National Agricultural Advisory, Education and Research Authority Bill, 1976: Second Stage.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Clinton)

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

When I assumed office as Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in 1973, one of the matters awaiting resolution was the re-organisation of the agricultural advisory service. It was a subject of which I think I can claim to have some modest experience and in which I have always had a very considerable interest. I found that submissions had been received from every possible organisation and group that could conceivably be associated with the topic. As might be expected, the recommendations put forward were wide-ranging and covered the whole spectrum of possible solutions. If there was any common factor among the many suggestions submitted, it was the advisory service needed to be reorganised.

In concurring with this sentiment, I have no wish to belittle the services which the committees of agriculture and their members have given in the past and, indeed, continue to provide; nor is it my intention to decry the contribution to agricultural development of the many committed men and women who constitute our present advisory service, or their predecessors over the past 70-odd years. It was clear, however, that the increasing demands on its facilities had revealed a number of weaknesses in the existing structure of the service, arising from divided control, lack of overall leadership and direction, unsatisfactory career structure, excessive movement of staff and the absence of specialist and support services, among other things.

With the increasing urgency for the most efficient techniques in agricultural production, processing and marketing which our recent accession to the European Economic Community imposed and the realisation of the contribution the advisory service would make in this direction, it seemed to me imperative that rather than seek any further views I should concern myself with the formulation of proposals to remedy the defects in the existing system, which I have already outlined, and endeavour to provide a structure that would, as well, be of the utmost benefit to farmers and the agricultural industry. I was anxious to have a system which would bring together in one organisation the different services that are working for the benefit of agriculture and in a manner that would promote good working relations between them. It seemed desirable that the farm and other rural organisations be involved so that they would have an effective say in the activities of the new organisation. I had to bear in mind also my responsibility to the Government and the Oireachtas regarding the overall policy that might be followed by whatever structure would eventually be established.

I am convinced that, as the existing advisory, education and research services have a common objective, it is necessary to group these together in one unit and to provide a common direction to ensure the necessary co-ordination and co-operation between them. I look forward to a situation where the existing network of agricultural colleges, research stations and farm training centres will have the greatest possible influence on farming in the surrounding areas. Training courses at educational institutions will provide young farmers with the knowledge and skills which already exist; the advisory service will continue to keep the knowledge of practising farmers up to date and the task of the research arm will be to generate new knowledge as well as to provide answers to problems arising within the industry.

These aims, objectives and proposals were set out in the White Paper which was laid before this House in April, 1975, and the measure now before you is intended to give legislative effect to Government policy as outlined in that document.

The explanatory memorandum circulated to Deputies gives particulars of the provisions of the Bill and, except for the more important proposals, I do not intend to go into them in very great detail. I should like to emphasise however that, as indicated in the memorandum, the Bill was prepared following consideration of submissions from farmers' organisations, the council of An Foras Talúntais, the National Science Council, the Irish Veterinary Association and the Association of State-aided Agricultural Colleges as well as from the trade unions and staff associations representing the interests of staff affected by the White Paper proposals. These submissions were in the majority of cases followed by discussions with representatives of the organisations concerned.

The two most important elements of section 2 relate to the respective definitions of "agriculture" and "research". "Agriculture" as defined in the Bill represents an expansion of the definition in the existing statutes to cover the widest spectrum of agricultural activities and includes such items an animal nutrition, farm management, agricultural economics and marketing, together with the processing of agricultural products, which did not appear in the previous legislation. Plant breeding has been specifically included in the definition of "research" so as to enable the authority to perform a function which has hitherto not been exercised by An Foras Talúntais. It has been necessary, however, to exclude from the definition the testing and grading of animals and products regarding which the Minister has a statutory or regulatory responsibility.

The transfer to the authority of the different functions in relation to education, agricultural advice and research, as provided for in sections 11 to 18, are in accordance with the directions in the White Paper; but it will be observed that in the exercise of the activities concerned, the authority are obliged to make themselves aware of similar facilities being provided by kindred institutions to avoid overlapping in these spheres and the authority must co-operate with these institutions on a mutual basis as opportunity offers. The advisory functions of the authority are, as will be noted from section 15, specifically orientated towards the individual farmer, and this obligation is further strengthened under section 30, which deals with the powers and duties of the board of the authority. The board are required to lay special emphasis on ensuring that the services provided by the authority have the greatest possible effect on agricultural productivity at local level. The research functions set out at section 17 correspond with those at present carried out by An Foras Talúntais, with the addition of responsibility for basic veterinary research. Section 20 provides for the closer integration within the authority of the schemes of aid to farmers, referred to in the White Paper, if this is considered desirable.

The activities of the authority as I am sure Deputies will appreciate, are most diverse, if not diffuse and it seemed to me, therefore, necessary that it should have on its board the benefit of advice and experience of people engaged in or concerned with as many as possible of these diverse functions, without, at the same time seriously reducing the board's effectiveness because of too large a membership. The board of 24 members as proposed in section 25 seems to me to be a reasonable compromise between these possibly competing objectives and it will also be observed that provision is made in the Second Schedule for a considerable measure of continuity as between one board and the next. In accordance with the provisions of the White Paper, the Board will be composed of members nominated by the General Council of Committees of Agriculture together with members representatives of agricultural and rural organisations, the staff of the authority, the universities, the State-aided schools and such other agricultural interests as may be prescribed in a statutory order, which will provide machinery for selection and nomination of board members.

The new authority will be an integrated national service and will be constituted as an executive agency of the Minister on the broad lines visualised in the Devlin Report. It is necessary, therefore, that a minimum of control should be exercised over its activities by the Minister and this is provided for in sections 32 and 44. Under section 32 the board is required to prepare in respect of each financial year a programme of its projected activities and, under section 44 it is required to prepare annually an estimate of its expenditure and receipts. The programme and estimate will be subject to the approval of the Minister, and the board may not engage, without the Minister's consent, in activities other than those appearing in the programme, or incur expenditure in excess of that appearing in the approved budget. Apart from these restrictions, the authority is free to operate within the entire ambit of its statutory functions.

The committees of agriculture will, as indicated in Part IV of the Bill, no longer have responsibility for the local advisory and educational functions, but they are empowered to prepare an annual advisory and educational programme for their counties. These programmes must be considered by the board and account taken of them by the board in preparing its annual programme of activities to be submitted for the approval of the Minister. The committees will, in addition, have the important watch-dog function mentioned in Section 36, not only in relation to the board's activities, but in relation to centrally administered agricultural schemes also. Section 43 provides for the recognition of the General Council of Committees of Agriculture referred to in paragraph 3.3 of the White Paper, and, under section 42, it is indicated that, in future, not more than half the members of the committees will be county councillors; the remaining members will be nominated by voluntary rural organisations active in the county, the organisations and their representatives to be determined by the Minister under a statutory order.

The revenue of the authority will be derived from State grants, contributions from the county rate, the proceeds of certain investments at present in the hands of the Agricultural Institute, fees for services undertaken on behalf of persons or bodies availing of the authority's research and kindred services, from donations and contributions by farming organisations, agricultural co-operative societies, and so on and from the proceeds of sales of stock and and institutions. The State endowment will be in two parts, namely, an annual capital grant of such amount as may be determined by the Minister with the approval of the Minister for Finance and an annual grant towards current expenses which shall not in real terms be less than the total amount provided for the activities concerned in the financial year immediately preceding the establishment of the authority.

