Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Jul 1939

Vol. 23 No. 6

Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Local Government and Public Health (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

This Bill follows the lines of the temporary Acts passed in the years 1935 and 1936 for the relief of rates on agricultural land. It is a permanent measure, and further special legislation will become necessary only if it be decided to change the basis of distribution of the grant. The grant for the present year is £1,870,000 and Section 4 of the Bill and the Schedule show the allocation of this grant between county councils. If the additional grant voted in any year is £370,000, that is the same as this year, the allocation between counties will be as set out in the Bill. If the extra amount is more or less than £370,000 the allocation will be determined by an order of the Government which will be laid before each House of the Oireachtas.

The method of applying the grant to the relief of rates remains unchanged. Occupiers of holdings of a land valuation of £20 or less will get relief from rates by way of an allowance called the primary allowance. The occupiers of holdings above £20 in land valuation get this allowance on the first £20 of valuation only. This allowance is given at the same rate as was allowed in each county in the year 1933-34 on the first £10 of valuation. The primary allowances absorb altogether £1,201,000 of the grant.

For occupiers with land valuation above £20 there are employment allowances granted in respect of men at work on the holding. The allowance is calculated on a valuation of £12 10s. 0d. for each man continuously employed throughout the previous calendar year. If the occupier has not so much additional valuation as £12 10s. 0d. for each man the allowance is calculated on the actual valuation in excess of £20. These employment allowances cost £333,000.

A little over £9,000 goes to urban authorities in respect of relief on land that has been brought within urban boundaries since the year 1898. There is then a balance of £326,000 which goes by way of supplementary allowance in relief of rates on the part of the land valuation above £20 that does not rank for an employment allowance. The supplementary allowance is at a lower rate than the primary allowance. In most counties it approximates to one half.

A new provision has been introduced in section by which a reasonable sum may be set aside out of the grant to meet claims for additional allowances. These claims are due principally to holdings being divided after the valuation lists have been made up.

Provision has also been made for the issue of credit notes for part of the rate relief. Last year only five counties availed of their powers to issue credit notes under a corresponding section in the Act in operation.

Mr. Baxter

It would be a mistake for the Minister, in getting this Bill through the House, to assume that by introducing it he is making the ratepayers in the county board of health areas satisfied: that he is doing what is fair and just by them. I want to tell him that they are not satisfied. Possibly, the Minister has been told that quite frequently and he may know that it is true. Senator Honan has described the Minister as a townsman. He may feel that, being a townsman administering the country's affairs, he has to give a divided allegiance. But we know, although it is said that people do not speak up for the towns as they do for the country, that the town always comes off best. It is a fact that the rates in the country districts to-day are higher by £852,000 than they were in 1931-32. So far as the Minister's administration is concerned, there has been no corresponding increase in the amount of the grants coming to the rural community from the Central Fund. It is a fact that the policy of the Minister has been responsible, to a very great extent, for this very considerable increase in the demand made on the local ratepayers for all sorts of schemes, quite good in themselves, but very expensive. All that increase is being borne by the occupiers of land.

The Minister now wants to make this measure permanent on the lines on which it has been administered over the past four years. The total amount of the Agricultural Grant is not anything like as large as it ought to be. I hold that the local ratepayers are definitely entitled to much greater relief from the Central Fund than the Minister is making available for them, mainly because there has been such a large increase in local taxation. There is the additional fact that the capacity of the farmer to-day to carry this increased burden is not at all what it was in 1931-32. There are many reasons for that. A number of them are known to the Minister and to members of his Party. I need not go into them at any length now, but the fact is not contested, even by members of the Minister's Party, that the capacity of the farmer to bear taxation is not as good now as it was in 1931-32.

What is the position of the farmer with regard to the amount of rates which he is paying? To-day, these amount to £3,057,558 as against £2,445,269 in 1931-32. That being the position, one cannot expect the farmer to say that it is just. On the other hand, there is no use in telling us of the benefits that have accrued to the farmer as a result of the halving of the land annuities. It may be that when the farmers of this generation are dead and gone—when all they suffered during the economic war is long forgotten—a new generation, if a new generation is left, will derive some benefit from that particular process. The position, undoubtedly, at the moment is not being met by what the Minister is making available through this Bill. There are certain other considerations as well. His predecessors gave a larger grant than that which is forthcoming presently. The Minister changed the basis of the grant and started operating this scheme whereby the grant becomes available on the basis of the employment given. I do not know whether the Minister has ever thought of examining the results of this scheme, to see whether it is bearing fruit or not.

In the first place, there has obviously been no encouragement given to employment on the land through the operations of this scheme. We have actually 43,000 people fewer employed—42,187 fewer males employed in agriculture now than we had when this Act started to operate—so that, if the Minister wants an answer as to whether he is getting anywhere in the matter of employment on the land under this scheme, the obvious answer, as shown by the figures themselves, is that he is not. He thought that he was doing better by applying the grant in this way in the matter of giving employment. Any sensible man—a farmer, anyhow—if he attempted some scheme that he believed was going to be for the betterment of himself or of his industry, and found after working it for three or four years that it was not bringing the expected results, would certainly contemplate a change. The Minister is going to make this scheme permanent, instead of trying to introduce a change.

I wonder has the Minister ever thought of applying a scheme from the point of view of trying to get increased production. It seems to me that what we have got to face up to here is to try to get greater production in agriculture. Greater production is the essential thing, greater production per unit of labour employed. If the Minister is doing anything, it seems to me that this scheme is to encourage a type of labour on the land that is not the most efficient, that is costly. There is a certain encouragement to keep men working, whether the return is being obtained from them or not. Take the case of a farmer in, say, Limerick or Tipperary or North Cork, or in any of the dairying districts where to-day they have problems with regard to labour difficulties, including the difficulty of getting labour in consequence of the Agricultural Wages Act, the Hours of Employment Act, and so on, difficulties which, generally, have to be met and faced by the dairy farmer in getting his work done, getting his cows milked punctually, regularly and efficiently. Now, if a farmer placed like that decides to put in a milking machine and perhaps drops a man or two men, partly because the men are not available and perhaps, to some extent, because they are not as efficient as he would like them to be, that man actually may increase his total production. He is the best type of citizen, the best type of farmer, but in spite of his greatly increased productivity, he will, if he drops a man, actually lose in the amount of grant which would be made available to him. I do not think that is right.

