I would like to share my time with Deputies Bradford and Creed.
Adjournment Debate. - Disadvantaged Areas Scheme Extension.
Is that satisfactory? Agreed.
Thank you for the opportunity to raise this matter. Could the Minister explain the long delay in submitting Ireland's application to the EC for an extension of the disadvantaged areas scheme? The time of reckoning has come. The Government must make up their minds what areas they will include in the application to Brussels. What is all the secrecy about? It is obvious that areas qualifying under the criteria laid down in the Council Directive 85/350/EC concerning less favoured areas within the meaning of the Council's Directive 75/268/EC must be included.
It is 13 years since some of those areas applied for inclusion in the disadvantaged areas scheme. Farmers in South West Cork, North West Cork, North East Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Carlow, Monaghan are all entitled to be considered for inclusion in the scheme. The whole country could be included. Agriculture is our primary industry, our major source of revenue. When the last litre of gas is drawn out of the Celtic Sea agriculture will still play an important role in our economy.
The morale of the farming community is at a low ebb. The Minister's handling of the extension of the disadvantaged areas is appalling. Fifty eight per cent of Ireland's farmland has been classified as a less favoured area subdivided into three sub regions: (a) more severely handicapped areas; (b) less severely handicapped areas; and (c) mountain sheep areas in the eastern part of the country. Payments of headage grants are moderated between the three regions according to the severity of the permanent natural handicap. This classification into the three types of less favoured areas is a national decision, not an EC decision. In 1986 the Coalition Government led by Deputy Garret FitzGerald proposed to treat all areas as more severely handicapped areas with the highest rates of payment made to those areas. However, after the 1987 general election Fianna Fáil amended this proposal and retained the three categories with different rates of payment.
It is clear that Ireland is not getting a fair share of the cake under the disadvantaged areas scheme when one considers that Luxembourg has 100 per cent of its territory included, Greece 78 per cent, Portugal 65 per cent and Spain 67 per cent. That was prior to the extension which those three countries sought recently. The method of inspection by the Department is a complete farce. It was carried out in a haphazard fashion and more often than not the small farmers whose lands were inspected were never visited. The Minister has failed to tackle the problem. He has kept thousands of farmers from benefiting from the cattle and sheep headage grants in 1990. The Minister led these farmers to believe that they would be included in this scheme but he as done little about formulating Ireland's case in Europe for the extension of the disadvantaged areas.
I cannot add much to the case which was strongly presented by Deputy Sheehan. Among the many hundreds of farmers that I have dealt with who have applied for inclusion under the scheme, there is total disillusionment with the Government. Many of them feel they have been led up the garden path by the present Coalition Government. In many instances three or four years has passed since application was made and there has been scarcely any action since. There has been no action, only words, for the past two years and unfortunately the same tune still seems to be on the record.
I want an assurance from the Minister as to when the file will go to Brussels and if there will be enough money provided by the Government to properly finance the farmers who are included in the scheme. It was publicly stated by a Fianna Fáil MEP that we would have this information by St. Patrick's Day. Perhaps he means St. Patrick's Day in 1993 or 1994 because St. Patrick's Day 1990 has come and gone and there has been no action. The same gentleman has also stated that the amount of acreage included would not be determined by the conditions of the scheme but by the amount of finance made available by the Government. It is a disgrace if people who are entitled to be included in the scheme are kept out because of the lack of finance being made available by the Government.
The promised extension of the disadvantaged areas is long overdue by a number of standards, from Fianna Fáil election promises to commitments made by Ministers in the Chamber at Question Time last November and promises made by an MEP in Munster with regard to St. Patrick's Day as a deadline. The disadvantaged areas scheme goes some way towards ensuring the continued viability of many of the most marginalised in agriculture. The Minister should take into consideration that since 1983 more than 34,000 dairy producers alone have been forced out of milk production because they could not eke out a living, not to mention those who have not got a milk quota to bolster their farming income. In 1989, 7,000 farmers, milk producers and non-milk producers, were forced to leave the land, according to the CSO. Apart from the immediate consequences for those families, the viability of life in rural Ireland is under threat in the long term. Unless an extension of the disadvantaged areas is announced in the very near future far greater numbers of farmers will be forced to seek a livelihood elsewhere. That has grave social consequences.