In order to make satisfactory arrangements for appropriate contributions from the county rates in respect of the local advisory and educational functions being transferred to the authority, it has been necessary to alter the present system. Hitherto, the amount of the rates contribution for agricultural services in each county was entirely within the discretion of the county council concerned. In future, however, each committee of agriculture will be required to furnish each year to the Minister proposals in respect of its expenditure on the services being retained by it and, having considered these, the Minister will issue a certificate authorising the committee to demand from its council a sum which will include provision for the committee's expenditure on its retained services and also in respect of the estimated cost to the authority of providing in the county the advisory and educational services which were formerly made available by the committee. The council is obliged to pay the full amount of the demand to the committee and the committee in its turn must remit to the authority the certified estimated cost of the advisory and educational services in the county. The income accuring to the authority under the annual local contributions from committees of agriculture may, under section 47, be used only in support of the advisory and educational services formerly provided by the committees. Section 50 extends to the authority powers to borrow for the purpose of the administration and operation of its functions. This facility is not available to the Agricultural Institute; Part VI of the Bill deals with the transfer of property and staff to the authority.

The entire property in the hands of the committees of agriculture and An Foras Talúntais will be transferred to the authority on the commencement of section 53.

By far the most valuable portion of the property to be transferred from the committees will be the agricultural education centres and office premises provided by them since they became corporate bodies in 1958. The cost of providing these facilities was met in roughly equal proportions from State grants and local rates contributions. Although I am advised that there is no strict legal obligation on me in this respect, I consider it only equitable that the local bodies should be compensated for the contributions they have made towards the expense of providing these facilities. It is, accordingly, proposed under section 58 to pay compensation in respect of half the net value of the assets of the committees to be transferred to the authority and this will be done on the basis of a direct payment to the committees proportionate to their expenditure on their retained services in the year prior to integration, the balance to be covered by an appropriate increase in the annual State grant to the authority and a corresponding reduction in the demand from the committees on the county councils concerned. This arrangement will serve, to some slight degree, towards a reduction in local rates.

It will be recalled that, on the establishment of An Foras Talúntais in 1958, a generous subvention was made by the United States authorities out of grant counterpart funds to support the activities of the institute and to assist it in acquiring lands and premises and other facilities of a capital nature. These moneys constituted the capital and endownment funds of the institute. At present, the capital fund is nearly exhausted, but the endownment fund of £1 million is still intact. An agreement has very recently been reached with the United States Government terminating the obtained agreement and concurring in proposals from the Irish Government as to the disposal of the residual funds. It has, accordingly, been decided, as set out in section 54 of the Bill, to transfer the moneys in the endownment fund and any unexpended balance in the capital fund of the authority which may be utilised for such capital purposes in relation to any of the functions of the new authority as may be approved by the Minister, after consultation with the Minister for Finance. I should like to place on record on my own behalf and on behalf of my colleagues in the Government, our satisfaction with and appreciation of the generosity and co-operation of the United States authorities in this regard.

Section 53 sets out the properties of the Minister to be transferred to the authority. As you will note from the explanatory memorandum, the line followed is to transfer lands and premises where more than 50 per cent of the work concerns research, education or agricultural advice and, therefore, only the agricultural schools at Athenry, Clonakilty, Ballyhaise and Kildalton will become the absolute property of the authority. The Minister's interest in the cereal station at Ballinacurra, County Cork, will also be transferred under this arrangement, but the Minister will retain such property or premises at these locations as are required by him for such activities as do not come within the province of the authority. The Minister may, however, under section 60 transfer by statutory order not only these retained properties, but any other property, in course of time that he considers should be made over to the authority.

Paragraph 2.2 of the White Paper states that the staff of the authority will comprise the existing staffs of the committees of agriculture, An Foras Talúntais and the relevant staff of the Department of Agriculture together with such personnel as may subsequently be recruited. Provision for this is made in section 65 which proposes that the entire staff of the committees and of An Foras will be transferred on the commencement of the relevant section, together with such members of the staff of the Department of Agriculture as may be designated by the Minister. Every member of the transferred staff will carry with him such rights as he now possesses in relation to remuneration and conditions of service and will be subject to such obligations as apply to him in his existing service.

Similar provisions are made under section 66 in relation to superannuation. The superannuation provisions prescribe that credit will be given for previous pensionable service, whether under local authorities, or the State and in the case of officers of committees of agriculture their rights under the local government superannuation code to the addition, in certain circumstances, of years to pensionable service have been preserved. In response to representations from a number of staff associations, section 69 has been inserted to provide an appeal procedure for any member of the transferred staff who may consider he has a grievance in relation to his conditions of service or to superannuation on his transfer to the new authority.

It should be understood, in regard to the staff and superannuation provisions of the Bill, that, as indicated in sections 34 and 35, a united and co-ordinated system of grading, remuneration, control and conditions of service and pension for the entire staff of the authority is eventually envisaged and that the specific arrangements in this connection set out in sections 65 to 69 are intended to deal with contingencies arising in the interval between the transfer of staff to the authority and the approval of the staff and superannuation schemes referred to in sections 34 and 35.

As the establishment of the authority will result in the transfer of existing services to unified control, no expenditure of any magnitude is foreseen. The proposal in section 59 to pay compensation in respect of property transferred from the committees of agriculture will, however, involve some additional State expenditure but it is not estimated to appreciably exceed £100,000 in all.

In coming to a close, I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the many organisations which have made submissions and offered advice leading to the formulation of the White Paper and the consequent legislation now before you and I would hope that they would find some reflection of their ideas in these documents.

The publication of the White Paper and this Bill represents in my view a very significant milestone in the development of services for farmers and the agricultural industry. The proposals outlined in the Bill offer, to my mind, the best means of providing the kind of service which the farming community and the agricultural industry require and which can be provided for them and I look forward to securing from all concerned the enthusiastic support and co-operation which will ensure that the measures now proposed will greatly benefit farmers and the agricultural industry as a whole. I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr. J. Gibbons

We on this side of the House accept that there is a need for the reorganisation and the revision of what are known generally as the advisory services. Having said that I turn to the last paragraph of the Minister's speech—the fanfare paragraph— where he says that:

The proposals outlined in the Bill offer, to my mind, the best means of providing the kind of service which the farming community and the agricultural industry require and which can be provided for them and I look forward to securing from all concerned the enthusiastic support and co-operation which will ensure that the measures now proposed will greatly benefit farmers and the agricultural industry as a whole.

There is nothing in the Bill which would indicate that the measures proposed by the Minister deserve either the enthusiastic support or any other kind of support of the farming community. Neither do these proposals offer any improvement in the present situation which the Minister finds satisfactory.

One need only apply the acid test: to look at the situation in which young agricultural graduates coming from our universities have no prospect of jobs from the advisory services or from any other State or semi-State source. Consequently, the Minister's expression of hope from the farming community is a lot of poppycock and should be recognised as such.

Section 10 of the Bill contains no more than a few words. These are that "the Institute is hereby dissolved". Section 25 provides that there shall be a board to be known as the Board of the National Agricultural Advisory, Education and Research Authority to carry out the general government of the authority and the general administration of the affairs of the authority. Let us put both those provisions together and see what is proposed. An Foras Talúntais have been in existence for about 19 years. This organisation have a very fine record and an international reputation, a body to which there was easy access by the farming community and which have produced research of the kind that is of vital importance to Irish farmers.

One case that comes to mind immediately is the research and the effects of that research carried out by the institute in relation to sheep flocks in the west, especially in relation to the Galway breed. But that is only one of the many cases. It is proposed now to dissolve the institute in one fell swoop. I am afraid this is being done at the request and in order to gratify personal whims of certain personages in Dublin whose connection with the agricultural industry is rather tenuous. For that reason alone the Bill deserves to be thrown out. What is proposed is the cold-blooded dissolution of the Agricultural Institute, one of the institutions of which we can be proud and one of the few institutions which the farmers have come to rely on and to have resourse to personally in matters of specialised advice.

The Bill proposes to establish a board of 24 people under a chairman all of whom will be nominated by the Minister. It would be foolish not to have regard to the performance of the Government in the formation of Government boards and the patronage that they have practised since they came to office in this regard. It is notorious.

