(Limerick West): This year has been one of the worst years in agriculture. In addition to the weather conditions things have been further complicated by a Minister who has no commitment to agriculture development. In introducing this Supplementary Estimate the Minister should have availed of the opportunity to give some guidelines to the agricultural community and to point the way ahead. The Government's abysmal failure is evidenced by their total lack of commitment to the agricultural industry. This has been obvious over the last four years but hopefully the time is not too far distant when we can see an end to this abysmal Government.
The Minister in his contribution referred to the Euroloan schemes. We all know that the Euroloan scheme is totally inadequate to meet the needs of modern agriculture. The Minister should be aware that what is required is long term borrowing and a fixed repayment rate over perhaps a ten year period. We require long term planning and guidelines for the future. Instead we have had a stop-go inconsistent approach to the provision of capital and an attitude from the Government which suggests that they will give farmers a sop here and there and that this will satisfy them. The Government have no long term strategy with regard to the provision of capital and assistance with loan repayments. This must be tackled in a way which will ensure that we have some confidence in the industry in the future.
We welcome the contribution by the Government, late as it may be, in regard to the increase in the headage grants on beef cows in the less severely handicapped areas. This should have been introduced long before now.
The Minister referred to the depopulation fund under subhead C5 where it applies to both TB and brucellosis eradication. I brought to the attention of the Department that all the technical advice available to the field workers and the veterinary profession recommended that certain herds in County Limerick, particularly should be totally depopulated. This was not possible because of inadequate funding for this scheme. In certain parts of County Limerick herds were not depopulated. Reactors were removed but the result was that in subsequent tests there were further outbreaks of the disease and herds contiguous to the affected herd had a break out of the disease. There was a snowball effect because the Minister and the Department were being penntwise and pound foolish. That is the sort of disease eradication scheme that is being promoted by the Government.
The Government in their programme Building on Reality indicated that certain sums were being allocated for disease eradication yet the following year the scheme had insufficient funding to carry out the programme outlined in Building on Reality. That was our approach to disease eradication. It is not good enough.
The TB eradication scheme has been stepped down. We know it is important that a full round of testing for the whole country should be carried out quickly. Even at this stage I hope the Minister will do something about that. During the four years in which they have been in office the Government have constantly proved their unwillingness to put money into agriculture. I am quite sure that the Minister would agree with my assessment, although he is unlikely to agree with me publicly. The great majority of farmers would also agree with me as would many other people who are interested in the development of this country.
I have referred to the bovine TB scheme for which the Minister is now asking an additional sum of £1.7 million. The sum required is not the largest in the Estimate but, more than anything else, it indicates the extent of the unwillingness of the Government to carry out their responsibilities with regard to agriculture. For a number of years we have been going backwards in regard to the eradication of bovine TB and its incidence is now higher than it was in the fifties. What is the reason for this? It is because the provision of moneys for the scheme has been insufficient? Testing has not been sufficiently frequent, consistent or extensive and the consequences are that the remaining vestiges of the disease persist. Unless immediate remedial action is taken, the situation may well worsen and that is the view of the veterinary profession and farmers who are suffering so much at present because of inadequate and insufficient testing. This is very regrettable, not just for the farmers involved who make large contributions to the cost of the eradication scheme, in excess of £14 million this year, but also for the economy. Apart from our soil and the people who live and work on the land, our greatest asset is the livestock herd. However, over the last four years the Government have not been prepared to carry out their responsibilities in regard to improving the health of the national herd.
The reasons for this are not too difficult to work out. Some of those in Government look upon agriculture as a burden which must be borne rather than the main national industry needing development. Money for the bovine tuberculosis scheme has been cut back without regard to the serious consequences which will accrue as a result. Since 1954, we have been endeavouring to rid ourselves of bovine TB. The total cost of the scheme, in current money terms, amounts to something in the region of £1,000 million. I do not propose to comment on why the scheme could not have been completed long ago but, compared with the high levels of the disease which existed in the fifties, very good progress has been made.
I wish to comment on the recently published report about the scheme by the Committee on Public Expenditure. I must criticise the neglect by the Government of bovine TB over the last four years. However, the report of the committee to which I referred give an inaccurate, bad and dangerous impression to anybody reading it who is not familiar with the progress made in relation to eradication over the last number of years. I refer in particular to the statements in the report that the scheme is there purely as a blind to convince importing countries that we have a scheme and, secondly, that known reactors are not always taken up and slaughtered when they should be. These are not the only faults in the report but I single them out for mention because it is imporant to do so. I cannot deal fully with the report now but perhaps I will have an opportunity to do so in the near future. While it may have merit in regard to drawing attention to the need to clear up bovine TB, it is damaging because of its major inaccurate statements of which I have examples.