The Minister ought to try to encourage in this country, so far as he can encourage work on the land at all, efficient production and greater quantities. The Minister's present scheme does not do that. It works like this. A small farmer may have two or three, or perhaps four, sons. The father of the sons will get relief in his rates, in the name of his sons, so to speak; and you will discover in fact that the sons are engaged in casual work with a neighbouring farmer. In many cases because a man is not being permanently employed he will not be taken into account. A great many of our farmers cannot afford to employ or engage as many permanent hands as they would like. There is a great deal of seasonal employment in agriculture, but the Minister gives no consideration to that at all. This seasonal employment is a very expensive type of labour, and the Minister ought to give some consideration to that point of view. This scheme gives relief neither to the best farmers, nor to the best type of farming, nor to the type which ought to be encouraged by the Minister.

There is another point. The Minister will tell us—at least he told the Deputies in the other House—that the farmers are well off, that he does not like to hear them grumbling, and, generally, that the condition of the farming community is comfortable enough, so that there is no justification for any complaints. I do not think that the farmer grumbles any more than he has justification for. The farmers' difficulties are not, I think, treated by the Minister with the sympathy which they are entitled to get from him. The Minister, for instance, is in charge of the Road Fund, yet we found in the Budget policy for this year that he was prepared to acquiesce in this fund being raided by the Minister for Finance to the extent of £150,000. The ratepayers' grouse against the Minister is that he sends down orders from his Department to local authorities, laying down just what they are to do in the matter of administration of rates and what he will do for them if they do so-and-so. If they point out their difficulties, that they are not getting in rates—the greatly increased rates which ratepayers have to pay to-day—and say to the Minister that he ought to give them some money, he will reply that the money is not available, that it is not in the Road Fund. It is not there because he has permitted the Minister for Finance to raid it. The moneys in the Road Fund are there for a definite purpose, to relieve the burdens on the local ratepayers in the matter of the maintenance and construction of roads; but the Minister is prepared to acquiesce in the policy of the Minister for Finance in taking £150,000 from that fund. As I have said before in this House, it is not the amount which the Minister has taken on this occasion that the local ratepayers are most concerned about: it is the attitude of the Government and the attitude of the Minister for Local Government himself, who does not seem to have sufficient appreciation and understanding of the position in which the local ratepayers are placed to-day, as he is permitting that policy to be established here as a practice.

The Minister ought to have done more this year towards the relief of local rates. He is charged with the responsibility, in the administration of this money, in my view, of encouraging the greatest amount of production which it is possible to get from the land. I do not believe that the way in which this scheme has been administered so far has achieved those results at all. The Minister set out, believing that he could encourage greater employment on the land by administering these moneys in this way. They are gone, and he has failed; and, in view of the situation which confronts the country now, the Minister—in my judgment—ought to examine and recast his whole scheme. In the first place, he is not giving the farmers what they ought to get nor what he ought to give them, in order that they may have what they require in the way of assistance. In the second place, he is not even doing what he hoped himself. Instead of more employment, more production, we have definitely fewer people employed. In circumstances like this, the Minister cannot say that his policy is justified, and I do not think he ought to ask this House to make permanent the situation that now exists.

Mr. Butler

I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the extraordinary position of farmers with agricultural land within some of the urban areas. These farmers are not entitled to any benefits from the Agricultural Grant, and are compelled to pay the full county demand on very high valuations, while, on the other side of the fence, that is, in the rural area, the farmers are getting the full benefit of these grants. So far as I can see, the urban farmer has no advantage over his neighbour in the rural area. He has to compete in the same market; he gets the same price for his produce; and he pays the same wages. Yet, the urban farmer has, in many instances, to pay three times as much in rates as the rural farmer, though they are both in the very same position in every respect, and all because the urban farmer is deprived of the benefits of the Agricultural Grant. I hope the Minister will look into this matter before the next stage of the Bill, and I ask him to bring in an amendment to extend the benefits of the Agricultural Grant to urban farmers.

Mr. Byrne

On whatever else I may disagree with Senator Baxter, I am altogether in favour—and I think the Minister knows it—of getting increased agricultural grants. In fact, I have been advocating that for a long time. What I particularly want to draw the Minister's attention to is the matter to which Senator Baxter has referred. The Minister told us that the allowances are now divided under three headings. The primary allowance means that everybody gets a certain sum and, in the county with which I am most familiar, it amounts to about 5/11 in the £ on the first £20 of valuation. Then, there is the supplementary grant, which is the grant I want to emphasise. In our county it works out at about 5/9 on the first £12 10s. of valuation for every man employed. When all that money is used up, the balance of the amount allocated to the country is spread over the land which has not yet been relieved. I take quite a different view from that taken by Senator Baxter, because I believe that the reason there is not more employment is that that does not encourage people to employ. Assume that I employ a man and that I get 5/9 in respect of £12 10s. of my valuation. In our county it works out that the amount left for division over land not yet relieved comes to about 2/10 in the £, with the result that when I employ a man I get somewhere about £3 12s., whereas if I do not employ a man I get 24/-. I know that it works out at only about 35/- or 36/- for every man I employ, and that is not going to encourage people to employ very many men. A sum of 35/ in the year would not pay their insurance. Many of the farmers I know do not stop half the insurance, but if they did it would take most of the money.

I suggest to the Minister that the remaining 2/10 in our county—it works out differently in other counties— should be spread over all the land and that a farmer should not be penalised because he employs men. I suggest that when he gets his allowance up to £12 10s., any money left should be spread over everybody. That would help us, to some extent. Despite all that is said to the contrary I believe that the idea of encouraging people to give all the employment they possibly can on the land is good. We hear a good deal about people running away from the land. People will continue to run away from the land when they cannot get a living on it. We hear a good deal also about increasing our production. I am strongly in favour of it, but there is not much use in having increased or efficient production, until we are able to get cost of production out of what we have to sell. That is the big problem. We talk all the time about rates, rent and wages, but we never seem to concentrate, as organised farmers, except in very few instances, on getting what we are entitled to and what everybody else is entitled to, not only the cost of production, but something over and above for ourselves. I want to emphasise that. I am asking the Minister to look into that matter for next year.