To use the famous words, it has been a "thundering disgrace". Every Government board has been loaded up with party hacks. The performance of the Government in the appointment of membership of Government boards has been an absolute disgrace and we cannot hope for any radical change in the thinking of the Government. We will have the shreds and tatters of the once fine institution that we established, An Foras Talúntais, being administered by a crowd of people who must be called party hacks because that is what they are going to be. One has only to look at the people who were removed from State boards immediately on the accession to power of the present Government and look at the people who have replaced them, whether it be in Bord Fáilte or an agricultural board. It is a bad day for agriculture that this should happen. The notion that a group of people such as this should be in the position not only to influence but to control agricultural research or any other kind of research is not acceptable to any rational person. Research, by defination, must be free from the interference of interested people of one kind or another.

It would be wrong not to recognise that there has been a certain tension between the Agricultural Institute and the other areas of agriculture since the establishment of the institute. This is no reason for its dissolution. I earnestly draw the Minister's attention to the undeniable fact that the dissolution of the Agricultural Institute, An Foras Talúntais, is an unwarranted shameful thing to do. I believe it is being done for unworthy reasons. A very grave disservice is being done to the industry to which I belong by people who have no right to do it. Even now there is speculation as to the eventual identity of the person who will preside over the board of this new organisation. I think I know who it is going to be. Even if he may have blotted his copy in recent times in the matter of the clash within the Government about the appointment of the new European Commissioner, I still think our friend will make it. That, too, is a bad thing for the future of agriculture in this country. Worst of all, it is sad and shameful that agriculture should be dragged into the mire of cheapjack party politics as is happening now in this Bill. I belong to the farming industry and I do not want to see that happening to it. I do not want to see the Agricultural Institute being destroyed because it served me well as a farmer and it served the industry to which I belong. The unworthy insupportable reasons for its dissolution should be disregarded.

The title of the authority which is proposed, gives some small indication of the condescension and the paternalism of the people who conceived this Bill and it shows the total absence of any new thinking, of any penetration of new illumination, a total failure to recognise the transformation that has taken place among the young people on the land in the past 20 years or so. In the very word "education" lies the implication that until the arrival of this authority the people of the land were uneducated people who had to be taken by the hand and put on the path to progress by the more enlightened. The drafters of this Bill for which the Minister must take responsibility are plainly unaware of this change. They still want to act in a paternalistic way and still feel that if any of the exercise of power is to be given to the people of the land in the carrying out of their business, it had better be given with the greatest caution by people who know better than they. That concept is shown by the incorporation of the word "education" in the title of the Bill. It reveals a world of being out of touch with the agricultural industry.

The day that young men and women went into agriculture after leaving primary school is gone. When one is talking about educating people for agriculture one is talking about a good basic general agriculture and thereafter specialised training. There is an important difference not appreciated by the Minister, between training and education. A concept enshrined in the word "instructor" as opposed to the word "adviser" is enshrined in this Bill. "Instructor" suggests the young university graduate going among primitive people to teach them how to use a hoe, a spade, or a plough. This is not how it is on the land at present. We are dealing with a new educated rural population, certainly in need of specialised training, specialised courses, and on the job courses for both men and women in the industry. Except in the expansion of the definition of the word "agriculture" at the beginning, there is a failure to recognise that agriculture does not mean just the production of crops any more, if it ever did mean that. Agriculture means the processing and selling of the produce of the land. I can find no indication in this Bill except in that passing allusion that there is a new era dawning and a new race of men far better trained than we were are now taking possession of the land. The primitive or fairly primitive notions conceived in the old parish plan are being carried over into this new legislation and the parish plan is at variance with the requirements of the country now. We need to expand our horizons. This Bill is infested with the notion of the parish plan. I use the word "infested" advisedly because that is what it means. It is a stultifying stupefying notion that one should enclose the thinking of people in a parish plan concept as this document does.

I should like the Minister to tell me in what part of this Bill is there a promise of a better advisory service. He referred to it as a better educational service but I would call it a training service. Is the super-imposition of yet another bureaucracy going to improve the situation? I do not think it is. Is there any mechanism in the Bill for the securing of a better system of promotion or a better system of job prospects for the people in the advisory service? If there is, I cannot see it. Neither do I see how it can be procured by an organisation presided over by people whom I shall call party nominees, in order to avoid calling them worse. There are no prospects to be seen in this Bill for giving a better service or a service manned by more people. There are graduates down the street working in bars and on the docks but all this Bill offers is jobs for the boys. There are no jobs for the graduates, for the specialists and for the people for whom this Bill should cater—not a damn prospect. The Minister has nothing to boast about here.

The Minister made some passing allusions to the arrangements for the financing of the activities of the new committees of agriculture who seem to be stripped of any vestige of power. It appears to me that we are heading towards a situation where we will have taxation through the county rate without any kind of representation. The scheme of things will have to be decided upon by the Minister, presumably in consultation with his 24 nominees.

This Bill was conceived without any regard to the profound changes adumbrated by the farm modernisation directives, especially Directives Nos. 160 and 161. I am not aware of any reference to the need for the establishment of socio-economic advice systems under the general ambit of Directive 161. I do not think there is any such reference. The bones of this Bill have been hanging around for years, long before Directives 160 and 161 saw the light of day in Ireland.

This Bill is dowdy and unimaginative. It is building on out-of-date and obsolete foundations. There is no indication of any new thinking in the Bill. There is no recognition of the fact that Irish farming is at the crossroads, a crossroads that will probably decide the eventual fate of the whole country in that we are on our own now. We can develop our food industry and our food processing industry or sell it to the multi-nationals. That will happen in the next ten years. There are very dramatic and radical changes that must be made in the make-up of the management structures of our co-operative industry. If they are not made, the ownership of these co-operatives will pass from our hands into the hands of foreigners and strangers.

It is necessary to think of an advisory service, a training service, that will deal with the agriculture industry as a whole from the production of crops by the people of the land to the sale of the finished product on the export market. We must begin to think of programmed, planned production from beginning to end. Again, there is no glimmer of recognition in the Bill of what I consider to be an urgent factor.

It is very difficult to say anything good about the Bill because apart from creating a new bureaucracy, of creating jobs for the boys, I cannot see any glimmer of hope for the improvement of the situation the Bill purports to improve. It is not there. Speaking as a farmer, I reject it out of hand. It is no good. If it does serve any useful purpose, it may be that it will stimulate discussion. Its very hollowness, its vacuousness and its emptyness will underline and draw attention to the total failure of the Minister even to recognise the urgency of the problems that confront the industry at present.

Instead the Minister without any reason abolishes the best establishment we have created for many a day. The ostensible reason I understand is that the mechanism for the transmission of the information produced by research is found by some people to be defective. This is not so and I have personal experience of this. As a farmer, I have consulted directly many times with the Agricultural Institute and I found them excellent. All the dairy farmers in Munster and many in Leinster have been in and out of Moore Park many times, the cattle men have been in and out of Grange and tillage men have visited the machinery and research station in Carlow. The farmers have always resorted to the institute. It is a very important part of their business. I am afraid it is going to be stultified and circumscribed by the provisions of this Bill. That is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue for very long because it will break the morale of the institute. The institute have demonstrated that Irish agricultural scientists, left on their own and given a fair chance, are equal to any in the world. This is recognised throughout the length and breadth of Europe and beyond.

This Bill does not give us a lead into the type of advisory service we should have and the House should therefore reject it. The Minister may push it through the House and thereby do serious damage to the industry. It will be rejected by the people in the industry and by all working farmers.

Mr. Callanan

It astonishes me to see the Fine Gael benches empty. I can speak with a little authority on the subject of agricultural advisers, having been associated with them for many years. I served on the General Council of County Committees of Agriculture and on that body I was among only two or three who were not from the benches opposite. All were opposed to the taking over of the advisory services by the Department. They are not here. Of course they will vote for this Bill but they should be here to voice their opinions. In particular, I would have expected to see the new Minister for Defence and Deputy McDonald in the House today because I have no doubt they share my views.

