Deputy Kenneally is in possession.
Bord Glas Bill, 1989: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be read a Second Time."
I had been making the point before the Adjournment yesterday about the situation which would prevail in 1992 in regard to the Single European Market and how industry in general is set to face that challenge.
That is a challenge which is not facing the horticultural industry as they have been subjected to open market forces for quite some time. They have had to contend with far more competition since the early seventies and at that stage many growers in different areas of horticulture were not able to stand the test and subsequently went out of business. The professional and more competent and more organised growers survived and still prosper to this day and will continue to prosper, but unfortunately there are many others entering this business sector who are not qualified to do so and as a consequence are lowering the reputation of all Irish producers. While part of the reason in the seventies for so many producers going under was the oil crisis in 1973 and again in 1979, they would probably not have survived anyway. I believe that we have never properly recovered from those days and a serious effort has not been made to make the horticulture industry a viable industry. As a consequence, many opportunities have been lost. One of our main losses occurred in the job creation sector. It is ludicrous that a country which is ideal for horticultural production imports so much of its needs while good planning would not only increase market share but make this country an exporter of produce which is currently imported.
We hear much talk of job opportunities and job creation. The mushroom sector is one area where opportunities can be spelled out quite clearly and readily identified. Figures of between 2,000 and 3,000 new jobs being created over a five year period have been quoted. This is an easily attainable goal. Projected beyond that five year period, this country should be far better placed to provide even more job oppportunities. There is little doubt that there are many openings in the area of field vegetables, soft fruit, hardy nursery stock, amenity horticulture, potatoes, protected crops and even in mushroom production which has been the shining light of the horticulture industry over the last number of years.
For these extra jobs to be created the produce must be sold but in order to sell it, it must be marketed properly. This is one of the areas which has been neglected for far too long. I welcome particularly section 4 (1) of the Bill which states that one of the functions of the board is to assist the production, marketing and consumption of horticultural produce. We have no problems producing the goods and we have had no problems heretofore in consuming them but we certainly have had a problem in marketing them. I am glad that this area has been specifically mentioned.
In the grocery trade there are many examples of brand leaders in processed foods, the meat products, dairy products, etc., but one would find it very difficult to find a brand leader in the area of fresh fruits, vegetables, pot plants or shrubs and trees, etc. produced here. Probably the best example of product definition in the fresh fruit area is the French Golden Delicious apple which is a renowned name not only here but also abroad. Great strides have been made in the Irish industry over the last number of years and many new varieties have been produced, for example — Jonagold, Katja, etc. This product is every bit as good as the French apple and, in many cases, a lot nicer to eat. Unfortunately, this message has not been getting across to the Irish consumer and as a consequence they do not purchase it. They are conditioned to think that the French product is a better one. This comes back to marketing. There is tremendous scope for increased production here and consequently successful import substitution.
Ireland imports over 50,000 tonnes of apples annually valued at over £20 million. French Golden Delicious and Northern Ireland and Great Britain Bramley's Seedlings mainly are the major sources. Irish production only accounts for some 30 per cent of culinary apples and 9 per cent of dessert apples that are consumed. In 1986 Ireland accounted for less than 0.1 per cent of EC apple production with Germany, Italy and France being the dominant producers.
Soils and climate in Kilkenny, Tipperary and Waterford are conducive to good yields of marketable apples. There is a tradition of apple growing in these counties. A central grading and packing facility with limited storage should be established. This can be augmented by on farm storage where the apples can be graded out of store by the central grading facility as needed by the market. In the initial years existing grading and packing facilities in Waterford may be used. Costs of apple storage inclusive of frame-building would be approximately £200 per tonne for a 100 tonne chamber with running costs of £25 per tonne.
In relation to marketing and brand leaders, other segments of the food market do not have brand leaders by accident. They have them there because of the many successful promotions they have run over a long number of years but this has not happened in the horticultural section. As a consequence its development in Ireland has been hindered and it has allowed an opening for foreign produce to flood our shelves. The retail scene here has changed dramatically over the last number of years and now a small number of multiples dominate the trade. Similarly, on the wholesale side the number of major wholesalers has been reduced to about ten.
Because of the greater emphasis on fruit and vegetables in diet there is now a bigger and more sophisticated market for these goods. It will never be possible to achieve 100 per cent of the domestic market because so much of the imported produce is of a tropical nature and consequently our market share which has been about 45 per cent over the last five years can realistically be increased to approximately 60-65 per cent.
Our main export market is the UK but to date we have only made any significant progress in the supply of mushrooms, and Irish suppliers now hold an 8 per cent market share in the UK. There is no reason, if a proper selling job is done that we cannot break into the British market for nursery stock, potatoes, tomatoes and soft fruit.
One of the biggest crimes in this industry is that many producers are still growing crops without any prior consideration as to how and where the crop will be sold. This leads to a famine or a feast with the produce involved, which in times of famine means that the large retail outlets must go outside the country for their supplies and quite often will stick with producers who can supply them on a regular basis. When we have a feast the good producer is penalised along with the poor producer because of the lack of an economic price for their products. However, all the marketing in the world will not sell the product unless the quality is right.
An example of where we suffer with quality is in the seed potato export area. This country exported in 1975 24,257 tons of seed potato whereas in 1988 the figure was down to less than half that. In the same period the Netherlands had almost doubled its exports while Scotland also showed significant growth. The reasons that countries succeeded where the Republic of Ireland failed was because of the inferior quality of our product. Too often we do not see our own field vegetables properly cleaned, washed and presented and therefore they are not of any interest to the more discerning customer today. This may be a situation whereby we have the quality but we contrive to keep it well hidden.
While I have little doubt that with sufficient effort, most problems regarding quality can be overcome in this country, we run into another problem with organisation. There is still a marked reluctance by many producers here to join or to form producer groups. In fact only about 20 per cent of fruit and vegetables is sold through the three officially recognised producer groups here compared with almost 100 per cent in some of the other EC countries. In the tomato industry, for example, we have about 50 to 60 acres of hot-house tomatoes whereas in Holland this figure runs into thousands. While it is difficult to compete with the Dutch in this area anyway, it is well nigh impossible if we do not have unified approach. Supply must be concentrated at producer level so that the correct quantities of produce are released onto the market at the appropriate time and this can be achieved with proper organisation in advance. It is no good having the situation that quite often pertains at present whereby a particular product achieves a high price in year one and therefore everybody else decides to produce it in year two and the whole market collapses. In the long run this does not benefit anybody except our competitors abroad.
The only way that An Bord Glas will become a success and that this Bill will be successful is if everybody is forced to join a producer group.
That is why I would like to see section 12 of the Act tightened up somewhat. I fully support the notion that a levy should be paid by all producers through their producer group thereby making An Bord Glas self sufficient. This would mean that it will not be a drain on the Exchequer, the Government would benefit from it and most importantly the producers would benefit.
Subsection (3) of this section states that a levy shall be paid to the board at such time or times and in such manner as may be prescribed whereas I believe that all producers should be paying the levy through their producer group and only on produce that is up to the required standard and accepted by the group. Otherwise we are only protecting the poor producer who is not going to survive anyway and his efforts are helping to undermine the image of the Irish horticultural industry. Many of the ills in this country down through the years have come about because of our "almost anything will do" approach and I am afraid that the same situation might recur here. Accordingly, I would favour the more radical approach.
If we fail to meet the challenge which this Bill is tackling, in a country so well endowed with soils, climate, clean air and water resources as Ireland is, it would be an abrogation of our responsibilities to the future.
May I congratulate Deputy Kenneally on an excellent maiden speech.
I have grave reservations about the provisions of the Bill before the House in that it lacks the clout to deliver the goods at the market place. When Bord Glas was established originally in April 1987 they had not one penny of funds available to them.
That is not true.
It is true. What have the Minister and his Department done to promote the horticultural industry since its formation? I would have to say — very little.
Has the Deputy read our development programme?
On its formation Bord Glas were given responsibility for the preparation of a five year plan for the development of agriculture. In the course of my time in political life I have seen many development plans prepared. Indeed the present Taoiseach, in his capacity as Minister for Agriculture, spearheaded development plans for the improvement of agriculture and horticulture and presided over numerous consultative sessions with the farming bodies.
Not one iota of progress has been made in the creation of new jobs or in the maintenance of those obtaining at that time. I speak of the time when the Fastnet Co-operative in south west Cork primarily was responsible for the production of vegetables but was allowed die a lingering death for want of proper advice and direction from the Department of Agriculture. It is well recognised that had the Departmental advisers done their job they would have directed that co-operative to convert from dehydrated products into deep frozen products, thereby maintaining and accelerating the production of vegetables in south west Cork, a region particularly suitable for that purpose. One may well ask what happened: The doors of that co-operative closed, the production plant being sold for little or nothing leaving the people of Skibbereen and west Cork generally without their greatest industry. That closure could well have been avoided had the proper advice been given them at the right time.
Now the primary aim of Bord Glas is to achieve increased sales of Irish fruit and vegetables on the home and export markets. I hope the Minister will bear in mind that the Irish housewife will not be conned into buying products that may not be as cheap as others to be found on the shelves of supermarkets. Increased sales of Irish fruit and vegetables on the home and export markets will arise only as a result of proper initiative being taken by the Minister for Agriculture and Food and his Minister of State in charge of Bord Glas. It has to be said that the Minister of State never had power to spend one penny on Bord Glas unless that expenditure was certified by his senior Minister.
We read also of expected increased exports of fruit and vegetables to the value of £70 million. At the end of this five year development plan we are told there will have been created additional employment for between 1,500 and 2,000 people.
Many of those jobs have already been created.
That is wishful thinking on the part of the Minister. Perhaps the Minister would spell out clearly for the House where those jobs have been created. Certainly they are not visible in my constituency or indeed in those from Mizen Head to Malin Head. I speak on behalf of those growers in disadvantaged areas where there is nothing to be found at present except briars, bachelors and boats, as the Minister of State is well aware himself. The Minister of State should take a trip to south west Cork. Indeed he might well visit seaboard constituencies extending from Mizen Head to Malin Head.
As the Deputy knows, I have been there.
In that case he must have been asleep since he does not appear to be aware of the circumstances obtaining in those areas.
With the establishment of the new Bord Glas will the Minister inform the House whether the Government will ensure that adequate finance will be made available to enable them achieve the targets laid down for them? We are now informed that Bord Glas becomes a subsidiary of Teagasc on a permanent basis. That does not say much for them because Teagasc never got off the ground from the date of their establishment. Indeed when Teagasc was formed it was evident that they would merely grind agricultural and horticultural industries into the ground. There was no real hope for Teagasc at the end of the tunnel. Whatever may be said of what ACOT achieved, equally it can be maintained that they bore no comparison with the old committees of agriculture. There is now lip service being delivered to our farmers by that huge establishment in Kildare Street, by people who think they know everything about agriculture, who have totally lost sight of the common sense and advice forthcoming from members of local authorities with a vested interest in agriculture, those who have the proud privilege of serving our farmers on agricultural committees throughout the country. On every possible occasion it was they who saw fit to proffer correct information to the Minister for Agriculture of the day on what should be done in order to promote agricultural exports. Alas, their voices have been silenced. Farmers are now dictated to by people who have no more interest in agriculture or its future development than has an Eskimo in taking a holiday.
What a dismal record in the past decade from ACOT and Teagasc, and that record is becoming more dismal each day. That outfit has nothing to offer the Irish farming community. There has been a shortage of staff to give information to the farming community, to provide guidance and advice to our young farmers, and to supervise the various schemes of aid for our farmers. There has been a lack of enthusiasm and drive to accelerate our agricultural economy and a lack of sufficient finance from day one to spearhead any dramatic improvement in a stagnated Department of Agriculture. That is the chequered history of the Department of Agriculture since they became responsible for giving direct information to our farmers. What hope is there for another board under that umbrella of nonsense from what should be the premier Department in this country.
It is going to be an independent board.
The board will be no more independent than you were over the last two years. You will be under the umbrella of the Minister for Agriculture and will rubber stamp whatever the Minister for Agriculture decides.
The Deputy should address his remarks through the Chair rather than directly to the Minister and it would help to avoid interruptions.
I am only explaining the serious consequences for agriculture and horticulture——
We rural people understand that.
If these are the criteria that An Bord Glas must follow, the outlook is anything but rosy for our horticultural growers. The horticulture industry, like agriculture, must contend with problems of inflation, high interest rates, high energy costs and much higher transport costs than their European counterparts. These are the disadvantages that our horticultural growers will face saecula saeculorum. Unless the Irish horticultural grower gets financial support and backing from the Department of Agriculture and Food and An Bord Glas he will be lost in the wilderness. He will have no opportunity or no hope of competing with his counterparts in Europe.
I am amazed that agriculture and horticulture are at more of a disadvantage today than at any time since we entered the EC. We all know that after 1992 we will be the only island nation in the European Community with no direct access to the European mainland. On those grounds I can see no reason preferential treatment cannot be given to our farmers and horticultural growers. As a country agriculture is our main industry.
We are providing that assistance subject to the constraints of membership of the Community.
That assistance is being provided in a Mickey Mouse fashion.
When this Bill becomes law we will know who will pay.
How can the Minister say they are providing that assistance when land in the disadvantaged areas along the western seaboard is starved of lime? Soil sampling has not been carried out by the Department of Agriculture in that area in the past decade. Fifteen or 20 years ago when the old committees of agriculture were in existence soil sampling was carried out every year for any farmer who requested it.
(Wexford): In Johnstown Castle.
Now all the Government are doing is closing the doors on advice to the Irish farmer. If a farmer is lucky enough to be on the panel of farmers who get advice from the Teagasc instructor, he has to pay a hefty charge for that advice. God help us if that is the attitude of the people who are responsible for giving direction to the Irish farming fraternity. It is a disgrace to think that our major industry is being strangled for want of finance and advice. I say that unequivocally today in this House. I can see agriculture dying day by day among the smallholders along the western seaboard. I know only too well what is happening and I have seen the complete clearance — I suppose you could call it — of farmers in some areas because they cannot make a decent living from their uneconomic holdings.
What has been done to keep these people alive? The few who remain are getting official envelopes each day bearing preliminary tax demands. We are taxing people who have not even enough to exist on.
This has nothing to do with the Bill.
It has, it is agricultural and horticultural development.
Agricultural fragmentation.
The industry does not operate in a control free environment. The Treaty of Rome and the Common Agricultural Policy demand freedom of trade in horticulture as in all other sectors. This could have very serious effects on our horticultural enterprises. Their counterparts in Europe have access to cheaper fuel and other grants which we do not have.
We have one of the finest climates in the world for growing vegetables. I admit we are confined to a certain variety of vegetables. We are not blessed with a climate that would allow us to grow vines or citrus fruits — we do not contribute to the wine lake or to the citrus fruit mountain in Europe. Therefore, a case could be made by the Minister for Agriculture, especially when he becomes chairman of the EC Ministers for Agriculture for the next six months, to get special incentives from the EC towards promoting agricultural and horticultural produce.
We have secured that aid and it is available.
If it is available, the Minister ought to have something better to say than what he said when introducing this Bill. He stated that the proposals entail State funding of the board subject to the determination of the Minister. As well as this, section 11 provides for the making of charges for the services provided by the board. In other words, this is another tax which the horticultural grower will have to pay. It is bad enough for him to be given a preliminary tax payslip but it will be ten times worse when he will have to pay for any advice he may get, for which he will have to pay through the nose. It is a disgrace that any Minister should come into this House to try to inflict on our horticultural growers and farmers another penal tax. What else is it? If the EC aid which the Minister has referred to is forthcoming, I would like the Minister to tell us what aid will be provided to the entrepreneur who enters this industry.
This Bill is shrouded in an air of uncertainty and that is why I asked the Minister to spell out in no uncertain terms what aid is going to be offered to the horticultural grower. The Government's overall economic objective of controlling and curtailing public expenditure may have a detrimental effect on the amount of finance which will emanate from Government coffers to this very valuable industry. One of the provisions enshrined into this Bord Glas Bill is that the Government may put curbs on expenditure by the board. In other words, they need not contribute to the industry at all. They are being given a free leg to sidetrack the provision of financial assistance to get this industry off the ground.
Weaknesses within the industry are also clearly evident. These include climatic disadvantages which limit the range of crops that may be grown. It is clearly evident that this industry will only have a limited range of vegetables to survive on, such as the famous mushrooms the Deputy speaks about. I do not see many mushrooms in my part of the country.
(Wexford): They are in the fields.
Come up to me and I will show them to the Deputy.
(Wexford): Come down to Wexford and I will do the same.
The Deputies make a great hand of maintaining prosperity in industries around the Pale or within certain areas where they have traditional support.
I will invite the Deputy up to Cavan and bring him around for a day then he can see what is being grown.
Before there ever was a mushroom in Cavan or Monaghan there were wild mushrooms in south-west Cork.
There were more than wild mushrooms.
(Interruptions.)
Could we please get back to the Bill?
Some of the weaknesses have been pointed out by this famous advisory board, such as the seasonality of production. It is a well known fact——
It is a fact of life.
——that if the Department of Agriculture and Food went about their business in a proper way they would have tackled this problem years ago.
We have no control over the climate.
Also, they gave it no consideration whatsoever.
They took credit for the fine years.
It is a well known fact that by the time early Irish potatoes come on the market the market is already at saturation point, following the importation of new potatoes from Israel, Spain, Turkey and Holland. By the time this glut is cleared the Irish producer has only obtained a Mickey Mouse return for the early potatoes he has grown. Surely, the Minister should consider banning the importation of early potatoes at least two to three weeks prior to the coming on the market of early Irish potatoes. When early Irish potatoes come on the market we find the importers of Dutch early potatoes staying in expensive hotels all over the country and selling their product at half the price which should be paid for our early potatoes. What security do the Department provide for the producers of early potatoes?
The Minister also stated that there needs to be more effective planning to ensure orderly marketing and development and a proper growers' organisation involved in all aspects of marketing, from the production stage to final sale. Around this time last year I asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he would provide substantial aid to facilitate the establishment of a grower's co-op in Kilcrohane. The Minister stated in reply that there were no funds available in his Department to facilitate the formation of a grower's co-op in Kilcrohane.
To grow what?
The first daffodils grown in open space in western Europe were grown on this peninsula which is an ideal location for the development of the horticultural industry.
That is where the Deputy should grow early potatoes.
There was a small packing station on this peninsula 20 years ago. When I asked the Minister to provide substantial aid to facilitate the establishment of a decent packing station on that peninsula the Minister stated he was unable to do so. Where then lies the future of the horticultural industry and where is the incentive for our farmers to set up a horticultural enterprise on their small holdings to boost their income? The lead should be given from the top.
May I ask the Deputy if he has looked at the producer group grant scheme to see if it would be of assistance in the circumstances?
How many are taking it up?