We hear a good deal nowadays as to how the farmer should be relieved, as to derating, and we also have suggestions from time to time for the inauguration of a scheme by which part wages would be paid for men employed on land. I think that, under this scheme, that could be developed to a much greater extent, and that if there is money available, under a scheme of this nature, it would confer much greater benefits than some of the schemes suggested. Even at the cost of repetition, I emphasise again that the Minister will not induce people to employ more men if the man who is not giving any employment gets a much bigger share of this grant under the present system.

Mr. Madden

There is one matter to which I want to refer. I do not know whether I shall be strictly within the rules of debate in referring to it, but I base my remarks upon some sympathetic references made by the Minister to the towns. I entirely endorse the remarks of Senator Honan in reference to this matter, and I sincerely hope that when the Valuation Bill is being considered here, he will put into practical effect, by the registration of his vote, the remarks he made about towns. The Minister was rather surprised at, but, if you like, welcomed, the remarks of Senator Honan that there ought to be a recasting with regard to the basis of rates in their application to urban towns. I am here in a dual capacity. While I live in a town, I also farm a very considerable acreage of land. I also represent rural areas on a council elected by the farmers, but I must say that the condition of towns over a number of years has been despairingly bad. Even before the economic war, the depression was perfectly obvious in the towns, due to conditions not attributable to either the previous or the present Government. There are many agencies operating which have made it impossible for people in urban areas to meet their commitments to-day, but nobody will controvert this statement, that it is appalling to go through the towns to-day and to see the condition of shops and businesses generally. Many of them have been closed and inevitably rural towns, apart from one or two shops will become, as I said here before, monuments of decay. They get no relief from the Agricultural Grant.

We have to meet the county rate as struck by the county council based upon the valuation of our premises in towns. Assuming for argument's sake that the valuation of premises runs as it does in my town, from £14 to £30, there are many farms, something in the region of 40,000 whose valuation is £10 and under. Take men doing very little business in towns, men with large families. They have to pay that county rate from which they get no relief. Even the Bill we are discussing to-day does not bring them within its ambit. It does not bring within the ambit those dwellers in urban areas who have land. Many of those in the towns have land and they pay the maximum county rate increased by serious charges in the town rate plus extras for electricity, water rate and so on, matters which the Minister may say are very beneficial. They are very beneficial services. But the conditions operating as a result of matters over which no Government had control has been intensified by the economic war. But we are past that stage now.

I was delighted to hear a speech from the Minister holding out a sympathetic beacon to us in the towns. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health said he would welcome other towns forcing the issue upon him to introduce a Bill at a subsequent period to have a flat rate charged upon the county. I, on hearing the Minister, was delighted with that statement, and I shall take every opportunity as an urban dweller to broadcast that sympathetic lead given here to-day. I also trust that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health will consider the point raised by Senator C.M. Byrne. It is obviously unfair that people who have poor, struggling shops in towns and have also land within the urban area, do not come within this Bill.

There is this one other point. In order to get relief in rates a farmer must send in a statistical return of his employees on the land. Unless these people are employed for the whole year no relief is given. I do not know whether this condition operates in other counties, but it does in mine. Men employed on the land are hired in my county about the month of March. The terms of their employment terminate in December. For that reason because they are not employed the whole year they do not come within the category stipulated in the Bill. The result of that is that many farmers who were doing their best to give employment to labourers on the land are debarred from receiving relief in rates. I have met some farmers who may not have a very great scruple of conscience and they may put down that they are employing the men for the whole year. But I know a number of farmers who definitely refuse to take any such advantage; these latter have not an elastic conscience. These men lose all relief on rates. I hope the Minister will bear that point in mind with the other points that have been raised.

Mr. O'Callaghan

I take this opportunity of telling the Minister that the position of the farmers to-day is not a good one. Some Senators in this House and many people outside would lay the blame for that on the economic war. These people seem to have never heard of the world-wide depression which followed the Wall Street crash in 1929. That world-wide depression wiped out whole countrysides of farmers in Europe and America and even without the economic war it would have had a very bad effect in this country. Running side by side with the economic war, this depression operated very cruelly against the farmers. The farmers have not yet retrieved the position they held before 1929. I do not think that the Minister or his colleagues can be blamed for that. They ought not be blamed to the extent to which they are blamed. I think some blame might be laid upon the Opposition. Their attitude during that period was scarcely right. It was not right in the circumstances that did arise.

It is true that there are less people on the land now than there were last year or than there were even four years ago. I think the figures would be about 40,000 less than four years ago. That is largely due, perhaps, to what is happening in a neighbouring country now largely engaged in the manufacture of armaments. In that country high wages are paid to workmen. Our own people have gone across there. That is really the principal reason why there are so many less people on the land now than there was four or five years ago.

The scheme of relief in rates in accordance with the number of agricultural labourers employed on land has been dealt with by Senators on the Opposition side and on this side of the House in a different way. It appears to me that the development of this scheme of relief based on the number of agricultural labourers employed on the land is a very desirable one. I cannot understand Senator Baxter's attitude on that question at all. It seems to me that it is a very excellent thing to encourage the employment of more working men on the land. It appears to me that one of the best ways of helping the employment of labour on the land is through the development of this scheme of relief in the rates.

Mr. Baxter

It is not doing it.

Mr. O'Callaghan

It is not doing it but there are reasons why it is not doing it. I have already mentioned the question of high wages in the neighbouring country. There are many young people who have gone across to the neighbouring country to avail of the higher wages. However, when things become more normal this development of relief in rates will serve its purpose very well. Some reference has been made to relief in rates in the urban areas. I think land in urban areas is valued very much higher than in rural areas. I am aware that in my own town three acres of land recently realised something like £600. Other plots of land in the same district have also been sold at high prices recently. I do not know whether that applies in towns that are not so progressive. Land in other areas may not have as much value as in my town. I do believe the people in urban areas are no worse off than their brothers in rural districts. The decline in the towns has been also referred to. My solution for the restoration of the prosperity of the towns would be to restore prosperity to the countryside.

Mr. Baxter

Hear, hear!

Mr. O'Callaghan

Restore prosperity to the countryside and the towns will be all right.

Mr. Baxter

That is what we have been saying.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The last speaker seemed to imply that the one feasible way of increasing employment on the land was through this method of giving relief in the rates. Now there is only one way in which employment on the land is going to be increased and that is by bringing about a situation in which the owner of the land will find that by employing men to work and exploit the land, its productiveness will be sufficient to give a fair wage to the men employed and an element of profit to the owner of that land. The idea that relief to the extent of 30/- a year in rates is suddenly going to make the land flourish and bloom like the bay tree is perfectly ridiculous.