I was in a hopeless minority on a sub-committee of the general council. When we first got aid from the US, various opinions were given as to the kind of institute we should have. Some people at that time were in favour of a new university with powers to confer degrees in agriculture and others expressed opinions in favour of a research institute. The Agricultural Institute were set up and they have done an excellent job in the meantime. As a member of a rural organisation I served on a small committee which did a lot of research and we came out in favour of amalgamation of research and education. At the time we proposed an autonomous board. The board of the Agricultural Institute were autonomous but this Bill will change that. The new board will come completely and entirely under the Department without any room for manouever. The Minister will have power to sanction everything. Ministers for Agriculture come and go and as a farmer I am not prepared to allow any Minister for Agriculture to have the measure of control over the new board that this Bill will give to him. The new board will be directing agricultural policy for years to come.

At the time I mentioned earlier, we recommended that agricultural policy should be controlled by an autonomous body on which there would be a majority of representatives of county committees of agriculture with representation from other sectors. We hoped then that we would get a faculty in agriculture in UCG like that in a dairy science in Cork University which has been of such benefit to the dairy farmers of Munster. We wanted a research department for the suggested faculty in Galway. We sent deputations to the then Taoiseach, Deputy Costello. What we got was a research institute which it is proposed to abolish by this Bill. At that time we recommended that research results should be channelled directly to working farmers because the farmer is the man who counts in the industry—he knows the practical problems of working on the land.

It is evident there will be very few practical farmers on this board of 24. From what the Minister has said and from the white paper, I foresee there will be only about eight farmer representatives. We have not been told from which organisations they will come. I ask the Minister seriously to consider the views of elected representatives on the composition of this board which appears to be loaded against ordinary public representatives.

When the Agricultural Institute was established I did not think the information from the research done would be channelled back to the farmers as efficiently as it has been done. This new board is being set up at a time when agricultural advisers are engaged in much heavier work than previously. At the moment county committees of agriculture are doing their best to implement EEC Directive 161 and we want to be sure that ordinary farmers will get the full benefit of that directive and that its import will not be confined to people dealing in theories. Only about 4 per cent of the farmers in my area will be involved in development plans and they are not in a position to avail of research in regard to such plans. The directives must be changed to bring in 50 per cent. The services should be expanded because, if they are not expanded, there will be no hope of servicing these directives.

County committees of agriculture work at grassroots level and they could give valuable assistance. With regard to the classification of potential development farmers, the Minister knows that only certain clearly defined people qualify under the farm retirement scheme. I believe that any young farmer who is doing well should be classified as a potential development farmer. On the question of joint management, both the Minister and his opposite number are pupils of the joint council. Both served on that council. The graduates from that particular school were not at all bad. There are several county committees of agriculture and, as far as I know, they are not all that bad. There may be some square pegs in round holes but that is the pattern pretty well everywhere.

It is stated that at least one member of the new board will be appointed on the nomination of the Minister for Education and at least one member of the joint council of county committees. These committees have been running the advisory services. It may be thought that they were not doing that work well enough. The fact is that they were starved for money. I was chairman of my own committee and I would have liked to do a great many things. I would have liked to move faster on Directive 160 but we could spend only a certain amount and we could demand only a certain amount from the local authority. We had to stay within a specific estimate. Ambitious young people with ideas could do nothing because the money was not there.

I presume farming organisations will have a representative. There are many facets which should be represented. But I cannot see the board coming from grassroots level. Experience is all important and theory without experience is pretty useless. The man of practical experience knows what can and cannot be done and a substantial number on that board should be ordinary farmers. There should also be public representatives. It is said that this body must demand from the local authority a certain sum of money. That is something we could never do in the past. We were allowed very little. The Minister mentions the amount of property that will be transferred from the county committees to the new board and he says this may keep down the rates. It may do that for one year. When the property is bought by way of compensation the rates will have to be paid. In Leinster it is 50/50 and in the west 75/25. That is the position at the moment. The rates will have to be paid.

The Minister talked about giving back authority to local people. This is actually taking away authority from local level. Politics never entered into county committees of agriculture except, perhaps, on the election of the chairman. Once that was over politics were never mentioned. The committees worked in the interests of the farmer. I was in a minority on my committee but what I had to say was respected. We brought in certain recommendations. We consulted various organisations. We did not have complete agreement but we worked very well together. Public representatives are the guardians of the ratepayers and they have to give an account of their stewardship to the ratepayers. The people on this new board will not have to go back to the people and give an account of their stewardship. People from rural organisations would be the ideal on this proposed board.

I am very disappointed. The Minister is a cute politician. We are in an election year and no one knows how many will get representation on this board. It is like the budget—a little bit for everybody. What should be spelled out is not spelled out. The Minister knows a great many will be claiming entitlement to representation. All we are sure of here is that there will be one member from the General Council of Committees of Agriculture to represent those committees.

I am sorry I will have to oppose this Bill. It is a complete takeover. We are totally opposed to it and if I were on that side of the House and it was my Minister who was bringing it in, I would give my own opinion and say that I could not approve of it. I would go with my own party, but surely the people who are voting will agree with me. I hope that on Committee Stage they will try to change it because this is not a political issue and I am not one who will make a political football of it. It was agreed by all political parties that we would not accept the type of board put before us here today.

As regards the question of specialists, we have been advocating specialists very strongly for a long time. We had not got specialists and it was only recently that they were trained. I remember a man on Galway County Committee of Agriculture six years ago. He said he was associated with pigs and that it was hard to get a specialist on them. A specialist should be employed where there would not be a big concentration of pigs, and the same applies to specialists in dairying. Perhaps two counties could employ the one specialist. The county committees and the general council are 100 per cent in favour of any advance educationally in this line. We want progress.

Another matter of vital importance, particularly in the west of Ireland, is referred to in the White Paper where it is stated:

... the Farm Development Service whose function it will be to ensure that the scheme services operating in the county are available to all farmers requiring them and that priority is given to those farmers operating modernisation schemes...

That would be 4 per cent in that county, people who, in fairness, are the least in need of the advice.

The Minister has charge of lands. I have reservations. Any forward thinking designed to save small farms and to make them viable emanates from the General Council of County Committees of Agriculture because we are the grassroots and we know what to say. I am afraid that, if this goes on, the majority of the people, excellent thought they are, will have no respect for the social side of agriculture. We on the county committee are watchdogs and if the watchdog is not able to bark he is not of much use. If he has his teeth pulled out, he will not do much. In my view the teeth are drawn from the watchdogs. We are going to be mere talking machines from now on. Never was there more need for a good watchdog with good teeth than there is at present.

At the moment we have to see that the country is not being swept from the small farmers. Something to be considered in connection with agriculture is the question of the Land Commission being able to buy land. This is under the Minister's umbrella now. Land in the west is £60 an acre and in the east it is £120 an acre. There is an option to buy at half the price. They can buy it out after getting it from the Land Commission, but if a man in the west of Ireland gets 15 acres from the Land Commission he gets £15 an acre to buy it out or he pays £50 or £60 rent. We will have to be thinking of some kind of loan to put down to get that money. He has not a hope. This question will have to be gone into very seriously and this is where the county committees of agriculture and the general council are concerned.

I have reservations about the abolition of the Ministry of Lands at this time. It may not be exactly relevant to the matter we are discussing but, in passing, I want to say that the most serious situation at this moment is the question of an injection of money to try to get land for people. They must get the land first. The Minister has a big responsibility. There is much to be done in the development of agriculture. I am hoping that there will be a man with a dynamic outlook on the question of land. The land question would be moving along with a very small budget each year. Now it is all under the umbrella of the Department of Agriculture and the Minister has the responsibility. I am not prepared to go along with the Minister in the handing over of all authority to the Department. This board is completely tied up and whoever occupies the Minister's seat—and I am casting no reflection on him—has complete control. That is something I will never accept. If it were an autonomous board as the old Agricultural Institute was, I would be criticising the constitution of it but I would not be too much against it.