The Minister did not answer that question——
Two.
Vast improvements are needed.
It is no credit to the producer that it is not being taken up——
If they had confidence in it, they would take it up.
Surely in a disadvantaged area it is most important that leadership and direction come from the top. The only way one can describe An Bord Glas Bill is that it is as glossy as its name. Herein lies the epitaph of horticultural development in Ireland. The group set up to advise the board have said that vast improvements are needed in quality grading, presentation and that a better effort should be made to meet consumer requirements. We all know that is good advice but without the proper packing station being constructed in areas which can play their part in the development of horticulture, we will not improve presentation. Things will remain haphazard if only one grower out of ten goes to extremes to make sure his products are correctly presented, whereas if we had a modern packing station this would enable the farmers who may not have the financial resources to improve presentation to present their products in a desirable fashion. The packing station would do the job perfectly and therein lies the answer to better presentation.
There is a producer group grant scheme.
How many have taken up the grants? Everybody knows that at the end of the day the consumer calls the tune. No matter what the Minister says in the House today he is not going to influence the consumer one way or the other unless he influences the growers to meet the consumers' requirements.
The Minister was also advised that there is a need for vast improvement in the continuity of supply of most products. I agree wholeheartedly with that, but ways and means must be established by this Government whereby a continuity of supply of fresh vegetables on the Irish market can be maintained. The horticultural growers must be advised on planting schedules, so that all the seeds are not planted together, and steps must be taken to provide cold storage in order to ensure continuity of supply. I know we have fallen down in this area but the Minister must grasp the nettle to solve this problem.
The pious platitudes expressed in the Minister's speech yesterday will not put any money into the pockets of the vegetable growers unless, in no uncertain fashion, he streamlines the industry, the guiding light, to bring the industry from the dismal depths——
That is why we need An Bord Glas, but the Deputy's party will not support it.
I have grave doubts about An Bord Glas. I am afraid An Bord Glas will join the growing number of boards that have been responsible for making the country poorer as the years go by. We have too many boards——
Seventeen.
We need a Minister who is capable of handling agriculture and horticulture with the help of his Department. As far as I am concerned, boards are the gravy train for party supporters. Who will be appointed to An Bord Glas? Everybody knows that any member will have to have a Fianna Fáil, Cáirde Fáil ticket or he will not be nominated to this board.
(Wexford): Let the Deputy look at the membership of the interim board.
It is high time we stopped setting up boards because the Government have a dismal record of nominations to boards. Everybody knows that the party hacks have been placed on boards over the past two or three decades. That is the reason we have seen the demise of agriculture, horticulture and tourism and any other development you wish to name.
We had An Bord Gráin, the grain growers board and among others Bord na gCapall. What did they do? There was not an Irish draught horse left in the country. Everybody knows what happened. I am afraid An Bord Glas have only a glossy appeal and that is as far as it will go in promoting horticulture.
A bit of generosity is what we need now.
The Minister was also advised by this advisory group that we should break away from a home market orientation and endeavour to capture a greater part of the EC market. I am afraid the Minister is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks he will capture a greater part of the EC market with this Bill. Let the Minister mind the home market because we will only get chicken feed from the EC market. We have seen Dutch cabbages of all descriptions imported, onions come from Spain and Israel and tomatoes from the Canary Islands and Holland. Every kind of vegetable available is on sale in the supermarkets and thousands of tonnes of vegetables are coming from abroad. Who is the Minister codding when he speaks of a breakaway from the home market? Let him have a bit of common sense. If we cannot sell our vegetables on the home market, what hope have we of gaining a market in the EC? If you want to look neat, begin at your feet. The Minister should come out of his shell and talk commonsense.
We are exporting three quarters of our mushrooms to the Community.
The Minister seems to be taken up completely with mushrooms but I have not seen any mushroom production in my part of the country.
The Deputy should ask his constituents why.
The only mushrooms you will find there in July, August and September are the wild mushrooms growing in the fields and they are very good. Perhaps it would be no harm for the Minister to go on holidays there——
If the Deputy comes up to Monaghan he will see mushrooms——
As I have said to the Deputy, before they ever had mushroom production in Monaghan, wild mushrooms were growing in West Cork. The people in Monaghan were pampered and spoon fed in order to produce mushrooms under cover.
Deputies
In the dark.
The Minister said that recognition must be given to the fact that there is now greater emphasis being placed on the inclusion of fruit and vegetables in our diet and that this in turn will create a larger and more sophisticated market. Before I leave that valuable suggestion I should like to ask the Minister when he became a dietician. The Minister spoke about balanced diets but I am afraid it is the Minister who is becoming unbalanced, not our diet, in his glossy predictions in this Bill. Everybody knows that glossy projections by An Bord Glas make interesting reading but it is another day's work putting them into reality. There is a huge mountain which the Minister has to climb——
(Weford): He is already half way up.
——I hope he does not get lost but he does not seem to have the right direction. If he had he would not be coming up with some of the suggestions he had made today.
If we want to achieve results of the magnitude outlined by the Minister, that is, the expansion of home production to the value of £31 million per year increasing our exports by £27 million and the creation of 1,700 full-time and 1,500 part-time jobs——
We are well on the way to meeting those targets. Those figures are conservative.
It is wishful thinking. If the Minister is not prepared to give to the Irish farmers the rights and financial assistance available to the horticultural farmer in the EC, he will not be able to get his proposals off the ground.
I am sick and tired of hearing predictions about jobs. The only contribution the Minister and his party have made to the creation of jobs is to send our young people to London, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool, San Francisco, New York and Boston.
(Wexford): And west Cork.
Those are the destinations of Irish youth who are looking for jobs. I shudder to think what will happen in the future if we carry on in the manner the Minister has outlined. When a Fianna Fáil Government were unable to keep the Fastnet Co-op in Skibbereen open a decade ago, what possibility have they today of creating 1,500 to 2,000 jobs? The vegetable factory in Midleton has been closed as have been vegetable factories in several other centres but the Minister has taken no steps in this regard. He has sat idly by.
Things are prospering in east Cork.
While Rome burned, Nero fiddled, and that is what the Minister is doing. The industry is crumbling and no efforts are being made by the Minister or his Department to give it any new injection which would put life back into it.
There is a marked increase in interest in fresh produce which is organically grown without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers. Green conferences are being held all over the country and emphasis is being put on natural products, organically grown. There is not one word in the Bill about organically grown produce. If commonsense prevails the Minister must know, unless he is kidding himself, that there is a vast market for organically grown fruit and vegetables. As the years go on that market will grow and the Minister will still be sitting in his plush office in that mansion in Kildare Street, surrounded by his advisers, but doing nothing about such development. There is not one mention in the Bill about organically grown vegetables or fruit.
We could become pioneers in the producton of organically grown vegetables which could withstand any competition and out-sell any vegetables produced by our European counterparts. Nowhere in Western Europe, or indeed in Eastern Europe, could the tag "organically grown vegetables" be better attached to vegetables than to Irish grown vegetables. We are blessed with predominantly south-westerly winds, winds which blow away the pollution which comes from the East and from Europe. There is little or no acid rain in this country, our climatic conditions are ideal but the Minister has failed to take any steps towards the promotion of organically grown vegetables. It is a shame that this opportunity has been missed.
Statistics have proven that almost 60 per cent of all horticultural produce used in this country over the past five years was imported. This is a sad indictment on Irish horticultural growers. It boils down to a combination of weaknesses within the industry. The Minister has done nothing since his appointment to tackle those weaknesses. If the horticultural industry in Ireland is to survive and retrieve its rightful share of the market, immediate steps must be taken to create producer groups who will have proper back-up advice to shorten the supply chain from the primary producer to the consumer. With all the back-up service the Minister has in his Department he has failed to get the producer groups off the ground. These groups are as scarce as swallows in winter, and they are very scarce.
The industry must also win the confidence of Irish housewives who want value for money and who are no longer prepared to accept second rate quality when they can shop around and purchase the best vegetables from supermarket shelves. Let us remember that our salesman is the supermarket shelf. The sales statistics will depend on presentation of the finished product. The Irish housewife has to live on a certain wage packet each week and naturally will buy the best presented cheapest vegetables she can get. It is important that Irish horticultural producers meet the challenge ahead by improving the quality, grading and presentation of their products and creating a quality image for Irish produce at home and abroad. Coming to mushrooms, my friend, Deputy Leonard's pet hobby——
The invitation still stands.
Already Irish mushroom growers hold an 8 per cent share of the fresh mushroom market in the UK, selling into such groups as Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda. The market demand is growing at the rate of 20 per cent per annum and based on the competitive advantages of Irish mushrooms in terms of production, technology and quality this share of the United Kingdom mushroom market has a great potential for doubling within the next four years if properly supervised and financially aided by An Bord Glas.
As the man who has responsibility for horticultural development here I would ask the Minister not to put all his eggs in Deputy Leonard's basket but to make sure not to forget the disadvantaged areas of the south-west from Mizen head to Malin Head.
We will open a mushroom factory in Claremorris tomorrow in the disadvantaged areas in the west.
I hope the Minister will open one in south-west Cork before many years have run out.
It is in your own hands.
You got plenty of financial help from the Minister for Agriculture.
Proceed and give the chance to a fellow TD from north Cork to have his say.
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato to Ireland hundreds of years ago and the quality of Irish potatoes is known the world over. All our potato growers need is advice and financial assistance so that they can get off the ground and present their products properly. This product never seems to have got off the ground and this is because of lack of technical advice and bad marketing arrangements. We have made no impact of significance in capturing the export market for potatoes in Great Britain and other European countries. Our foundation stock from Donegal has been internationally acclaimed as the best potato stock in the world. Yet we have failed hopelessly to convince the European consumer and the British consumer of its quality. Surely the Minister is treating this part of the horticultural industry with disdain. He has taken no steps to aid and advise the potato producers on the proper handling and marketing of their products. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of potatoes are being brought into this country. Practically all of the potatoes for our chip manufacturing are from abroad. Surely our farmers could provide these potatoes, and I am sure they could rise to the occasion if they had a proper marketing system. The Minister is falling down here.
We have offers from the IFA to jointly fund the appointment of a market co-ordinator.
There should be only five members in the group, not ten. The Minister will create great problems all over the country.
On the home market there is a glut of potatoes from Spain, Cyprus, Holland and countries in the Middle East for the greater part of the year. That is what is happening. This is the glowing record of the present Minister for Agriculture. How can we achieve results with that kind of approach to this valuable industry? How can we achieve results without proper financial assistance and technical advice from An Bord Glas and Teagasc. Section 11 of the Bill provides for the making of charges for the provision of services from the board. Is this the only method the Minister envisages to finance the development of this board? The Minister must be very green if he thinks this system will get his board off the ground. The future for our Irish horticultural industry does not look very rosy. It is shrouded in uncertainty. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
I would ask the Minister to let common sense prevail. I would like to see more action from the Department because actions speak louder than words. I am dubious about the creation of further boards when I look at what has happened with other boards that were created. In the case of the postal services what is happening now? Sub-post offices are being closed and postmasters are being done away with in rural Ireland. Will the same happen with this board? Will it be a talking shop or can we expect results from it?
My advice to the Minister of State is to get up off his seat and travel the country to see the dire poverty that exists in rural areas. He should ensure that the advisers in his Department visit rural farmers. I do not think the day is far off when we will have to consider disbanding all boards. Any technical advice needed can be obtained from the Department. If the Minister wants advice from the farming community he should reconstitute the county committees of agriculture. The members of those committees were the salt of the earth and they understood what was needed in agriculture. They did not consist of book farmers but practical farmers. Practicality will always survive and the Government and the Minister will have to be practical.
(Wexford): In welcoming the Bill I should like to compliment the Minister of State on the progress he has made in the short period he has been in charge of horticultural development. I should like to switch the concentration in the debate from beautiful west Cork to the sunny south-east, and in particular County Wexford. I should like to refer to strawberry and raspberry growing and the fruit industry generally. Alternative land use enterprises must be established on family farms if they are to be maintained as viable economic entities. We have quota problems and, more recently, the pay-for-no-grow EC policy and because of them it is imperative if family farms are to be maintained as viable holdings that sons or daughters of farmers engage in alternative projects.
The very fabric of rural communities depends on our ability to succeed in that area. The fruit industry, almost without notice, has developed to such a stage that it is playing a role of great importance in the provision of extra revenue for many farmers, particularly in the counties in the south-east. That sector of the food industry is unique in that it is one of the few areas that does not carry an EC restriction or limitation on production. We can take it that our EC neighbours will focus their attention on that farm discipline to augment the income of their farmers. It is important that we should be in a position to turn back the tide of food imports where home-grown production is possible. We must make a determined and sustained attack to establish a place for our pollution-free fruit products in the lucrative EC marketplace. Soft fruit production fits in well with the more traditional farm practices. The export potential of this sector is obvious. Fresh fruit consumption, jam manufacturing, canning, freezing, fruit juices and yoghurts are the best examples of how added-value can be achieved in this area. This implies employment at farm level and at the processing and marketing stages.
Our strategy for industry must be one of expansion and that, in turn, will depend on our ability to compete on the export market. A progressive research and development programme is the best approach for our growers. Processors and exporters must have the most cost-effective methods available to them. We have good soil and suitable climatic conditions for fruit growing, particularly in the east and south-east where strawberries, blackcurrants and raspberries are produced. The excellence of our fruit has long been recognised by consumers and enjoys a quality image, particularly in the UK market to which we have been exporting since the sixties. With the establishment of An Bord Glas and the timely amalgamation and reorientation of our farm support organisations, ACOT and An Foras Talúntais now known as Teagasc, an opportunity is presented to streamline all facets of the agricultural scene, particularly the fruit sector.
There is no sense in doing away with one board and setting up another.
(Wexford): The fruit industry needs to be looked at. There is a need to arrange for certification and planting material has to be up-graded. We must identify a limited number of growers for the out-of-season production of strawberries. We must identify new added-value products for processing in conjunction with the processors to reduce dependence on pulp as a market for soft fruit. New marketing strategies and new export markets must be developed.
In County Wexford we have an excellent research and development facility at Clonroche under the aegis of Teagasc. That centre has pioneered the soft fruit industry in the south-east region. I do not think any other institution in the country has such an exclusive dedication to the soft fruit sector. In reality, no other centre has the expertise to duplicate or copy the work carried out at Clonroche. With Wexford's dominance on the fruit production scene it would seem to be logical to continue that work of research and development at that centre under the aegis of our new farm authority in conjunction with An Bord Glas.
The research programme at Clonroche is of an applied nature yielding practical and pragmatic information to growers and processors. New standards have been set for yields and packaging and presentation and cost effective management techniques developed. Intensive investigations on season extension, particularly for the strawberry crop, are well underway with an objective of marketing this attractive fruit over a longer period. Clonroche is located on a very suitable soil which is typical of that which grows most of the country's soft fruit. That, and climate advantage, is a further compelling reason why the station at Clonroche should continue its valuable work.
I should like to suggest to the Minister that he designate that centre as the national centre for research and development of the fruit industry. I suggest that An Bord Glas be based at Clonroche. It would make an ideal headquarters for the new body.
What will be done with Kinsealy?
(Wexford): The Deputy is entitled to his views about Kinsealy but it is my opinion that the headquarters of the new board should be established at Clonroche. There has been a lot of decentralisation in recent years and sections of Departments have been moved to Cavan, to the west and the south and it is time that County Wexford got its share. It is important to bear in mind that Wexford produces 90 per cent of Ireland's processed strawberries and 75 per cent of blackcurrants. Clonroche is adjacent to the main processing outlets and to Rosslare harbour, one of the fastest expanding ports in the country. The centre has set achievable targets for production which have not been matched elsewhere in the country. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to my suggestion that the headquarters of the new board be established there.
Chivers are extensively involved in the south-east, particularly in Wexford, and their factory there opens for six weeks to receive strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants. I suggest that the IDA, Chivers and other companies should consider the development of value-added products from the fruit industry in that area. Jam manufacturing and freezing developments should be considered and the IDA should make grants available to those establishing such industries. I am amazed that the IDA over the years, despite promptings from different Government agencies, have failed to develop the fruit industry in the south-east on a value-added basis. We are producing the raw material but, unfortunately, much of it is being sent out of the county and the country and we are not getting the value we should. I ask the Minister again to look at the possibility of encouraging companies to come here and develop the soft fruit industry.
Tomato growing in Wexford and the south-east has been developed over the years. We welcome the Minister's announcement of the 25 per cent grant aid for new glasshouses and 35 per cent for refurbishing and conversion of old glasshouses. However, we cannot be competitive in this area unless we can keep down our energy costs. The extension of the natural gas grid to the south-east region should be considered in this regard. We are unable to compete fairly with other counties, particularly North County Dublin and other places where natural gas has been extended to. The taxpayers and ratepayers in County Wexford and the south-east are entitled to the same facilities from natural gas as other people. The Minister should look at this seriously. The development of horticulture in many counties depends to a large extent on keeping down energy costs, etc.
The mushroom industry has expanded rapidly in the last ten years, increasing something like fourfold in that period. Production in 1988 reached 22,400 tonnes valued at over £25.5 million. Walsh Mushrooms in Gorey, County Wexford, have been to the forefront in this expansion and to a large extent were the pioneers of the modern Irish mushroom industry. They have established a quality image in the UK market and this is backed by highly professional marketing and a firm commitment to service. In the past three years there has been a significant switch away from the wholesale markets to the multiples where higher prices and guaranteed contracts can be secured.
The industry must continue to expand in this direction. Because of the tremendous success of the industry, the interests of potential growers and companies have never been higher. Success breeds success in many ways and in this area there has been a proven track record and there is tremendous potential for further expansion. The mushroom industry, which has become established in many counties, is an area more and more farmers, because of quotas in other areas, should be encouraged to enter. Grantaid is very good and there is an opportunity for the grower to develop in this area. It gives people in urban areas, particularly, an opportunity to earn a few shillings picking mushrooms. Adjacent to my area many women spend three or four hours practically every morning picking mushrooms and earning money to help their families, etc. Therefore, not alone does the industry help farmers to generate an income for themselves, but it can generate employment, particularly part-time employment in different areas. Exciting times are ahead for the Irish mushroom industry. I encourage the Minister to continue to develop it, and see that as many people as possible become involved in it, because new markets and new strategies for marketing are being developed all the time.
Deputy Sheehan mentioned the potato industry, probably the most disorganised industry in the country. It is a very risky business because potatoes are subject to market forces arising from yield variations. For example, in 1988 potatoes were sold at less than it cost to produce them. This was deplorable and in nobody's interest, producer or consumer, in the long-term development of the industry. When potatoes are expensive, every farmer decides the following year to grow potatoes with the result that the bottom drops out of the market. Farmers who depend on the potato industry for their livelihood find it very difficult to remain in this area or to make it a viable financial entity.
