I should like the Minister to elaborate on the general situation about the General Council of Committees of Agriculture. Is it the Minister's intention to maintain the General Council of Committees of Agriculture indefinitely in its present form? The Minister should be more precise in telling us how that body will be represented on the council of the new authority. It is necessary that we know how many people the authority will have from the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, the IFA, the ICMSA, Macra na Feirme and other bodies associated with farming. Will the Minister give us his thoughts on the composition of the council of the authority, with special reference to the section dealing with the General Council of Committees of Agriculture?
National Agricultural Advisory, Education and Research Authority Bill, 1976: Committee Stage (Resumed).
I do not know what point Deputy Gibbons is making. This section simply gives statutory recognition to the General Council of Committees of Agriculture by providing that each committee may make annual contributions to the council.
Will the Minister tell the House how many people from the General Council of Committees of Agriculture will be on the new authority? Why will the Minister not tell the House this?
As I said already, at least one. That could mean any number in excess of one.
Any organisation one could name, unless they are grouped together, will get at least one. Because of the importance of the body concerned we are seeking representation of at least one-third. The members of that general council controlled the advisory services for many years and own a lot of property. All their property and authority is being taken from them under this Bill. In spite of that the Minister can only tell us that at least one representative will be appointed to the new authority. It is unfair to make such a statement. The Minister should tell us the number he has in mind. To give the General Council of Committees of Agriculture one or two representatives on this new authority is an insult to the people who have run the advisory service for many years. They have been carrying out the educational directive efficiently. It is not fair that when they are being stripped of all their authority and property the Minister should say they will have at least one representative on the new authority. Nobody can complain about the way the advisory service has been run by the committees of agriculture and the General Council of Committees of Agriculture consist of representatives of the county committees. The Minister is an ex-member of that general council, as is our spokesman on Agriculture.
Would the Minister agree that it is a reflection on the general council to give them only one or two representatives on the new authority? Does it not amount to a vote of no confidence in that organisation which has given excellent service down the years? They should be given eight seats on the new authority.
When nobody had anything to say on section 42 which concerns the composition of the committees I took it that the Opposition were perfectly happy with the position. The section under discussion is not about the composition; it seeks to give statutory recognition to the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, a body that had not statutory recognition up to now.
I cannot understand the urgency for this Bill especially since we may be making a mistake in relation to it. I do not recall any other occasion here on which the Committee Stage of a Bill was taken three days in succession thereby denying Deputies the opportunity of studying the Bill's progress. However, to refer to the section, can the Minister say what is the purpose in giving this body statutory recognition? Admittedly, we had been seeking such recognition at a time when this body had teeth but that is no longer the position. Are we not giving statutory recognition but no power? Perhaps the Minister would tell us the reason for this provision. I see no point in rushing the Bill through the House.
I do not think anybody is rushing the Bill through. In relation to the question raised by the Deputy, he should be the last man in the House to ask why the council is being given statutory recognition. This change arises largely from the exhortations of Deputy Callanan while he was chairman of the General Council of Committees of Agriculture. He wanted statutory recognition for them.
That is correct.
Because we considered that what he was seeking was proper and correct and because we wished to enable the county committees to make these contributions annually to the general council, we decided to propose this change. It is worth while.
The Minister in saying that, has his tongue in his cheek.
What does the Deputy want?
Admittedly, we sought a statutory body but having spent two years studying various reports and studying the future of the advisory services we considered that a reconstituted general council with the county committees of agriculture having a composition of public representatives to the extent of 75 per cent would be satisfactory. The whole idea behind seeking such change was that the reconstituted general council would be the authority but the Bill puts a totally new face on that. We did not want an authority composed totally of members from the old committees of agriculture. We recommended a 75/25 per cent composition. We recommended also that there would be people from the various organisations that have been mentioned here represented also but the point was that the general council would be the authority. Now that body is to be stripped of power or authority. What advantage is there in giving statutory authority to the council at this stage?
The section is rather limited but we seem to be going beyond the scope of it.
The section deals with the question of giving statutory authority to the general council and I am questioning the reason for doing this while the council is not to have any power. I am asking the Minister for an answer to this simple question.
We are giving them the power to carry out the functions that they perform now. Deputy Callanan seems to be under a misapprehension because he talks about the composition of the committee although while the section relevant to that question was being debated no objection was raised to the composition proposed. Everybody seemed to be happy with the situation of a 50/50 representation which is what pertains in Galway.
I pointed out no later than last evening why I was not happy with a 50/50 representation.
We must not go back over that this morning.
It is not fair for the Minister to say that nobody raised any objections in so far as the composition is concerned. I am surprised to hear him say that because we were clear as to what we wanted—a 75/25 per cent representation. When the Minister finds himself in a position of having to deal with appeals and programmes, some of which may be very elaborate, he may be very sorry for not leaving a majority public representation on local committees. Indeed, my reference to the composition of the committee is referred to in this morning's papers so it is not correct for the Minister to say that everybody is satisfied in this regard.
I have allowed the Deputy to make his point.
The Minister was the first person to say that nobody raised any objection so I should be entitled to reply.
I have allowed the Deputy to make his point.
On far too many occasions here I am prevented from making a point. On many occasions at Question Time one question has been given as long as a quarter of an hour but very often when I attempt to ask even a second supplementary I am told to resume my seat. While I accept your ruling, I would like to express the view that continuously you are not fair to me.
I do not wish to deviate from the subject matter before us but the record will show that the Deputy has received the ultimate and fairest treatment from the Chair.
I am merely attempting to answer an incorrect statement made by the Minister. No doubt there will be amendments tabled for Report Stage in so far as this section is concerned. Is the Minister prepared to say what power is being conferred on the committees by this provision?
I am sorry that Deputy Callanan has become so agitated about what I said. I said that section 42 deals with the composition of the committees and that no Deputy raised any question under that section in relation to the composition. Admittedly, certain views were expressed at other times during the course of the Committee Stage debate so far and when it was not correct to have raised that matter but there was no objection on the appropriate section. That is simply what I said. I am aware that there were views but they were not expressed at the correct time. This is simply giving statutory recognition to the council to carry on the functions it has been carrying on up to the present but it was not a statutory body and it is giving a guarantee of at least one member.
There was so much talk here at the time that section 42 was through before I realised it. The amplification is so bad that we cannot hear. I hope there will be more about this on Report Stage. The Minister has not answered the question about the authority of this statutory body, which does not seem to have any power.
It was as a result of Deputy Callanan's pleading, as chairman of the general council, that I made it a statutory body.