I will have a lot to say on Committee Stage, but I am very disappointed that we have not the people involved in agriculture and that good men on that side will not come in and give their views on this. We discuss it in a general way. I do not believe that anybody will agree with the constitution of the board. As I said before, the Ministry is a new one and if the university come up they will say: "How are you going to divide goods?" There is no indication of how it is going to be divided and the ordinary farmer and the ordinary man has no practical experience of it at all.

Criticism has been levelled at the county committees of agriculture. When I was a very young man I was on the Galway County Committee of Agriculture. We had two instructors and nobody wanted them at that time. I want to pay tribute to Macra but it could not exist without the advisory services of the county committees of agriculture who were in the forefront of every move in the right direction. Organisations throughout the country operated under the county committees of agriculture, but they operated independently. I hear people saying the instructors should be under this, that or the other, but I wonder will they be as free to give advice to all farmers as they were under the county committees of agriculture.

Nobody has ever come to me in Galway and said the advisers were not ready to help and assist anybody, anywhere, when a move was made to improve the lot of the farmers. The only thing wrong with the county committees of agriculture was that they had no money. In the old days you could do nothing with the money we had, and you can do nothing with it now. A directive will come down to us at county level and we will be expected to levy it on the rates. The committee will be expected to pass on the directive to the county council and that is something I cannot and will not accept.

I should like to be supporting this Bill but I cannot support it because of the composition of the board. It is against everything we ever talked about. I am surprised that a man of the Minister's calibre, an ex-pupil of the general council, should make so little of that body and the county committees as to say they will have one member on a board of 24 to run the advisory services which they have been running fairly efficiently. Quite a number of them—and we have done this in my own county—have opened educational centres. We have appointed our educational director. I was present when certificates were given to all types of farmers. Every effort is being made to educate people in modern developments in farming through the county committees of agriculture and through the general council.

The problem is staff and money. We have not got the staff. It may be said we have enough instructors. Many instructors are idle at the moment. We have been looking for a few extra in my county and we have not got sanction yet. We have also asked for clerical staff to allow the instructor to go out and do what he was trained to do. He was not trained to have a heap of books in front of him. He got a degree in agricultural science to go out into the field and tell the farmers what to do. We cannot get sanction for staff. The committees may be criticised because they have not got the money to do forward planning. Deputy Hussey is a member of Galway County Council and he knows that we are tied hand and foot. We cannot go forward. That is why I think the Minister has made a grave mistake.

This should not be a political football. The decision by the General Council was unanimous. I know the Minister can get the Second Reading of the Bill through the House by force of numbers but, when it comes to Committee Stage, he might agree to make some changes. I have always said we should be willing to accept change. I have seen many changes in my time and I have always gone along with them. I am not prepared to go along with change for change's sake. Having regard to their experience down through the years, the County Committees of Agriculture should get reasonable representation on this board. The Minister should not have as much control as he has. This should be an autonomous body.

I personally will fight every section of the Bill relevant to what I have been talking about. It is over 20 years since we first started discussing the Agricultural Institute and the type of advisory services we should have. I sat on a number of committees. I do not intend to accept the type of board proposed here today and I am disappointed in the Minister whom I hold in fairly high esteem.

Mr. Leonard

Looking at this Bill the first thing one asks oneself is whether it will benefit agriculture generally. Listening to the Minister's speech one has grave doubts about that. All the Bill is doing is transferring the staff and buildings from the county committees of agriculture to this authority. Looking at the composition of the board, 24 members, and having regard to our previous experience of the Government's attitude towards those appointments, we cannot be blamed for being suspicious of the membership of the board.

The previous speaker mentioned the fact that there are very few Deputies on the Government benches. That is an indication of the Government's approach to agriculture. Empty benches, empty thinking. After four years of Coalition Government, this is the type of Bill we have come to expect from them. Their attitude to agriculture was outlined in the Estimates on 14th December, I think, prior to the Dáil recess when we saw a saving of £800,000 on fertiliser subsidies. That shows the lack of confidence in agriculture which has been generated by the Coalition. They withdrew a fertiliser subsidy which was a mere pittance in comparison with current prices. It was reduced from 62p per unit to 54p. We object to their approach to this matter.

This is the time to generate confidence in agriculture. When we look at the composition of this board and the way it will be appointed, we are very suspicious that there will be, as there has been over the past few years, a great deal of political pull involved. It has been said that the county committees of agriculture will remain as watchdogs. I say that they will remain as lapdogs.

The Minister stated:

I was anxious to have a system which would bring together in one organisation the different services that are working for the benefit of agriculture and in a manner that would promote good working relations between them.

That seems to indicate that relations to date were not too good but in my view that is far from the true position. While at times we were critical of them they did good work.

Our spokeman on Agriculture compared this Bill to the Parish Plan and I can see a resemblance to the views of James Dillon in parts of the Bill. We want to improve the advisory service and generate confidence in agriculture. The agricultural instructors are important but they have a big problem and I do not think the Bill will relieve it in any way. The instructors on most occasions are preaching to the converted. Until we reach out to the farmers who up to now have not availed of the advisory service to those who are most in need of such advice in the development of their holdings, we cannot claim any success. I have noticed that at meetings in schools and halls, on tours to various farms, including those run by the Agricultural Institute, the best type of farmers take part. The most effective way of contacting the farmers who have not availed of the advisory service is through the committees of agriculture. Until such farmers realise the benefits that can be derived from agricultural education and the proper use of the advisory service it is hard to see how agriculture can progress.

In my view the Government have fallen down because they do not realise the potential of agriculture or the contribution it can make to the economy. The Minister told us of the agricultural projects that have collapsed in recent years. He told us:

The Government fell down in regard to plant breeding and the production of potatoes. On many occasions I asked the Minister to outline his proposals for the improvement of the potato growing section of the industry but I heard little. The Government permitted hay seed to be imported from countries outside the EEC with the result that the seed growing industry here was killed. While we should be engaged in more research in these fields we have allowed those industries to die a slow death.

Is agricultural education being curtailed or could it be further developed if it was embraced under the general educational system? This should be examined closely particularly when one has regard to the fact that there has been a falling off in the number of applicants for positions in the agricultural colleges. This was very noticeable in 1974 and 1975. One would expect a greater demand for such places. I notice that Ballyhaise will come under the control of the new authority but that St. Patrick's in Monaghan will not. Those colleges could accept more pupils but the Government have not created any confidence in the future of the agricultural industry to encourage young farmers to attend them.

I note that the Agricultural Institute will come under the umbrella of this new authority. I hope the institute will continue to give a good service as they have done down the years. We fear that the activities of the agricultural advisers will be curtailed when under the control of the new authority. Advisers have been of great benefit to the farming community and it is my hope that when they leave the control of the committees of agriculture they will continue to provide a good service. I regret that there is no forward planning in the matter of the advisory service. The Minister stated:

However, the Minister did not give any indication of what he has in mind.

The Minister also stated:

I should like to emphasise, however, that as indicated in the memorandum, the Bill was prepared following consideration of submissions from farmers' organisations, the council of An Foras Talúntais, the National Science Council, the Irish Veterinary Association and the Association of State-aided Agricultural Colleges——

I would be interested in hearing the views of those bodies after they have read the debate on the Bill.

A Bill is of no advantage if the Government do not endeavour to create confidence in the industry or if the Government do not make available sufficient funds to improve the advisory service. We are all aware of the difficulties in the farm modernisation scheme and few of us are satisfied with the progress it is making in any county. There is a big backlog of applications and more staff should be employed to deal with them. The backlog exists at a time when farmers need to know their classification and other details so that they can programme in advance for their buildings, and so on.

I believe there is not sufficient staff in many of those areas to handle the farm organisation applications. There is very little in this Bill for anybody. It is just a transfer of staff and buildings from one body to another. We on this side of the House are very disappointed with it.