Producers should have a reasonable assurance that they will be rewarded for their efforts and consumers must have quality potatoes at a reasonable price. As Deputy Sheehan pointed out, the consumer will decide the future of the horticulture industry and whether the products made are sold. The days of selling potatoes in a big brown sack probably are at an end. The purchaser now wants them in a plastic bag so that he or she can see the quality of the product. The Minister must look seriously at the whole development of the potato industry, the type of crop available, the production of the crop and the presentation of the product to the housewife.
While production has fallen to approximately 50 per cent of the output of ten years ago, it is possible to revitalise the industry. However, we must look not only at the home market but at the export market and the processing industry for outlets for expansion. There is a great need for increased and improved marketing in the industry. I welcome the emphasis placed on marketing by An Bord Glas and the extension of the EC Regulation on producer groups in regard to potatoes.
For the potato grower I would like to see some measures introduced that should stabilise production if not increase it. Firstly, we are seriously lacking in good quality potato stores throughout the country. Could we not obtain EC sanction to extend the grant levels available in disadvantaged areas through FEOGA to the whole country? This would encourage growth in investment stores and equipment for grading on a scale we have not previously experienced. Indeed, growers cannot reasonably contemplate such investment in view of the depressed state of the market and the inadequate returns they experienced most years. Because of the nil profits, or very low profit markets, potato producers are not in a position to build the stores required. I ask the Minister to consider seriously the introduction of grants for this area.
I would like to see a review of the farm improvement programme as far as potatoes are concerned. That programme as it stands is biased and loaded against small and large potato growers. The stipulations on land leasing are contrary to good potato growing husbandry, while the level of grants available for a potato store is derisory. I cannot understand how these decisions were arrived at, seeing potatoes do not enjoy the provisions of EC market support and we have for some years past been major importers.
It is heartening to see the downward trend of imports during the past two years. In 1987 we had a 50 per cent reduction and in 1988 a 70 per cent reduction. However, this year trends predict a different story. Most imports arrive in the April-June period when the quality of our crop has deteriorated and a new crop has not come to hand. We must have good temperature controlled stores to enable us to store potatoes in top quality condition for marketing during the crucial period. Only then can we compete with imports as regards quality and supply. Grants should be directed into this area.
Imports have not been totally negative in quality. I think they have taught many of our growers to present a good sample of potatoes to the housewife, and she is entitled to expect such when she buys. The imported product may appear the better because of the way it is presented but personally I do not think it is better. Yet because of the housewife's attitude in going for this product the producer, the local farmer, because he has no choice, decided to improve the quality and presentation of his products. That is good. Therefore, I request that our statutory provisions on potato grading and marketing continue to be fully implemented. I understood that all imports, apart from Six County material, are supposed to be sprout suppressed. We need to increase our vigilance in this regard.
With proper co-ordinated strategy, production, presentation and marketing, Irish farmers will in future produce good quality potatoes in abundance and get a fair return for their efforts, but at this time they need tremendous help and backup support. They need financial help for storage facilities, etc. Because of the lack of profit margins for a number of years they are not in a position to develop this area themselves. The consumer attitude has changed greatly in the past ten years. The housewife is now looking for quality, well prepared and presented vegetables and fruit. Any old thing is no longer acceptable. Producers must be encouraged by advice and financial grant aid to improve the quality of their products. I am glad An Bord Glas Bill sets out to help producers in this area.
The make-up of the board was mentioned. When I was in Opposition I was critical of the last Government and different Governments about the make-up of boards. In the past too many boards had members who were appointed because of their political allegiance, some of whom were not capable of running huckster shops let alone making valuable decisions in relation to the long-term strategy of different areas of development of this economy. For that reason I would ask the Minister to appoint people to the board who have a thorough knowledge of the industry, whether it is the mushroom industry, the strawberry industry or whatever other area of horticulture to which this board relates. It is important that we have the best people available on this board to develop a very worth-while industry for the future. I see the horticultural industry as one of the areas where great opportunities are opening up for job creation and for farmers to develop into that whole area of different types of farm income. It is essential that when the Minister and the Cabinet sit down to select the board that they select the best people for the job regardless of their political persuasions. In that regard, out of the two or three members of the interim board from my own County of Wexford, at least two of them are not of my political persuasion: they were chosen on their ability and on the role they have played in developing the horticultural industry over many years. I would go along with that, the best men were chosen to do an important job for the future.
Organic food was mentioned by Deputy Sheehan. It is an area in which I have a deep interest. In Wexford a number of farmers in recent times have changed over to the development of organic foods because the consumer is looking for it and is demanding that it be made available. I do not often agree with Deputy Sheehan but I agree that there should be some section in the Bill — perhaps it can be written in at a later stage — to deal with organic food. It is one of the areas where there will be major development over the coming years. The consumer is demanding that organic food be available and it is important that the Government of the day would have a section dealing with organic food. I would ask the Minister to examine that area and I do not think it should be too difficult to have it included.
Finally, I welcome the Bill and wish the Minister well in ensuring that when the board is up and running we can achieve the targets set out in his opening contribution to the Bill yesterday. It is an important development for the future. The whole horticultural industry has vast potential for Ireland as a whole. With so much emphasis on the type of foods that are required by consumers right across Europe at present — pollution free food — we are ideally placed to develop this industry. All sides of the House should ensure that this Bill is not delayed any longer so that we can get on with the task of import substitution and also create a niche for ourselves in the European market by the development of the horticultural industry.
When the decision to establish the horticultural development board was first announced some two years ago The Workers' Party welcomed the decision, but the Bill before us today is very disappointing. It falls very short of the sort of dynamic measures necessary to ensure the proper development of our horticultural sector. The Bill is far too limited in its objectives and restricted in its scope. The best that can be said about the Bill is that it will do little harm and it certainly will not achieve very much.
The failure of successive Governments to ensure that our agricultural land was developed has not only led to the depopulation of rural areas and a decline in the numbers living on the land but it has also meant that workers are robbed of tens of thousands of jobs in a food processing industry which would have followed on from the proper use of our land. It is surely a shocking indictment of our failure to make proper use of our valuable natural resource that we should be importing in the region of £1,000 million worth of food products each year, many of which both basic commodities and consumer ready products could and should be produced at home. Indeed, we are all aware of the enormous burden on the economy through the cost of our oil imports but not many people are aware that our annual food imports now cost as much as our annual oil bill. Horticultural products such as fruit and vegetables are the biggest single category of our food imports amounting in 1987 for more than 25 per cent of the total or £1,088 million out of £7,022 million. Some of this is obviously fruit that could be grown at home. Nobody expects to see oranges growing in Galway or banana plantations in Cork but much of it is also accounted for by basic fruit and vegetables such as apples, pears, peas, carrots and many others that are part of the normal diet here and which can be grown at home. Indeed, one of our biggest vegetable imports is the one most associated throughout the world with Ireland, the humble potato. The fact is that not only are most farmers not growing vegetables and fruit to sell, they are not even growing them for their own domestic use. Instead they are going to their local town to buy imported vegetables brought down from Dublin in articulated trucks.
Our record in horticulture has been nothing short of appalling. The total acreage devoted to horticultural production is about 95,000 acres, less than 1 per cent of which is under glass. Even if the targets of the current five-year development programme are met in full that would give only 1,700 full-time jobs.
The Workers' Party have often pointed to the contrast between agriculture in Ireland and agriculture in Holland, a country with a similar climate but where land is much more scarce. In Holland 75 per cent of horticultural produce is processed in that country, some of it on the farm. The food processing sector in Holland employs approximately 136,000 people or about 100,000 more than in this country. In Holland 4 per cent of their total agricultural land is under glass. It would be a long time before we could achieve that target for glass. Even if we could devote 4 per cent of our agricultural land to horticultural production we would create, perhaps, up to 20,000 additional jobs on the land and up to double that number in processing.
When we joined the EC it was expected that many jobs in the industrial sector would be lost but it was not anticipated that there would be a tremendous development in the agricultural area and that the downstream industries which would be created would compensate for loss in other areas. This has not happened in relation to the traditional agricultural production and certainly in relation to horticulture. Against this background the Bill is totally inadequate. The kernel of the Bill is section 5. This section simply seems to replicate functions of other similar State promotion agencies and, therefore, also replicate their weaknesses.
The basic function of the board will be to provide information for horticultural producers and hope that they will respond. This kind of approach has been shown in the past to be inadequate and a poor use of taxpayers' money. We would prefer an approach involving at the same time a more active and interventionist approach on the part of Bord Glas and a system where horticultural producers would take more responsibility for their own success. These two approaches are not necessarily contradictory.
As with many other sectors of the economy, horticulture is characterised by too many small-scale producers with little marketing know-how and a short-term "fast buck" perception not suited to an industry requiring long-term marketing strategies but subject to short-term cycles due to weather conditions, floods and a tendency to shortages. As the Telesis report pointed out, the Irish economy is typified by strong State agencies and weak producers. The aim should be to promote strong producers and a strong producer association. The Workers' Party believe that Bord Glas should be given specific responsibility for getting into the field and getting people into horticultural production, using better production methods and entering co-operative processing arrangements. The board should provide loans and grants but only in the context of the producers working to and achieving agreed medium to long-term plans. There have been too many State handouts and giveaways to the private sector without conditions and this applies above all to the agricultural sector.
We should like to see section 5 expanded to give the board the right to employ or sponsor by Teagasc a team of field officers to promote expanded horticultural production, processing and marketing and improved techniques for achieving these objectives. Second, they should provide financial assistance in the form of loans and grants to achieve these objectives, such assistance to be made available only in relation to the gradual achievement of development plans agreed with officers of the board. Third, they should promote the formation and effective functioning of horticultural co-operatives or associations in the areas of production, processing and marketing and provide financial assistance in the form of loans, grants and subsidies towards these objectives, again to be made available only in the context of an agreed development plan. Unless we give the board these sorts of powers the Bill will have no significant impact on horticulture and we will be here in five or ten years' time lamenting our continued failure in this area.
We cannot expect consumers at home and abroad to do us any favours and if progress is to be made very specific measures must be taken to improve the quality and standard of Irish-produced fruit and vegetables. There is nothing patriotic about buying Irish if what is on offer is shoddy or second rate. The most constant complaint among Irish consumers about home-produced fruit and vegetables is not the price but the quality. We have all had the experience of buying fruit which is bruised and damaged and bags of potatoes which contain some which are half rotten, as well as lumps of clay. Producers and retailers must get their act together.
We must also be on our guard against permitting the over-use of chemicals and pesticides, especially those which are potentially hazardous. The greatest international marketing asset we enjoy — and this is true in relation to all our food products — is our clean and relatively pollution-free image. We must ensure that this is not put at risk by the over-use of chemicals which might in the short term produce quick profits but which could in the long-term be enormously dangerous. To capitalise on this effectively requires that a large proportion of our food be sold in the export market as consumer products and be identified and promoted as Irish.
I spoke earlier of the achievement of the horticultural industry in Holland. One great advantage their producers enjoy over ours is easy access to natural gas for heating production under glass. In this country only a very small number of producers in the north County Dublin area are being linked up to the national gas grid. Given the discovery announced early this year of another gas field off the south coast, the new board should be looking at ways of developing horticulture under glass in those areas along the existing pipeline where natural gas could easily be made available.
Had not the Fianna Fáil Government of the sixties stifled almost at birth the great development started in the food industry by Lieutenant-General Michael Joe Costello and the Irish Sugar Company in encouraging vegetable growth and production, we would probably have no need for this Bill. Having set up the company to produce vegetables, they were restricted to 10 per cent of the Irish market. Latterly the betrayal of the Irish Sugar Company by the then Taoiseach, Mr. Jack Lynch, and the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Haughey, represents one of the most shameful episodes of Irish political and economic history, linking that company with the Heinz company. Then there was the appointment of Mr. A.J. O'Reilly, who was later to become chief of the Heinz company, whose only interest in Erin Foods was to gobble up that company, as it practically did. It resulted in the closure of the Fastnet Co-operative in west Cork. The East Cork Food Company is scarcely there at all and Mallow Foods is a very small enterprise which employs very small numbers of people on a seasonal basis. It has no impact, certainly not the kind of impact which Erin Foods and the East Cork Food Company once had. I do not see any programme to deal with this unless the new board are given teeth to develop in this area. Erin Foods, against the wishes of the Irish Sugar Company, was sold off to the Heinz company. Mr. O'Reilly has since done rather well for himself but the move signalled the decline of Erin Foods and the courageous attempts which had been made to develop vegetable growing and processing. Irish workers, farmers and consumers have since been paying the price.
I welcome this board and I, too, would like to see the best personnel in the field included in its composition. Given the problems from which this country suffers as a result of excessive levels of bureaucracy, plans to establish any new board must be judged by the perceived need for it and the purpose which it will serve.
In 1988 import-export figures for horticultural produce give an indication of the potential and the problems of the industry. Last year we imported over £28 million worth of fresh vegetables, including approximately 31,250 tonnes of potatoes, over 17,000 tonnes of onions, almost 11,000 tonnes of tomatoes and 6,000 tonnes of carrots. During the same year, however, we exported over 13,000 tonnes of mushrooms at a value of over £17 million. Estimates for this year suggest that the figure for mushroom exports will grow very quickly indeed. From those figures alone the potential of the industry is clear but so are the problems it still faces when we are dependent, for example, on such high levels of imports to cater for our demands for produce such as potatoes. Part of the problems facing the industry arise from the multiplicity of areas defined as horticultural and the tendency to regard the industry as little more than a miscellaneous section of agriculture rather than a distinctive and valuable sector in its own right. In addressing this problem the proposed board is welcome and I hope it reflects our realisation of the disadvantaged position which horticulture has laboured under and will address themselves to righting that wrong.
The establishment of boards for their own sake, however, will solve nothing. If An Bord Glas are to be of any significant value to the historical industry — as I believe they will — we must ensure that they focus on the real problems facing the industry and have the capability to identify and tackle those problems to put the industry on a sound footing for the future. Their priorities, therefore, must be in relation to production and marketing. Because of the diversity of the sector and the problems which that brings, there is a temptation to see marketing as the industry's lowest common factor and, therefore, the easiest are on which to concentrate. While improved and effective marketing is vital, many of the industry's problems relate to the production side of the equation.
The industry needs a promotional board but promotion alone will not solve its problems. The import-export figures demonstrate that while there is a need to promote Irish produce on the home and export markets there are more fundamental problems to be addressed when we are so dependent on imports of products so commonly produced at home. To some extent, looking at the horticultural industry is like coming to terms with some of the problems which will face broad Irish industries after 1992.
The agricultural and horticultural sectors have been more open to competition from other European countries than any other areas. As will be the case in relation to the rest of industry after 1992, this has opened up export opportunities but also increased our vulnerability to imports. Predictably, this has favoured the larger-scale producer enjoying greater economies of scale but these are not typical in this country and once again it has exposed the weaknesses of the fragmented nature of Irish agriculture. Every available variety of glossy advertisments or organising special promotions for particular products are all worthy and valuable undertakings in their own right but they will not, by themselves, be enough. This is particularly true given the difficulties of focusing promotional aspects on purely Irish produce which are much more acute in horticulture which is under-supplied and vulnerable to imports, unlike the area of beef where we have self-sufficiency. It is important, therefore, that the new agency will be effective in tackling problems on the production side, through encouraging producers to organise and develop, encouraging investment in processing plants and for meeting educational, technical and advice requirements of producers through their involvement with Teagasc.
This ongoing relationship with Teagasc will be of fundamental importance for the success of An Bord Glas. I am very keen to learn in detail the Minister's plans regarding this relationship. Other areas of concern include details of the proposals for the suggested levy and its effects on producers. The composition of the board has attracted considerable attention. If the board are to be effective, particularly given the fact that they have proposed that producers will be obliged to pay a levy towards their finances, it is essential that the composition not only gives some representation to the producers, or their genuine representative bodies, but are seen to do so. In other legislation we had the example of six representative bodies nominating personnel from which the Minister chose an individual. The suggested formula regarding this board is different and I will be anxious to hear the Minister's arguments in this regard.
The inability of all sections of Irish agriculture, particularly horticulture, to perform to anything like their true potential has had major, detrimental consequences for this country. Given the changes being forced by the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the challenge facing this country in the coming years, the agricultural sector must get their house in order. This is especially the case in relation to horticulture. I hope that the establishment of An Bord Glas will represent a new beginning for the horticultural industry and that significant strides will be made in the coming year towards the development of this most important, valuable sector.
When I read about the setting up of this advisory board during my enforced absence from this House over the last two years, my initial reaction was one of optimism because I felt the Minister was taking a real and deep interest in the horticultural industry. Particularly coming from north County Dublin, which is the seat and heart of the horticultural industry, I thought that maybe at last something real and dynamic would happen to improve the situation and to stop the flow from the industry in that area.
In his contribution on 4 June 1987 during the Estimate on Agriculture and Food, the Minister highlighed some of the industry's problems and said that the massive onslaught of foreign imports, our fragmentation and lack of cohesiveness led to a shrinking industry. I felt he had at least analysed some of the serious aspects of the problems related to the industry and I had high hopes that this advisory board would come to grips with the problems. The Minister spoke in that debate about setting up the advisory board and he said that because of the need to examine existing structures and arrange consultation with interested parties he was not making the board a statutory instrument. He said he would first set it up as an advisory board, which is probably what is needed as I do not believe setting up another Quango like this is necessarily the answer. Certainly, having read the Bill, the board is not the answer in the form proposed. It is now exactly two years and four months since the debate in June 1987 and I am wondering who was consulted about the Bill.
Who were the interested parties involved in discussions? I wonder because I have received letters from what I would have thought would have been the dominant interested parties in this industry. I will quote from a letter which I understand may already have been quoted, but I will again remind the Minister of its contents. In a letter dated 31 October 1989 from the chairman of the National Horticultural Committee of the Irish Farmers' Association, he said:
It is a matter of grave concern that this Bill is being introduced without any consultation with the horticultural industry with regard to its details or its implications....
If he did not consult the National Horticultural Committee of the IFA whom did he consult——
I should remind the Deputy that the person who signed that letter has been a member of the interim board since March 1987. That board established seven different commodity teams and he was a member of one of them.
I am aware of that.
There were also other representations from the organisation from which the letter came.
That may be, but the letter makes it clear that if Mr. Arnold, as chairman of the National Horticultural Committee, was on those boards he did not feel he was properly consulted and obviously had no say at the end of the day in the preparation and drafting of this Bill.