When Deputy Callanan was pleading with the Minister to make this a statutory body it had teeth and we intended it to have more teeth. According to this Bill all the teeth are gone, with the exception of a promise of one individual out of 24.
Section 43 (b) states: in the event of that Council ceasing to exist, any association or body that may subsequently be formed which, in the opinion of the Minister, has similar aims and functions.
In what circumstances would this subsection be included? Would the Minister elaborate on that?
It enables us to carry on the recognition in circumstances of change in the general council.
What circumstances of change would the Minister envisage? He should be a bit more specific.
The committees may decide that they do not want this general council any longer and they are free to so decide.
Does this subsection make provision for them to set up a similar type of organisation?
Yes.
What other way have the committees of getting anyone at all on this board? How could the committees want to dissolve the only committee that gives them any authority to be represented on this board? I am surprised that the Minister should make that statement. It is not like him.
I am doing everything possible to preserve the general council.
The only way to get representation on this authority is through the general council. Give some valid reason why the committees should want to dissolve the general council.
The Minister must know and see that he is depriving the committees of agriculture under section 42 of certain power that they had up to now and will not have any more. From these weakened committees of agriculture with no real power a general council will be formed which must take on the character of the committees which formed it and because it is formed of helpless, powerless, impotent components the general council itself will be equally impotent. The Minister knows that. This is a piece of window-dressing and it will be identified as such. There is an alternative. If there is to be a committee of agriculture at all, it must be of some use. I told the Minister yesterday how such a committee might be formed; it is neither difficult nor impossible and it could be truly representative of the industry. It seems to me that the Minister is shutting his eyes to any such possibility and I would urge him to reconsider. A window-dressing general council is no good to anybody, to the Minister or to the industry. We can have a worth-while committee and general council.
I feel compelled to say that Deputy Gibbons, while he was Minister for Agriculture, had an opportunity of putting all these ideas into practice but he did not. He did not set out to improve the committees. Where an opportunity exists for doing that, as in the case of Limerick, 18 out of 21 are Fianna Fáil people, elected and non-elected. I do not think that indicates anxiety or concern for improving committees of agriculture.
They may be the best farmers in the area. They probably are.
At least they are public representatives and they are elected by the people. This is the important issue and the Minister proposes to select people to both the general council and the county committees. Such nominees are not answerable to the people; they are political hacks of his own party. This is not the composition of the general council of the committees of agriculture. He talks about the situation in Galway and Limerick. What the Minister is suggesting is far worse because these nominees are answerable to nobody. They are selected to the general council at the whim of the political head of the department which is, for the time being, Deputy Clinton. What he is saying sounds very hollow indeed.
As I stated here yesterday, section 43 is taking away power from the elected representatives. This is certainly a sorry day for democracy and I am saddened that the Minister would be party to this. He is suggesting that this section will remedy the situation but, in fact, it will have the reverse effect.
I cannot see any valid reason for the inclusion of section 43 (b). I cannot see what the Minister has in mind. Section 43 (b) states:
in the event of that Council ceasing to exist, any association or body that may subsequently be formed which, in the opinion of the Minister, has similar aims and functions.
This refers only to the opinion of the Minister and not to the opinion of the elected representatives or of the farming organisations. In other words, if the Minister feels that a body can, in his opinion, properly represent the 27 county committees of agriculture at national level, then he will give them the statutory power. This is a ridiculous section. It ill becomes the Minister to have it included.
The Opposition do not seem to know what they want here because one speaker says he wants statutory recognition while the next speaker says he does not want it, that it is ridiculous and that this section should not be there at all. Deputy Noonan talks of being saddened by the fact that I am selecting the members of the general council. I am selecting nobody. The general council will be selected by the committees of agriculture. If the Deputy is saddened by one thing, I am saddened by another and it is that an ex-president of Macra na Feirme, a farming organisation that has a responsibility to look after agricultural education, should state that they should not be entitled to representation as of right on the committees of agriculture. I think that is a terrible thing for the Deputy to say. I believe we are doing the correct thing in giving representation to the rural organisations on the county committees. If there is anxiety and concern as they say about imbalance, it was not raised when we were on the subject.
The Minister is twisting my words. I never said that either Macra na Feirme or any other rural organisation should not have representation on the county committees of agriculture and if the Ministers checks the record he will see that I did not say that.
You cannot have it both ways.
If the Minister was listening to what I was saying, he would know that. We are merely suggesting here that as regards county committees of agriculture public representatives should have the controlling voice. This is what we are saying. The Minister should listen to this. Of course, rural and farming and educational-farming organisations should have representation on the county committees. We have always advocated that. If the Minister was listening to Deputy Gibbons the Deputy said that these bodies should have representation on the county committees. He has also made a valid suggestion as to how the county committees should be constituted. I was speaking on paragraph (b) of section 43 and I cannot see the point in having included: "which, in the opinion of the Minister..." This is what I stated. The Minister was not listening to what I was saying and twisted my words. He should be quite straight and answer the points put to him and not evade the issue.
I want to give the maximum information to the House. I remind Deputy Noonan that the general council is a voluntary body, set up and supported by county committees of agriculture. They may decide at some stage that they do not want that sort of body. We cannot rule that out. If they decide they want some other sort of body we would like to be able to continue the representation. If there is objection to that, I do not agree with the objection. That is all I am saying.
I think we made it quite clear that was not our case at all. It is not creditable that people would want to destroy their only source of representation on the authority. I do not think the subsection is needed at all. Why should they cease to exist? I am sorry the Minister lowered himself so as to misrepresent the people on this side of the House. In our recommendation to the general council we recommended 75/25 of rural organisations and we did not, neither I nor anybody else, say that rural organisations should not be on the county committees or should not be represented, if they want to be, directly on this council. There is a board of 24 and we are only asking for eight out of that. Everything was taken away from the authority. What does the Minister think would happen to the general council? Why should people want to destroy it? I do not know unless there is a sort of trend to destroy everything at present. Why should they destroy their only possible means of getting representation on the authority? We are told the section is there in case some other kind of set-up was put there that would satisfy the Minister doing the same type of job. Why should that provision be there?
Giving greater freedom to the committees to make their own decisions.
The committees will always elect their three members to the general council. Why should they want to change this?
This provision could be left out and I do not think the Bill would be greatly disimproved but the general council is a voluntary body set up by the decision and with the support of the 27 county committees. They might decide that some other form of executive organisation would represent them better. The present thinking is that they will continue as they are; that is Deputy Callanan's thinking and mine, but if they want to change the type of organisation that would head the county committees they are free to do it now and still be represented. That is all that is being said here. It will only weaken their position if I take out the provision.