Mr. Toal

I would like to give a wholehearted welcome to this Bill. It is a non-political measure designed simply to unify the various advisory services, the educational and research services, in the Department of Agriculture, to have all those services work in harmony and complement each other so that our farmers can get the best possible advice.

Many Deputies and certainly many farmers throughout the country will agree that there is a tremendous duplication of services in the Department of Agriculture. Many farmers are annoyed with this. This Bill will do a lot towards correcting that situation. It is designed to streamline the advisory, research and educational programmes in the Department. This is for the good of the people in the Department, the county committees of agriculture throughout the country and farmers. If all of those services do not get to the individuals farmer they will be of no avail. The only uncertainty that will hang over this legislation is that it could become a one-way effort. There can be a great streamlining from the top down but how does the individual farmer, when he looks for advice, work from the bottom up?

Farmers throughout the country look on their local representative of the Department as their adviser in all farming matters. He may only be in charge of farm buildings or some other section in the Department but the farmers look on him as their link-man between the Department and them. If this Bill brings all the advisers under one roof and they consult with one another it will have done a great day's work. I hope the individual farmer on the ground will be helped by this Bill and that he will have easy access to the advisory services.

Farmers were in a straitjacket in the past. They were like students doing the leaving certificate. If the student doing that examination does not concentrate on passing it he will not be a full student. Similarly in the case of a farmer if he only contacts an adviser when he is looking for a grant and concentrates all his activities on securing the grant the advisory services are not performing their full task and that farmer is not taking everything he should out of them. If the Bill does more to bring the agricultural advisers out into the open and more into contact with local farmers it will have done a good day's work. There is great anxiety throughout the country that a lot of the agricultural advisers are spending 80 per cent of their time processing applications from farmers, are bogged down in paperwork and not getting out of their offices to have discussions with farmers.

I am glad to see that the county committees of agriculture will be part of this new authority. They will prepare annual programmes for their respective counties and these will have to be submitted to the authority where they will be given consideration. I am also glad to see that the county committees of agriculture will be changed and that rural organisations will get representation. Some county committees of agriculture have done this already but there are some who have given no representation to the farming organisations. I am glad the Minister is giving statutory effect to the idea that farming organisations will receive representation on these committees. I would like to congratulate the Minister for the enthusiasm with which he has introduced this Bill.

Mr. Hussey

I, like many of the other speakers this morning, am rather disappointed with the proposals outlined in the Bill. We hoped for a different set-up in such a Bill. When one considers any reorganisation of the agricultural advisory services one must take into account the development in agriculture in recent years, the new thinking in it and the many new schemes which have been put into operation as a result of our accession to the EEC. How will this change improve the lot of farmers who should be our first consideration? Will there be greater communication between the farmers and the advisory services under this reorganisation scheme? Will there be any extension of the advisory service? Will counties that are still on a quota have to stick to their quota of advisers as they must at present? Too much of the advisers' time is spent on paper work, as has been emphasised here by many speakers this morning. New schemes have to be explained to farmers who have to be advised on how to apply for grants and so on and much of the advisers' time is taken up with this work. I see no reason why the Department could not allow committees of agriculture to employ clerical officers who could relieve the advisers of much of this work. Our committee asked that this should be done but we were refused. Our application to appoint further temporary instructors was also refused even though there is great demand for them at present and even though we have a number of young graduates within the county who qualified as agricultural instructors in the past year and have been unable to find employment. This is an unfortunate situation at a time when agriculture should be developed to the maximum and when there is such demand for those advisers. They should be employed and the farmers should have the benefit of their advice.

I remember when Directives 159 and 160 were issued and I recall the demand from the farmers for advice at that time. It was very hard to get advice at any level and particularly at top level, by which I mean the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, the two Departments then mainly responsible for the implementation of those directives. Here the advisory service within the county came into its own and they were the people from whom the farmers got this advice. The advisers made every effort to brief themselves fully on those directives, how they would be implemented and how farmers could benefit from participation. I compliment the advisers on that because they certainly did a very good job.

We find that in the composition of the boards proposed by the Minister in this Bill, 50 per cent will be elected members. I do not agree with this; I think elected members should have a majority on any board and this is one case where I think elected members are entitled to a majority. I realise that voluntary organisations must be represented but you do not always get the best farmer appointed from those voluntary organisations. At least the elected representative has to answer to the electorate every five years and he will not do anything drastic in the allocation of money or impose any severe tax on the people he represents because he knows he must go back to them at election time. Therefore, he will act responsibly. However, if you give a majority to non-elected members, they do not have to answer to anybody and they can put up all sorts of schemes and levy all kinds of demands on ratepayers since they know they will not have to face the ratepayers at election time.

We have seen the health boards operating and I do not think very many people at present are satisfied with the way they operate. I wonder if the health of the community has been looked after more effectively as a result of introducing these health boards. They are top heavy with officials, doctors and chemists and so on. I should not like to see the same thing happen in this case because gradually we see the power and influence of elected representatives being eroded. In most health boards elected representatives are not permitted to write or make a recommendation on behalf of an applicant for a job. Would the same thing happen in boards of this kind? Would the CEO at some future date, when an elected representative makes representations on behalf of a farmer who has a problem about a grant, use the threat that if this type of activity is going to be pursued the farmer might be disqualified from getting the grant? This type of thing goes on and I would hate to see it develop in connection with what it is proposed to set up here.

I also fear that power is being taken away from the counties and being vested in Kildare Street where all the decisions will be made. I regard this as unfortunate. Committees of agriculture will no longer have any real power and will merely be advisers. These committees have made a considerable contribution to agriculture and have laid the foundation for the advancement that has taken place in it. Their advisers have always been available to the farmers. They have given lectures frequently in cold halls in winter and have always been available to give advice. The farmers accepted and used this advice and we can see the benefit of it generally throughout the country.

I am also concerned about financing. According to the Minister there is to be a contribution from county rates. Hitherto the amount of the rates contribution for agricultural services in each county was entirely within the discretion of the county council concerned. In future each committee of agriculture will be required to furnish each year to the Minister proposals in respect of their expenditure on the services being retained by them and, having considered these, the Minister will issue a certificate authorising the committee to demand from their council a sum which will include provision for the committee's expenditure on their retained services, and also in respect of the estimated cost to the authority of providing in the county the advisory and educational services which were formerly made available by the committee. Here is the most important thing of all in the Minister's statement:

The council is obliged to pay the full amount of the demand to the committee and the committee in its turn must submit to the authority the certified estimated cost of the advisory and educational services in the county.

The county council must pay whatever demand is made on them under this scheme but there is no guarantee in this legislation that the amount taken in rates will be spent in that county. This is a very serious omission.

Heretofore the amounts levied on the county council were limited to a certain figure and the county had the power to change that if they wished. Under this Bill that power is also taken from them. An Foras Talúntais are also abolised. Why is that being done at this stage? The Foras Talúntais research stations gave a great service to the farming communities by way of specialised advice on new buildings, machinery, sheep, with which we are concerned in the west, and so on. It is unfortunate that they are being abolished now to make way for this new board which I consider will not do anything to improve the service to the farmer. We should all be concerned about this.

It is not a question of who will be appointed to the board or whether the best people are appointed. Rather is it a question of whether the proposed change will be better for the farming community. In this time of change many new schemes are being introduced and many grants are available from the EEC about which the farmers are not informed. We want to ensure that the best possible use is made of those schemes for the benefit of agriculture and the nation.

Our most important industry is agriculture and we seem to be tinkering about with it. Why cannot we get down to brass tacks and make an assault on this industry and improve it? If we have a thriving agricultural industry, our economy is in good condition.

I can visualise the appointees on this board. Many of them will not have a genuine knowledge of agriculture and this would be unfortunate. Again I stress the importance of appointing the majority of places to elected representatives. I do not care to what party they belong. They will be more concerned about how this service is run than many of those I visualise will be appointed.

