: I thank Deputy D'Arcy for his contribution and like him I regret that time will not permit the House to have a more exhaustive discussion on this important topic. I, like the Deputy, find myself in the position of having very little control over the way in which the House conducts business, but it is not possible to do it in any other way.
I agree with Deputy D'Arcy's observations with regard to the desirability of farm training and it is for this purpose that I introduced, a few weeks ago, the Agriculture (An Chomhairle Oiliúna Talmhaíochta) Bill, 1978. I hope that the House will deal with the Second Stage of that when it resumes in October. It is one of these urgent pieces of legislation that I regret we did not get to deal with before the recess.
I am sure Deputy D'Arcy and others will appreciate that the passage of the Finance Bill took precedence over that and every other Bill. When that Agriculture Bill passes through the House the direction of agricultural trading and advice will pass into the hands of the council of the new body. I am confident that the council will direct the business of agricultural trade and advice in the manner best related to the needs of agriculture. Like Deputy D'Arcy, I recognise not only the need for change but the state of evolution in which the whole business of agricultural trading and advice is at present. I would expect that in the next decade we will see very large changes in the whole approach of the agricultural industry and its use of specialised advice in that sector. It is in order that the legal framework in which our agricultural trading is held will be sufficiently flexible to tolerate and encourage desirable change that I look forward to the rapid passage of the Agriculture (An Chomhairle Oiliúna Talmhaíochta) Bill through the House.
I have very little quarrel with Deputy D'Arcy's remark that our progress over the years in the elimination of animal disease—first of all, of bovine tuberculosis, because that is the one we are longest attending—has been disappointing. Without wanting to throw any spanners in the works, it must be plain to everybody, because it is undeniable, that the most serious blow that animal disease eradication got in the recent decade was the virtual stoppage of the programme for a period of two years. One could not but expect that there would be a rapid increase in the incidence of reaction, both in regard to brucellosis and TB, in the cattle herds of the country. This did happen and was inevitable. Reactors were left unidentified.
I agree also with Deputy D'Arcy that there is a great deal of abuse throughout the whole system of disease eradication. There are umpteen different kinds of abuses, and for that purpose we will be introducing legislation immediately after the Summer Recess which will increase penalties for offences against the code of disease eradication, especially against people who engage in tag-switching and cheating herdowners and taxpayers also. This situation is intolerable and I believe the farmers are finding it intolerable. I think I can confidently look forward to their co-operation in a new effort not only to weed out reactor cattle among our herds but to weed out the people who are profiting by it. These are the people who are maintaining the situation in which disease eradication cannot be finalised. We cannot contemplate in the future a more or less endless disease eradication scheme. We must begin to think now in real active terms of terminal dates after which we will be able to say to ourselves that the incidence of bovine tuberculosis, and brucellosis later on, has been reduced almost to vanishing point. I am not so sanguine as to think there will be total elimination—there never is; disease has not been eliminated anywhere—but one can reduce its incidence to almost negligible proportions, when the economic gain to the country and its herd owners will be very significant.
There is another pressing factor in this disease eradication question. It is that we may find ourselves no longer in a position to export meat to our colleague countries in the EEC. There is no room at all for messing, or for tolerance of criminal practices within the disease eradication scheme—and I regret to say that they exist. I want to inform the House of my intention to see that they are winkled out, because we cannot afford to carry them with us. I want to say to Deputy D'Arcy that new initiatives have been taken. I accept what Deputy D'Arcy says, that it is all very fine to get a few encouraging figures—we have got them and are duly encouraged—but I am not such a fool as not to recognise that, as he said, they may well slip. It is necessary that the public be told, as frequently as figures are available, how we stand, how the campaign against disease is progressing, whether or not we are winning, because it would be a stimulus to everybody concerned to see that we keep on with it. I know it is not easy, that there will be a great many difficulties ahead, but we must be prepared to face them.
I regretted the removal of the phosphate subsidy. The House will appreciate that on the question of the deployment of available money within the agricultural sector one must have regard to the most pressing needs. Let us say if consideration were to be given to increasing the compensation rates for reactor cattle—and I believe them to be inadequate—one must weigh their value against the use of the available money in some other direction.
There is another factor involved we must all bear in mind. We are reverting from a situation in which agriculture was in a depressed condition. We had to be in a depressed condition when we were more or less bound hand and foot to the United Kingdom market before our entry to the EEC, when our exports to third countries, before they were known as "third countries", were bound by severe quota restrictions. A new situation obtains now in which production in agriculture is going up steadily. Farm incomes are going up in a satisfactory way, in real terms, as against 1973. I think there was in increase of 27 per cent—I am speaking from memory, but that is my recollection of it. Indeed farm production is visibly expanding. There is a new confidence being felt within the agricultural industry. One can see it as one travels the countryside—fairly hefty construction works going on in farmyards and big land improvement works as well. In that context farmers can very much stand on their own feet now. There was a time when farmers' incomes had to be maintained through price supports. That time has gone. Farmers, as a group of people, are very anxious to show not only that they can stand on their own feet but that they will be very glad to do so.
Assistance was given to phosphate fertiliser distribution because a great many farmers found it impossible to buy this fertiliser out of their incomes and so it was necessary to subsidise it. Needless to say a subsidy is always welcome but the necessity for it now is not as acute as it was.
I do not think there is any great need for alarm or despondency in regard to the price of what one might call urban milk. My Department have been having discussions with representatives of liquid milk pasteurisation and products with regard to a voluntary scheme of pay on a quality basis. These discussions were finalised on 12 June and the question of revising the minimum prices paid for liquid milk are now under active consideration. Other Departments have to be consulted in regard to aspects which are of interest to them. These consultations are taking place and a decision will not be unreasonably delayed.