The report of the commodity team——
The Minister has something to do in regard to public relations because these groups do not feel they have been consulted or had a proper say in the formulation of this Bill and they have asked the Opposition — and indeed the Minister — not to proceed with this Bill until they have been properly consulted. I also had a letter from Mr. Michael Mahon, Executive Secretary of the National Horticulture Committee, complaining about sections of the Bill and asking that the Bill be delayed until proper discussions have been held between the Minister and other interested parties. I do not know where the mistake was made, but these letters are coming to me and to other Deputies and they show that there seems to have been some slip up in the system of consultation.
Recently, I met an informal group of glass house growers in North County Dublin. Their attitude to the interim board and to the Minister's speech launching this Bill was that it was a matter of hilarity. They do not feel they are represented in any way. They said that the interim board in all its works appeared to be biased towards the big producers and they said that in the appointments to that board the Minister was obviously guided by his former colleagues in the big industries such as the Fruit Importers of Ireland and that the small grower with one acre or even a half acre is not represented on that board and their problems will not be tackled. The small growers are the grassroots of this industry. The very nature of the horticulture industry means that we will have small intensive producers. One can grow an acre of horticultural products very effectively whereas one cannot grow an acre of some of the bigger grain crops. Most of the horticultural producers are small and they are not represented on the board. They feel that the board has been set up in such a way as to militate against their good and they cannot get across to the Minister or anybody else the problems they are facing.
I will go through some of the sections in the Bill that worry me and the Irish Farmers' Association. I congratulate the Minister on section 3 which sets up the board as it is the only section which is not like a sieve. Every other section in the Bill has a lot of "ifs", "maybes" and so on and nothing solid that one can get one's teeth into. The Minister in his speech talked about the levy but could not say when it would be brought into operation and cannot say how much it will be but that these matters will be for the board. On sections 4 and 5 the Minister said that the keynote is flexibility and the Minister under section 6 can attach new functions to the board. On reading that speech nobody could say what the board will do.
Under section 3, the only section which does something firm, there will be ten ordinary members and a chairman. In the drafting of the Bill there is a sneaky attempt to make it look as though there are two forms of appointment to the board, as if five members will be appointed on a democratic basis with the other five being ministerial appointments. I accept that any Minister should have the power to appoint people to a board but in this instance all ten will be appointed by the Minister and the industry can only be consulted. If those consultations are anything like the consultations which gave rise to the letters I referred to here, then we all know that the appointees will all be friends or cronies of the Minister. They will not represent the industry as it is or as it wishes to exist in the future. I have no doubt that despite Fine Gael's opposition to this Bill, it will be passed but I would ask the Minister to ensure that at the very least five members are directly nominated by the industry and their appointments just confirmed by the Minister. The industry must have the power to make the appointments from the different sections of the industry.
Has the Deputy examined the membership of the interim board to see how representative or otherwise it is?
It may well be representative but all the appointments are made by the Minister. I am asking the Minister to allow different groups to make direct appointments to these boards as has been the practice over the last number of years. When we were setting up the revamped An Bord Pleanála, different groups had the right to put forward names and the Minister was obliged to have representatives from the groups there.
Would the Deputy accept that it is time we had people who knew what they were talking about——
Of course.
——and who have the ability to articulate a particular point of view?
The Minister is trying to misrepresent what I am saying. There should be people who know the industry but they should not be appointed by the Minister but by the industry. Of course I want to see representatives on the board who know about the hardships of the industry and about getting up at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. in the morning to protect crops, to put jam jars and plastic coverings on top of plants to prevent crops from being damaged by early frost or heavy sun such as we had this summer.
Examine the membership of the interim board.
I have, and there is no doubt that there are people on the board who know about the industry. The Minister is missing the point I am making. This industry and not the Minister should have the power to appoint the people because we know what happens when the Minister's party are in Government — the appointments are all friends and cronies who may not necessarily have any knowledge of the industry.
That is not fair.
It is very unfair.
Well, I am saying it——
Examine the membership of the interim board and the Deputy will find that there are representatives from across the spectrum.
——and there are plenty of instances where I can be proved right in what I am saying.
(Interruptions.)
Section 12 of the Bill is to introduce a levy. In the Minister's speech he admits that he does not know what the levy will be, when it will come into operation or who will be paying it nor does he know what will happen to the money collected and so on.
It is clearly set out in the Bill.
It is not clearly set out in the Bill. It says that a levy can be collected from people who are in the industry. It does not say whether it will be the grower, the wholesaler, the retailer or the consumer. Where will the levy stop? Who will have to pay it? The Bill says:
There shall be charged and levied, by the board in each year beginning with such year as may be... on the sale of horticultural produce.
The grower is involved with selling to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the retailer and the retailer to the consumer. Who will pay the levy? I suspect it will be the unfortunate consumer again. The introduction of this levy provides a way to charge to run the board. The State will be reneging on its responsibilities. The Minister was unspecific in his speech as to how much money will come from the Exchequer to run this board. Each year, as the Exchequer contribution is reduced, the levy will increase. The Bill will do exactly the opposite to what the Minister thinks it will. It will put people out of business and stop consumers from buying Irish produce. That should be the whole point of the Bill.
The Minister cannot expect the sort of support he would like particularly from the glass house growers and horticultural producers generally for this Bill. This has been the worst summer for years for tomato growers because of the heat throughout the summer and the destruction of crops due to the bad quality of glass houses and their facilities for keeping their products safe from this high sun. Most of the producers in North County Dublin laughed at me this summer when I said that the Minister had introduced a grants scheme, contending that it merely constituted a kick in the teeth for them at this juncture. I am sure it is very pleasant for a Minister to call a press conference announcing the introduction of grants. Probably this is the most insensitive grants scheme that could have been devised at this time. For example, the stipulation is that the minimum amount of money that can be expended in order to qualify for eligibility is £5,000. I might point out to the House that some north County Dublin producers will not even have an income of £5,000 this year because of the disastrously dry summer and the huge quantity of imports there were during this summer also.
Surely the Deputy is not suggesting we should not have introduced a grants scheme?
I am not contending a grants scheme should not have been introduced but, in doing so, the Minister should have taken into account the circumstances of glasshouse growers over the past few years and the capacity of small growers to avail of the provisions of this scheme.
The grants scheme will cater for the cooling facilities necessary.
The scheme appears to be fine, its object being to meet the capital costs of providing facilities and equipment for the use of natural gas, modernising and upgrading of existing greenhouses but excluding repairs. I would point out to the House that all these growers can do at present is repair their glasshouses. They have not got the type of capital in hand to enable them to avail of the provisions of this scheme. They have not got the capital to upgrade and modernise their glasshouses. The most they can do is replace panes of glass and maintain some paint on the wooden structures. Another objective of the scheme is the replacement of obsolete glasshouses which are not suitable for modernising, towards which producers wll get perhaps 25 to 30 per cent of the cost involved.
The final objective of the scheme is the construction of new glasshouses. What producers in north County Dublin tell me is that this grants scheme will be fine for large producers, like the Minister's friends, who will have the capacity or ability to open up, say, between ten and 20 acres in order to meet the criterion of 60 additional acres of glasshouse construction.
Incidentally, in the circular letter dated August 1989 from the Office of Horticulture, Department of Agriculture and Food, it is said that, as soon as 70 acres have been upgraded and 60 acres of additional greenhouses have been constructed the scheme will be terminated, that is, if work is completed before 31 July 1994. Probably there are two or three large producers who alone could mop up the 70 acres to be upgraded and the 60 acres of additional greenhouses to be constructed. I do not believe that was the Minister's aim in initiating this scheme. It is my belief that it was his intent to help the producers with one or two acres to upgrade their greenhouses. The provisions of this scheme, as set out, will not help them. I defy the Minister to point out to this House any application of any substance received from small growers in north County Dublin, the seat of the horticultural industry.
I am glad to assure the Deputy that there are quite a few applications under consideration.
The provisions of this scheme miss the point totally about the introduction of natural gas in north County Dublin. In the course of the 1987 general election the Minister for Justice and Communications, who represents my constituency also, made much of telling all glasshouse producers in north County Dublin that they would receive natural gas. He predicted they would all be on the pig's back in no time at all. He contended the Dutch producers would not have a chance because, shortly after Fianna Fáil had been re-elected there would be gas installed in all the glasshouses.
Great gas.
I can tell the Minister there is nobody taking up the offer of that gas except perhaps the original group, in the first 50 acres or so, who were promised installation free of charge. That is what happened. A scheme was devised for people with heated glasshouses which meant that the first applicants, representing the first 50 acres or so, who submitted their applications early had the gas installed into their glasshouses. After that producers were left to their own initiative. Does the Minister of State have any idea how much that installation costs? It is all very well to give grants for the installation of equipment in order to use the gas but what if it costs £3,000 to £15,000 to take the gas across a field from the nearest connection point? There is no hope of a glasshouse grower being able to incur that type of expenditure. I contend the provisions of this grants scheme do not allow them apply for any assistance whatsoever in having the gas brought from the nearest available connection point, on the main road or wherever, to their greenhouses.
The gas appears to have been brought into north County Dublin in a most arbitrary fashion without any logical planning or thought having been given to it. When the Coalition Government were in office the gas pipeline northwards was ceased for good reasons but obviously because the present Minister for Justice and Communications wanted to fulfil his pre-election promises, with much publicity in the papers, this scheme was devised. I am quite sure the Minister of State saw the various maps with little lines drawn showing where the gas pipeline would be sited. That was all nonsense because those lines no longer exist. People cannot avail of the gas in the requisite quantities. They cannot afford to have it brought onto their properties.
Bord Gáis personnel working out in north County Dublin — although I know they will not publicly admit to this — are saying to growers there: "Look, this is totally uneconomic; we do not think we should be engaged in this but we were ordered to do so". There was no thought put into how and where this network would be installed or operated in north County Dublin. Let me give the House an example. One grower was sufficiently lucky to have lodged his application in time. His land was located one and a half miles from the nearest connection point. There was not anything between him and the nearest connection point. Nobody else could avail of the pipeline as it meandered across the fields of north County Dublin. That grower had the gas installed at a minimum cost of £50,000. He was lucky because he happened to be a grower who submitted his application with the first batch. Nobody else can gain from that one and a half mile extension. There are no spurs off it at all, because there is nobody else within the vicinity in need of it. Yet, another poor unfortunate grower, very close to the source, must find £3,000 or £4,000 himself. At present the asking rate to carry the pipeline across one field is approximately £3,000 to £4,000. The figure appears to vary; there is no consistency with regard to it. For example, one grower will be offered installation at a price of, say, £3,000 while another will be offered a price of £4,000 but, if he bargains, the price may well be dropped back to £3,000. It is all totally arbitrary.
I appeal to the Minister to convene a meeting with Bord Gáis and some north County Dublin growers in order to ascertain how that natural gas can be utilised to best economic advantage by the growers there. The provisions of the grant scheme must be extended to allow them to be reimbursed their installation costs. I contend they should receive 100 per cent by way of grant to enable them have the gas brought to their glasshouses. Thereafter, they can instal the necessary equipment themselves. This is a facility which is being sold from the rooftops. Yet these growers cannot avail of it.
The pricing pattern is totally inconsistent also. For example, some growers are getting the gas for 21 pence per therm, some for 30 pence while others must pay 45 pence a therm. Nobody appears to be able to point to a consistent scale of fees. For example, nobody appears to be able to say: if you want to use 100,000 therms at present it will cost you 21 pence per therm. There does not appear to be any proper price sliding scale. In turn, this means that a grower cannot estimate his running costs if he incurs expenditure on installation.
Very few growers in north County Dublin have availed of the natural gas facility to date and there will be even fewer henceforth. They have told me they cannot possibly afford its installation. This means wastage of a huge amount of public money expended on the necessary infrastructure which will not be utilised. It is the Minister's responsibility to ensure that public moneys are not wasted. With that in mind the Minister must see his way to extending the provisions of the grant scheme devised, thereby enabling Bord Gáis to provide natural gas to the growers of north County Dublin.
There has been much said about the marketing of horticultural products, it being contended that, if the marketing aspect is properly dealt with, everything else will fall into place. I agree that to date the marketing of horticultural produce has been very slipshod. The growers themselves admit that they are somewhat to blame for this. Some years ago north Dublin growers established a co-operative system or grouping which appeared to be the infrastructural answer for the whole of that area, encompassing Rush, Lusk, Skerries, Balbriggan, all tremendous horticultural areas with great potential. Unfortunately that effort collapsed. The growers themselves were partly to blame because when they received attractive offers they were not always loyal to their groups but went off and reaped the better price. I have a certain sympathy with them. Most are small producers with families to rear and educate. Probably that type of co-operative effort is the way forward for many smaller growers, assuring them a secure market.
It must be remembered that the retailers and supermarkets have a part to play also in marketing. We should be initiating a concerted national campaing to have our people buy Irish produce. I know the first thing I will be told is that under the EC rules we are not allowed to have a specific buy Irish campaign, but there are more ways than one of skinning a cat. The French, Germans and Dutch have found ways to make sure their people buy their own produce. Surely we can take a leaf out of their books and get Irish people to buy Irish produce. There should be communication with all the major supermarkets and retailers, particularly the fruit and vegetable retailers — there are a number of people who specialise in that area — and they should be told to go all out to make Irish produce on the shelves more attractive, more available and more visible so that the consumer buys them.
I would like to correct something that has been said over and over again here today — that it is only housewives who buy fruit and vegetables. If the Minister accompanies me to any big shop in north County Dublin any Saturday he will find at least an equal proportion of male shoppers doing the weekly shopping. We are not just appealing to the housewives but to consumers generally, from young people living in flats, male and female, to old age pensioners who do their own shopping. The marketing has to appeal to all of these people from the point of view of diet, appearance and price.
Sad to say, for the last two years and four months of the existing advisory board, I cannot mention any area where I feel they have effectively changed the position from what it was two and a half years ago. With regard to marketing, the dice are fully loaded against individual growers. For example, I have been told that a grower will sell a bag of potatoes at £2 to the retailer and they might be sold in the supermarket at £4.20. All the risk is taken by the grower: if the supermarket does not sell all the potatoes the grower will not get paid or the unsold potatoes will be returned to him. He has to take the risk all the time. Somewhere along the line somebody else should share the risk, and that has to be looked at very seriously.
We will not solve the problems of seasonality and supply until the standard of glasshouses has been raised. One of the growers in north County Dublin got figures from the Department which show that there are about 400 acres under glass in this country. I suspect that a very high percentage is in the area from the airport to the Dublin border in north County Dublin. There are approximately 17,000 acres under glass in Holland but not all of it is used for horticultural products; some is used for flowers, such as tulips and daffodils which are grown in large numbers there. How can the Irish producer match that? How can he be competitive or produce the goods in the quantities the market requires when that kind of gap exists? There is not just the gap of acreage but the quality of the glass.
At present I do not think it is possible to find glass in Holland that is more than ten years old. Practically every bit of glass in north County Dublin is nearly 20 years old. Our people have not the facility or the capacity to improve the glasshouses because of under-funding for far too long. I accept that our Government did not do much in this regard either. There was not enough understanding as regards this market and this industry when we entered the EC. We were very complacent. The Dutch, Spanish and others came in and took over because our producers had not been given the necessary aid. As I said, the quality of the glasshouses is utter rubbish in most instances.
I have been a representative in north County Dublin for ten years and sadly I have seen the graveyards of ruined glasshouses in Rush, Lusk and other places. Dublin County Council receive planning applications every month from former growers begging for planning premission for what were glasshouse sites. The best land and the best facilities are gone to ruin and all these people can do now to make a living is look for planning permission to build houses on what were long, beautiful vistas of glasshouses. These sites are now derelict with bits of old wood and broken glass, and it is sad beyond words to see what happened there.
When I was talking about upgrading the grant scheme I forgot to mention that at present very few glasshouse owners have cold storage facilities. We should incorporate in the grant scheme some form of aid, even in a grouping system, to allow these people to provide some kind of cold storage. I do not believe cold storage is the newest of technology; I understand that in Holland most of the glasshouses are now equipped with a machine that blasts cold air at strategic times, whether during the early morning sun or the afternoon sun, to keep the ripening process slowed down. If the tomatoes get too much sun, the insides will ripen and they may be green or yellow on the outside. Putting them into cold storage does not stop the ripening process. The inside of the tomato will already be ripened and will rot while the outside will still look all right. We should look at these new forms of technology and make them available under the grant scheme.
The Minister has provided facilities and equipment for natural gas and the replacement of greenhouses not suitable for modernising, but he has made no provision for cold storage or chilling facilities. The growers have told me that this year in particular the early morning sun ripened the inside of their produce and by midday or the next day they had to dump tonnes of tomatoes. The quality of the glasshouses in Holland allows for a yield of 180 tonnes to 200 tonnes per acre whereas the Irish yield, at the top of the scale — and very few people would get this — is 120 tonnes to 130 tonnes per acre. We are not at the races when it comes to competing with a country like Holland.
Other people have spoken about imports but there is one point I did not hear anybody else raise, that is, irradiated produce coming from Spain, Holland and elsewhere. The growers are concerned about this because irradiated products look more attractive. I do not believe the irradiation process does any damage to the products but it gives an unfair advantage to the foreign products. Irradiation is not carried out here, as far as I know. There is concern and a lot of ignorance about the irradiation process. It behoves the Minister to come to grips with this new form of preservation. He should open up the debate on it. He should assure consumers that there is nothing wrong with irradiated products and assure growers that imports will not get an unfair advantage. These exporting countries can bring in their strawberries early because they have been irradiated and look beautiful, red, plump and ripe, while the Irish strawberries are still three or four weeks from being ripe. The Minister needs to get to grips with that problem.
Finally, I will sum up some remedies. The grant scheme is good but it is in no way relevant to the growers I represent in north County Dublin and who the Minister should be representing. It helps the big growers but not the small growers. I invite the Minister to meet some of these people who are not political. One or two of them actually said they vote for Fianna Fáil but they were not supportive of the Minister's project. The Minister should talk to these people rather than just talking to the big guys because he is getting a misleading picture of what is happening to the small growers who are the backbone of this industry.
I will give another example to the demise of the industry. A bank closed recently in Rush, County Dublin, because it was doing no business. The horticultural industry had been the backbone of that bank. The Agricultural Credit Corporation closed their doors in Swords because there was not enough business. We have to look behind these closures and ask what were the real reasons. I would ask the Minister to ponder on that.
Marketing has to be improved. The Minister could, with the advisory board, get to grips with marketing. I do not think this Bill is going to do what the Minister thinks. It will move the structures further from the people involved in the horticultural industry. There must be diversification and, if necessary, we should provide grant aid to enable farmers to grow the vegetables the consumer is looking for, such as courgettes, aubergines and other more exotic vegetables. It is not necessary to go to New Zealand or Spain to get these vegetables. They can be grown here and they should be grown here in the quantities required.