I hope that the amendments submitted by our spokesman and others on Committee Stage will be accepted by the Minister and will help to make this a better Bill.

Mr. Finn

I welcome the setting up of this authority. In my county the party I represent has a very small representation on the committee of agriculture which was set up by the Opposition. They gave us what they wanted to give us and not what we were entitled to. There are 13 Fine Gael members in the Mayo County Council, yet Fianna Fáil gave us only eight seats out of 24. In other words, they kept complete control. This applies too in Deputy Hussey's area, Galway.

Mr. Hussey

We have ten non-elected members on our committee.

Mr. Finn

I am delighted.

Mr. Clinton

Fifty-fifty.

Mr. Finn

When I look at the members on the committee in Castlebar and see five, six or seven professional people put there by a political party, I realise that they are not the people who should be on agricultural committees. Representatives of the committees should be members of rural and farming organisations. These people are down to earth and do not play a political game. The advisory staff in County Mayo give a wonderful service and are very co-operative. On that basis I welcome this Bill because it is a step in the right direction.

As a farmer I know the situation. I have seen appointments made. If the Opposition wanted to employ a temporary instructor they were free to do so but we did not have a say in it.

It was only by influence or persuasion that we could get an appointment from that committee.

I would like to see part of the agricultural centre moved nearer to Galway city. I am told that the majority of the people working in this institution have moved into Galway city and have to travel 15 or 16 miles to the centre. If the centre was moved nearer to the city it would be more convenient for them. This is not a healthy position for agriculture. If a man has a job in a particular area he should not be allowed to move into a centre. As a result of this, our institute in Ballinrobe has been degraded. Many people in my constituency, particularly the farmers, are anxious that the 400 acres of land and buildings which belong to the African Mission College at Ballinafad should be used as a centre. Representations will be made to the Minister about this matter later. It was originally a secondary school and has the necessary accommodation for use as a centre. The proposed committee will make a recommendation to the Minister that this place be used as an advisory centre for agriculture, which is our greatest industry.

I often wonder whether enough thought is put into agriculture. It costs £15,000 to employ one man in industry. If you travel in County Mayo or any other part of the west you will see that the bulk of the land is waterlogged. The Minister will not be allocating the money for this service but he should stress the need for extra money. If all this land could be reclaimed we would double our production in the west. Agriculture makes an important contribution to the economy at present. The price of all types of agricultural produce has increased by 100 per cent. More money should be injected into agriculture in order to help the economy and the people who live in the west.

I have been a member of the Mayo County Committee of Agriculture for the past 16 years. I welcome this proposal because the ideas of the various organisations will be pooled to ensure that the best possible service is given.

Mr. Gallagher

I should like to join my colleagues in opposing this Bill because it means centralisation in the best sense of the word. As a result of this proposal, the Minister and the Department will have complete control of agriculture. We are actually handing over control to the civil service. Some of us know that the civil servants have been looking for this control for a long time, that they are jealous of the powers of An Foras Talúntais and the advisory service. I am sorry that the Minister has decided to give way to pressure from the civil servants in order that they can have this control which will abolish the existing services.

Deputy Finn had the courage to speak on this Bill. To date we have not heard many Government speakers on this subject. It appears that the Government backbenchers are not happy with this Bill. As a man who has served on a county committee and who knows what has been happening in County Mayo, he is the last man who should try to run down the construction of the county committees. The county committees of agriculture, as we know them, will be abolished for the reason that they are going to be subject to the Minister.

We are all aware of the great work done by the advisory service in the past. They had the problem of trying to make the farmer understand the importance of advice and planning. They have only succeeded in breaking down the barriers in the past few years. The farmer regarded the adviser as one who had come from a college or university and did not accept that he was in a position to advise him on planning his farm in order to gain the greatest advantage from it. The value of the advisory service has been recognised by Muintir na Tíre, Macra na Feirme, Macra na Tuaithe and so on. All these organisations owe a great deal to the advisory service for their educational programmes which were carried out under harsh conditions, such as going into cold schools in remote parts of the country. The advisory service gradually broke down the barrier and now the young farmers are prepared to recognise them.

It is a pity that these people are being taken into the civil service. From now on they will lose their local identity and will be civil servants. We have a great deal to lose because of this proposal. The local adviser will be a nine to five man from now on and will play the role of the average civil servant. In many counties there were CAOs with initiative who were prepared to introduce various programmes in the interests of their area. We had a number of CAOs in Mayo who did excellent work.

It is obvious from the Minister's speech that even the board itself will not have autonomy. It will be tied to the civil service and to the Department of Agriculture. This is contrary to present trends and structures in the country as a whole. Even the county councils will be affected because they will no longer be able to decide on the amount they will make available to help the committees of agriculture. The Minister will have a say in this. I refer to part of the Minister's speech which clearly shows what is happening in this field. The Minister said:

In future, however, each committee of agriculture will be required to furnish each year to the Minister proposals in respect of its expenditure on the services being retained by it and, having considered these, the Minister will issue a certificate authorising the committee to demand from its council a sum which will include provision for the committee's expenditure on its retained services and also in respect of the estimated cost to the authority of providing in the county the advisory and educational service which were formerly made available by the committee.

There may be merit in having a look at the existing structures in agriculture but I am convinced that in this Bill the Minister has gone too far. Deputy Finn has mentioned the county committees of agriculture and the politics involved in the selection of members of the county committees of agriculture. He is not being entirely fair in saying that in Mayo his party did not get fair representation. The members of the county council have endeavoured to give fair representation to all groups in the county. Having eight of the 24 as elected representatives was, I think, a fair representation in this case. We also recognised the value of voluntary bodies and have always nominated people from these bodies to the county committee of agriculture.

Deputy Finn's statement poses one question in relation to the constitution of the proposed new board. He states that the county councils have not been fair in appointing the members of county committees of agriculture. Is he suggesting that in the new board we will have political appointees rather than people who are appointed on merit or because of their knowledge of agriculture? When one considers what has happened in the case of other boards one must conclude that Deputy Finn knows what he is talking about in this matter.

An Foras Talúntais have done a tremendous job and there are very few counties in Ireland which have not benefited in some way from their work. My experience has been that they were always available to give advice and assistance, not only to committees of agriculture but also to individual farmers. I can also recall an instance where one of their officials was very helpful to sporting organisations like the GAA in advising them about the best type of seed to use on football pitches and so on. To say that An Foras Talúntais did not have any tie up with the farming community or with organisations within the country is unjust and unfair.

One of the factors in the success of An Foras Talúntais is the fact that they were an autonomous body. They were free to carry out their own programme as they saw fit, subject of course to the money being available from the Department. I am wondering what will happen to the stations in Mayo at Glenamoy and Creagh where we have seen a downgrading recently. What will happen when they come under the proposed board or directly under the Department of Agriculture? One can draw a parallel here with the position under the health boards where bureaucracy has taken over completely and where the elected representative no longer has any say.

Mr. Clinton

We did not set up that organisation, Deputy Gallagher.

Mr. Gallagher

I know this and personally I have never been in favour of it. I have said so in this House and at local level. We can learn from the mistakes that have been made and we have here an example of bureaucracy which excludes the elected representative. It is important that people who present themselves for election at either national or local level should have some say in affairs. The powers of the county committees of agriculture and the county councils themselves are being eroded and I am afraid that the proposals which we are now debating will not be to the benefit of agriculture.

I believe that there is nothing new in this Bill. It is a piece of window dressing. It must be repeated over and over again that we are giving central control to the civil service and to the Minister and taking away all power from local authorities and local groups.