Mr. O'Callaghan

Yes, but the extension of that tenfold?

Mr. Fitzgerald

If that is so, then all I can say is that the land must necessarily be far too highly rated. If you are going to have land rated to such an extent that there is going to be a difference between the profit and loss created by a provision in the law which gives a reduction of 30/- in rates for the employment of one man, that means that the basic rate on land is enormously too high. There is only one way in which you can secure productive employment on the land and that is by creating a situation in which a man who owns 50, 100 or 1,000 acres will find that the application of human labour to that land will make it possible for the worker to receive a wage which will induce him to accept that work and not go off to the towns or emigrate to England. If the employer who gives employment on the land sees that by the basic commodity which belongs to him, his position is improved, then that man will give employment. But this business of pitiful relief in rates amounting from 30/- to 35/- is absolutely meaningless to the farmer.

If it is made clear to the man who owns the land that that land really belongs to him and if conditions are such that by the employment of labour he can make a profit, then there will be employment given. At present the man is told that the land does not belong to him, that it belongs to the Government. If I own a factory I pay the basic rates on my buildings which do not occupy much land. I pay income-tax on the profit I make. If my men like to go on strike they can go on strike, and if I like to have a lock-out I can have a lock-out, but I do not think that is desirable. I would much rather see State arbitration operating. Now, behind the Bill with which we were dealing last week and behind this Bill is the assertion that the owner of the land does not own it. We have been told the occupier of the land does not own it, that it is the Government owns it. We are to have a position in which the Government is to say whether the man occupying the land is using it in the best possible way. We are told that is to be decided by somebody outside the owner of the land. That is a view to which I strongly object.

Again in this debate we have heard a lot of talk about relief. "Relief" is a word that I do not like in this connection. This relief, as it is called, was administered, not by way of charity. It was a facing up to equities and to the reality of the situation.

The last speaker set out at the beginning to try to argue that the appalling condition of agriculture in this country during the last number of years was only mildly conditioned by the economic war and that it was basically due to world economic conditions. What is the fact? He referred to the slump in Wall Street in 1929. The present Government did not come into office until 1932. The Senator can look up the official statistics published by the League of Nations, and he will see that, during the preceding period when the Government of which I was a member was in power, the value of production and trade in this country diminished to a very small amount. The decline, if I remember rightly, was only 10 per cent. In fact the decline was less than in any other country for which the figures were given in that official report. The present Government then came in and apparently chose that moment, which the previous speaker agrees was the last moment that any prudent man would choose, to embark on such an enterprise as the economic war. If he will look up the figures, he will find that as far as the world economic condition was concerned, this country suffered less than any other country in the world while the previous Government was in office. On the other hand, he will find that, after the present Government was elected, this country suffered proportionately to a much higher degree than any other country in the world. I am not going to say that the difference as a result of a change in policy is exactly registered because undoubtedly certain other conditions may enter in.

I object to the suggestion that the owner of land has not the same right of ownership as the owner of industrial property or any other form of property and I object to this being called "relief." I do not think anybody will contest that in the year 1934 a man who was unfortunate enough to own a certain number of acres of land in this country was very badly circumstanced, in comparison with other members of the community. The ownership of land meant to him nothing else but a loss. Taking the bulk of the farmers of the country in these years, whatever may be happening now, these men owned what was called an asset, but it was not an asset. During that period the Government insisted that these men, for owning land which had only the effect of depleting their savings or of involving them in debt, for the privilege of being legally possessed of something which only meant a loss and which they could only continue to possess by having some savings behind them or by going into debt, should be assessed for rates. You may remember that during that time when we pointed out the absolute inequity of the condition of things then prevailing, there was an appeal made to the baser passions of the people of the country that we were arguing that poor law relief should come to an end. The first concern of the farmers during that period should have been for their families and, by the law of the land, they were technically getting relief from the Government. In fact, if they had savings they had to pour out these savings, not only to maintain their families but to maintain these charges which had been put upon them.

I do feel that a great deal has got to be done if we are going to bring agriculture into the position that it should occupy as the only really effective production apart from one or two minor industries, which we have in this country. One of the first steps we should take is to try to reduce the fixed overhead charges on agriculture. We saw the effect of these fixed overhead charges in 1934. These charges might have been equitable in relation to the conditions which existed in previous years but they were so fixed that, when the farmers were not in that condition, still the binding nature of these charges was enforced by the seizure of cattle and by every form of coercion the Government could bring to bear. Therefore, I object to the word "relief." If I remember rightly, in the last year of office of the previous Government the relief given to agriculture amounted to almost £2,000,000. When we took over from the British in 1922, the relief given to agriculture from central taxation was roughly £600,000. Another £600,000 was added in 1926 and 1927 and, I think in 1930 or 1931, a further sum of £750,000 was given, making in all a grant of £1,950,000, in relief of agricultural rates. The only reason that that was done then, and the only reason it is done now, is that on examination of the local taxation of the country, it was found that when the local councils assess their rates for services, which are largely dictated to them by the central Government, it would impose a completely inequitable burden on the farmers of the country if they had to pay these rates as assessed. Consequently you should not use the word "relief" in relation to these grants. The Government is trying by a rather devious method to arrange that the inequity operating against farmers shall be a little less inequitable than it has been previously.

There is another question on which I should like some information. There is a fixed sum here which is supposed to be applied for the relief of agriculture and, normally, the Government Department calculates on a sort of budget for that. You can do that. You could do it when we had nearly £2,000,000 given in relief of agriculture because you knew the acreage and the valuation of holdings throughout the country to which this sum would be applied. I do not quite understand— I have no doubt the Minister can explain it quite simply—how it is proposed to apply this fixed sum in relief or how he bases his calculation, which may vary according to circumstances. For instance, presumably some years ago it was calculated that this relief given in respect to the employment of labour would relate to the employment of so many men. As a matter of fact, as Senator Baxter has pointed out, there are 42,000 less men employed now than there were some short time ago. The Minister has made a certain calculation, I take it, of the number of men employed, but suppose one-half of the men employed cease to be employed during the next 12 months or suppose the number is doubled during the next 12 months. I do not quite understand how his book-keeping will work out in that event because if you allow so much for every man, you will have that amount multiplied by the number employed on the land. I should like to know how the Minister's calculations will work out in that respect.

