated in a very poor way. For many years they had no holidays at all. Then legislation was introduced which gave them one week's holidays. That was amended later to provide for two weeks' holidays. This Bill proposes to give them a minimum of three weeks' holidays. That is a very welcome addition to the concessions which the agricultural workers deserve and which are due to them.

However, this provision is bound to create problems for the agricultural community. There would appear to be a mistaken idea on the part of Deputies like the last speaker that in the eastern section of the country, in counties like Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Kildare, there is a very large number of wealthy farmers for whom this measure will create no problems. The opposite is true as far as that part of the country is concerned and what is true of the south-east would be equally true of the rest of the country. The farming community are not in a very good position. The provision of these extra holidays will create problems for them although I am sure the vast majority of farmers will welcome the Bill.

I would like to see the situation which Deputy Barry Desmond has put forward as the desirable situation, namely, that farmers would be in a position to treat their employees on the same basis as applies to industrial and other workers. I sincerely hope that it will not be very long before the stage is reached when farmers will be in a position to pay their employees properly and to give them the conditions of service, the holidays and time off and so on, that other workers enjoy.

The fact is that the farmers are not in that position at the moment. They have come through a most difficult period. I think that 1974, despite what Deputy Desmond said about what happened in the processing factories, was a very bad year for agriculture. I do hope that we will reach the stage when farmers will be in a position not only to give their employees the pay and holidays and other concessions that they deserve but to employ additional agricultural labourers, that the State will be able to reverse what is happening at the moment where the number of agricultural workers is decreasing rapidly.

As I said, I welcome the measure on the grounds I have put forward and we have agreed to give it a speedy passage through the House.

Mr. Enright

I commend the Bill to the House and congratulate the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries on introducing the Bill. At present it is not possible to put agricultural workers on a par with industrial workers. Any effort on the part of the Minister to bring them on a par with industrial and other workers should have the full support of the House. Therefore I fully support the Bill.

This Bill is part of an effort by the Minister to encourage farm workers to stay on the land. The work that they do is absolutely essential, productive and profitable. The Bill in increasing holidays for agricultural workers by one week is certainly an incentive to workers to remain on the land, but more is needed to stem the flow from the land. For example, extra holidays would be one way of encouraging workers to remain in agriculture. Similarly, we must provide sufficient incentives to encourage farmers to continue to employ farm workers. In reply to a question in this House on February 19th last, the Taoiseach said that at 1st June, 1973 the total number employed permanently in agriculture was 21,000 while the number of temporary employees was 14,300. The Taoiseach went on to state that the corresponding figures at 1st June, 1974 were estimated at 19,800 and 14,100, respectively. These figures showed a considerable drop in the number of both permanent and temporary employees. We know that this trend is a world-wide one but that should not stop us from doing everything in our power to maintain farm employment. During the past 20 or 30 years the numbers of people employed in agriculture have been decreasing all the time. I should think that there are about 10,000 fewer workers employed in agriculture now than there were 20 years ago. In bringing this Bill before the House the Minister is going some little way to redress the situation but more is needed.

Schemes will have to be devised to help farmers retain their employees because it is not possible to find employment for all of them in industry. Our aim should be to keep them on the land. If farmers cannot afford to employ workers, we should provide some incentives for them to do so. Perhaps the Department, in conjunction with the Department of Social Welfare, could devise some sort of farmers' remuneration scheme whereby financial assistance would be given to farmers to help them pay their workers. I doubt if such a scheme would contravene any EEC regulation but something of this nature is absolutely essential. It would be a good deal better to maintain a worker in employment than to have him draw the dole. It should not be very difficult to devise a scheme of direct subvention to farmers for this purpose. Neither should its administration prove too difficult because the subvention could be paid to farmers, say, every three months. I am sure that Deputy Gibbons would agree with me on this. So far as I am aware many Deputies on this side of the House would be anxious also that a scheme of this nature would be introduced. It would be an incentive both to farmers and to their workers.

Very often farmers experience great difficulty in finding people who are prepared to work for them. In the reply given by the Taoiseach here and to which I have referred already we were told that at the date in question there were only 500 people in permanent employment in agriculture in Offaly and that there were 500 also engaged on a temporary basis. These figures are very low for such a large farming county. The figures for Laois were 700 and 500 respectively.