For that reason, I wish to oppose this Bill as strongly as possible. We will be putting down various amendments on Committee Stage. We all recognise the value of agriculture to our economy and it is a pity that we should have any division in relation to this important industry. There are many things to be done, and by taking a good look at the existing services and trying to make more money available to them, we could do a great deal more than we are doing. This centralisation of matters will only hold up the development of agriculture and, in the long run, the farmers and agriculture will suffer as a result. Therefore, I wish to join with my colleagues in opposing this Bill.

Mr. McLaughlin

I expect the Minister has given very long and careful consideration to the changes that he as Minister for Agriculture is bringing about. Now that Lands is in his Department, I can see he is in for a tough time.

I would like to say a special word of thanks to the many people who have given years of service on these committees and to the various chief agricultural officers and their staffs who have also given long and faithful service to agriculture. The various members of the committees were dedicated and attended those meetings month after month. I am confident that the changes the Minister is now proposing will be for the betterment of agriculture, which I know is in safe hands when it is the responsibility of Deputy Clinton as Minister for Agriculture.

For years I have been a member of the committee of agriculture in my own county and I had been watching it for years before that. I have never seen any changes in the voluntary service or in the machinery set up to deal with the various problems. In my own county we have a very dedicated chief agricultural officer and a staff second to none.

Convenient to where I live in the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim there is an AI station at Doonalley, County Sligo. It was in trouble a few years ago, but I am glad to say it is now a thriving concern. This is due to the fact that people have begun to appreciate the value of those well-bred livestock that are to be seen throughout the country as a result of the operation of this AI station. It is also due to the fact that our livestock trade has improved so much financially that people are now prepared to avail of the AI station facilities. The result is that the quality of our livestock has improved considerably. Cattle and sheep prices have increased and milk prices are excellent. If a reasonable return is forthcoming to the farmer, he is prepared to spend money to have lime and manure spread on his land and incur all the other expenses that are involved in farming.

In 1974 we had the sad experience of this country being in jeopardy. That proved beyond doubt the importance of agriculture. Simply because there were two bad seasons for crops the country was in a very serious financial position. All the other activities, industrial and so on, were going well, but nothing could put life into our economy when agriculture went down. However, after two bad seasons we were fortunate to have a follow-up of good weather. Our export market improved and sales generally were excellent, and this had a beneficial effect on the whole economy. I am sure the Minister is heartened to hear the AI stations are making such good progress. It was very depressing to find the staff working in them uncertain about their future and wondering whether they would be obliged to look for another job. I am meeting the same people now and they have told me that conditions have improved and they are now in good steady employment, because the work has increased considerably both during the winter and the summer.

It is noticeable that more people are coming back to the land. A great number of people have established homes within the last two years. This trend is very encouraging because for too long our people have had to seek employment in England and elsewhere. The Minister's task is an onerous one but there is no better person than he to tackle the job. During the terms of office of successive Governments not nearly enough was done for agriculture particularly in those parts of the country in which land is crying out for improvement. There is much work to be done in the field of drainage and cleaning up operations. We have been remiss in this work to date compared with countries such as Holland where so much has been done to utilise every inch of land and to improve it. Thousands of acres of land in this country are sadly neglected. It is my opinion that we would have been much better off improving land that had been neglected rather than endeavouring to reclaim other land. We have some of the best land in the world but it is not always utilised properly.

Now that the Minister's portfolio includes Lands, he has a big responsibility, too, in this area. In many cases farms have been left idle for a long time. Sometimes land is rented with the rent increasing every year but with very little return.

On the question of tillage generally, I recall that when we had a few good seasons in the past, farmers grew more oats, potatoes, and so on than there was demand for. I am speaking particularly of the west where I saw potatoes, for instance, being left in the fields because there was not the demand for them locally although people were prepared to go to the towns to obtain supplies.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is straying far from the subject matter of the Bill before us. Questions such as those to which he is referring would be more appropriate to the debate on the Estimate.

Mr. McLaughlin

The Minister should have no problem in so far as the advisory services are concerned. I am convinced that the new arrangements will improve the position of agriculture generally. There is much work to be done in the areas of research and advice.

Mr. Noonan

I am saddened that the Minister should introduce a Bill of this kind. During the course of my contribution I shall reveal the reasons for saying this. The Bill which is being opposed by our party is designed to take from the agricultural advisory service and the agricultural research service—An Foras Talúntais— the autonomy that they enjoy. This autonomy has been to the benefit of agriculture during the years since An Foras were set up. It has been said that there is not a free flow of advice or of the results of research to the farming community in general but I dispute that contention. Being involved both in agriculture personally as a farmer and in the advisory service at local level, I know that the advice of An Foras and the findings of their experiments are available readily both to the advisory service and to the farmers. Now, however, all the work of that body over the past 18 years is being sold down the river as a result of this Bill, the provisions of which are, in most cases, subject to the Minister. That is bad enough but there is reference also to the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Public Service. The Bill represents a deviation to some extent from the recommendations of the White Paper. This has been illustrated forcibly in a statement published in The Irish Times of Monday last in which reference was made to this Bill and which referred to the fact that the scientific staff of the Agricultural Institute were seeking an immediate meeting with the Minister in regard to the Bill.

To support what I have stated these research workers maintain that the new Bill deviates considerably from the type of changes envisaged in the White Paper on the reorganisation of the advisory service and its merger with the Agricultural Institute. This article also supports what is being repeatedly stated from this side of the House: that the scientists' biggest fear is that the new Bill will result in civil service control of research and that the autonomy the Agricultural Institute had since its establishment in 1958 will be eliminated under the new structure, which gives the Minister powers over the financing of research, the type of research to be undertaken and the manner in which it is to be carried out.

Those powers are very far reaching when one considers the autonomy enjoyed by the Agricultural Institute up to the present time. The Chairman of that organisation stated that research could not be carried out under a civil service type structure or under the restraints imposed by civil service type control. He went on to state that an assurance had been given in the White Paper which was published in the Spring of 1975 that the authority of the Agricultural Institute would be maintained in the new body. No such provision has been made in this Bill. This brings home to me and to my party that this Bill has deviated a long way from the proposals outlined in the White Paper. I also understand that due to printing difficulties this Bill was not widely available to people concerned with agriculture with the result that they had not an opportunity to study it in detail. I fail to see the necessity for this Bill to be passed through the House in such a hurry. People involved in agriculture should have enough time to consider it. I am amazed and saddened that the Minister could be a party to a Bill of this type, knowing his experience of the practical side of agriculture, due to his membership of local committees of agriculture and of general councils of committees of agriculture, and knowing his experience in the administrative end over the past four years as Minister for Agriculture.

The Minister in his speech said:

It was clear, however, that the increasing demands on its facilities had revealed a number of weaknesses in the existing structure of the service.

I agree with this but it is not necessary to introduce a Bill of this kind to remedy those weaknesses and shortcomings. The Minister went on to say that the weaknesses arise from—

divided control, lack of overall leadership and direction, unsatisfactory carrer structure, excessive movement of staff and the absence of specialist and support services among other things.

I agree with some of these suggestions but I disagree with the question of overall leadership because, so far as agricultural research is concerned, leadership is second to none and the direction of the research arm of agriculture is second to none.

Perhaps in the advisory service the opportunities for promotion require a certain amount of experiment. The situation should also be looked at from a careers point of view. There was of course excessive movement of staff and I suppose this was as a result of the appointment of temporary instructors. After a period of probation temporary instructors should be made permanent. I disagree with the Minister when he states that there is an absence of direction. As we know, the agricultural advisory service was set up under the 1931 Act which replaced the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The existing system of the 27 county committees of agriculture was maintained by 50 per cent of the costs coming from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and 50 per cent by demand on the local rates. Supervision is exercised at various levels by the Department, by the district inspectors and by the specialists and supervisory staff. Therefore absence of direction is not apparent. This is not sufficient reason to introduce a Bill where this direction will be under the control of the civil service.

Debate adjourned.

Business suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 9 Feb 1977

National Agricultural Advisory, Education and Research Authority Bill, 1976: Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Feb 1977