The Minister will have the final say.
I have no final say.
The section states: "... in the opinion of the Minister..."
But that is only in the event of them changing their minds.
——the new type of council "has similar aims and functions". So, it is not enough for the General Council to decide that they may, as the Minister says, have a different type of organisation but it has to be determined by the Minister.
Then, they are not likely to change if they are suspicious of the Minister there at the time.
I certainly hope not.
We are opposing this section.
This section deals with the annual estimates for the new authority. I suggest that since the three separate functions of the new authority are separately spelled out in the title of the authority—educational, advisory and research—each of the three functions would be better served if the annual estimates were set out under these three heads and a separate estimate made for each of the three functions, an estimate for research, an estimate for education and an estimate for the advisory service. If this is not done, there will be an inevitable erosion of the functions of one or other of the three by the other two or by the excessive development of one at the expense of the other two.
My suggestion would preserve the the integrity of each of the functions of the authority without interfering in any way with the integration the Minister is so keen on getting and of which I disapprove so thoroughly. There should be separate budgets for each of the three functions. If this is not done, some or all of the functions of the authority will be damaged.
The normal way for the new authority to arrive at an overall estimate would be to have separate estimates of the money required to carry on the various functions and that is how they would arrive at an aggregate. This Bill states that the board shall prepare, in respect of each financial year, an estimate in such form as the Minister may require. If, in the course of working, it is seen that one sector appears to be neglected and is not getting a fair share of expenditure, then the Minister may see that that is not sufficient and he may require the board to prepare their estimates on the basis of separate calculations for the various sectors. It should be left to the board to decide how they arrive at their estimates. If they are seen to be starving any particular sector, the Minister has the power to direct them to prepare their estimates and to ensure that this does not happen.
This could make for very difficult accounting if it was to be as watertight as Deputy Gibbons wishes it to be. There could be no interchange of personnel and duties between one group and another. We want to integrate these groups to provide services for agriculture. If we continue to isolate them, we will be defeating the object of bringing them together. That is my objection to accepting Deputy Gibbons's recommendation.
In my opinion the Minister seems to be contradicting statements he made in this House yesterday and Tuesday. He was allowing the authority certain responsibilities but now he is involving himself in the day-to-day running of the authority. He will now have to convey his approval and may amend the estimates if he considers it necessary. If he is selecting a board to run the different sectors, he should give them a free hand. He should not have to come here and say that certain sectors either research or advisory, should be provided with more finance. If the board are made up of men of a certain calibre, as the Minister said previously, they should be in a position to decide what is best and the Minister should not have to put his finger in the pie.
There seems to be a good deal of confusion about this. I was asked yesterday if anything could be done if the authority found midway through the year that they had not made provision for something which they preferred to substitute for something they were doing. I said that that was provided for in the Bill, and it is provided for here. Are we objecting to this? This, in my view, is flexibility. On the other hand, I am being told that I should not interfere if the board are not doing their job. I was told yesterday that the sort of board being set up would not do their job. How are we to ensure functioning if nobody has authority to say that one sector which needs support and more help is being starved? The Minister is suspect all the way. I wonder if a Fianna Fáil Minister were here would he be as suspect? Of course he would not.
It would be far better, of course.
He would be given all the power in the world.
And rightly so.
That is Fianna Fáil democracy we are talking about.
This section deals with the preparation of the annual advisory and education programmes. I take it that the annual research programmes are consciously excluded from this section. I am glad that that is so, because it might give it some little measure of immunity from the cold hand of the civil service which would assuredly kill it. I would like to have the Minister's assurance that the annual research programmes will not be included in this section.
This section deals only with the programmes submitted by the county committees of agriculture. These committees have nothing to do with research and, therefore, research is not covered by this section.
The Minister rightly said that this section deals with advisory and education programmes submitted by the county committees of agriculture. Does this mean that under this section the board need not necessarily accept the programmes prepared by those committees and submitted by their chief agricultural officers?
It means that the board do not necessarily have to accept, unamended, the programmes produced by the county committees. Those committees might put up what were regarded as extravagant programmes which they could not meet and the board would have every right and responsibility to amend it. They also have the responsibility to look at all the programmes and see how much they can accept before they come to the Minister to look for money.
On a point of order, Sir, might I ask the Minister to speak up because I have a cold in the head and am deaf today? I am sorry for interrupting the business of the House.
Let me say that I find it difficult to hear what Deputy Gibbons says so I think there must be something wrong, apart from his cold. I am sorry if he has difficulty in hearing what I have to say. What I said was that the county committees would prepare these programmes for the educational and advisory work in the committees and that would go to the board and the board would, I assume, then look very hard at them and would accept as much of them as it was possible to accept before they would finalise the programmes they would eventually bring to the Minister when they are looking for money.
As I see it, the advisory committees will prepare a programme. Now research, advisory services and education will all be financed out of the one pool. I can see the possibility of a clash here. The county committee may draw up a very elaborate educational programme and there may be an outcry that too much money is going to research. None goes at the moment to research. Henceforth the money will be pooled and I can see a danger there of a clash between research and education. There could be a hindrance to research. The local committee know nothing about research but they will be paying for it.
No.
They will be paying in part. Is the money not going into one pool?
No.
Would the Minister explain?
Section 47 deals with this. The money collected in the counties will be used in the counties for advisory work and education, not for research. There cannot be an unlimited demand because financing is limited to 40p in the £ and it will continue to be so limited until this House decides otherwise.
The Minister is educating me. I did not know it was limited. I admit there should be some limit because of the possibility of elaborate and exaggerated programmes being put up. But 40p in the £ seems rather low to finance major services for agriculture.
Has the limit been reached in Galway?
No. We have been pretty careful but we are giving reasonable services.
I think Galway will continue to be very careful and will not go to the limit but, if they have to pass the limit, it is this House will decide in the most democratic way to change the limit.
But there will be a limit all the time.
Yes.
And that will continue.
Does the Minister not know it is moonshine to say this is a democratic process we are engaging in here. No matter what this side says the Minister will bring in his troops, none of whom is present now, and they will vote the way they are told to vote and, no matter what suggestion we make, we will be voted down. Let us not cod ourselves.
In section 39 the annual local contribution in any local financial year shall not exceed or be less than the respective limits specified in section 1 (1) of the Agricultural (Amendment) Act, 1974, so this is covered completely and that is the only form of democracy we have so far coming from this House.
There seems to be no mention as to how long it may take to decide when the estimate ought to be submitted. It could be months with the Minister before he decides.