Mr. Counihan

I do not want to discuss the little incident of the financial dispute with England, and I rise merely to ask the Minister a question. On the last occasion when there was a Relief of Rates Bill in this House, I moved an amendment which would grant relief of half the rates on land held in fee simple. The Minister promised on that occasion to consider the matter, and to see if something could be done in the next Bill. I want to know if the Minister has since considered the matter, and whether he proposes to do anything. In 1933 a Land Bill was introduced which granted relief of half the annuities to people who held land from the Land Commission or who were paying rents in other ways. They got a reduction of half those annuities or half those rents. The proposal I put up on that occasion was that, as the reduction was given as compensation for their losses during the economic war, the people who held agricultural land in fee simple were entitled to the same consideration. They suffered quite as much as the people who paid annuities, and should receive some consideration. The Minister promised to consider the matter, and to do something if possible on his next Relief of Rates Bill. I should like to know whether anything has been done about it, and whether the Minister will accept an amendment on the Committee Stage of this Bill to do what I want to do, and what he spoke so sympathetically about on that occasion.

Sir John Keane

I am not going to ask the Minister to increase the agricultural grant, because he would ask me where the money is to come from, and I could not answer that. We are already burdened up to the hilt, and of course the only remedy is to reduce the charges on farms. I am not going to pursue that; Senator Fitzgerald referred to it. The farmers' overheads are growing every day, and that is where the trouble comes from. There was a certain plea made for extending those agricultural grants, in some way or other to the towns. I cannot see the soundness of that. I agree that the towns are suffering, and there again of course that is a reflection of the suffering of the farmers. The farmer adapts himself to his burden; the land goes on all the same, however poor he is. The townsman cannot do the same thing. If his trade falls, the burden is more direct. I cannot see any justification for diverting the agricultural grant. The agricultural grant is intended to benefit the primary producers, and the primary producers are the people on whom the whole policy of the Government should be centred. That is why I have had differences with the Government for some years— because they have neglected the primary producers to the benefit of the secondary producers, and the burden of that artificial benefit to the secondary producers comes back on the primary producers.

There is one matter in relation to the Agricultural Grant about which the Minister has heard before, but I cannot neglect this opportunity to refer to it again, and that is the illusion which is conveyed by the figures given that that £1,800,000 is the sum the local authorities receive. It is not. The iniquitous system of deducting sums on account of unpaid annuities still continues. The Minister knows the origin of that. It has its origin in what we call those bad British days, when the British used that means of recovering arrears of annuities from the local taxation grant. The British said: "We are going to hold those grants against unpaid annuities as a sort of penal measure." One would have thought that when this country became independent this penal method would have been abandoned. Rates should be one thing and annuities another. If the Land Commission fail to collect the annuities they should not penalise the local ratepayers, innocent men who had nothing to do with it at all. Yet, in spite of repeated pressure —in fact an amendment was once passed by this Seanad, but was sent back by the Dáil—the system still continues. The Banking Commission reported against that iniquitous method, but it still goes on. The effect of it is to make the Land Commission tardy in the collection of their annuities. When they know that the annuities are going to be paid for out of the rates, why should they bother to collect them? There have been cases where five or six years' arrears were allowed to accumulate. The land Commission does not mind; the ratepayers are paying for it. The whole thing is a most unjust penalty on the local ratepayers. I would ask the Minister whether the Government cannot seriously consider doing away with that anachronism, and separating altogether the collection of the annuities from the Agricultural Grant.

Mr. Goulding

I am inclined to agree with Senator Sir John Keane that the withholding of those grants on account of unpaid annuities is ridiculous. It is very unfair to those who consistently and regularly pay their annuities that those who do not pay them are practically allowed to get away with it. I am afraid, as the Senator has pointed out, that the effect is to make the Land Commission rather indifferent as to whether they collect the annuities or not. It is undoubtedly an incentive to the average ratepayer to get careless about paying his annuities, when he can see the indifferent, careless, or even wasteful and extravagant man getting away with it. Senator Baxter referred very rightly, to the fact that the burden of rates has increased during the past few years, but the Senator should realise that one cause of the increase is that schemes for the benefit of agriculture have been introduced. The cost of administering those schemes is borne by the local rates, and to some extent that has affected the burden.

Mr. Baxter

What schemes, for instance?

Mr. Goulding

The warble fly scheme, various seed schemes, and so on. All those have had some effect on the rates. Those schemes have been put into force for the benefit of the agricultural community.

Mr. Baxter

The Senator could not convince the farmers that the warble fly scheme did them much good.

Mr. Goulding

That is all very well, but that is a scheme intended to aid the agricultural industry; it is not to aid the towns, about which we heard so much lately. With regard to the inclusion of the urban areas, I am very sympathetic to that. It is all very well for Senator O'Callaghan to say that land in urban areas is fetching so many hundred pounds an acre, but there are holdings in the urban areas paying very heavy urban rates in addition to the county rates, and those holdings will never have any value as potential building lands. We are told, of course, that the farmer living within the urban area has certain privileges and certain facilities for the marketing of his produce. Then we are always told that his land has a potential building value. I know holdings in urban areas which will never be used for building at all, and those people have no advantage over their neighbours living a couple of miles out in the country. With modern fast transport, it is a matter of indifference to a man whether he is living in an urban area or a couple of miles outside it; he can get his produce into the town just as quickly. Of course the drawback in regard to this agitation is that the people concerned are so few that nobody pays any attention to them, but their grievance is an undoubted one. At the moment, of course, it would need special legislation to deal with them, but I would impress on the Minister that, although those people are few in number, they have a decided grievance, and some effort should be made to remedy that grievance.

Some Senator said that if agricultural conditions were improved, the towns would improve. I wonder would they. Anyone who knows the country and is familiar with the changed conditions during the past few years knows that the tendency of legislation, and the tendency, I suppose, of trade, has been to do away with the towns. Legislation has helped the farmer, for instance, to establish co-operative societies. Every effort has been made during the past few years by lectures and all sorts of inducements to get the farmers to co-operate. I agree that the welfare of the towns up to the present, anyway, has depended on the surrounding country. The reason for the existence of the small towns has been to cater for the needs of the surrounding country. But look at what has happened in the past few years. The farmer has begun to cater for himself. It would be interesting to get a return showing the turn-over of the various co-operative societies and especially of the shops which are run in opposition to the country shopkeeper. There are many co-operative societies with a return of over £100,000 per year. A considerable portion of that is made up of business taken away from the country shopkeeper. I do not know if I am in order in introducing this, but it has some bearing on the question of the burden of rates as between the agriculturist and the townsman.