As my colleague, Deputy Farrelly, said, we have to assist this industry but not in isolation from the other sectors of agriculture. In order to make a living some of our horticultural producers have to maintain other small farm enterprises. Following the completion of the internal market in 1992, there will be a greater need, as Deputy Farrelly said, to have an integrated programme to cut down on transport costs. If good quality mushrooms, tomatoes and other vegetables are being produced in an area it should be possible to market them together. If we isolate the horticultural industry from the other sectors of agriculture we will do it damage. The Minister needs to go back to the drawing board. I do not know who the draftsman was but I do not think he did the Minister a good service.
In my view this Bill is woolly and undefined. It is far too dangerous in that it gives the Minister many powers and does not specify the powers which this board will have. It also contains undisclosed charges, levies, duties and we do not know who will have to pay them or where they will have to be paid. There is nothing specific in the Bill. There is no way I could go out to a grower and say that he is going to be charged one penny a tonne or one penny a box. There is nothing in the Bill which will enable me to turn around and say that £200,000 a year is going to be provided which will be used specifically to market their product. There is nothing in the Bill which I can get my teeth into. I am afraid, therefore, I have to say that it amounts to a bit of window dressing which was promised in the programme for Government and which has to be delivered. It just will not do. I am disappointed for the Minister because I know he has experience in this industry. I thought if anybody could bring in a Bill which would be effective it is he but I am afraid he has been sold a pup and that this is not the answer to the problem facing the horticultural industry at present.
I compliment the Minister for bringing this Bill before the House. I think we would all agree that it is time that the production, processing and marketing of our fruit and vegetables was better regulated. I also think we would all agree that the achievement of the industry have been anything but impressive. Of course, there have been exceptions. The mushroom industry, which was referred to earlier, has a special record of success and it would be an understatement to say that it is going from strength to strength. There has been tremendous expansion in that industry, especially in County Monaghan and in adjoining counties to a lesser extent. In the fifties and sixties mushrooms were grown in boxes in sheds. It was big business at one time when they were mainly grown for the domestic market though even at that stage mushrooms were exported from my own area via Belfast. However, it no longer became profitable to grow mushrooms once other sectors of agriculture, such as milk production, began to be developed.
Once mushrooms began to be grown in plastic bags in plastic tunnels, this industry became a real success story. On the last occasion I spoke on an agricultural debate I warned the Minister of the serious problems which could arise if the development of the mushroom industry was not closely monitored. Let me give some idea of the rate at which this industry has developed. The local authorities receive all planning applications. This week alone my own local authority received 12 applications for the erection of plastic tunnels for the growing of mushrooms. That is about the weekly average — we also receive applications for the erection of poultry and turkey houses — and it compares very favourably with the position in other local authority areas which seem to receive only applications for extensions to houses. It is also an indication of the confidence in the industry and confidence is what is needed when one goes out and spends large sums of money to get involved in what is an unknown field for many people. Many of the people who are getting involved in this industry have left jobs or have been made redundant and use their redundancy money to set up two or three house units. Another yardstick with which to judge any industry is the ease with which a bank manager will hand out between £20,000 and £30,000 following a request for funds. It seems that mushroom growers come away from a bank with a smile on their faces, unlike many others.
I live adjacent to a village and within a half a mile to three quarters of a mile of that village there are 34 plastic tunnels owned by eight growers. Not alone do they manage to keep the women of the village in work — where there are 70 council houses — but they also employ people from other towns as part time pickers. That is the best answer I could give to Deputy Sheehan who was so critical of the mushroom industry earlier on. In the same village 300 people are employed by the Grove turkey enterprise. As can be seen, putting the two together, the people of that area find themselves in a favourable position.
I am happy to say that I was very closely associated with the early development of the mushroom industry in County Monaghan, not by way of providing finance but by being of assistance when they wished to get in contact with Government Departments or agencies. Let me point out that ten years ago there were very few people willing to give them a hand and they found themselves on their own. They have made a terrific job of it. It is now a success story. Ten years ago 6,500 tonnes of mushrooms were grown with a value of £5.9 million. This figure has now risen to 22,400 tonnes with a value of £25.7 million. To give an indication of the size of our exports, over the same period exports have arisen from a figure of 4,800 tonnes with a value of £2.7 million to 13,100 tonnes with a value of £17.15 million. It is projected that production will increase to 42,000 tonnes by 1992.
The programme for development of agriculture projects that the export of fresh mushrooms will increase to 30,000 tonnes in 1992 and that the export of processed mushrooms will come to 3,000 tonnes. The processing plant in Monaghan has given terrific employment on a continual basis. Because a processing plant is attached to the fresh mushroom market, growers are in the happy position that surplus produce can be processed and are assured of a good price for their produce. It is expected that by 1992 an additional investment of £27,000 will be required, and if that is not a commitment, I do not know what is. With this investment it is expected that employment will reach in excess of 2,000. There is a very high labour content in this industry.
In case I am accused of being parochial, I would like to refer to the mushroom park in Claremorris. This is a very good example of co-operation between private industry and a farmers' co-operative, which is different from the Monaghan venture. This plant is generating additional income for farm families and provides valuable full time and part time employment. This is the type of industry we need to improve not alone our economic position but the social life in the disadvantaged areas.
Apart from the mushroom industry we have had no major success in horticulture over the past decade. However, during the past year vegetable production has increased by 5.5 per cent and fruit production by 7 per cent. While this increase is not of great magnitude, it shows that we are on the road back to reducing imports. Efforts have been made down through the years to improve the position. In 1986 the Fianna Fáil Party, then in Opposition, published a policy document setting out what was needed to bring about a co-ordinated and effective development of agriculture. The central thrust of the document was the setting up of a body, Bord Glas, to take the development work on hand. I would like to pay tribute to the Minister, because he travelled widely, north and south of the Border to see things at first hand. Indeed I accompanied the Minister on a few occasions, we went to see tomato growing in County Wexford and cabbage production and apple production in Thomastown, County Kilkenny. Indeed we were very impressed with the work of fruit importers and distributors in that area. It was a revelation to see the system and method of growing and harvesting the apples, which were then taken to be stored and dried.
The scheme brought forth in the Bill is very effective. I am glad to see that there is no question of duplication of services between Bord Glas and Teagasc but that they will work closely. Of course, there will have to be close co-operation between all the bodies involved. Producers are entitled to expect help from the State with research and investment but there is a serious obligation on them — and obligation might not be a strong enough word — if the State is providing the structures and funding to assist them. What we need more than anything else is better co-operation between producers. We have seen examples of this type of co-operation in the dairy industry. However, one would have to be critical of the fact that the small producers' share was not increased. Indeed the poultry industry is a very good example, because the producers now have well organised production and marketing and this was done without any State subvention to the primary producer for stock, housing or equipment. There is confidence in the industry and we have major expansion in both broiler and turkey numbers. The industry is now moving towards downstream production and a vast number of products using turkey meat as a base have been developed which have terrific export potential. There are also signs of co-operation in the sheep industry, but it is not very evident in the beef cattle industry. Beef producers are suffering at present because they did not get their act together. There has been much talk over the years about forming producer groups to monitor calf to beef numbers but nothing very much happened. However, in no sector more than horticulture is the lack of producer co-operation more evident. At least in the area of livestock and dairying there is a good level of information available and there is a fair degree of estimation of returns in the market place. In horticulture there is neither co-operation nor indeed any worthwhile estimation of the way supplies are going to develop.
Various people have mentioned the potato industry. I have spoken on this subject on a continual basis since I came to the Dáil but during that time there has been a continual reduction in the production of ware and seed potatoes. The massive imports of frozen chips in the early eighties was nothing short of a national scandal. In 1987 82,000 tonnes of frozen produce at a cost of £13 million was imported. At present imports are about a third of that figure but if there is a bag of ware potatoes imported, it is a bag too many. There was a very good article on potatoes in the farm and food magazine which indicated that there is a valuable export seed market. After the war a very valuable export market was built up for seed potatoes from Donegal, Galway, Roscommon, Louth and Monaghan. Together with grass seed it was the principal cash crop for the small farmer.
Good quality storage facilities are very necessary for potato production. I am glad to see that Bord Glas are looking very closely at that. Unless we have storage capacity for 80,000 to 90,000 tonnes there is not much hope for the proper development of the ware potato market. Twenty years ago I was involved with a co-operative which exported seed potatoes to the Canary Islands, Spain and Israel. At that time we had massive storage facilities for ware and seed potatoes. I spent ten days with the Irish Potato Marketing Board officials and growers in Scotland. Since then I have always claimed that if we want to make real progress in the production of ware potatoes we will have to have proper storage facilities. There is also an urgent need for continuing research into new varieties of potatoes, especially for processing purposes. Some years ago a processing plant was erected in the northern part of the country but the type of potato used was not suitable for processing.
I want to refer to distribution and marketing. We have to get our marketing in seed potatoes right. Our record as a disease-free, seed producing country should enable us to make progress in this area. Mention has been made of the quality of potatoes. One of the greatest failures in this regard was the disloyalty of producers in respect of the contracts they signed and as a result we have had large imports over the past decade.
Potato yields vary very much depending on weather conditions and except in respect of early potatoes I do not know of any case where potato producers have made an attempt to get together to co-ordinate the marketing of their products. This co-ordination is very necessary. Potato producers should know well that if Irish potatoes are not up to the proper standards there is a ready supply available from other countries. We are back to the position where the consumer is always right and we have to produce the proper product at the proper price and present it properly if we want to attract custom. If An Bord Glas do nothing else but succeed in putting the potato industry on a better footing they will have done a very good day's work.
Many improvements are possible in potato production in the areas of sowing, attention to the growing crop and harvesting. I should like An Bord Glas, Teagasc, the IFA and other interested groups, to get together in an effort to increase awareness among potato producers of what they need to do to make their crops more profitable both to them and the country as a whole. We have a tradition in potato production and it is ridiculous that we should have to depend continuously on massive imports of potatoes and other vegetables. The improvement in our marketing and the setting up of producer groups mentioned by the Minister should be taken very much to heart by anybody who is interested in improving his income from horticulture. It is generally accepted at present that there should be an effective structure for producers. I am not a bit concerned whether there are five, ten or 15 such groups; I just want them to take the idea on board, to set up such a structure and to give it a try. Any primary producers who got together with that type of attitude always benefited by it, and every support possible should be given to this concept.
Section 9, which deals with State investment in horticulture, allows An Bord Glas to consult with other State bodies connected with that kind of investment. Rather than allowing An Bord Glas to consult with other bodies would it not be better to put the onus for consultation on the other bodies? This would mean that when any proposals on horticulture came from the Industrial Development Authority or other bodies they would have to consult An Bord Glas. I am sure the IDA do this on a regular basis already. This type of consultation is very necessary and I suggest that the Minister should amend the section as I suggested.
I was glad to hear from the Minister that Exchequer funding would be made available for An Bord Glas. Section 11 of the Bill provides that An Bord Glas may charge for services. There was uproar here this morning about charging for services, but I do not have any criticism of this proposal——
It may be too much.
If we implement a levy under any heading which helps business I do not see anything wrong with it. When advisers are needed they have to be paid but once a levy is mentioned — perhaps we could use some other word — people do not like it because they think they have a God given right for the State to give them everything for nothing. I would not get very hot and bothered about the introduction of a levy.
The Bill also provides that different rates of levies may be prescribed in respect of different classes of persons liable to pay a levy. I am completely happy with this provision. Nobody likes to pay a levy if he can avoid it. On the other hand, if An Bord Glas are as successful as we all hope and expect them to be, many of the benefits of their work will be reflected in better returns to producers and others connected with horticulture. It is only fair that there should be some contribution in respect of these increased returns.
At present our single greatest need in the production sector is job creation. The production of fruit and vegetables provides a good opportunity especially for small farmers who can use it as an alternative enterprise. The small family farm scene has changed significantly since the introduction of the milk quota in 1983. At that time farmers in my constituency who had 15 cows were looking forward to the day when they would have 30 cows, but this idea was nipped in the bud. At that time I lobbied as much as I could to get a better deal for the small producers in the Connacht/Ulster area whom I believed were entitled to more. I have no hesitation in saying that large producers — in the couple of hundred gallons a day net — should not have been given practically the same conditions as the small 20-30 gallons a day producers. With the introduction of the milk quota in 1983 and the fall off in profits in store and beef cattle in later years, the farming scene was changed completely.
There has been much talk about alternative farm enterprises. This proposal has been discussed at various levels and mention has been made of deer farming, rabbit production and goat production both for angora wool and milk. I do not think close examination was given to the drawing up of that list. When we examine most of these projects we can see they are not the answer. Those projects may augment in some small way the income of small farmers but they are not the answer; the answer lies in more production of fruit and vegetables. If the small family farm is to continue in the Connacht/Ulster region and if the population there is not to be reduced, every possible enterprise suitable for small farmers must be examined in depth. As I have said in this House many times, 1,000 extra jobs could be created in potato production alone and thousands of extra jobs in the fruit and vegetables sector. In Leitrim, Laird Brothers have been taken over by Food Industries who are now looking for producers and growers of soft foods. The prices they are offering should attract many people to become involved in this production over the next few years.
The Minister referred to nursery stock. He said that not alone could we expand into Europe but that Ireland would have a stake in the garden festivals in Tokyo. Clones is probably the town that has suffered most because of the Border; there is not a filling station open and this town has a population of three or four thousand. The committee there have costed a garden festival project. This is a very ambitious scheme on which they have spent a lot of money from private subscriptions. Garden festivals are taking over in Europe and outside it, and Clones, because of the work they have put into it can stake a claim to be the first for consideration as a garden festival centre. Those who visited the ones in Birmingham and Glasgow tell me that the amount of imports of nursery plants etc. was massive. They brought back some of the catalogues and I saw them for myself. There is a great opportunity for developing horticulture through those garden festivals.
The last speaker and others mentioned tomatoes. I welcome the new scheme of grants for glass house growers, in particular for heating, because in the last few years the tomato market has almost completely slipped out of the hands of the Irish producer and this happened because heating costs were so high. New systems have been introduced and there is now grant aid for changing over to solid fuel. It is to be hoped that this will involve a greater labour content. There is no tomato production in Northern Ireland. There is no doubt that tomato growers in north Dublin would have very easy access to Belfast for their produce, provided they do not go by train. I welcome this development. I hope the growers will get involved and seize the opportunity.
We must produce a quality article. The last speaker mentioned the problem we faced in the last year. We had this problem of excessive heat in regard to mushrooms and in regard to other fruit and vegetables but it was a freak year and while we all like to see a year like that, I take it every year will not be as hot.
Much has been said about the composition of the board. A speaker yesterday said that every producer group would have to be included on the board. I cannot accept that. It cannot be the case that every man must have his finger in the pie. We need men with the capacity, the proper outlook, the initiative to make it work. We need people with business acumen on boards. My idea of a board would be to select the best of our entrepreneurs and set them on the committee. In producer groups one does not get the best they have on the committee because usually it is the people who are available who go on committees. The type of men we want to attract are those who have too much to do for themselves. I appeal to the Minister, when setting up this board, to keep in mind people who have the capacity to do the job, people with the entrepreneurial skills to make a go of it because, in all probability, we will not get another chance. We have to make an all out effort at this time to create competence. Where there are enterprising people this will brush off on the workers and there will be no labour problems. I have found that areas with good labour relations do not get the recognition they deserve as instanced by the closure of a factory in Monaghan that never had a man out on the road in their lives.
There are a few other points I would like to make. I am sorry that the spokesman on agriculture who was here yesterday is not here at present because I thought his contribution was as negative as it could be and I believe he was not speaking for the farmers in his own county. Before he came on the scene I represented a part of Meath where they are growing potatoes at present and I have met those people since. I know their thinking on An Bord Glas and on co-operation to improve the lot of the growers in County Meath and those other counties that are concerned. That speaker yesterday is wide of the mark when he says that there is no confidence in this board. It is a pity that anyone would have a negative approach. This speaker read a letter from the chairman of the horticultural committee, a man who was represented on this interim committee here and on some of the commodity teams and that man saw fit to write a letter aimed at trying to scuttle the setting up of something that is fundamental to the many small producers of mushrooms etc. I am disappointed that a chairman of a horticultural committee would try to scuttle a Bill before it went through the House, and I am sorry to have to finish on that note. The Bill we are discussing is necessary and essential unless we want to continue bringing in millions of pounds worth of produce which we are well able to produce here where we have the climate, the work force, all that is required. An Bord Glas and the Department of Agriculture and Food are going to give additional support to make this a real success story.
First I am delighted to see a day in the Dáil given over to horticulture. I cannot remember one such day in all the years I have been here. The industry deserves that. I always find it hard to disagree with Deputy Leonard when he speaks on matters such as this because he obviously has a great grasp of it, but I am afraid the wavelengths will divide this time. I see problems for this board and I hope I will not take up too much of the time of the House going through some of them. It is important that this vital sector of the agricultural industry is dealt with in great detail in the House. It is worth noting that on a Friday when most people, including the media, believed there would be very few Members present to debate this topic, many Deputies are anxious to contribute and that the debate will continue for the rest of the day. That is an indication of the interest the horticultural industry generates amoung Members. I am delighted that is the case.
The Bill appears to be a very clever device to extract levies from growers in return for uncertain and unspecified benefits in the area of marketing and general co-ordination. Great expectations were build up prior to the 1987 general election by Fianna Fáil on the aspect of the sectoral developments, particularly in the area of food processing, horticulture, forestry and marine development. The results in any of those sectors are not encouraging. Certainly, in food processing and horticulture there was not any great improvement. Of course, all the right things were said, the various commissions sat and their reports were presented. We heard about the development of natural indigenous resources, increased employment, the need to provide housewives with good quality fresh fruit and vegetables at a competitive price and the need to substitute imported products where possible. The case was handled very professionally for the media and most people looked forward to the day when those policies would be pursued.
I accept that the Minister of State has a personal interest in this sector and nobody can deny that his heart is in the right place in regard to it. However, we can only gauge progress as we see it and in my view the Government have not met the criteria they laid down for themselves in 1987. As a nation we will be importing 55 per cent of our fruit and vegetables this year. I accept that we cannot grow certain types of fruit and vegetables and that it will always be necessary to import them but it is appalling to think that we must import 55 per cent of our fruit and vegetables. The vegetables that are in common use, such as onions, can be grown in most Irish soil, from the boglands to the rich deep claylands. There is no reason why we cannot grow more vegetables. There must be something wrong with our system.