To get rid of bovine TB once and for all, we need a Government who are determined to invest sufficient money to have the job carried out quickly and efficiently. In the past year, I published a ten point plan for the eradication of bovine TB which, if followed, would give the desired results. A full round of testing needs to be carried out very quickly with special attention paid to problems as they arise and to problem areas as they show up. Earlier, I referred to a number of problem areas in my county and I am sure that the Minister and the Department know that these areas require attention. However, he has not been given the money to carry out the work and I reemphasise that every herd whould have one round of testing every year. Known reactors should be removed to ensure that there will not be a further spread of the disease. There should be adequate testing, research and funding and if these were put into operation the disease could be contained in manageable proportions within three years, probably down to 0.5 of 1 per cent. This is important because our livestock is vital to the economy. We have been shilly-shallying in regard to this disease over the last few years and it is time to make a breakthrough.
I can assure this House, and through the House the farmers of the country, that Fianna Fáil on return to office will make sufficient funding available to the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme. We will push forward with vigour and determination so that in a short period of years we will be able to declare the country free of bovine tuberculosis, as we have already been able to declare the country free of brucellosis. Brucellosis was not as difficult a disease to eliminate. There were a number of factors which helped greatly, such as the comparative lack of movement of female cattle as against the movement of male cattle, the use of vaccination and the great interest of individual farmers in seeing to it that the disease was cleared up very often because of the sad and costly evidence before their eyes of the damage caused by the disease.
The farmers of this country fully realise that a rapid clearance of tuberculosis is equally important. I believe they have an interest and determination, given sufficient direction, control and effort by the Government, to get the job done. In recent days my colleague, Deputy J. Leonard, reported to me on a meeting he attended in Cavan where he represented this party. This meeting was attended by 600 farmers who gave very definite evidence — incidentally a meeting which the farmers were expecting the Minister to attend — of their anxiety and interest in having the scheme brought quickly to a successful conclusion.
I would now like to take up another item on the Supplementary Estimate under subhead M.4 where money is required for market intervention. What we are mainly talking about is the storage costs of butter, skimmed milk powder and beef. The intervention system is the means by which the Government, operating the rules of the European Communities, maintain the support price for milk and cattle. This brings me on to the quantities of milk produced in the Community which will be supported without penalty. In other words, I am talking about the milk super-levy and the dreaded milk quota. What is uppermost not only in the minds of the milk farmers who are immediately concerned but farmers generally is the further threat to quotas. Beef farmers, especially, are fearful as to the outcome of the discussions which are at present taking place in the Council of Ministers.
With regard to milk, the Commission have proposed further cuts in the quota. For Ireland, this will be in addition to the 3 per cent which the Government accepted in April of this year. We have seen the effects in recent months of the long delay which the Commission have imposed on payment for products taken into intervention which has resulted in severe cuts in the price of milk. This party never denied there is a problem with regard to the surplus of milk in Europe. What I cannot understand is the readiness with which the Government and certain farming interests have accepted that Ireland must readily submit to the same quota cuts as every other milk producing country. I cannot understand this attitude. I would be quite right to call it a defeatist attitude by comparison with the concessions — not that they were great concessions — which were hailed by the Government as a great triumph in 1984. Farmers cannot understand why the Minister is now accepting what he could not accept two years ago. Is it not still true that Ireland depends on milk more than any other country? Is it not still true that it is the basis of our whole agricultural economy? Why should this country be penalised in the same way as other countries which have built up huge surpluses of milk over the years with the use of imported feeding stuffs and the very high use of fertilisers?
The argument in our favour, which I am quite sure is well known to the Minister, is the one which I have spelled out. I can only refer briefly to it. Of course, it is all right for a farmer who has a sizeable quota to take the attitude that if his quota can be preserved or reduced by a certain amount he will accept it provided the price is kept up. That is all very well for those who have quotas but it can be a very shortsighted attitude. Are we to go on forever agreeing to quota reductions as long as the price is kept up? What about the farmers who have no quotas at all or who have very inadequate quotas for the milk which could be produced? What about the co-ops which need milk if they are to continue in business? What about the development of the Irish food industry? What about the employment potential in the co-operatives and in the processing industry? Is all this going to be under attack and threat? Are we going to have further redundancies and unemployment in that area?
Unfortunately, we are not receiving answers to those questions from the Government. We must not accept the present proposed cuts in the quota. The case we made in 1984 remains as valid today as it was then. Ireland has a greater interest than any other country in the EC in the development of a healthy milk market in the Community and on world markets. In a matter of major national importance such as the maintenance of at least our present supply of milk, we should not allow ourselves to be dealt with as if we were a country producing unmanageable quantities of milk on the basis of an artificial type of farming. The Minister should take account of that in the stance he is adopting in Brussels.
There is a question which I would now like to put to the Minister. At present the Council of Ministers are looking at milk quotas and a discussion is taking place about the support systems for beef. One never knows how these discussions may go or what may be the situation in the beef market in either six months or a year from now. The EC persists, not for the best reasons, in cutting back on money which should be made available for agricultural support. I do not wish to see it but we could have beef quotas. In relation to beef, if the Minister was to find himself in the position he maintains he is in in regard to milk what would he do in regard to beef quotas? He might address himself to that question in his reply. From his performance with regard to milk I must conclude that he would equally concede in regard to beef and accept quotas for Ireland. If the Minister does not agree with me perhaps he would explain to the House — taking into account his present stand on milk — what he would do in regard to beef? I would also like him to explain the relationship, as he sees it, between the stand which he is taking on milk and the possible stand which he would take on beef.