Regarding the £17 rates abatement in respect of agricultural employees, it is the belief of the IFA that this figure should be increased. In my opinion it should be increased dramatically. I understand that one of the reasons for its introduction was to help farmers pay for social welfare contributions. If the abatement were such that it would cover the cost of the stamp, it would be a worthwhile incentive both to farmers and to workers.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but he seems to be ranging very wide of this Bill. This is a very limited Bill dealing specifically with holidays for agricultural workers. I have given the Deputy some latitude but he must not range very much wider than the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Enright

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to proceed so far. This Bill provides an incentive to farm workers to remain in agricultural employment. I thought that anything which would be a similar attraction or incentive would be relevant. I bow to the ruling of the Ceann Comhairle.

Agriculture is a specialised industry and should be treated as such. At present agricultural workers are working a 50-hour week. I recommend to the Minister that we should endeavour to provide specialised courses and specialised training for farm workers. Many of our farm workers have not got the expertise to deal with farming machinery. They have not got the expertise to deal with dairy husbandry, beef husbandry and pigs. The specialised courses I have in mind would be run under the auspices of the county committees of agriculture. At various times some of our county committees of agriculture have endeavoured to provide such intensive courses.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy again, but what he is embarking upon now would be more appropriate to the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. This is a very limited Bill.

Mr. Enright

It is absolutely essential that agricultural employees should have three weeks' holidays in the year. Farmers also need holidays. If a farmer takes his holidays in the middle of September or October when combine harvesters are in use, or if he is ill, the farm worker must be able to handle these machines. A combine harvester costs in the region of £16,000 and, if a worker has not sufficient training to use it properly, it can be damaged and can be out of action for a whole season. Specialised training courses are essential. They would be of great benefit. If a farm worker has expertise he will take a pride in his work and this will also be an incentive to him to remain on the land.

I am pleased with this Bill. It is a welcome step forward. Any measure which provides an incentive to our farm workers to remain on the land is welcome. The work of agricultural workers is absolutely essential. We are facing the busiest period of the year for farmers and any incentive or any scheme which can be devised to maintain them in their employment is welcome.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I need hardly say that we all accept the sentiments expressed by Deputy Enright. As Deputy Browne said some time ago, we were prepared to give the Minister all Stages of the Bill today. I was highly surprised to get the impression from Deputy Desmond, speaking on behalf of the agricultural workers of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, I suppose, that he has a great many criticisms of the Bill. I am of the opinion that since that is so, and recalling the record of the Government parties on votes in the past—like the Taoiseach's vote on the contraception Bill last year—it may well be that Deputy Desmond would wish to vote against this Bill or put down amendments to it. For that reason, when the Second Reading debate has concluded, it might be wise to afford the Government parties an opportunity either to oppose the Bill totally, or to put down amendments to it since they appear to be rather unhappy with it.

We have no opposition to anything which will make the lot of the farm workers more attractive than it is. It is interesting to listen to speakers from the Government side of the House. Deputy Enright spoke with obvious and very clear sincerity, and a great deal of insight into the general situation. If he does not mind my saying so, he spoke as an outsider as, indeed, the other contributors from the Government side spoke, including the Minister himself. The Government parties have the tremendous disability in dealing with agricultural matters that within their ranks they do not number anybody directly concerned with agriculture. They have to rely on outside sources for their information.

Deputy Enright must be very well informed. He was speaking, and we are all speaking, of a vanishing race. I can claim at least 40 years' recollection of intimate acquaintance with the people we are talking about now. I can recall clearly the pre-war years when farm workers made up a considerable part of the population. I have seen with great regret—regret which is being converted rapidly into alarm—the decimation of the people of rural Ireland, both farmers and workers, the exodus of about 100,000 people from agriculture since 1961. I speak from memory but I think those figures would be accurate enough.

Deputy Enright was a little altruistic when he hoped that the implementation of the provisions of this Bill would serve to arrest this haemorrhage which is now becoming very dangerous for the future of Ireland. In this case I am not assigning blame to the Government parties only. For decades we have all been remiss about this. The question we must now face is whether we can tolerate this exodus any longer. I would ask the Minister and the House why it was not possible to improve the position of farm workers and farmers in a year when wages and salaries went up by about 30 per cent and in some cases a great deal more.

For instance, the Taoiseach last year got an increase in salary of £2,500 per annum but in the same year our farmers on average, according to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, suffered a reduction in income of about 30 per cent. Rural Deputies know that farmers involved in livestock production suffered a reduction in income of more than 30 per cent. In many cases the producers of young livestock last year had no income whatever. In fact, they sustained very grave losses.