He simply has to approve a date. He has to know at a certain time when the money will be produced. Nobody will be unreasonable about this but there must be a date.
There is no date. It may be six months.
The county council have to find the money in the estimate. They have to prepare their estimates too.
Will there be a guarantee that the money will be spent in the county in which it is raised? There is nothing in the Bill to safeguard that situation. Will the money go into a pool and be distributed by this new authority. We must have some safeguard to ensure the money is spent in the county in which it is collected.
The Deputy knows, I think, that the expenditure on average now is 46 per cent and it is inconceivable that 40 per cent of requirements would not be spent in the county in which the money is raised. That is why it is not specifically in the Bill. It is simply inconceivable they would not spend at least 40 per cent.
Each county will have a programme but Deputy Noonan wants to know if the money will be spent within the county.
That is what I said. We are talking now about 40 per cent, not 40 pence. Only 40 per cent is contributed by the rates on average for these services in the county. It is inconceivable that at least 40 per cent will not be spent in the county because 60 per cent comes from the State. Therefore, it is not necessary to build into the Bill a safeguard to cover this matter.
Does this mean that if a county contributes the full amount it will get the full amount of services?
Of course.
With regard to this contribution and particularly the contribution towards organising the courses under the various EEC directives, will the Minister state if this financial assistance will be in excess of that amount?
I am not 100 per cent clear about this. What we are talking about here are the reserve functions of the committees. All the money collected locally will be spent on that and if there is any extra EEC work given to the committees, it will be covered by the 60 per cent I mentioned previously.
The part of this section that gives rise to grave disquiet is subsection (3) where reference is made to the maintenance in real terms of the Oireachtas contribution to the authority. It states that the grant will not be less in real terms than the total amount provided in the financial year preceding the date of establishment of the authority.
The doctrine propounded by the Minister is one of despair; it is one that is content with the insufficient advisory services we have at the moment. The drafting of this Bill was hamhanded and insensitive. The dominant purpose was not the provision of better advisory and research services. If it were intended to improve the situation, one would have to envisage improvement of the provision of field staff.
Subsection (3) is serving notice on every young graduate that he had better get out of Ireland as fast as he can. It is serving notice on young students in the agricultural faculties in universities that there is no use in expecting jobs in the new service. It is being provided for in law that the minimum will become the maximum, that there will be no progress. The only guarantee the Minister will give is that in real terms the monetary provision from the Oireachtas will be no worse than it was before the introduction of the scheme. That is hopelessly unimaginative and it makes clear the sorry fact that the real purpose of this Bill has little to do with the advisory services. In fact, it may be an economy measure because lurking here and there throughout the Bill are the hands of the Ministers for the Public Service, for Finance and for Education.
The Minister should delete this section and replace it with a section that will guarantee a progressive increase in the provision by the Oireachtas for the authority. With conditions of work improving year by year, as inevitably they must do, the amount of advisory and research work that will be done will diminish in spite of this subsection. Subsection (3) reveals the despair of the Minister in having expanding advisory and research services. If that were not so, it would not be necessary to include the subsection. On the contrary, it would be desirable to give a guarantee in the Bill that there would be an annual expansion of the services. If this is not done, young people in the agricultural faculties need not hope for jobs in the Irish service, especially as it will be administered by the board proposed by the Minister. The section should be condemned out of hand for that reason.
Deputy Gibbons puts an extraordinary construction on what this section is about. It is a unique provision in legislation in that no such undertaking has ever before been given in any measure brought before the House. In all the consultations we had with the various agencies that are coming together in this integrated service it was found that they all wanted this. They sought this and they fought hard to get it but the Deputy now tells us it should be thrown out.
Who did the fighting?
All the agencies sought and looked for this because they considered it was a guarantee that at least they would have in real terms as much money in the future as they have had in the past. They have been given that guarantee in this section, a guarantee never given before in the history of the State. I cannot understand the mentality of an Opposition that seeks to weaken the Bill and to have a situation where there could be less rather than more or even less than there is at the moment.
There will be less.
We cannot have less. The service has been substantially improved in the past four years. With regard to the graduates who are finding it difficult to get jobs, there is no faculty that has not the same difficulty. It is not unique to agriculture. There are more graduates on the ground in Ireland than in any other European country.
That old chestnut is no good. The Minister is obviously out of touch. Most of the time of the advisory officers nowadays is taken up with the farm modernisation scheme. The amount of actual advisory work is considerably less than it was before we entered the EEC. The quality of the work being done now has suffered because the Minister has failed to provide adequate staff. He trots out the old ridiculous statistic about there being more graduates in Ireland than anywhere else. This is playing around with figures. There is no country in the European Community with such a great dependence on agriculture as Ireland. In the British context the percentage of farmers in proportion to the total population is 2.3. Ours is still about 26 per cent, more than ten times as much. In Luxembourg there are 3,000 farmers and a half dozen graduates would probably serve the lot of them. Their total population is about 600,000.
It would have been better if the Minister did not put in that section at all. He is really saying that the authority will not grow. He says that it will not shrink but he cannot promise that. It will shrink because of the spreading work load of the existing staff and their incapacity because of the failure of the Minister to provide money to take on new staff. The Minister might as well say to the young men leaving the colleges that there is no future for them in Ireland.
The Minister hopes to improve the whole spectrum of the agricultural sector under this Bill but I am sure he realises the amount of applications that have been sent to him even for clerical assistance for advisers. They are bogged down in paper work at the moment under Directive 159, the farm modernisation scheme. There are only 4 per cent development farmers in my area but their plans are not being serviced. If a farmer wants to get a grant, no matter what size his farm is, he has to get it through the farm modernisation scheme. He must be put into a class. The advisers are unable to look after those schemes at the moment. They may be able to give some small service to the plans of development farmers in my area because they are so small. A number of farmers, who are not development farmers, who hope to come up the ladder and are providing buildings, have produced plans and would like to have them serviced and get help from the advisers but they cannot get this. The advisers have not got the time to do this because they cannot get clerical assistance.
The Minister may say that we have a lot of advisers but they are bogged down in paper work at the moment. They have got a degree to enable them to do field work but they are prevented from doing this because they have no clerical assistance. I hope that clerical assistance will be provided for those people so that they will not have to do work which they are not paid to do and which well qualified clerk-typists could do. We have applied for clerical assistance but we have been refused. I know there is a guarantee in the Bill that we will get what we were getting but everybody knows that what we are getting at the moment is not adequate and is not in line with inflation. In our area we provided offices and asked for secretarial assistance but we were refused. If we are to put up a scheme for education I hope that that will be part of it so that the advisers can go out and do field work. There are transitional farmers, who are anxious to work to a plan, who need help at the moment. The few development farmers who are working to a plan complain that their plans are not being serviced because the advisers are otherwise occupied. The Minister should ensure that we will not be dependent on the same amount in real terms.