Mr. Baxter

That is not a new development. These societies are there for the last 20 years.

Mr. Goulding

I agree that they have been operating for 20 years. But the townsman has got no relief at all in his rates, and his business has been going steadily downwards all the time. Some Senator pointed out that many of these towns will eventually become derelict and will be unable to pay any rates at all. Of course, I can see no remedy in the Bill before us; but I wish to point out that other people in the country have grievances as well as the farmers. We would all be very glad if we could give more relief to the farmers. To reduce the overheads would be one way; but the best way would be to increase output, to increase production at a reasonable price, because I am afraid it will be very difficult to reduce overheads. Whether we like it or not, the call for more and more social reforms is increasing. We cannot resist it; no Government dare resist it. The result, I am afraid, will be that the overhead costs, at least so far as the costs of public services are concerned, cannot be reduced.

You can never speak of these things without bringing in the economic war. Of course, exception was taken to the statement that the depression in 1929 was used as an argument from the other side of the House. But the real depression did not affect agriculture until 1933-1934. It was then that the real agricultural depression came along. It is very little use making a comparison between farmers in Ireland and farmers in America, Belgium, Holland, or anywhere else; but the agricultural depression certainly at the time was worldwide. I am not afraid to admit that it was accentuated by the economic war —there is no doubt about that. But, even during the economic war, quite a number of farmers did not do too badly. Many of them, by taking advantage of the schemes initiated at the time, certainly benefited largely. I know many of them, and I am sure every Senator knows others who, by taking advantage of the schemes initiated then, did not have such a bad time at all. Undoubtedly, since then agricultural matters have not improved, prices have not improved. Although the economic war is over, the price of cattle to-day is no better than during the last year or two of the economic war. I am speaking subject to correction, but I understand that no better price is obtainable to-day for cattle than was obtained two or three years ago. If I am wrong in that, I shall be glad to be corrected.

It all comes back to the question of rating. However we try to administer relief, we must be careful to bear in mind the interests of the rest of the people. Those who speak for the towns feel this matter very strongly. People in the towns have a decided grievance. Many townspeople will tell you: "The Government are using our money to help the farmers and to destroy us. They are helping and encouraging the formation of co-operative societies, and using our money so that a certain price can be given for milk and milk products. That money is being used to destroy us." Whether we like to admit it or not, the co-operative societies with their co-operative shops are one of the greatest factors in the destruction of the small towns.

Mr. Hawkins

I wish to join in the request that has been made to the Minister on behalf of the agricultural holdings in urban areas. We have a number of such holdings in Galway. A number of Senators stated that they do not see any reason why those people in the towns should get any relief. I think Senators who make these statements do not know the exact position. In the urban area of Galway there are some 200 people that this relief of rates will affect. Those people earn their living solely by agriculture. They have to pay the county rate and the town rate. If they engage workers, they have to give them a little more than if they were living in the rural areas. They have no advantages. The advantage of being near a market is gone now, because men who are living 15 or 20 miles away from a market can, with modern transport conditions, get to that market almost as quickly and almost as cheaply as those living in the urban areas. People will say that they have facilities provided for them. The particular people for whom I am pleading have no facilities and never will have. They will never have sewerage or water or light provided for them. Even if the Minister's Department or any other Department stated in the morning: "We will give you a free grant to supply sewerage, water and light," that would not even put them into the advantageous position in which their neighbours in the rural areas are in the way of a market for their produce.

In former times, of course, this was not such a great hardship, as those people, particularly around Galway City, were able to do some carting from the docks, and there were various other sorts of work they could undertake to supplement what they earned from agriculture. Now, with modern transport, all that is gone. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the milk supplied to the cities and towns at present comes from the rural areas. People talk about keeping people on the land, but the temptation to leave the land is certainly greater for the people who are nearest to the towns than it is for people further removed from them. In order to succeed at present young people are doing their best to get positions in the towns. They are leaving the land to go to business in the towns, and if that continues there will be no one left on the land but old people. If the land is to be worked properly, this relief of rates must be extended to all those who derive a living from agriculture. As to the potential value of land for building purposes the area in the Bill should be extended for a few miles. The western side of Galway is suitable for building, but building will never take place in other portions of the city. I know of one family of ten that are eking out an existence on a few acres of land, but the owner cannot get a housing grant, although he has to compete with people on the urban boundary who get relief from rates. I hope the Minister will amend the Bill, so that its benefits will be extended to the people I refer to.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have listened with great interest to this debate. I do not think there was any suggestions made that I have not heard before, either here or in the Dáil, when similar Bills were under discussion. Senator Sir John Keane put his finger on the only spot that gives any hope of meeting, to any extent, the various grievances that were put forward. The remedy is to increase the Agricultural Grant. I do not see that any recasting of the present Agricultural Grant would bring any great measure of relief to any of the classes that have been mentioned. I do not know that anybody minds very much whether it is called relief or not, as suggested by Senator Fitzgerald, provided there is enough money. That is the principal point. If there is enough money there you can call it what you like. As a matter of fact the Agricultural Grant has been very largely increased, more than quadrupled, in the last 20 years. That was a big relief. I am sorry for using a word to which Senator Fitzgerald objects so much, but it means the granting of relief, perhaps, to the largest section of our community. Senator Baxter, I know, did not mean to misquote me, but he paraphrased a number of statements I made in the Dáil in such a way, that he misquoted me, and did not quote accurately one phrase that I did use.

Mr. Baxter

Did I quote you at all?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

You referred to a statement made in the Dáil.

Mr. Baxter

No.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Senator referred to certain statements made about farmers. I did, in the Dáil, make a certain statement about farmers, and I took it the Senator did not intend to misquote me by attempting to use the phrase I used.

Mr. Baxter

It was the impression I got from reading it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Senator misquoted me. I did not use or intend to use the phrase he used. I did not say that farmers were comfortably off. If I used the word "comfortably," I certainly did say that there was plenty of room for improvement. I did say that they were "monarchs of all they survey within the limits of their own farms." That is true of them, much more true than of any townsman in any kind of employment. Farmers are in a much happier position. I emphasise this, that they are not wealthy. Farmers are not wealthy in this or in any other country. They will never become millionaires out of agriculture. That is a fact. There is no comparison between farmers with 20 or 25 acres, or even if it is only 14 acres, and those who are town workers or small shopkeepers. There is no comparison of the life or of the freedom they enjoy.