It is idle to pretend that a Bill of this kind can arrest the haemorrhage that could well be fatal for rural Ireland and Irish agriculture. We are at the point when the capacity to extract maximum production from our land will be impaired if any more people leave farming. That goes for farm workers and farmers. The Minister should give us the benefit of his thoughts on the varying of Directive 159. It is time for us to examine that same directive and its companion, Directive 160, to see whether they ought not to be radically redesigned in order to ensure that they do not hasten the exodus of farm workers and farmers from the land as I suspect they will. The insistence on a figure of about £2,000 a year income per labour unit as the target to attain the development farmer status must have a serious bearing for every farm worker. It is like the sword of Damocles over his neck. It may be that a farmer employing his sons on the farm will have to dispense with the service of his workers because if he does not he will not be able to show an income of £2,000 per labour unit.

There is a close correlation between the situation of the farm workers and the implementation of Directive 159. In the light of the review of the Common Agricultural Policy being undertaken these directives are wrong and do not suit our farming community. We cannot accept a directive from Brussels, or anywhere else, that will consign by far the greater number of our farmers to an inferior status, that would appear to hope that in the end they will disappear altogether from farming. I suspect that the motivation behind those directives is aimed at what used be called the Mansholt thesis of the development of semiindustrial farming.

This must be resisted by us with every resource at our command because the people we are fighting for are our own. We cannot tolerate this under any circumstances. I am talking about the continued survival of the people of rural Ireland and it is intimately bound up with the necessity for a radical reform of the directives I referred to. If we do not do this, we will have the greatest exodus ever seen from farming. Speaking about the Gael after the Famine John Mitchell said they would be as scarce as Red Indians on the shores of Manhattan. We must make a radical decision about this; are we going to tolerate it or not? My Party will resist these directives for all we are worth. I appeal to the Government to resist them but I want them to have the necessary resolve to do so. I want the Government to recognise the dangers there are in these directives in the manner of their present application. If they were applied with reason and humanity, they would do well enough but that is not happening and that is my worry.

The basis of Commission thinking is the notional idea called the modern farm. That expression has all kinds of dangerous connotations which can be interpreted in other ways but it seems to mean the highly developed, high acreage, immensely economically efficient farm and that is not the type of farm we have yet. It may be that we do not want that kind of farm. We want efficiency and modernity but we should get it into our heads that the institution we wish to preserve most of all is the family farm and as many of them as possible.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should realise that he is moving away from the terms of reference of the Bill.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I accept that but it is more important to think about this than to talk about an extra week for the workers. The latter is important but the workers will not be there unless we give them the conditions. While this Bill gives relief and provides for more attractive conditions for farm workers, it will not solve the problem or prevent the exodus. Before it is too late we must see that farm incomes are underpinned with the proper implementation of the common agricultural policy. This is not happening. At present we are in the shadow of the suspension of intervention in beef.

I sympathise with the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in his enormously arduous task in Brussels while at the same time he has an obligation to run his Department here. I suspect that the governmental organisation in dealing with the burdens a Minister must carry are imperfect but that is not my affair at present. I urge the Minister to bear in mind that unless farm incomes are properly and securely underpinned and unless we take radical measures to ensure that the exodus of people from rural Ireland is stopped we will have no problem in another decade about holidays for farm workers when one considers the marital status and the high average age of our farm holders. We had better look to this problem.

Mr. Bermingham

I rise as a matter of duty to make the few points I have to make. Since the formation of the Agricultural Wages Board, and for many years before that, our agricultural workers were treated as second-class citizens. I do not think there is any doubt in anyone's mind about that.

I welcome the Bill in so far as it is an improvement in conditions but I do not think it goes far enough. I believe we should have the same legislation where holidays are concerned be the workers agricultural workers or any other kind of workers. I do not see any good reason why agricultural workers could not be placed on a par with industrial workers. Where legislation provides that workers can qualify for public holidays or other kinds of holidays by working fewer hours as compared with some other category of worker those workers are still being classified as second-class citizens.

Agricultural workers are doing skilled work. I speak in particular about my own area which is a predominantly tillage area. The agricultural worker in that area has to be skilled in many trades. For one thing, he has to be a mechanic. As I said, this Bill will improve the position and the status of the agricultural worker. The Agricultural Wages Board did a good job in bringing people out of slavery and giving them some kind of basic rights but it is no longer compatible with the kind of society in which we live today.