I would like to add my voice to what Deputy Callanan said. Does the Minister realise that there is no allowance made in the advisory services at the moment for sanction for any additional staff? Any counties which have progressive farmers are very slow in providing grants at present. There are delays of up to six and seven months. I believe the Minister has not taken into consideration the conditions in every county. He did not allow any additional staff to counties which have a large number of applications.
There are delays in the committees of agriculture and the farm development service which are frustrating young farmers. I know of a farmer who secured an ACC loan to erect a large piggery but he cannot get the officers out to examine the site and advise him on his project. Money should be provided in such cases to help those farmers who are willing to develop. We believe, with the introduction of the farm modernisation scheme, additional staff and money would have been provided especially in the counties that wanted to develop.
Many things have been said which are not correct and I would like to put the record straight. When I came into office there was a backlog at least twice the size of what is there today. The backlog for which the county committees' staff are responsible is very short. It is practically non-existent. They are up to date in most of the counties. There is some difficulty in the farm development service because we cannot train people to work in the farm development service over-night.
The difficulty is principally in the farm building sector. The previous situation was that we had more land reclamation and fewer farm buildings. That situation, with two exceedingly dry years, has changed and the people involved in land reclamation are reluctant to go over to farm buildings, even though they were employed to do both jobs and some of them were trained in both jobs. I admit that difficulty is there. New recruits cannot be trained overnight to do this type of work. I believe that the quality of the service being given by the county committees' staff has improved enormously as a result of their involvement in the EEC schemes and in Directive 159. They are now being asked at least to stand up and prove that their advice is the correct advice. They are being asked to plan a farm business and produce a farm plan, admittedly in a very small number of cases. My great regret is that we are not able to qualify far more people.
Deputy Callanan spoke about the position in Galway where 3 per cent are qualifying and where 3 per cent only are being planned. The difficulties confronting advisers in Galway are exaggerated because they have to plan only 3 per cent. Deputy Callanan was less than factual when he said that they got no extra staff. I am assured that they have got two extra clerical staff for this work. Perhaps Deputy Callanan is not aware of that. It is not an enormous number but the extra load placed on those advisory people in Galway is not enormous either. The type of work they are doing now is real advisory work; they are going out and being asked to draw up a farm plan or decide whether or not it is necessary to do so. The advisory service has improved enormously as a result of the EEC schemes.
Might I ask the Minister if he considers that 3 per cent in a county the size of Galway coming into the development category that can be planned represents a true picture of the number of people seeking planning but who cannot be planned?
The number of people in the country who do not want to be planned and who could be planned as development farmers is deplorable.
There are plenty of farmers in County Galway who want to work to a plan but who cannot be planned because we have not got the services and the clerical assistance we sought. It is somewhat of a surprise to me to learn that there were two people appointed in Galway because we have been seeking them in the district offices. We have offices all over the county for our staff and we have no clerical assistants in those offices.
It is in the main office, Deputy.
I am not referring to the main office. I am referring to agricultural instructors who should be out working but who often have to remain in the offices rather than being out doing the work for which they were trained and qualified. That is why we sought clerical assistants in the offices all over the county. We have a very good structure which, if properly run, could provide a very good service for farmers.
The Minister was less than factual in his statement a few minutes ago with regard to the hold-up in the farm development service. In so far as the farm modernisation scheme is concerned, and more particularly the staff attached to the farm development service, the Minister knows very well that at different times during the year such staff are taken from their work and put doing other types of work in different parts of the country. I am speaking particularly about the disadvantaged areas and the grants being given there. I know that staff in Limerick have been taken away for months from their work simply because the Minister refused to sanction the appointment of extra staff to attend to those duties.
I want to revert to the section itself in so far as it deals with staffing and also the question raised by Deputy Gibbons. Not alone is the Minister not sanctioning the appointment of extra instructors to the county committees of agriculture but there have been redundancies, and more are threatened, amongst existing agricultural advisers in the county committees. I wonder does the Minister realise the serious situation that has developed in that respect. Yet the Minister will give us no guarantee that there will be any increase in staffing; all he will say is that there will be no deterioration. That is not good enough. Under the farm modernisation scheme and the various EEC directives instructors are doing very fine work in so far as farmers are now developing a plan and working towards such. But the Minister has refused consistently to allow the county committees increase their staff. Not alone has he refused sanction for extra staff but he has also refused sanction for the reappointment of existing staff attached to them. In my opinion that represents a retrograde step.
Would Deputy Noonan give us an example where this has happened, where we have cut down on the number of posts?
I can speak about my own county where we had to let an instructor go quite recently.
Because there was a permanent man appointed.
As the Minister well knows, we put up a very strong case for an increase in staff in our county. We are now faced with the threat of losing more staff while the workload increases. Mention was made also of clerical assistants in the county committees and their grading system. It is a stupid system under which there is no chance of promotion unless a staff member is over 55. The Minister should examine this grading system.
In regard to subsection (1) (b) I should like to ask the Minister does this grant include that now being paid to An Foras Talúntais and also the contributions to all the county committees of agriculture by the Department of Agriculture?
The Minister, when replying to Deputy Callanan and myself, said that they had encountered a problem in regard to special training for land reclamation and farm buildings. In counties in which a very small area is classified as handicapped the Minister shifted personnel to other counties to do a job which did not require specialised training, such as that of checking herds and tags and which any junior member of the staff of the agricultural division could undertake. The Minister appears also to place most emphasis on development farmers while the people about whom we are concerned are not the 3 per cent—about whom he spoke—but the other 97 per cent whom we hope one day will reach development status. We are concerned that those people receive attention, advice and aid.
We have gone very far from the scope of the section. I want merely to correct one false impression Deputy Noonan gave, that is, that there is a reduction. He talked about redundancies being created in the staffs. That of course is not so and Deputy Noonan knows it is not so.
The Minister will want to get the facts.
They had a temporary man in Limerick pending a permanent appointment and when the permanent appointment was made the temporary man was let go. This has been happening for as long as I can remember and I am longer at this than is Deputy Noonan.
I asked the Minister to clarify subsection (1) (b). Does it include the grants which are outlined there?
It does.