Mr. Baxter

If you were a farmer for a time you would know the contrary.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I know that I would be happier to be on a farm than to be stuck in a shop for 16 hours daily trying to eke out a living.

Mr. Baxter

Go and buy a farm and test it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I know as many farmers as Senator Baxter or any other Senator. I know them intimately and have lived with them. I spoke to one farmer, after reading some criticism of some remarks of mine last week. He is a big farmer and had 70 Irish acres, but is not wealthy. I suppose he is 20 years farming for himself, but still not a wealthy man, with very little ready money. He has now 115 acres of land. I told him what his neighbours and himself would do, if five or ten acres of land were for sale in the neighbourhood—there would be a rush for them. That is the fact. I asked him why in the name of God they wanted more land, or if they had not enough. His reply was that it was very hard to see it going. When I said that they had not the money for it, he said they had credit. Where will you get a shopkeeper or a townsman able to do the same thing? You cannot get them.

There has been talk about the rates on agricultural land. Actually the rates levied on agricultural land have not increased very much since 1929-30, certainly not since 1931-32. Senator Baxter quoted 1931, when the amount collected was £2,157,000 on all agricultural land. What is the amount to-day? £2,227,000. Where is the enormous increase? As Senator Baxter stated, there is an increase generally of roughly £100,000 on the total rate, but townspeople are bearing a much increased rate compared to the agricultural community. Take any town you like and you will find increased rates. I know that in the last few years my rates in Dublin have gone up 3/- in the £. Everyone in Dublin pays that increase. They are paying because they are getting increased and valuable services. What applies to Dublin applies to Cork, Limerick and everywhere else. The farmer is not bearing anything as large a proportion. I would like to see him bearing less. I would like to see the overhead charges on agriculture reduced. I say that because, as Senator Goulding and Senator Baxter mentioned, I would like to see increased production. I do not see any likelihood of any great decrease in overheads under present conditions.

Every farmer, as well as other members of the community, looks for improved social services. We all want to see them getting them. If you ask farmers in this House or in the Dáil, whether we should have pensions for widows' and orphans', do you think any of them would turn down a proposition of that kind. They would not. They all want improved social services. Every decent person in the country wants them, no matter what class he belongs to. Of course, we cannot have them without paying for them, and every class of the community will have to bear their share. The farmers are getting consideration from the Government. They got it from the last Government, they will get it from this Government, and they will always get special consideration because of their position. Everybody knows that agriculture pays in the long run. I do not agree that it does not pay. Where are the families that came off the land three generations ago and went into Cork, Limerick and Dublin? They have disappeared, but the families who remained on the land do not disappear.

Mr. Baxter

They are disappearing off the land.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is no comparison at all. Go into any county and search back into the history of families and you will find they are on the same land generation after generation. You cannot say the same of families in Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Waterford. There is that much advantage, anybody will have to admit, arising out of the life of the agriculturist as compared with the life of the townsman. In 1924-25 the agricultural grant was £599,000. In 1935-36 it was £1,870,000. That is a big growth in a short time. Is there any other class of the community that has got anything comparable to that?

I am not saying that the farmers do not deserve every penny of it and, if the money was there, that they should not get more. I repeat what I said in the Dáil, that if the money was available, I do not see why they should not get more. I do not deny that to them, and I would like to see them getting it, but, if they do get it, the farmers as well as everybody else will have to pay. It is a matter of six of one and half-a-dozen of another. It means increased taxation unless there can be such economies secured—and I do not see where the economies are going to be got—as would cover the amount required.

In 1934-35 the agricultural grant was higher than at present. It was £1,870,000 for the last three years, but in 1934-35 the amount was £1,950,000. There was a big increase in the years 1930 to 1932. In 1930-31 the total agricultural grant was £1,198,000. Then there was a general election in the offing. There were at least two big Parties in the Parliament and I think it was the Fianna Fáil Party who proposed that the grant be increased by £1,000,000. The Government of the time proposed £750,000. The Government had to give in, seeing the general election coming, and they gave £750,000.

Mr. Baxter

The report of the Derating Commission was presented at that time.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

They had to give in, because there was a general election coming. Whatever report was presented, if there was not a general election coming they might not have adopted that attitude. There was a general election coming and the farmers derived benefit from that fact and they got £750,000.

Mr. Baxter

Was that not the recommendation in the Minority Report?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

What I am saying is the fact, and you can talk any way you like. Everyone knows that they gave £750,000 because they were good politicians. The last Government were good politicians, and we were no worse as politicians, not a bit worse; in fact, we were much better politicians, as we proved.

Mr. Baxter

Much better making promises.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We carried out every promise we made, and that is why we are here so long, and that is why we will be here for another ten years.

Mr. Baxter

God forbid.

Mr. MacDermot

Is that a promise?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We also increased the agricultural grant. We went one better than the last Government and we increased it by £250,000. A year or two later what did we do? Senator Fitzgerald says we started the economic war. We started the fight on behalf of the farmers, who were paying annuities that should never be paid. We kept these moneys and the farmers had their annuities reduced by 50 per cent., and we did not reduce the agricultural grant. It is not as high as it was, but the farmers get the benefit of the halved annuities. Every farmer, whether he came under the 1923 Act or any other Act, got the same benefit. That remains with the farmers. The agricultural grant has been reduced by over £100,000 since 1934-35, but while it is somewhat reduced, there has been an enormous gift to all classes of farmers except, perhaps, the ones Senator Counihan would be interested in, those who bought out. They did not reap the same benefit, but all other farmers who pay annuities have got a 50 per cent. reduction, and that will remain with them for all time.

Mr. Baxter

We were much better off when we were paying the old annuity; we could pay it easier.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Did you ever hear such codology, such foolishness? I hope the Senator will not be foolish enough to get up in any constituency and tell the farmers that he wants them to go back and pay the full annuity.

Mr. Byrne

They have not the slightest intention of doing so.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I never heard such foolishness, and I am surprised to see a Senator who could make such a statement where he is. I am surprised at his telling the farmers that they would be better off paying the full annuity.