There is provision in subhead M3 of the Estimates for a sum of £11 million for aids to farmers in disadvantaged areas. This money is welcome and it goes a little way to make up to farmers who have suffered severe losses due to the Government's negative policies, as well as other factors such as the weather over the past two years.
Farmer confidence has never been at a lower ebb. Much more would be needed than this increase in headage payments in the disadvantaged areas to put right the damage this Government have caused.
If one single item is needed to prove the lack of farmer confidence, it is to be found in the huge saving of £9.5 million under subhead M1 — the subhead for farm modernisation. This huge sum was saved because farmers are too much in debt already and too doubtful about the future to invest.
I do not propose to elaborate further on this major lack of farmer confidence in a debate about a Supplementary Estimate. I am afraid the time available to me would not be sufficient for me to say what I feel about this Government's attitude to farming. I hope to have a more suitable opportunity to speak further on this when the Dáil discusses the motion to adjourn the House in two weeks time, that is, if the Government do not crumble and fall before the adjournment.
I should like to comment on some of the other items in this supplementary Estimate. The first item on the list is the provision of money for ACOT. There is need for adequate funding for both ACOT and An Foras Talúntais. Here again the Government have chopped money giving scant regard to the need for development of the advisory and research services. With the growing restrictions on agriculture, there is an increasing need for specialised advisory and research services. There are many areas in which improvements can be made that would be of benefit to farmers, through reductions in farming costs and through the better development of the processing and marketing of farm produce.
This petty approach to education and research is the direct opposite to the approach of our European partners whose assistance in these areas continues to grow. Organisations such as ACOT and AFT represent hope for the future but by his action in the Estimates the Minister seemingly does not hold them in high regard.
ACOT have more than proved their worth. Their restructured service has enabled them to cope with the major growth in education and training to impart the most expert advice to farmers. The major developments in recent years have shown just how valuable ACOT are in the structure of agriculture here. Following the introduction of milk quotas last year they undertook a major analysis of alternative pathways for farm development. A detailed advisory casebook is being prepared to assist advisers in guiding farmers. The organisation are examining each enterprise to establish how they can provide the most effective service to farmes, bearing in mind market constraints.
ACOT played a major role in dealing with farmers in financial difficulty. A highly personalised service has been provided to more than 10,000 farmers in difficulty. The progress of more than 6,000 farmers who received assistance under the rescue package was closely monitored. In a major initiative with farming organisations ACOT helped to restore a further 2,000 farmers to viaiblity. These were farmers whose assets were under pressure but who were ineligible for the rescue package. This vital aspect of ACOT's service is very much in demand.
While major progress has been made the imposition of milk quotas continues to threaten the viability of many farmers. It is encouraging that ACOT have recorded a magnificent increase in the numbers taking part in their education and training courses. Almost 88 per cent of all new entrants to farming will have gone through a comprehensive training course. This contrasts with 33 per cent just five years ago and is encouraging for the future. The course for the certificate in farming which is known as the green cert has attracted almost 3,000 participants, exceeding ACOT's own expectations. Equally important is the development of alternative farming. I am anxious to mention the possibilities for improving the income of certain specialist farmers by State agencies such as, for example, Bord na gCapall for which we are also being asked to provide extra money.
With regard to the Pigs and Bacon Commission under heading G.2, I have recently supported a motion in this House to reduce the veterinary fees charged for pigs slaughtered under the control of veterinary officers of the Department of Agriculture. The pig industry has been going through a particularly rough time and much needs to be done if we are to guarantee the very important home market for bacon to Irish pig producers and pig processors. Equally important is it that we be in a position to develop our export trade in bacon and pork. Everyone must realise that if we do not look after the pig business in the future large quantities of our requirements of processed pigmeat could be supplied from sources outside the country, which would be regrettable.
I have already brought to the attention of the House my disappointment at finding a firm in my own county of Limerick, who had developed good possibilities of trade in pigmeat products with the United States, being prevented from trading because we do not have a single factory here which complies with the standards required by the United States. The firm considered importing pigmeat from Denmark to fill their order; that would be a sad situation altogether. From the reply given to my question of the Minister, I hope that the position will be put right very shortly. We can ill afford to lose such a potentially lucrative market.
There are many other areas to which I should like to refer, but this is a very limited debate to the extent that I can only make reference to the points raised in this Supplementary Estimate. I support this Estimate and hope that my wishes for the industry will bear fruit and will be accepted by the Minister as matters which require to be attended to and which need development. I hope that he will bring these matters to the attention of his Cabinet colleagues, for however long or short a period he is in that position.
I hope, even at this late stage, that the Minister will give to the industry the direction which he has failed to give in the past. That industry, above everything else, is now clamouring for leadership and guidance but it is my experience, going on the Government's record that that leadership and guidance will not be forthcoming until we have a change of Government.