This section is related to the previous one under which we have been discussing the real meaning of the words "real terms". The Minister will recall that in the previous section this morning I tried to get him to accept the agreement that would provide for separate budgeting for education, advisory and research in order that no one of the three services would be eroded. I am asking again if the Minister could see his way to give a guarantee that the provision for research would in no way diminish in real terms. Since the Minister is using this as a sheet anchor to prevent this thing from slipping under the waves altogether, we will take him at his word and ask whether he will provide that sheet anchor for agriculture and research as he has provided it in section 48 for the services generally?
We covered this adequately under the previous section where we were dealing with the maintenance of the real terms value of the present provision and the present provision is over £18 million in the present year and that is not a small sum of money. Section 49 (d) mentions:
(d) the cost of grants to defray the cost of specific programmes of agricultural research or basic veterinary research, specific agricultural research or basic veterinary research and grants to educational institutions,
I do not know why Opposition Deputies get the impression that anybody wants to curtail the amount of money being provided for research as distinct from the amount of money being provided for education or advisory services. They are all part of a service for agriculture and any Minister should be as concerned about research as he is about the other services. I would expect that any responsible board would ensure that an adequate amount of their finances was preserved for the research that is so important to the industry. I am assured that this is the only legislation that has ever gone through this House that has given any guarantee about moneys to be provided for the future.
I move amendment No. 7:
In page 21, subsection (2), lines 37 and 38, to delete "expenditure and income" and substitute "income and expenditure".
This is merely substituting "income" for "expenditure" and "expenditure" for "income". It is only a drafting amendment.
What is the impact of the amendment?
It is to make the wording agree with the previous section. In the previous section it is "income and expenditure" and here for some unknown reason the words are reversed. This is only a correction and has no other significance.
I would be glad if the Minister would, as loudly as he can, elucidate this section a little bit for us since it does imply the transfer of pretty substantial properties.
This is simply one of the functions being undertaken now by the new board. In any institution where the bulk of the work and responsibility is being transferred to the board the whole institution is going over. The institutions so being transferred are listed here and they now become the property of the new authority. At present they are the property of the Minister and the Department of Agriculture.
I was hoping that the Minister would provide the rationale behind the shifting of a college like the one in my own constituency, Kildalton, which came into the possession of the Department during my own term as Minister in the Department of Agriculture. I view with some concern the passage of that trial institution which has given such universal satisfaction under its present management into the hands of the board of governors whom we do not know but whose identity we would worry a great deal about. As the Deputy representing that constituency, I wonder whether the interests of that educational establishment and the students attending it would be best served by passing it over into the legal ownership of this new body whose credentials I am not at all happy about. We know who the Department of Agriculture are and who the Minister is, but we do not know the new crowd.
The devil you know is better than the devil you do not know. Deputy Gibbons has been very critical of the Department of Agriculture or the Minister having any say whatever or any power over this new organisation.
I am talking about the college here.
Now we are giving them additional power and entire responsibility for education and advisory work and we are handing over the institutions from which education and advice was provided in the past. The Deputy is quite right in saying that Kildalton is a very first-class institution that gives a good service. I hope it will continue to provide first-class service under the new board. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot complain about State interference and then want to hold these institutions under the State.
I do not like the Minister's board.
The Deputy has not seen the board yet.
I am concerned with the Ballyhaise Agricultural College. It has a very extensive area of good quality land in excess of 600 acres about which I am concerned. There is potential for great development in agricultural education there and I hope it will be developed. I would like to hear the Minister's proposals for agricultural education in the future.
I agree that Ballyhaise is a very good institution and that it needs development. I hope to see it developing in the future. There is no intention that any of these places will close down. They will be expanded in the future. I am pleased that only in the last year or so these colleges are all full. There was a time when there were many vacant places in them.
What was the percentage in 1974 and 1975? It was not hard to get a place in them.
The agricultural college in Athenry will also be under the new authority. Seeing that we are to have a new board and that the universities will be represented on that board, I hope that when this college in Athenry is taken over by the new board, we will have a full faculty for agriculture in Galway University with the farm in Athenry doing the practical work of the faculty. It is only 14 miles from Galway city. We have been fighting for this down through the years because at present our students can only do two years in Galway and then they must go away to another environment. If the students could finish their education and do the full agriculture course in University College Galway, it would be of great benefit to the west of Ireland.
If I were the Deputy for Galway, no doubt I would make the same speech as Deputy Callanan. This Government has decided to give Galway its independence as a university and who knows what they will decide when they realise that they have that independence. There might even be an agricultural faculty there if Deputy Callanan and people like him continue to keep up the pressure.
We are dealing with the transfer of property in this section.
That is why I refer to it. The property of the Department of Agriculture will now be the property of the new authority and the authority will have representatives from the universities.
That is correct.
With this integration of education and research this is the ideal place for doing the practical work in regard to a faculty in Galway University.
Things are going in the right direction.
It is the board I am objecting to. The Minister knows my views on the set-up.
The Minister knows that we have no State agricultural college in Limerick. We are able to get on all right without the State. Does the transfer of properties include all the buildings, properties, offices and equipment in the ownership of the county committees of agriculture as well?
Yes.
Section 57 is concerned with office accommodation for committees of agriculture. It now appears that there is very little left for committees of agriculture. The Minister might elaborate further on this section in regard to the county committees' functions?
This is not about county committees' functions. This section refers to the 20 committees of agriculture which have already provided office accommodation for themselves in conjunction with the agricultural educational centres in these counties.
The county committees of agriculture are losing all authority to any property which they own. Where county committees of agriculture were reasonably go-ahead and acquired educational centres and good offices, these are now transferred to the new authority. The county committees of agriculture from now on will be advisory bodies meeting in the property of the board. It is time the public know about these things. Staffs of county committees of agriculture have worked in their own offices and members have been meeting in their own offices, but from now on these offices will belong to the authority. At the moment county committees own very expensive property but in the future it will belong to the new authority.
This section simply ensures that the staffs will have adequate accommodation.
Yes, at the discretion of the authority.
The committees will be compensated for what is being taken from them.
The compensation will be by way of subvention.
Section 59 deals with the general matter.
What I have been saying is substantially correct?
It is.
No organisation has been deprived in the way county committees are being deprived under this Bill. They have given excellent service and there are some excellent men on these committees.
I move amendment No. 8:
In page 24, subsection (2), line 5, to delete "one-half of the balance of" and substitute "the balance of one-half of".
What does it mean?
As it was in the original draft it would have meant one-quarter, and the change makes it one-half, as it was intended it should be.