The Minister got certain concessions for the agricultural community in Brussels. He got the green £ and various other things. These concessions, while good for the farmers, are very little use to the ordinary agricultural worker. All he got was an increase in the price of his milk, his butter, his bread and other commodities. He buys in the same shop as the industrial worker and he must pay the same price. He has to pay a great deal more for his butter and for his bottle of milk because of certain benefits sought and granted for the agricultural community, the community of which he is a member. The Agricultural Wages Board should be abolished and agricultural workers should take their place under the Department of Labour like all other workers.

Mr. Esmonde

The agricultural worker is fast disappearing from the agricultural sector of our economy. I want now to take issue with Deputy Gibbons—I am sorry he is not still here—for firing an oblique shot at this side of the House. He insinuated that we would only be theoretical in our approach to the problems of agriculture and the agricultural worker. A great many people on this side of the House have for generations employed agricultural workers and they and I are personally aware of the situation of the agricultural worker and how it has evolved over the years.

This Bill is designed to give the same rights to holidays to agricultural workers as are enjoyed by industrial workers. The Bill makes a careful distinction between a full-time agricultural worker and a part-time agricultural worker. I want to emphasise that because a great many farmers might be concerned about the number of holidays they would have to allow a part-time agricultural worker. Deputy Enright quoted figures and they are very interesting in that they seem to show that, if one divides the agricultural employment sector into fifths, one finds three-fifths are permanent and full-time and about two-fifths are part-time. These are rough approximations. In a period of one year there has been a great decrease in full-time agricultural worker employment as distinct from part-time agricultural worker employment.

It should be borne in mind that this Bill will be a great deal more relevant to east coast areas than it will be to western counties. Deputy Enright pointed out that in Offaly there are only 1,000 registered agricultural workers. That would bear out my view that the Bill is really relevant to areas like Wexford, Wicklow, Waterford, Carlow, Kilkenny, Kildare, Cork, Meath and possibly Louth. Outside of these areas there is probably a very small agricultural worker population. All the Bill is doing is rationalising the situation and giving certain rights to agricultural workers. I have referred to the fact that some farmers may be concerned about the extra week's holiday being given to agricultural workers. They might feel this would disorganise their general working year. I see no grounds for that fear. I am quite sure the Minister, with his knowledge and the background of the Department, will ensure that does not occur. I heard that criticism when this Bill was mooted.

This Bill is not an incentive to an agricultural labourer to stay in employment. He is just getting his fair rights in comparision with industrial workers. I can foresee in the near future further rationalisation occurring in relation to the labour market because many agricultural workers do some part-time industrial work as well. I refer particularly to people working during the beet campaign or those doing part-time work in factories. I believe we are moving towards a situation in which a joint board will have to deal with the rationalisation of the terms of employment of all grades of workers in all sectors of the economy. I believe there is some thinking in that line in official circles.

Some Deputies strayed away from the actual terms of this Bill. The number of people employed on the land depends on the number of employers who are available to take them. Many people who up to this were classed as agricultural workers are now employees of contractors. While the figures might show a decrease in the number of people employed in agricultural work, those people have moved into another category but they are still working in agriculture. They may be working as employees of land drainage contractors or as tillage or harvesting employees of contractors in local areas. This has been recognised by the Minister for Finance in his taxation allowances to farmers.

I know there has been a serious decrease in the number of agricultural workers so that we could reach a stage where we would not have a sufficient number. I imagine farmers have a way of dealing with this matter. I hope that by using modern systems of agriculture it does not mean that farms have to be of a large size throughout the country. I believe this is occuring slowly in marginal areas but I certainly would not like to see large ranch farms set up in the country with a low element of employment.

Many people who work as agricultural workers are members of families so it may not be the full picture when one says that the working agricultural population has dropped. All those matters should be taken into consideration when people are talking about the number of people working on the land. I welcome this Bill although I know some people may have to make some adjustments. I believe it is not beyond the ingenuity of farmers to provide the extra week's holidays for agricultural workers. It is only fair those people should get the same holidays as people working in other employment.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Next Stage?

Mr. Clinton

If it is convenient, I should like to have all Stages now.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I hope Deputy Desmond was not really in earnest when he spoke about desirable amendments that might be made. On that assumption, we accept that Committee Stage be taken now.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.