I would urge the Minister to make every effort to grant the maximum possible extension in order to ensure the viability of those farmers about whom I have spoken.
The present review of the disadvantaged areas is the fourth review since the original designation of areas in 1975 and is by far the most detailed and comprehensive survey carried out to date. The following outline will give Deputies some idea of the magnitude of the task undertaken by departmental staff. As regards the volume of representations made, requests from various sources to have all parts of the existing disadvantaged areas outside the more severely handicapped areas reclassified had been received together with requests for inclusion by interest groups representing areas outside the disadvantaged areas. The areas involved covered east Cavan, mid-Clare, east Galway, north Kerry, most of Longford, Monaghan and Offaly, south Roscommon, all Westmeath and parts of Wicklow. Requests to have large tracts of Carlow, Cork, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Louth, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford and smaller tracts of Dublin and Meath included in the survey were also submitted to the Department. In all, 900 submissions and representations by public representatives, county councils, farm organisations, local interest groups and individuals were made to the Department on behalf of some 75,000 farmers and in respect of 86,000 holdings.
The following statistics indicate the size and extent of the survey:
|
Number of DEDs surveyed |
1,636 |
|
Number of townlands surveyed |
20,764 |
|
Number of holdings in sample |
48,705 |
|
Area of townlands |
6,681 million acres |
|
Area of holdings in sample |
3,785 million acres |
|
Sample size (percentage area surveyed) |
56.6 per cent |
A further indication of how formidable the task was can be gauged from the fact that the area submitted for survey represented 40 per cent of the 55 per cent of all land in the country outside the more severely handicapped areas. The fourth review was by far the most comprehensive in coverage and extent of all boundary reviews undertaken to date. It is estimated, for example, that the work load involved was four to five times that of the third review which took place between 1981-85. Deputies will also appreciate that the decision taken in 1981 to replace the DED by the townland as the basis for review increased the survey work considerably.
I will briefly outline the criteria for the survey: That less than 7.8 per cent of the area is ploughed; stocking rate is less than one adult bovine livestock unit per forage hectare; the family farm income per male farm worker does not exceed 80 per cent of the national average; not more than 27 people per square kilometre and at least 30 per cent of working population engaged in agriculture. All those points will have to be observed if areas are to be included.
All the rural Deputies have that off by heart already.
The nationwide review I have referred to involved two surveys — one by livestock agricultural officers and the second by Land Commission inspectors. The first part of the survey commenced on 29 January 1989. The amount of raw data to be processed following this very extensive review was extremely large and the processing and analysis of it had to be done in a very short period of time. This work is now nearing completion and it is hoped to present to Government in the very near future a list of the areas throughout the entire country deemed eligible for designation as disadvantaged or for reclassification to a more favourable status.
How much longer must we wait for D day?
As soon as the Government approve this list of areas it will be submitted to the EC Commission for their approval of the areas concerned. It is our hope that this approval can be obtained before the end of the Irish Presidency and that the relevant EC regulation listing the successful areas can be published in mid-1990. When that is done the position vis-à-vis the classification of new and existing areas will be revealed.
It has not been the practice in the course of any previous reviews of our disadvantaged areas to disclose which areas are being submitted to the EC Commission for approval prior to publication of the EC regulation approving those areas and I do not propose to depart from that practice of non-disclosure now. I am sure Deputies would agree that it would not be proper or in accordance with protocol to anticipate EC decisions of this nature before the relevant regulation was published.
Cold comfort for thousands of farmers. It is a disgrace, a capitulation. Where are the election promises now?
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Sheehan, there is another item on the Adjournment. If this kind of disorder continues I will adopt a different attitude towards Adjournment debates.