I must acknowledge that various Governments have tried to grapple with this problem and that none of them have met with any great success. This Government are no different. If I could be persuaded that the new board would come up with the answers I would support the decision to establish it but I have seen too much in the last five years to allow myself to be taken in on this issue. The only people who are totally unmoved by all the propaganda are the growers. I must acknowledge that mushroom development is the jewel in the crown. It has been an outstanding success and that sector has progressed extremely well in the past two years. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the need to establish producer groups and I acknowledge that the concept is correct. A grower operating on his or her own has no more chance of succeeding than a snowball has in hell. However, I have always noticed that what is important in such groups, whether this is an aspect of the Irish mentality or our character I do not know, is that there be a great motivating factor to keep the members together. That is not always apparent to the members of the groups. Many of the Teagasc advisers took a great interest in organising such producer groups but we all know what has happened to them. When the Minister of State was doing his best for horticulture his senior Minister was decimating Teagasc to such an extent that in several areas people do not know where to go to when looking for an adviser. In fact, it is time that the Department ceased using the term "local adviser" because they are located so far away from most farmers that they could not be described as local.
I accept what Deputy Leonard has said about charges or levies. I do not see anything wrong with insisting on a certain contribution from the primary producers provided the Department agree to do certain things. I understood that developments such as changing the interim board and so on would have been done in conjunction with Teagasc, an organisation that has been involved in the advisory and research side of horticulture. I understood that there would have been a type of integration between them and the proposed board. I can only assume that we will not be seeing a doubling of the agricultural advisory service. All acknowledge that that will not happen. We are all aware that charges have been imposed on farmers for certain types of advice. Some farmers are well able to pay for that advice and I do not deny that but there are many of the type referred to by Deputy Leonard, small farmers, who are not in a position to pay anything.
It is my view that when the new board is established and financial provision is made for the producer groups there will be a cry for co-ordinators. Those co-ordinators cannot come from Teagasc because that organisation do not have any. In fact, at Teagasc there is no adviser with overall responsibility for horticulture. So much for their contribution to horticulture. I accept that was not a decision Teagasc took lightly; they have been forced into this position. If the budget of any organisation is slashed by 40 per cent there will be problems, the bits will fly and certainly they have flown as far as that organisation are concerned. I am sorry to have to say that because I have a great affinity with the advisory service. They have carried out their task admirably.
It is my view that within six months of the new board being established we will be told who will be asked to pay the levies and at what level. My central criticism of the Bill is that it is unfair to ask politicians to buy a pig in a poke. I cannot ascertain from the Bill who will be paying the levies.
Other State boards charge levies.
I am aware of that but I want to know who will be asked to pay levies, at what pitch they will be levelled and how they will be collected. I do not think it is reasonable to ask politicians to accept the Bill when that information is not made available to them. I was a member of a producer group some years ago and I am aware of how they operate. I accept that efforts are being made to organise sheep farmers and beef producers into such groups. Modern trends demand that people should be involved in such groups for their own benefit but I cannot see how the producer group concept will work as well as the Minister of State expects unless co-ordinators are appointed. It is likely then that somebody on the board will start to cry that they need extra staff, and staff will be provided, but the Exchequer will not come up trumps. When Teagasc is cut 40 per cent you could not convince them that the Exchequer will not come to the aid of An Bord Glas. I cannot see that happening. That is why I have a double edged suspicion that we are now looking at a new system of levies. Maybe in better times the whole industry can take it.
I have heard many speakers, both here and over the monitor, saying there is an opening for horticultural development in many of the small farming areas, and the big farming areas for that matter, but we will confine ourselves to the small men and women involved in agriculture. If it turns out that there is undue reliance on their financial commitment, you are going to frighten them away before they start.
How will the board organise the collection of the levies? Will it be done by producers at production level? Will it be done at the retail outlet? What about imported produce? Obviously, that will have to get the hammer. Are we within our rights in the EC system, its laws and regulations, in putting a levy — if that is what it is called — on imported produce? Whatever about putting a levy on our own people, it would be wrong if we were to allow imported produce as direct competition for our own while we are carrying a levy they are not. I would like the Minister to clarify that.
A matter was mentioned here a few times today — I know there is some repetition and I will not delay the House — but if you have a very widespread levy system, there are many players on the chessboard in horticulture unfortunately, because these are many layers of people. So far as the levies are concerned, it might happen that certain interests will be paying levies that in their view are disproportionate to what they believe other sectors will be paying. If it turns out, for instance, that the levy is imposed at the point of sale to the consumer, then all of a sudden the supermarket chains and others in that system will say that because they are spending a great deal of money they are entitled to a big say in what happens. If that happens there will be less chance of the small producer everyone here is so worried about. He will have no say or very little say.
The Minister has brought in a Bill — possibly in good faith, I have no doubt about that — which is riddled with great dangers. That is why many of the producers at the moment are looking at it with raised eyebrows. I do not think it is the answer to the problems the Minister thinks it is.
I have no hangup about a board as such. I will not stay up at night worrying about them. Some boards work and some do not, but with the present infrastructure in horticulture, I am led to believe it will turn out that certain sectors will be seen to be paying this levy, if it is levied as I think it is going to be, and they will demand a bigger say in what is happening — and they will not be the primary producers as far as I can see.
On the basis of voting strength, this Bill will come into law. That is parliamentary democracy but for that very reason, when the Government are deciding on the ten members, I will accept that those people should be there only because of their expertise. I have no hangup about that either, but I hope sincerely that there will be a balance on the board, that the voices of the people at the coal-face, the people who have to pick the mushrooms in the middle of the night and do all the work with the tomatoes and so on, will be heard on that board. The whole marketing strategy must be looked at. The Minister dwelt on that at the beginning of his speech at great length.
When we talk about marketing, what are we talking about? As has always been so, down the years, if one bag of carrots appeared on the market to be over-produced, in other words if there was one bag of carrots too many, it had a detrimental effect in the sense that we had a huge reduction in price right across the board. Horticulture has been bedevilled with that. Many people pointed out here today and yesterday that that is the greatest single problem we have. Indications lead me to believe that maybe we are beginning to overcome this problem. I am talking about various producer groups, who have a direct access, a direct negotations systems, with some of our larger supermarket chains. That is to be highly recommended. It will be very tough for them any time they deal at that level, and if the product is not right, if it is not at the right price or delivered on time when the supermarket owner wants it — say 4 p.m. not 4.05 p.m. — it will not be successful. It is difficult to get that message across in horticultural circles, or in any other circles.
My colleague, Deputy Owen mentioned selling and promoting Irish. I support that, but from my experience in the consumer world, I believe you would not want to rely too much on patriotism to sell our products in the supermarkets. We must ensure that our products are displayed in a very prominent position so that shoppers cannot but see them. There must be value for money as seen by the consumer. The product must be well presented, that is, it must be of good quality, wholesome and seen as a good, health giving food which we still produce and I hope we will maintian that standard. Above all else, our products must be at a price that can compete with any imports. We believe that just because a product is Irish it should be bought and not for any other reason, it will not be sold. That is another characteristic we might not like but the sooner everybody involved learns the meaning of that, the more produce we will be able to sell and at the end of the day the better it will be for the primary producer.
I have said that the jewel in the crown was mushroom growing. When the mushroom industry started ten years ago it was treated in the public perception in the same way as, say, deer farming and goat farming is now treated. Many people made a laugh out of it saying that that was all right for a certain type of individual who would not do conventional farming in any event. All that has changed. The great thing about mushroom growing is that it requires very little land. It is usually done on many small farms as a supplement to the normal farming practice and, most important, it is providing a job for the son or daughter who decides to stay at home. They run that activity as an individual project. I consider that to be extremely important. There are a few problems beginning to develop and I hope the Minister will take note of them. I hope too that the board, if they get off the ground, will also take note of them.
Many people, and rightly so, are getting worried about the huge expansion in the last couple of years in the growing of mushrooms. We have had this expansion in sheep and I hope we will have it in cattle. As soon as a lot of people get in on the act it becomes a major marketing problem. When it comes to looking for markets — and this is another fault I find with the board — I am convinced that the people who are most likely to succeed in the hard-nosed marketing decisions the hell holes of Europe, in competition with the best salesmen in the world, are those who are actually handling the mushrooms themselves, processors and so on. Let nobody tell me that a board such as this will ever sell a half tonne of tomatoes or a half tonne of mushrooms for anyone directly. They do not have that expertise and I could not see them having it. Some people are running around the country at this moment saying that this new board would have a marketing strategy whereby we could sell mushrooms to people who did not want to buy them. That is all cuckoo, that will not work and we have had it in many other areas of agriculture before. Obviously the people who have their neck on the block are the people who will not be paid or will not make a profit unless they actually sell the mushrooms themselves. So far as that is concerned every effort must be made to ensure that the various State agencies — this is referred to in the Bill — do what they can but how it will work in practice is another day's work. In our Irish way of life it is surprising the amount of little kingdoms that grow up and even though they are totally related to each other and inter-related, they work as independent kingdoms.
In relation to tomato growing I agree with the views expressed by Deputy Owen. I am not an expert in tomato growing and it is an area in which I do not have much experience. I understand we are losing the market share in the sense that any time it suits foreign growers to export to Ireland then obviously we seem to be beaten on all grounds. I hope that will change. It is a traditional industry. It is one that is labour-intensive and can create jobs provided the essentials are done correctly.
I notice that the Minister uses figures like 1,750 full time jobs and 1,500 part time jobs to be created in this whole horticultural scene. I and everybody else sincerely hope he is right. Realism would lead me to believe that these are very optimistic figures. I hope it will not be like the food processing industry two and a half years age where 600 jobs were promised: not alone did we not get the 600 jobs but we did not hold the people who were already employed. If the whole thrust of this is the same as the food processing one, it is a hoax. For everyone's sake I hope it will work out. I cannot see those figures being attained. When the Minister talks about 1,750 jobs is he talking about 1,750 extra jobs or is he talking about a situation where a small farmer, had he not got into mushrooms, would have gone out of agriculture completely and that is a job saved as well? How he calculates those things beats me. I am not sure on what basis the Minister can say that 1,750 jobs will be created but I hope he is right.
Taking the mushroom industry, the man-hours required are the basis. It is quite easy to do that.
You would have to acknowledge that many of those people would have been under-employed before the tunnels went up and a lot of that is going on. I am not sure that 1,750 jobs will be created but I sincerely hope the Minister is right for all our sakes. There are two other points I would like to make. The Minister referred to the hardy nursery stock and the amenity agriculture. That is a very fast growing side of the business. In fact I have just developed a new found interest because we had to do our lawn this summer. Until then, I hasten to add, I would not have known one shrub from another.
John Donnellan got the driver of his State car to do it.
I must say that I have learned a great deal and there is great activity throughout the country so far as those nurseries are concerned. I like the idea of being represented at the Garden Festival in Tokyo. That is a great idea. I hope that whoever will be responsible will put up a super-show and that somebody will come back from that festival and say: "the Irish are truly professional". I do not know what our disease status is in regard to our exports of this product, but I sincerely hope that we do not get caught in the same net as our livestock exporters. I beg the indulgence of the Chair to give this example. I had always understood that we were going to have a system whereby we would have common rules so far as possible on the question of exports whether it be hardy nursery stocks or cattle or sheep. I know an exporter in the midlands who, this very day actually, bought 300 heavy ram lambs that were of little use to the French trade and got a full market for them in Belgium at a profit to himself. He organised his agent and his transport and, lo and behold, when he arrived at the Belgian frontier he was told that the certification he had was no good. We have to be sure that they were 41 days on the farm without having foot rot. The reason that came up was to ensure that the lambs did not get into Belgium for a variety of commerical reasons which we do not know about yet. I hope this will not happen in regard to our plant exports. If we are in the internal market I hope that if we produce them disease-free, and at a quality which people in other lands want to buy them, nobody will be able to put an obstacle in our way as happened the exporter at the Belgian frontier this morning. I give that example because it is fresh in my mind.
I assume that our disease-free status is sacrosanct so far as we are concerned. The only question I would ask is, how does the Minister or the commission propose to enforce disease-free status if there are no frontiers. Obviously if we are sincere about exporting such shrubs and trees, then we must have our house in order long before the internal market comes into operation.
I am sorry that this Bill will not, in my view, deliver the goods. Because of the decimation of Teagasc and the fact that many areas are without advisers, this new board will need certain types of co-ordinators. These will be made available but at what cost to the industry? I fear that the cost will be too great for many of the people who have a future in diverse horticultural activities. I would ask the Minister to consider some of the points raised and say how he proposes to levy that contribution and at what level. This is a reasonable request. We are certainly buying a pig in a poke unless the Minister tells us what he proposes to do.
I dtús báire cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo, an Bille um Bhord Glas, 1989. Is í aidhm an Bhille socrú a dhéanamh chun comhlacht a bhunú ar a dtabharfar An Bord Glas, agus déanaim comhghairdeas leis an Aire as ucht an dul chun cinn atá déanta aige ó 1987 amach i gcúrsaí gairneoireachta na tíre seo.
I wish to pay tribute to the Minister of State, Deputy Kirk, on the progress he has made since 1987 in the horticultural area. The decision of the then Fianna Fáil Government to appoint a Minister with specific responsibility for horticulture was a major development and a step forward for this sector of the agricultural industry. A major policy of the Minister was the establishment of an independent statutory body to oversee the development of the horticultural industry, namely Bord Glas. The purpose of this new body is to increase output, recover our share of the domestic market, create jobs and ensure expansion in our export drive. The Bill gives the board major promotional, informational and investigative functions.
There is clearly a need for a more effective structure to ensure orderly marketing and development in this industry. Presentation, quality grading and an awareness of consumer requirements are urgently necessary. Things are not as they should be in this industry. The needs of the consumer must be paramount in the minds of producers and distributors. To increase market share at home and abroad producers must know what the market wants in terms of quality, presentation and price. At present this is not the case. The new board should assist horticultural producers in identifying and meeting consumer needs.
An interest in fresh produce without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers is growing and consumers are switching more and more to these types of products. Many restaurants are now concentrating solely on organic produce and these enterprises are proving highly successful. It is particularly important in relation to our tourism industry that this sector should develop. Bord Glas should concentrate on this aspect and thus complement the ongoing efforts of Bord Fáilte to promote Ireland as a clean destination where fresh food is available. The board's five-year development plan does not deal with this aspect and I would ask the Minister to investigate it with a view to developing the huge potential of this sector, particularly in the area of tourism.
Education is vital to the growth of horticulture. Section 9 gives the board a role in the formulation of State investment policy and higher education curricula for horticulture. The Minister might amend the section slightly to embrace the formulation and development of second level curricula. Horticulture as a subject should be an option available to all second level students. This would have the effect of generating a greater awareness about horticultural produce and the necessity to buy home produced goods. This is particularly important in urban areas.
I would draw the Minister's attention to a spectacular success story in Cork where An Scoil Stiofáin Naofa in Tramore Road have pioneered horticultural courses through the medium of the vocational preparation and training programmes under the auspices of the Department of Education. Students in this school have planted thousands of trees, vegetables and flowers. Perhaps the Minister might visit this school some time and see the tremendous strides that have been made. I see this school as providing a model for others. Bord Glas could have a major role in ensuring a horticultural input in the formulation of second level curricula. The board should liaise with the National Curriculum Development Board in this respect and the Bill should facilitate such involvement.
The formation of producer groups is essential and the Bill should give the board more teeth in this respect. I would sound a note of caution in the area of bio-technology. I would urge Bord Glas to be extremely cautious in embracing the advances being made in that area because unfortunately some of the research seems to be an end in itself and could in time lead to a massive reduction in job numbers. The whole area of bio-technology and genetic engineering requires very cautious treatment and is probably a matter for wider debate in society as a whole. I recently watched a television programme which showed the more negative sides of genetic engineering and bio-technology. We must proceed with caution.
The mushroom sector has made dramatic progress in recent years. Despite the misgivings of Deputy Sheehan, it does serve as a role model for other sectors. I have tasted the wonders of the wild mushrooms of west Cork but perhaps the Minister would have some difficulty in harvesting them and endeavouring to form some sort of producer group. Nevertheless, this sector provides major scope for job creation, including part-time jobs.
Has the Minister considered extending the business expansion scheme to encourage investment in the more marginal areas of horticultural production such as apple growing and soft fruit cultivation? In business and in tourism this scheme has proved to be a major success which has generated considerable investment opportunities in areas which had been marginal in regard to returns. The scheme may be of use in encouraging investment in areas which show a marginal or long-term return on investment in this industry. The Minister and the new board might consider this point.
Most speakers have commented on the potato sector. This is a depressing area which requires strong action by the board. It is planned to employ a market co-ordinator but stronger intervention is called for. Producers will have to be directed to change their methods and modes of production in order to ensure progress.
The question of membership of the board has received some consideration in this debate and Deputy Sheehan expressed fears about its composition. I am confident the Minister will appoint people who have a proven track record in this field. Deputy Sheehan's worst fears will not be realised. It is important that from the outset the membership of the board should have credibility with the horticultural industry and society in general. The appointment of the right people is essential.
The availability of natural gas has made a major difference to the protected crop sector. The board's development plan envisages further exploitation of this cheaper energy source in showing greater competitiveness in regard to foreign imports and it will, furthermore, increase capital grant aid to selected commercial growers which should, in turn, lead to an upgrading of existing grass acres and the construction of new greenhouses.
Some Opposition speakers have been too negative in their assessment of this Bill because, no matter what side of the House you come from, it represents in many ways a watershed in the development of the horticultural industry. It ensures that from now on we will have a more co-ordinated, purposeful and developmental approach to the industry, something which has been lacking for many years. Horticulture is now higher on the political agenda than it ever was and I have little doubt that the Minister, Deputy Kirk, will ensure this is continued.
It is nice to have the opportunity to speak on a Bill which has relevance to many Members and which is not too legalistic or technical. In particular, those of us with green fingers welcome an opportunity to speak on matters like horticulture. Deputy Martin invited the Minister of State to see certain projects in Cork and I have been inviting him down to see my plastic tunnel for the past two years because he might learn more there in one day than he would in the Department in four years.
I intend to call.
Not at this time of year as it is out of season. I brought the last of my aubergines, melons, peppers and courgettes to Leinster House this week because if I had brought any more of them to my wife she would have thrown them at me. It shows what one person can do; no matter what Deputy Allen said, we have a little time to ourselves now and again. One can achieve wonders by experimentation and initiative.
The prevention of the importation of horticultural products reminds me of some of the great myths in politics, like the draining of the Shannon and, in world terms, the great white hope in heavyweight boxing, something that never happens. I could also compare it to Fianna Fáil's illusions regarding the preservation of the Irish language. We speak about horticulture and setting up systems whereby we will be able to produce everything we need. Of course this will not happen. I hope that this latest effort will not be a flop but I am afraid it will.
Our own spokesman, Deputy Farrelly and others made a very important point which the Minister should seriously consider. He should not accept nominations for the board from interested organisations. I said this before in relation to the board of CBF. As Minister for Agriculture I had responsibility for selecting about ten different boards from horse racing and the horse breeding industry down to boards of ACOT and An Foras Talúntais which have now been amalgamated and named Teagasc. Selecting a board is a most unenviable task and I sympathised with the Taoiseach over the past three months when he had to select 11 people for the Seanad. There are usually about 11,000 people looking for 11 places and you generally end up with a few dodos, with all due respects to the 11 nominated to the Seanad. However, I was talking about boards and you generally end up appointing some people who are not very good.