I move amendment No. 9:
In page 26, subsection (3) (a), line 11, before "receive" to insert "while in the service of the Authority.".
I am concerned at the new arrangements in relation to staff, particularly where they apply to research staff. Research staff would be required to be at certain places for long periods. Take Dr. Michael Walsh and the work he did at Moore Park. That work went on over a number of years until Dr. Walsh went to other employment. The nature of the set-up at that time permitted his presence on the Moore Park project for a long period. His work was recognised by the dairying industry generally, not only in Ireland but in Europe. Of course he was an outstanding man. He was able to work in a proper environment, he had total fixity of tenure and could stay there to supervise his work.
There are other examples of equally distinguished men carrying out similar work, like the people engaged in the sheep breeding project at Creagh in Mayo, like the work at Belclare in County Galway, the machinery centre in Carlow—all work carried out by members of the institute staff. Under the provisions of this Bill men like those, engaged in long-term work, conceivably could be shuttled from place to place by the civil service or by the Minister himself to do totally different work. Such men, as well as needing a proper environment for long-term projects, would need to make domestic arrangements in the parts of the country where their work occurs. In this section there is provision whereby they could be shuttled about from place to place at the whim of the new authority.
This also applies to people in the advisory and educational fields. For instance, Dr. Spain in his time gave remarkably distinguished service in the advisory service, and the fact that he remained within the service in another capacity is purely fortuitous. He might have been taken away from the work in which he was specialising, to his own detriment and to the detriment of his work. The danger of this insensitive manipulation of staff is expanded and increased in this section. I would prefer to see the section amended, but failing that, I would like to have the very definite assurance of the Minister put on record that in no case will members of the staff of the new authority be shuttled about as if they were counters on a chess board.
As Deputy Gibbons rightly pointed out, subsection (4) can have very serious consequences for the staff. The Minister must give certain guarantees to the existing staffs. I would also hope that, in regard to the county committees of agriculture, the existing right of instructors to remain in a county will be maintained under this Bill and that they will not be liable to transfer in future.
I would like to add my voice to what Deputy Noonan has said. Heretofore labour relations in the county committees of agriculture have been very good, and I would hope the Minister would allay any fears the staff might have regarding their future working conditions and promotional opportunities. I would also hope there would not be wholesale switching of staff from county to county. Many of those agricultural instructors have built up a very good working relationship with farmers, and some farmers are almost totally dependent on them for guidance. I hope those happy relationships will be allowed to continue.
I have a note here which tells me that the text of this subsection has been taken from subsection (4) of section 43 of the Agriculture Act, 1931, which applied similiar conditions to the staff then transferred from the committees which operated under the old Agriculture and Technical Instruction Act, 1899. Furthermore, similiar conditions are written into the conditions of service of the staff appointed since the 1931 Act became law. In addition, officers transferred under this subsection by the new authority will no doubt be eligible for the payments available in the civil service in relation to transfer of headquarters. It is also stated that there will be need, and indeed ample time provided, for discussions between the Department and staff associations on acceptable transfer arrangements. When one looks at the transfers that have occurred over the years one finds that unless transfers were absolutely essential and desirable in every way they were not made. They were transfers, in the main, for the good of the service. The Department of Agriculture certainly have not been unmindful of the difficulties that were being created for staff that had been transferred, but there must be power to move staff around. If this power did not exist, proper use could not be made of the available manpower in the service as a whole. That power is there already.
If somebody is looking for a guarantee that nobody at any time in the future as long as he lives will be moved from his present position to another position, I could not give such a guarantee. However, I would be astonished if the attitude of a new board was to kick everybody around from one part of the country to another, when a person who knows a particular area and knows the people there is likely to be able to provide a better service for those people than a newcomer for some considerable time. I am sure any sensible administration or board will bear that in mind and be very concerned about it. But I could not give a specific guarantee that Mr. X would never be moved from a particular position, because I do not think the service could work on that basis, and we should not look for that kind of assurance. No one has a guarantee that he will remain forever where he happens to be as of now, but his conditions will not be worsened. If it is absolutely necessary to transfer staff, there is compensation, which is recognised and provided for already in the civil service, to deal with that situation.
The Minister has not allayed my fears on the question I put to him. The difference is that heretofore instructors were employed by the county committees and had the right to remain in that county if they so desired. The situation now is that the function of the committees to employ staff is being taken from them, and the instructors will now be the employees of this new board which is being set up by the Minister and about which we know nothing. Notwithstanding what the Minister says about the 1931 Act, I understand that the existing instructors have the right to remain in the county.
I accept the Minister's statement that he cannot give a guarantee, but the situation could arise where there would be a board who would kick these men around as they pleased, and this is something I would like to see prevented. If an instructor wants to continue his work in an area within the same county, he should have this right. This brings us back to the question of promotional openings for a man in his own work without his having to go into another type of work, but I do not intend to go into that now. I would like the Minister to give this guarantee in regard to staff. Prior to this the staff were employed by the county committees but the power of those committees is now being taken over by this new authority. As a result, the staff will be employees of the new authority. Many of those people have expressed fears about their future. They do not know what will happen. What the Minister has told the House up to now in relation to this matter has not satisfied me.
This matter is more fully covered under section 69 and we could have a look at the matter when we reach that section.
I move amendment No. 10:
In page 28, subsection (1), line 11, to delete "does not apply" and substitute "has not been applied".
This is a drafting amendment.
This section is relevant to the point raised by Deputy Noonan. I do not know what type of guarantee the Minister can give the advisers. While employed by county committees such instructors felt secure and they had the option to apply for posts outside the county where they were working. However, some of the staff feel that the new authority will make a lot of changes and those changes might not be in their interest or that of the farming community. I cannot suggest what should be written into the Bill in regard to this but I am anxious to make the Minister aware of the anxiety of some of the staff of county committees.
Section 69 provides additional security over and above what is already provided in the Bill. It deals with the courses open to a person who is transferred to ensure he gets fair play. It also outlines the manner of appeal. I can give a positive guarantee that nobody, under any circumstances, will be moved from where he is at present. The functioning of the organisation would be impaired if such a guarantee were to be given in the future. The staff of the new authority are well safeguarded under the Bill and that is the way I want it. They carry their rights with them. If there is to be a disturbance, I hope it will be minimal and that the board will be as concerned about the new employees as the previous employers were in seeing that nobody is wronged because, for example, somebody did not like the colour of their eyes. I do not wish to comment on specific cases that occurred in the past because where human beings are involved one will always get the odd case.
Will the Minister explain the following part of subsection (2)?
