asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is aware of the size of losses sustained by certain herd owners as a result of brucellosis and of the impossibility of their re-establishing themselves without adequate compensation; and the measures he proposes to take in order to ensure the proper working of the eradication scheme.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Brucellosis Eradication Scheme.
30.
I am aware of the problem encountered by herdowners who sustain a serious outbreak of brucellosis. This was one of the reasons why I have indicated that I proposed to ask the Government to establish a fund to help herdowners who suffer significant hardship as a result of heavy outbreaks of disease. Such a fund would, of course, be established only if the industry itself undertakes to provide the money to keep it financed after the first year.
I am satisfied that the measures now in operation are adequate to ensure the proper working of the eradication scheme. As the Deputy is aware, however, I have recently established the Advisory Council on Animal Health and Disease Eradication and shall give full consideration to whatever recommendations the council may make on all matters in relation to disease eradication.
Does the Minister not acknowledge that the arrangements he has made for the compensation of herd owners are condemned by all the farming organisations as being totally inadequate? Is he not further aware that they are unlikely to be accepted by the farming community and herd owners generally and that therefore there will be no effective disease eradication scheme in operation until the question of the acute cases, such as brucellosis in herds, can be specially dealt with first and thereafter the fixing of realistic compensation for herd owners in the cases of both TB eradication and brucellosis eradication?
In further reply to the Deputy, I have acknowledged in my reply that there can be and there are hardship cases and we have made proposals in relation to these cases. What the Deputy says about the lack of progress or the unlikelihood of progress being made unless reactor prices are increased, I do not accept. Even in the short time that we are testing we have more than ample evidence that testing is going ahead normally and that farmers are having their animals tested and are selling them.
Does the Minister not accept that during the two-year period when there was no animal disease control whatever the incidence of both brucellosis and TB spread through areas that were already declared tested and free from these diseases and that the instance of reactors throughout the country is almost as bad as it ever was?
Again I say nothing abnormal has been found since the rounds of testing have been restarted.
Further arising out of the Minister's reply, is he aware that factories are quoting much lower prices even to the extent of a reduction of 10p a lb. on reactor cattle, and would he ensure that the owners get the normal commercial value they would expect to get if the cattle were not reactors?
I think the Deputy is aware that they are getting normal sale value for brucellosis reactors.
No, canning value.
It is extraordinary that the President of the IFA is reported as saying that they are in fact, and that it is arranged that they are getting normal prices for brucellosis reactors. Of course they are not getting normal prices for TB reactors because the market for TB reactors is a restricted market. This is not to say that in certain instances a fair price is not being paid for TB reactors. But we are tied on TB reactors; we cannot do very much about them.
Arising out of the reply, surely the Minister is aware that they are not getting the price which he said? What he said is wrong. I know a case where a man did not get even the price of the hide. There is no use in saying they are getting it. They are getting a raw deal. The Minister knows as well as I do that the smaller type of farmer whose cattle get a bad dose of brucellosis is going to be finished after the cost of replacements. The fund for hardship cases is totally inadequate. I would like to know how badly off one would have to be before this fund would be of any use to a man who has a bad case of brucellosis infection.
I have set up the Committee on Animal Health and Disease Eradication and I have asked them to establish as soon as they can what they would regard as hardship cases and make recommendations to me. I want to take care of hardship cases to the extent that it is possible and reasonable to take care of them.
They are all hardship cases.
If the Deputy is saying we should be able to get rid of disease without it costing anything to anybody, that is ridiculous. It is going to cost the farmer something to get rid of disease and eventually they are going to make on this.
Order. I see a number of Deputies rising. We have dealt with this question at some length. I will hear another brief question or two.
It is a very serious question.
The Deputy has already spoken.
Does the Minister realise that small farmers have not transport of their own to bring reactor animals to the factory? It is going to cost them an excessive amount to have these animals brought to the factory. Would he not see that there would be some compensation or subsidy paid to a person who had just one animal and had not transport and had to hire transport to bring that animal——
I have asked for brief questions.
The Deputy may not be aware that the processors and the co-operatives are both working on a method of organising the transport of these cattle to the processing factories and it will take place at no extra expense.
Will the Minister state if his Department are keeping a check on the prices paid by individual factories for reactors?
Yes, to the extent that it is possible to do so.
Is the Minister satisfied that a sufficiently rigid check is being kept on them?
We are not selling to the factories. It is the farmers who are selling and I have yet to see a farmer who is not concerned with what he gets and who is not prepared to make his deal and to fight for it.
He has no choice.
Will the Minister use his good offices with the Minister for Social Welfare to see that unemployment assistance is available to farmers——
That is not relevant.
——whose herds have been wiped out completely by brucellosis and who have nothing left?
I was hoping the House might get on to another question.
The Deputy should not exaggerate.
I had people coming to see me about this——
The Minister should look at what is happening——
Deputy Wilson is exaggerating the whole matter beyond normal dimensions. I have said already we have asked the committee which we set up to give us their assessment of hardship cases so that we can deal with the matter. There is no point in saying that people are going to the poorhouse because they are being asked to eradicate disease.
Does the Minister not accept that the provision he says he has made of £1 million for hardship cases is hopelessly inadequate?
We have not made a provision for £1 million.
I understood that was the Minister's intention. Am I correct in thinking the Minister implied that after this first provision by the Government for distress cases the industry itself would be called on to finance the relief of acute cases of poverty and loss occasioned by disease eradication? Is it the Minister's intention to put the financial cost totally on the industry?
Yes, of hardship cases. We are providing more than twice as much as the Opposition ever provided for disease eradication.
We provided the market value for reactors.
This Government are giving it to the vets but we gave it to the herd-owners.
I am calling Question No. 31.