The worst boards ever elected were those where interested groups or organisations were allowed to put forward a nominee. That is courting disaster. I do not know whether the Minister, Deputy O'Kennedy or the Minister of State will nominate the board but I ask them to pick seven or eight good fellows who have a practical knowledge of the industry and who have business acumen. Forget about the organisations. The Minister should not tie a ball and chain around his leg, he should do what is in the best interests of the industry, which is to nominate his own team and to forget about the interest groups. If he fails to do this people will be nominated who are being repaid for past services within organisations.
Farming organisations have been very negligent in regard to horticulture. They represent a very strong lobby and vested interests and they are primarily interested in cash crops and produce such as milk, beef, cereals, pigs and sheep. Horticulture is the lame duck, it can be left alone and there will not be any great hiccups within the organisations. For instance, one of the organisations, the ICMSA, as the name implies are concerned with milk production although they have expanded into other areas. However, I do not think they even attempt to deal with horticulture although I may be wrong. Saying things like this is good because they might contradict me and provoke reaction. Even the IFA, who consider themselves a premier organisation, looking after the interests of farmers, have a very slight interest in horticultural production and that is a great shame. The IFA should be exploring and encouraging the production of other products. Over the past six years, since the advent of the milk quota system, we have talked about alternative activities but little has been done. There has been a great success in relation to sheep as their numbers have doubled. However, you must have many irons in the fire. Deer and rabbit production, goats' milk and other areas have been highlighted but surely horticulture has a greater potential for expansion than any other farming activity, apart from the main ones which I mentioned?
I forgot to ask the Taoiseach recently — I will ask him next week — how much fruit and vegetables were imported last year and how it compared with the previous year because, despite all the talk and adverse publicity about these imports over the past ten or 15 years, the situation has not improved. The institutions of State and the farming bodies have not been of any help in this regard.
I wish the Minister, Deputy Kirk, the very best of luck as he is a genuine individual and I know he will do his best. My best advice to him is that when selecting that board he should get people who are go-getters and who will achieve something. There are many such people in my part of the country and I can recommend them to the Minister. Politics should be of no consequence when choosing members because picking them on a political basis would be as bad as picking them because of who they represent.
In Ardmore, near Youghal, they have done something extraordinary in recent years. They have extended the season for growing vegetables like carrots and parsnips by a very ingenious technique, putting plastic over the seeds and the young vegetables in the spring. Whereas they might have had to wait until 1 July normally for these vegetables to be fit to sell, they can now sell them as early as the middle of May. That eliminates a good deal of seasonal problems by a very simple technique.
I am delighted to hear that Minister O'Kennedy is getting £4 million from the national lottery funds to reconstruct the glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens. The neglect of the Botanic Gardens has been a disgrace which has not been commented on sufficiently. The neglect is a blot on our interest in horticulture; it speaks for itself. I understand that the Botanic Gardens has one of the finest hot glasshouses in the world. One would need to see it to understand. However, all the metal structures in the Botanic Gardens are rusting and falling asunder. I hope the £4 million will be spent and will result in the reactivation of all the wonderful activities pursued there over the years.
We are talking about standard horticultural produce but the Minister in his statement ignored additional products which can be grown in this country. Other products which we are importing at the moment can be grown here quite easily. Fruit which has become very popular here in recent years is the kiwi fruit, probably better known in the Far East as Chinese Gooseberry. That can be grown relatively easily, here under plastic. The name kiwi obviously tells us that the New Zealanders are growing the fruit. It is a major commercial concern there. Our climate is not that different from the climate of New Zealand so we should be capable of growing kiwi fruit on a commercial basis. We could also grow melons easily under plastic here. People may not believe me when I tell them that I can grow melons in my back garden. In addition, we could grow aubergines, peppers, courgettes and a whole series of other produce. In places like the Botanic Gardens and in some walled gardens in some of the larger estates in this country, estates which are now a disgrace because they have been neglected, such fruits as peaches, apricots and nectarines are grown out in the open. With modern technology and plant husbandry more of these products can be grown in the open and can withstand the Irish winter. Vines, for instance, can be grown successfully nowadays. I know they were tried back in the twenties down in Killarney but this is 60 years later and husbandry and management of these areas has improved tremendously. We cannot even seem to grow commercially simple things like plums and pears. That is almost a forgotten art and virtually all of those products are imported. We should look at those peripheral areas.
Even our apple industry has become a disaster. We are growing fewer apples now than we did 20 and 30 years ago probably due to the money crops to which I referred. There is a lack of commitment towards the promotion of such crops as apples by the vested interests, including the Department and the farm organisations. I have seen magnificent orchards ploughed out of the ground and the land used for the production of milk or for fattening cattle. There should be greater national will to ensure that the things we need are produced locally, and there should be incentives. Apple production here has gone down and imports are going up although the climate here is ideal for apple production. The situation with regard to apple production is indicative of the state of affairs in the horticulture industry.
My own county in the Blackwater valley in Waterford was probably one of the better areas for the production of apples. People just changed over and the incentives that were given for other products were not given in respect of apple growing. Nowadays the apple producing area of Ireland is County Armagh. There are probably more apples produced in County Armagh than in the whole of the 26 Counties. They learned their techniques and husbandry in the south in places such as Ballygagin, Dungarvan where there was an apple institute and in Clonroche in County Wexford. Those places have now gone and Armagh is supplying much of the 26 Counties including Dublin. This one product illustrates our national difficulty.
I am not aware what type of grants are available for the production of apples or the setting up of orchards or for growing some of the fruits I have mentioned. I would like to see that spelled out a little more clearly.
There is no aid for apple growing. There is a Community prohibition.
That makes the position very difficult because we have to compete with the French when it comes to apple production and nowadays with the Spaniards as well, and they tend to flood the markets here with apples at almost give away prices. However, as the year wears on these products get very pricey. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that we are not allowed to grant aid apple production because of Community rules. The general public do not realise that but those of us who are involved in horticulture can well understand it. There is a major problem.
I would like if the Minister would ease the way for people who wish to initiate major developments to produce horticulture products. I have a constituent who specialises only in peppers and cucumbers who is in the process of erecting new glasshouses. This constituent makes a good living out of these products supplying them to Cork city and to other major population centres in the south. The new glasshouses are costing £200,000, a fair investment for a small farmer. The beauty of horticulture is that one can be a really small farmer, one can live on an acre and make a living out of horticulture. The constituent I am talking of is not that small, he probably owns 70 or 80 acres but between those two products and an orchard he gets by quite well. Because of some technicality or something that previously happened this man will not get a grant in erecting the glasshouses which will cost him £200,000. That is a great shame. That type of inhibition is unfortunate when one sees men who are geniuses at their jobs. I talked at some length about apples and said that this man was producing apples. The extraordinary thing is that the variety of apple he is producing and selling very successfully is the old traditional varieties. The introduction of new varieties into this country set back the apple industry a lot, particularly varieties like Golden Delicious which were not successful here. For some reason we do not appear to be able to produce the same quality Golden Delicious variety as, say, the French. That constituted a major setback to many growers who borrowed heavily to plant orchards incorporating all the whizz-kid type of ideas, with modern type trees which they found were not commercially successful. They are now reverting to the old varieties which were and are successful. The Minister might bear that in mind when thinking of strategies and policies with regard to the production of more apples.
I do not know how one can get around the fact that one cannot get grant aid from the EC on account of Community rules. There must be some way the Minister can encourage greater apple production.
I do not believe the Minister's claim that An Bord Glas will work in harmony with Teagasc is well founded. I do not believe that liaison will be successful. The fact is that the best people in Teagasc, or in ACOT or An Foras Talúntais, both now extinct, have gone. They are now working for themselves. Those redundancy or early retirement schemes were fine up to a point, but one must remember that when one allows the best people to go one ends up with a lame duck type organisation. Most Members of this House will be able to relate similar experiences.
For example, the best people in my locality have gone. They are working elsewhere, in industry, advising or whatever. Their numbers are now extremely limited. I heard the chairman of Teagasc say last year that that was an unfair criticism, that not everybody who left Teagasc was an Einstein, that we are not left with a crowd of dopes, that is the gist of what he said. I do not say that either but I am merely saying that the best people did leave. One does not have to be an Einstein to grow apples or anything else but one must have a particular talent.
If I may say so — and this remark may be liable to considerable criticism — I found that the expertise in State organisations and in the Department of Agriculture and Food as far as horticulture was concerned was not as good as one might have expected. The people who are good are those who are growing this type of produce commercially. If one goes to the place in Ardmore about which I told the House, or to that O'Shea man in south Kilkenny, one finds they are making a good living producing massive amounts, in fact supplying half the country. The same applies if one goes to places like Kilmore Quay in Wexford or Castlegregory in County Kerry. Indeed, one should not overlook people like Jimmy Courtney, a county councillor down there who is a genius when it comes to organising these growers who produce massive amounts of produce for the Limerick markets and that general area. These are the people we should be consulting. They are the people who should be dominant on any statutory board to be established, keeping the academics out as much as possible; they do not make great members of boards.
If the Deputy would give us the name of the constituent who experienced difficulty with glasshouses, we will have the matter examined.
I will do so, of course. What we need — and this is something which has been omitted to date — are open days such as obtain in other sectors in agriculture, open days when the produce about which I am speaking can be seen being grown and produced. There are open days in Moorepark in Fermoy for dairy farmers, in Grange for beef producers, in Lyon's Estate for sheep producers, in Oak Park in Carlow for cereal producers but there is none for the horticulturist. For example, colleges like Kildalton — an educational establishment growing magnificent produce, with magnificent gardens — while they do have open days, the general public are not admitted. The general public should be afforded an opportunity of visiting this and similar establishments and be shown what is being produced right around the country. I suppose the Kildalton College constitutes a flagship or outstanding example of what can be achieved. The general public should be encouraged to visit on open days and ask questions as to how produce is grown. Perhaps then some might end up becoming very good commercial horticulturalists themselves. I suppose it is no coincidence that that O'Shea man and Kildalton are both in Piltown.
Deputy Martin's contribution was excellent. A debate like this affords one an opportunity of hearing some of the new, younger, better Dáil Deputies. His was a highly intelligent, thoughtful contribution, the points he made about organic farming in particular being pertinent.
There was another development I endeavoured to encourage some years ago but was stymied by vested interests. I should like the Minister to bear it in mind and pursue it if he gets the necessary encouragement from his experts. I refer to cutaway bogs which have been advocated as excellent areas in which to grow vegetables, particularly root crops. Some years ago when I endeavoured to get some initiative going in this respect my efforts were resisted by vested interests in those areas who felt that the bogs had not been sufficiently cutaway, that there could be more turf there or whatever, whereas there was not. I note that there is some difficulty being experienced about these areas at present. Cutaway bogs can be excellent for the production of crops such as carrots, parsnips and a whole series of other vegetables.
Some years ago An Foras Talúntais had an experimental station at Lullymore. They proved that these crops could be grown to an excellent standard on cutaway bogs but, when it came to suggesting that it should be done commercially, there was a vested interest who felt that cutaway bogs should be retained by Bord na Móna. The Minister might well re-examine that area. I know that major food concerns, involved in the canning of vegetables were interested in the cutaway bog concept of producing vegetables. Again they were frustrated in their efforts by vested interests.
In the course of his introductory remarks the Minister referred to the quality of Irish produce. The quality or inferior presentation of our fruit and vegetables has had much to do with the downgrading and bad marketing of our produce. We do know that when the Dutch and French import produce it is spotless and well prepared whereas ours is inclined to be somewhat clumsy in presentation. However, that has improved, particularly since the former Minister of State, Deputy Hegarty, introduced a Bill whose provisions stipulated that produce had to be properly identified, labelled and registered. But, as a nation, we are somewhat sloppy in our presentation, somewhat slipshod.
The greatest offenders when it comes to presentation of fruit and vegetables in this country are the supermarkets. The best quality produce to be found is in high class greengrocers, the people who specialise in that area. That is a matter the Minister and his inspectors might pursue. It really is off-putting to go into a shop or supermarket and see cabbage, cauliflower or carrots that are about a week or ten days old still on display. That type of presentation should not be tolerated. Maybe I am being unfair to supermarkets but the illusion is that they regard vegetables in particular as not being of great importance and they do not concentrate on their proper presentation. A slap-happy attitude seems to be taken towards the presentation of Irish vegetables in particular. That statement might be contradicted but I think that is the view of housewives and they are the experts when it comes to purchasing goods. They look for quality and well presented commodities.
The potato market has been referred to. This is a cyclical market and cannot be organised as well as one would wish. Last year there was a price war in supermarkets and also a war of words between the supermarkets and the IFA because the supermarkets were not selling Irish potatoes. That took place when there was a tremendous glut of potatoes. The ministerial hand could help alleviate problems like that. Potato growers took an awful beating last year. As I have said, it is a cyclical type of business and we have to accept that some years there will be surpluses while other years there will be deficiencies. That is probably more in the bailiwick of the Minister for Industry and Commerce than this Minister but selling below cost should never be allowed and that obviously was happening last year. The farming organisations had a point when they said it should not be allowed happen. This year there will be a demand for potatoes because the yields will not be as good as other years due to the exceptionally dry weather.
I am intrigued by some of the comments from the Minister. This matter is getting more technical every day. It seems we are now going to have passports for plants. We are going to have a diplomat in the embassy in London handing out passports for plants. Our disease-free status is of utmost importance. It is essential that we safeguard against the Colorado beetle and other threats but that seems to be going a little bit far.
I will conclude by wishing the Minister the best of success. As our spokesman, Deputy Farrelly, has said we have serious reservations about a statutory body but if it is going to set up I hope the Minister notes what I have said in regard to the composition of the board. He should not allow so-called brainy people to be appointed, people who are not able to apply their knowledge. He should appoint people who can do the job whether by way of instructing people or producing and selling the goods and they should also be able to make a contribution to the board. It is no good appointing a genius in producing horticultural produce unless he is able to speak up and impart his knowledge to the other members of the board and make an impression nationally.
I would like to join with Deputies on all side of the House in welcoming this Bill. It is a positive step in the development of the horticultural industry. It is absolutely necessary and long overdue. Before speaking on the Bill itself I would like to take the opportunity of congratulating the Minister of State on his reappointment as Minister with responsibility for horticulture. I have watched him for the past two years in this brief and I am sure the next four or five years will be very exciting ones and will see many of the things being done which were suggested by Deputy Deasy and other Deputies during the course of their contributions.
The first point I would make in relation to the Bill is on the general functions of An Bord Glas to develop, promote, facilitate, encourage co-ordinate and assist in the production, marketing and consumption of horticultural goods. All these words convey to me a very positive approach to the whole area of the development of horticulture. They underline what I see as the important part of this Bill, the emphasis to help and the helping role of An Bord Glas in regard to the procedures and indeed the consumers of horticultural goods. That list of functions belies the criticism that has been made in some quarters that this is just another form of bureaucracy and that it will cause more problems than it will solve.
I see nothing in the Bill which will in any way inhibit any product from being sold if all the areas of production and marketing are well organised. I do not think the board will interfere but rather they will encourage and help as much as they can. There is nothing in the Bill or in the Minister's speech that could leave anybody in any doubt but that An Bord Glas will be there to help and will not interfere or add another layer of bureaucracy, as has been alleged.
I welcome the Minister's statement and the sections of the Bill that show that this new body will work closely with various other bodies, particularly Teagasc but also CTT, the IDA, SFADCo and Údarás na Gaeltachta. It is very important that there is somebody who will co-ordinate with other organisations which are important for the development and marketing of our horticultural produce. The Minister also mentioned in his speech that he will keep in close contact with producers and wholesalers and that is vital.
I would also take this opportunity to compliment the interim board on their work in producing the five year development plan for horticulture. The analysis of each of the sectors contained in that plan is excellent. The sector with which I am most familiar is the potato sector and that is what I propose to deal with in particular during the course of my remarks. If that section in the development plan is anything to go by, certainly the board have analysed the problems and suggested some of the solutions to those problems. I know from speaking to people involved in horticulture and other areas that they are quite happy with the plan that has been produced and agree in general terms with most of what was stated in it and with its aims and objectives.
As I said, I intend to speak in general terms about the potato sector because it is the one with which I am most familiar. As is stated in the development plan, this sector is of vital importance to the development of horticulture, basically because of its size. In the plan the target set by the board is extremely high — 95 per cent self-sufficiency—but those aims are achievable if the proper approach is adopted by all the people concerned. However, the difficulties facing the potato sector are enormous. The main difficulty, which has been adverted to already by other speakers, is that there is a multiplicity of small scale producers and a totally inadequate marketing system. One of the byproducts of this is the poor grading and presentation of potatoes. In his contribution Deputy Deasy referred to the Bill introduced by the former Minister of State, the former Deputy Hegarty, in relation to the grading and presentation of potatoes. The law certainly was a good one and it was one that was needed but I am no sure if many people would agree that it has been fully implemented. There is no point in introducing such laws if they are not going to be implemented. I hope An Bord Glas will see to it that that law is implemented and a lot more stringently than it has been up to now.
That is the fault of the present Minister.
The second problem facing us in trying to organise the potato sector and getting farmers to co-operate is the huge cost involved in the production of potatoes. It is estimated that it now costs £1,000 to plant an acre of potatoes. This leads to a lack of co-operation in the sense that if there is a scarcity of potatoes the price will go up and farmers will tend to do as they have done in the past which is to go for the best price irrespective of what contracts they may have. Because of the present cut throat competition it is very difficult to get farmers to co-operate.
The third problem facing us is that there are inadequate storage facilities available. It is estimated that an extra 80,000 tonnes of storage space is required at present. Another problem addressed briefly by the Minister in his remarks is that, unlike most other sectors, the potato sector is not covered by any EC common organisation of the market. Unfortunately, it appears unlikely that this sector will be covered in the future so this is a problem which is going to remain with us and is not going to be solved but it is one which we will have to deal with.
I now propose to examine these areas in greater detail. The first question I adverted to was the question of marketing. It is often said that Ireland does not pay enough attention to marketing, be it marketing of agricultural or industrial produce. This point has been reiterated time and again by various people in various places. However, there have been some improvements during the past ten years. For example, we are now producing well qualified and skilled people while organisations are paying increasing attention to marketing and this has led to excellent results. I know of one organisation which talks of its two marketing executives supporting 170 production jobs and which claims that there are about 700 people in employment as a result of the spin offs effects of that marketing.