The Minister, having considered the report of the person appointed under subsection (1), shall determine the complaint and the Minister's determination shall be final and unappealable.
It means that the Minister is the source of final appeal. The case can first be taken up through staff associations, the unions and the board and if employees still feel they are wronged they can appeal to the Minister who is the final court of appeal.
Surely, that is unconstitutional? A person would still have rights of appeal. In fact, the Minister is not the final decider without right of appeal; the courts are there.
Unless they have a case in law. I am outlining everything that can be done up to that stage.
With regard to the security of the existing staff, the Minister has not given us an adequate assurance on this question. Existing instructors employed by county committees have rights to remain in the county where they are employed but if the functions of the county committees are being taken over by the new authority the existing staff automatically have new employers. The Bill should contain a provision giving the instructors the same right to remain in a county. We realise the provisions in the Bill but they do not substitute for the lack of the privilege instructors have had up to now. Existing staff should continue to have the right to remain in a county. The new committees will not have the power to recruit staff. This task will be carried out by the authority. My concern is for the existing staff. I am anxious to ensure that they will continue to enjoy the rights which are theirs now but which the Minister is not prepared to give them in this Bill.
I am not prepared to provide for this right. It would be wrong to do so. I think the service will work better without such provision. We can all foresee the possibility of the breaching of county boundaries by some of the people in the service. It is necessary and desirable that there would be such development.
That would be all right in so far as specialist services are concerned.
There will be a need for specialists and it would be totally wrong to tie them on a county basis or, indeed, tie them to one whole county instead of, say, to parts of two counties. They could be situated more conveniently so that they could be used in that way. What the Deputy is suggesting is that we do not change anything because people are apprehensive about change although the change concerned might be much more beneficial for them and might provide more scope for promotion than is available now. One of the faults of the present service is that it is encompassed in units that are too small with the result that people cannot get the sort of promotion to which they are entitled.
In regard to the question of specialists, I think the Minister will agree that these people should be employed on the basis of being available to two or three counties especially in cases where there would not be sufficient work for them in the county in which they were based. However, the number of specialists at present is small so we will need an increase in that area. As has been said, there has always been provision for transfer of staff but we are concerned lest an element of compunction be introduced into this area with the result that, for example, a person could be transferred against his wishes from Galway to Kildare or vice versa. It is not relevant in this context for the Minister to quote a section of the existing Act because that deals with a different situation, a situation in which the county was the boundary so that there was no authority to transfer people compulsorily from one county to another. We are talking here of an authority that will be controlling the Twenty-six Counties. I accept that common sense will prevail but the point is that they will have the right to transfer staff.
We must never lose sight of the fact that there will always be staff who will be anxious to be transferred.
Up to now a person could ask for a transfer if he wished to go to a county in which there was a vacancy but what we are talking of is the possibility of people being transferred compulsorily.
In referring to a person being in a position to cover two counties, was the Minister thinking of the advisory or of the specialist staff?
I would regard specialist staff as being advisory.
Would it not create problems to have these people covering a number of counties?
Subsection (2) of this section refers to the question of finance but there is nothing to indicate that the committees will have authority in this area. They will be acting only in an advisory capacity.
The Deputy knows there are certain retained functions and these are not advisory.
What are these retained functions?
We went through those long ago. Surely it is not necessary for me to go over all that ground again.
There is no need for the Minister to become annoyed. I have seen no reference in the Bill to any such functions so I would like the Minister to spell them out. There is reference in subsection (2) to agreement between the committee and the board. By implication, therefore, the committees could not act on their own accord in regard to financial matters. What are the retained functions?
The retained functions were spelled out in the White Paper but if the Deputy so wishes, I shall go through them.
I accept that they are in the White Paper.
For instance, there is the livestock scheme which is operated by the county committees and which will continue to be operated by them.
I am asking about the financial situation as it is referred to in subsection (2) and where it is provided that on this question there will have to be agreement between the committee and the authority. I contend that the committee will have no authority in this regard.
I understand this refers to the services of the staff necessary to carry out the retained services in the various county committees. It should not be very difficult to agree on the necessary amount of money to pay the staff required to carry out the retained services.
Retained services are not written into this subsection. It could give the impression to a person reading it that the committee had some authority as regards the overall demands from the board, which they have not.
That is not so.
Section 70 (2) refers to such sum as may be agreed between the committee and the authority or, in default of agreement, as may be determined by the Minister. There is nothing about retained authority there.
It refers back to subsection (1).
I move amendment No. 11:
In page 29, paragraph 1, line 25, to delete "eight".
Is this in the interest of elegance or accuracy?
It is to overcome the possibility that the number of members of the board might change from 23 and then the balance might not be eight at some time in the future.
The Minister thinks of everything.
The Third Schedule gives authority for the taking over of Ballyhaise Agricultural College in my county. There is a reference back to section 53. Sections 53 and 56 are relevant. I have been in communication with the Minister about employees on the Ballyhaise agricultural estate. I presume that, not merely will the authority take over the properties, but also any social obligations which attach to the properties. I am referring in particular to houses in which employees of the Department are living and which have not got bathroom and toilet facilities about which I wrote to the Minister. When the authority are taking over the pluses in these properties, I hope they will also take over the minuses by way of social obligations. I should like to hear from the Minister on that.
We dealt with this earlier on the transfers of properties. Ballyhaise was one of the institutions being transferred. The entire property is being transferred including the houses referred to by Deputy Wilson. He detailed the inadequacies of those houses and the lack of facilities. Somebody else raised the question of Ballyhaise and I said I saw a need for development and substantial expenditure on Ballyhaise and that I would look forward to seeing expansion rather than any contraction in Ballyhaise. It is an institution which does good work and I hope to see it expanding its work and that the lack of facilities and amenities referred to by Deputy Wilson will be put right by the new authority.
The Minister has on his files letters from me about specific cases. I should like if he would apprise the authority of the situation and, if he is not able to do it himself before the authority take over, urge them to make provision for these facilities.
I will do that.
I notice that the Minister nodded but I did not hear him saying anything for the record.
I am sorry I have to say I am not aware of the letters referred to by Deputy Wilson but, in this day and age, people should have toilet facilities. It is very difficult to discuss individual items of this kind without knowing what is involved.
It was the principle I want accepted, namely, that not merely would the properties which were of value be transferred, but also certain social obligations attaching to them.
Do not overload us.
When is it proposed to take the Report Stage?
Certain members of my party would like to put down amendments for Report Stage. If it is convenient for the Minister, we could take it next Tuesday.
That seems to be all right if the Whips agree.