In this sense the potato industry is no different from any other industry. It needs to pay particular attention to marketing. Pressures on the market for produce, which have existed for a number of years, and the requirements of consumers have resulted in supermarkets looking for marketable products. Standards are constantly being forced upwards. Therefore if they do not achieve the required standards potato growers will end up in serious trouble. As I have said, the potato sector seems to be the least organised sector in agriculture. There are various reasons for this. Unless producers are willing to organise themselves we are going to fall into the trap which we have fallen into down through the years of allowing imports take over with any shortfall being satisfied by imports.
In his speech the Minister stated that An Bord Glas is going to pay particular attention to the potato sector, in particular to the marketing of potatoes. I was pleased to hear that both the IFA and An Bord Glas will join together to fund the appointment of a potato market co-ordinator. This should produce some positive results. The primary task of this employee will be to encourage growers to participate in producer groups. The Minister also stated that the way is now clear for Irish potato producers to benefit from aid available to facilitate the formation of producer groups. That is a vital development because, as I said, the potato sector is poorly organised and is in keeping with An Bord Glas's development programme for the potato sector. This is to be welcomed.
The purpose of the scheme is to enable the formation of producer groups with a view to adapting the production and output of group members to market requirements to get over the problem of seasonality of production and fluctuations in production. Proper use of the scheme can aid significantly the development of the potato sector. It is clear that large numbers of producers, operating individually, are too disorganised to meet present day market requirements and that potato growers operating through their own producer groups would be stronger, more organised and have more influence. These groups can ensure continuity and consistency of supply which is essential for wholesale and retail outlets. In short, the formation of producer groups will help remedy a structural deficiency in the potato sector and I hope growers will avail fully of this measure.
As I have mentioned, since 1980 the producers of fresh fruit and vegetables have been operating in a competely free and open market. Produce from other member states may now freely enter this country. We will have to be prepared to meet the challenge. Because of this free access it is vital Irish produce coming on to the market be graded, packed and presented to an extremely high standard. The advent of the new board will not only acknowledge the significant improvements that have been made in the past few years but will highlight and promote the positive aspect of fresh Irish produce and is to be warmly welcomed. There has been a significant improvement in the grading, packaging and presentation of fresh Irish produce in recent years. The evidence is there for all to see on the supermarket shelves. In addition, there has been a huge increase in consumer awareness of the health benefits of fresh fruit and vegetables — the Minister referred to the French experience in his opening remarks. I think the board can play a major role in highlighting the fibre content, the nutrition levels of fruit and vegetables and the fact that they are low in calories.
The new board will undoubtedly work very closely with the existing agencies, in particular the Department of Agriculture and Food in the enforcement of quality regulations and with Teagasc in attaining such standards. I hope they will also play a major role in ensuring the market information on quality, grading, packaging or producing is communicated to producers as quickly as possible.
The seed potato is deserving of particular attention. This is the basis on which the whole potato industry depends. Without high quality, disease free seed, producers cannot reach profitable and competitive yields. Seed potatoes are not only a valuable export but offer scope for further expansion. I regret that I have to express serious concern, as it was expressed to me, about the quality of our seed potato. Many people blame the Department for falling down on their inspection functions which result in very poor quality seed. The acreage of certified seed continues to decline from 4,135 hectares in 1978 to 3,350 hectares in 1988, a reduction of nearly 20 per cent over a ten year period. That decline has to be halted. I was pleased to hear that the Minister is examining the seed potato sector. It needs quick remedial action not only to arrest the decline but to revitalise and expand production of prime quality seeds. Overseas markets exist and the excellent reputation already established can be built on. It is not too late to do that despite the fact that most people feel that the quality of the seed potato has fallen.
The recognition by the EC of Ireland as a high grade seed production area should be a priority and should help to boost producer competence. The expansion of the seed producing areas from Donegal to other parts of the country should also be pursued. Seed potato production offers a viable alternative crop for producers who must seek options because of over-supply in other sectors. It is ideally suited to the small and medium sized farmers, particularly to those in disadvantaged areas and it could substantially assist in arresting the decline in the rural population. The report of the seed potato sector should assist greatly in establishing the priorities that will need to be addressed to serve the future of this sector. I hope we will not have to wait too long for that report.
I take this opportunity to join with Deputy Deasy in commenting on the Act to ban below cost selling. I ask the Minister of State to use his influence with his Cabinet colleagues to have potatoes included in the list of goods covered by this Act. I have no need to underline the problems that were encountered by producers last year——
We have been looking for that for the past two years.
I have looked for that to be done over the past two years.
The Minister who should be making the decision is not listening.
I also ask the Minister to investigate an alleged development in the potato wholesale market where it has been alleged that one wholesale company is buying up a great many smaller wholesalers and there is a danger of creating a monopoly in that sector. It would not be healthy to have a monopoly. It is important that there are strong firms involved. It would be a pity if a monopoly were created.
Finally, I would like to comment on the two references to education in the Bill. I welcome section 9 where An Bord Glas will have an input into the higher education curriculum in the area of horticulture. I hope that the curriculum will contain, in addition to the obvious technical and scientific context, a section dealing with the necessary skills for marketing and organisation. Too often graduates from third level institutions are very good on theory but are not so good when it comes down to the practicalities. Obviously, people working with An Bord Glas will need more than technical skills, they will require inter-personal skills as they will have to organise and get co-operation from people. I take this opportunity to request the Minister to end the discrimination which now exists against trainees in the area of agriculture vis-à-vis their counterparts in industry and other sectors.
I am aware of the Minister of State's, and indeed the Minister's interest in this problem. I hope that interest and commitment will be translated into positive action in the near future. After all, we are an agricultural country and depend on agriculture for a major portion of our wealth and employment. It is now a highly skilled and highly organised business and we must encourage our best young people to stay in agriculture to ensure our economic future. As a former career guidance counsellor I advised farmers' sons. When I met the parents they were worried what would happen to the first or second son but their attitude to the son earmarked for the farm was "he is all right". No thought was given to his education as it was not considered necessary. That day is long gone. We have to ensure that people going into agriculture get every opportunity and assistance and they should be encouraged to take these courses. For that reason, I feel they should be treated the same way as young people who go on FÁS courses or who take part in training schemes, and they must be paid the same allowances. I ask the Minister of State and the Minister for Agriculture and Food to do this sooner rather than later.
I wish the board every success.
I welcome the initiative which has led to the presentation of this Bill before the House. Everybody knows horticulture needs organisation, control and direction and this Bill purports to provide it. One would have to say that the history of fruit and vegetable growing in Ireland is rather chequered, to say the least of it. In nearly every parish there are stories of failure in regard to one enterprise or another. Potatoes, peas and vegetables of various sorts have been grown under contract in various ways down the years but one would have to say with little success.
Some Deputies probably heard Deputy Leonard speaking earlier. Deputy Leonard is my colleague from County Monaghan and every time he speaks about the Monaghan mushroom industry in particular he goes into ecstasy and well he should. The mushroom industry in County Monaghan is a shining example of what can be achieved in the area of horticulture when private individuals spot and exploit a gap in the market. What is disappointing, of course, is that the number of examples of this kind in Ireland today are very few and far between. I wonder if there is a basic lack of profitability in the production of most horticultural products. I know that is a commonly held view. It is surprising that private individuals do not notice and exploit profitable gaps which exist in the market. I hope the setting up of An Bord Glas will lead to new insights and the education of the popular mind, so to speak. Perhaps research will lead us to discover that what I have said is not true at all, and I hope that is the case. When the Bill is passed I hope it will set in train a set of activities which will substantially reduce our imports bill and enable people to exploit suitable exports markets.
From a cursory look at the Bill it seems there is an option for An Bord Glas to place a charge on the producer. I imagine that initially at least this will bring in very little revenue. The Bill also provides for the imposition of a levy on those who are engaged in selling produce. I take it that both wholesalers and retailers will be included in that category. I wonder if this is the first step in the imposition of VAT on food? How will this provision be administered?
The Bill seems to be very worth while but the one thing which worries me is whether the funding will be adequate. Recent past history would lead me to be sceptical of what might happen in that area. If we look at Teagasc, for example, we can see that inadequate funding is making it impossible for the board of Teagasc to carry out their functions, particularly in County Monaghan. Two and a half or three years ago a staff of 28 were available to the farming community in County Monaghan under the advisory service but today only nine staff are available.
You are lucky.
Only four people are directly involved in the advisory end of the service. This is totally inadequate and obviously Teagasc have decided to abandon mainstream farming in County Monaghan. I have written to Mr. Rea about this matter and he acknowledged the fact that there is a problem in County Monaghan. I also wrote to the Minister who acknowledged my letter but who has not yet given me any reply.
What about the money?
Mr. Rea is very definite in his opinion as to where the blame lies; he blames the Minister for the allocation he made. As well as that, he blames the Minister for the very strict control he is keeping on new appointments. It would seem that for the foreseeable future the farming community in County Monaghan will not get the kind of advisory service they were used to. Obviously this will be extremely detrimental because it has always been the case that the farmers who used the advisory service tended to make the most profit. I hope this matter will be redressed at once.
I wonder if the same thing will happen with regard to An Bord Glas? Will they be put in the position where they cannot operate to the full. I hope the Minister will be able to find a way of ensuring this will not happen.
Increase the charges.
Initially there will be hardly anyone to charge. It will take quite a while before charges bring in any money there.
Meath farmers are well able to pay.
I am disappointed the Deputy thinks so. Maybe there is another take-over we do not know about.
Unless grass is classified as a product they will get very little money from Meath farmers. Another aspect which is of great concern to people in County Monaghan and other parts of Ireland is egg production. County Monaghan has a proliferation of egg production units. I am using this to illustrate the attitude of the Government and if this is the attitude An Bord Glas will have, then it will mean An Bord Glas might as well not be formed at all. Egg production is in chaos at present. In the past five or six months the co-operative, funded by the products and set up specifically to try to co-ordinate and control egg production collapsed. I think this happened in the wake of the disorders in that business before Christmas last year. I have made representations to the Minister involved in that area without success. They do not seem to be worried about this problem. If egg production disappears from the scene in Ireland it will lead to far greater importation and what is trying to be achieved by setting up An Bord Glas will be blatantly forgotten about in other sectors.
I wish to refer to the forestry sector which impinges on the Minister's brief. At present a semi-State body are interfering with the development of private companies in the forestry area. There are not very many private companies operating in the control and management of forests these days, but I think there are a few and I have it on good authority that Crann are making life extremely difficult for those companies. Evidently Crann are buying up large tracts of land suitable for forestry and the result is that prices are shooting up and private companies are finding it impossible to get their hands on quantities of land at the right price, land which they badly need. We should be encouraging private investment and looking for less State intervention in the economy, rather than more. I appeal to the Minister to discuss this difficulty with the other Ministers who have control over this area and to see to it that discussions get under way immediately to make sure that there is no conflict between the semi-State sector and private investment, that the private companies are soundly based and able to continue in business. Surely this is what we all want.
While I was carrying out research into this Bill I discovered a glaring anomaly in the application of incentives to young farmers. I am talking about the installation aid programme. When I explain to the Minister what I found out, he will find that it will act as a brake on the development he foresees as a result of this Bill. If, say, a farmer divides his holding between two sons and if the farm originally included an intensive unit of some sort — chickens, mushrooms, pigs or whatever — I have checked my calculations out with some of the Teagasc people who have verified them — neither son would be able to qualify for installation aid. I will illustrate that. The reason is that the number of work units on the original farm are divided in the ratio of the acreage. An example might throw a bit more light on that. Let us say a farmer has 100 acres and 2.8 man work units and divides the land between two sons, one of them getting 90 acres and the other ten, the ten being the section containing the intensive unit; the 2.8 man work units are then divided in the ratio of 90 to 10 resulting in work units distributed between the two new enterprises, one of 2.52 units and the other of 0.28. This would be blatantly wrong and would prevent either of the sons getting installation aid because the installation aid is only paid to young qualified farmers where the man work units lie between 1 and 1.5. This is totally injurious to the farmers in my own county because we have a proliferation of intensive units. Every second farm has an intensive unit of some sort. Given also that we suffer from high unemployment, like the rest of the country, farmers will be thinking of dividing their farms between two sons rather than giving the lot to one son.
I would ask the Minister to get consultations under way immediately to have this anomaly removed. I think this is a recent thing anyway. I imagine there was some problem with the original regulations. Maybe people were interpreting the original regulations with some latitude in order to avail of an extra £5,600 in installation aid. Whatever the reason, the change that was made leads to a desperate situation where young farmers are finding that when they get an inheritence from their father they are disbarred from availing of the £5,600 which is available to everybody else. I will be talking to the Minister about that next week. Because of the difficulties we will have in Monaghan as a result of this change, I hope he will have a satisfactory answer at that stage. I will pursue the Minister until such time as I get a satisfactory answer.
I think I have said nearly everything I want to say at this point. I welcome the Bill provided it is operational when the board is set up. Everyone of us hope that it will make a big input into the development of horticulture.
I, like earlier speakers, want to compliment the Minister and his Department officials on the setting up of An Bord Glas. It is long awaited. It is a good indication of the practical policy we have always held in Fianna Fáil dating back to the late Seán Lemass that the State sector can play a dynamic part in economic affairs.
The setting up of this board will bring together the interested parties and bring some cohesion and positive direction into this area. For far too long we have paid lip service to importation substitution, the great potential for added value and the potential for growing our own vegetables. There are outcries from time to time when some survey throws up exhorbitant figures that we are spending abroad importing vegetables and other products and we should be growing here. I sincerely wish An Bord Glas well. I hope they will make dynamic changes and set about achieving the ambitious targets the Minister has outlined in his address to the House.
There are some areas I would like to comment on. One is applicable to myself and Deputy Ryan as members of Dublin County Council. I note that in the hardy nursery stock amenity horticultural sector there is excellent potential. As a member of a local authority with an excess of 6,000 acres under the control of our Parks Department, with an ever growing nursery sector, with very massive road improvement schemes throughout the county, boundary treatment, open space development and park development, I would suggest that there is tremendous potential both at home and in the export sector for development in this area.
(Interruptions.)
I hope Deputy Farrelly will be able to get the Tralee bypass to match up the Blancardstown bypass we are building and that he will not be too long about it. We do not want anything to delay our nice new dual carriageway.
Deputy Ryan and I will take this a step further. I was going to suggest to the Minister or to the board of An Bord Glas that there be some form of co-operation between the Parks Department, Dublin County Council and all local authorities throughout the country. I would suggest that there be a specific programme of nursery development. We have some substantial nursery growth areas where there is potential.
It is a matter of grave concern that there should be so much importation, in the main from Holland, of the trees we are planting along the new roads and in the Parks Department. There is an immediate possibility of co-operation to see how best An Bord Glas can minimise the importation of trees and plants.
I would like to refer to a specific area which I have had limited contact with in recent times, namely the soft fruit area. I would like to record in this House my comments on what I believe was the tremendous expertise of the personnel I had the opportunity to meet in the fruit research growing station in County Wexford. They were interfacing with a jam manufacturer whom I was trying to encourage to purchase Irish grown fruit. The key personnel we met were most helpful and were anxious to but our various products and to give advice to growers, processors and manufacturers. They were anxious to get a co-operative effort in place so that growers would be guaranteed a market outlet and a reasonable price for their products.
It was enlightening to see the experiments that take place there on colourings. I hope our industry can give financial support for such research and development. I am not sure who will be responsible for such programmes but it is important that that work proceeds. Teagasc and An Bord Glas must encourage farmers to get involved in the growing of soft fruit. It is not surprising that there has been a lot of talk over the years about further developments in the growing and processing of soft fruits when one considers the potential for our products at home and on the export market. For example, many of the major European supermarket chains have identified Ireland as an ideal source of supply of high quality food products. Some of the big German supermarket chains have established buying agents in Ireland. With the concentration on the environment and the emergence of the various Green parties it is not surprising that those concerns are looking to Ireland to supply uncontaminated produce.
An Bord Glas should follow the example of Kerrygold and others who have established markets for their products on mainland Europe. An exciting challenge faces the new board. At the outset they will need to bring the various segments of the horticultural industry together because there is much risk involved for growers and processors. A lot of soft fruit is grown in the south east and it is my view that we export too much of it in its raw state. Bearing in mind that most of the retailers on the European mainland import their soft fruit from eastern bloc countries it will be easy for the new board to identify the products that could be grown in Ireland for export. There is no reason why Ireland should not reach a barter agreement with those countries, exchanging some of our products for the soft fruits they use in the manufacture of their jams. There is no doubt that those countries have the comparative edge over us in regard to the manufacture of jams. We are all aware of the trade developments between Ireland and Russia since the Taoiseach's meeting with the President of the Soviet Union. I look forward to further trade developments between eastern bloc countries and Ireland. Many of our home grown products could be exported to those countries.
We have been told that many of those eastern countries will face a major problem in the coming years in trying to provide food for their people. Already we heard of food queues and shortages of food items we take for granted. I suggest to the Minister of State that he urge the new board to explore those markets.
I visited Canada recently to gather market information on behalf of a north-west jam manufacturing company and I was able to identify that the biggest competitors to the Irish company were from Romania and Yugoslavia. I do not think that their products displayed on the supermarket shelves could match the quality of those of the Irish firm. While An Bord Glas will have to deal with a whole range of matters their first objective should be to encourage farmers to get involved in the growing of soft fruit. With a milk quota in operation there is little potential for growth in that sector and limitations have been placed on other agricultural produce. It is for those reasons that we must look to other farm produce and the greatest potential lies in soft fruit growing. Very little acreage is required to grow soft fruit. As Deputy Cotter mentioned there is a need to prepare a proper training programme. The second or third sons on farms or the wives of farmers who in the past were engaged in their own specialised area of activity should be encouraged to get involved in fruit growing.
The new board will have to put great emphasis on the importance of proper marketing. For far too long we have fallen down on that aspect. Many attempts have been made to bring the growers and processors together and while there have been some spectacular successes, as in Deputy Ryan's constituency, there have been some sad failures. It is my wish that the new board will carry the message to growers that they must produce a quality product capable of competing with the best in Europe. The big supermarket chains have shown a lot of goodwill towards Irish exporters. They are anxious to promote and sell Irish goods but we must at all times ensure that our products are well presented and are available at a competitive price.
I see a great future for the horticultural industry and I look forward to reading of its success in the annual reports of the new board. In wishing the new board every success I should like to remind them of the importance of their task. There is tremendous growth potential in the food sector. There is a need to produce a repair programme for the glasshouses in north Dublin. The energy crisis of the seventies caused great hardship for the owners of those glasshouses. I understand that £11 million will be available to the board for investment and I suggest that some of that money should be spent on repairing the glasshouses in north Dublin. I welcome the setting up of An Bord Glas and wish them every success.
I call Deputy Seán Ryan. Deputy Ryan might move the adjournment of the debate.
I move the adjournment of the debate. This is a most welcome Bill.
Debate adjourned.