Mr. Baxter

It is true.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not know how the Senator could say that. I do not think I have anything more to say except in relation to the position in the towns. Reference was made to agricultural land in urban areas. That is admittedly a problem, and I have no doubt there are agriculturists in some towns who have a grievance. I expect that when the valuation, which will be undertaken soon, I hope, of the hereditaments in the country in general is completed, that consideration will be given to that problem. At present it would merely take off the agricultural grant a sum that is not sufficient to meet the demands that are being made on it.

If we were to divide this agricultural grant over certain lands in urban areas for which demand is being made, there are lands that are not agricultural lands that would benefit and that ought not to benefit. There are lands in the Galway area that I would not allow the money to go to if I could stop it. I happen to know something about the City of Galway, where friends of mine have sold land at between £500 and £600 per plot for a house. That would rank as agricultural land if we were to do what some Senators here want us to do. If we were to buy the land for a housing scheme we would pay £200 to £300 an acre for it.

Mr. Baxter

That is more than the Land Commission would give.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That would not be the right thing to do unless we had a close examination of all land in the urban areas and have it divided into land that is really agricultural land and land that is building land and valued above what agricultural land normally would be. The actual average increase in rates may be high on those who have little money and, generally speaking, the farming community have little ready money. Taking the country as a whole, the average increase has not been so great. Ten years ago, the time the Derating Commission sat, the average rate all over the country was 9/- in the pound. Five years ago it was 10/-, and now it is 11/2 or 11/3. But if that is so, there has been a great improvement in roads, and that is an advantage to the farmers as well as to other classes of the community.

Mr. Baxter

He does not think it is.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am sure that the farmer does not agree that he gets any benefit.

Mr. Douglas

Does that average of 11/-, which the Minister mentioned, include towns?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am talking of the country rate.

Mr. Douglas

Excluding towns?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is a town rate as well in most of the towns. However, take any county you like and get the members of the council and the board of health together to discuss what is required in that particular county and you will find that they want better hospitals, that they want improvements in the mental hospital conditions, increases in the wages of the staff, increases of salaries for the officials, increases in sanatoria conditions, and so on, and you will find that the farmers, just as well as everybody else, will make these demands. Now, it must be remembered that, while there are large sums available for the hospitals, even though these people succeeded in getting, as they have succeeded in some cases in getting, 100 per cent. of the cost of building a new hospital, that hospital has to be maintained, and the cost of maintenance of that hospital means a very material increase on the rates. Therefore, I say, and I have said it on previous occasions, that the farmers themselves, as well as other people, are not wise, either for their own sakes or for the sake of the country, in making these huge demands. I say that they should moderate their demands, and that they should not be asking for, say, the provision of 100 or 150 beds in a hospital where 70 or 75 beds would be quite sufficient, and they should remember that the cost of maintenance is going to remain a charge for ever on the community as long as that building lasts. I would advise them, therefore, to look carefully to the cost in the future of these big institutions which they are demanding and also to the cost of the social services of every kind and the public health services that are being demanded on every side.

I should like to see two kinds of public health services—in fact, all kinds of public health services— improved, but I often have to turn down demands made from county councils where the majority of the members on the county council and on the board of health are farmers. I have to refuse the demands they make for large hospitals, new sanatoria, and fever hospitals all over the place. Once they think that the money is there, they want a new fever hospital in every town, where a few fever hospitals would do. I am constantly arguing, fighting and turning down propositions of that kind. Another kind of thing that I have to turn down —and I should like to remind farmer members of this House as well as the farmers in the country of this—is requests that an official of a county council or a board of health, especially an official in a high office, should be given an increase of salary. Now, very seldom is such a request turned down by the farmers. I suppose, however, that they hope that the fellow up in Dublin will have to do the dirty work of turning down the request for them. I do not know if that is what they have in their minds, but that is what happens very often. They are very generous in voting for the giving of increased salaries to the officials, and yet the very same men who have granted these increases—and large increases, too—and who wish to grant them to officials, when they are meeting in county councils and boards of health, will come up to the Dáil, if they are members of it, and criticise the Minister for Local Government and Public Health—the present Minister as well as the last Minister—for the enormous increase in rates. That happens very often. Dáil Deputies and Senators will vote for these increases at meetings of the county councils or boards of health, and then come up here and tell us that we are ruining the country by allowing the rates to be increased.

Mr. MacDermot

Surely not Senators?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, I am afraid that it is so.

Mr. Douglas

I am afraid that these are some of the privileges we do not have.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, I do not think I have anything more to say, Sir, and I think I have kept the House long enough.

Mr. Counihan

Would the Minister answer the question I put to him?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I beg Senator Counihan's pardon. After the talk we had on the last occasion I was here, I did examine the question of finding a way out, if there was one, with a view to getting some kind of consideration for those who had fee simple land, but there was no way in which that could be brought within the ambit of this Bill. There would have to be some special way of dealing with it. In fact, there would have to be special legislation, or a new Bill in itself, to deal with the question of compensation, if it is ever to be got, for farmers who are fee simple holders. It cannot be dealt with in a measure of this kind.

Mr. Byrne

Would the Minister consider the matter of spreading the amount to which I referred over all the land?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not think it can be done.

Mr. Byrne

I think the Minister should consider it, because I believe that it is unfair that a farmer should be penalised in that way.

Question put and agreed to.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

To-morrow, Sir, if you like and if the House agrees.

Mr. Byrne

Why not take it now?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is the Seanad agreed to take the Committee Stage now? Is there any objection?

Agreed that the Committee Stage be taken now.

Question proposed: That Section 1 stand part of the Bill.

Sir John Keane

Are we on the Committee Stage now?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Yes.

Sir John Keane

But we have had no opportunity of putting down amendments. This is a very important Bill and I think we ought to resist this proposal to take the Committee Stage now. Surely we should leave it over until next week.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The House agreed to take the Committee Stage now. I asked if there was any objection, and there was none. The Senator should have objected when I asked if there was any objection to taking the Committee Stage now.

Mr. MacDermot

I must say that I did not hear the question.

Sir John Keane

I did not hear the question, and I think it is a travesty of the whole of parliamentary procedure if we are not to have an opportunity of submitting amendments. I say that the Committee Stage of this Bill should be postponed. We have put off less important Bills than this in order to carry out the routine procedure.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is certainly not the fault of the Minister.

Sir John Keane

I say that the House should not be taken by surprise in this way.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

If Senators wish to do so, we can postpone the Committee Stage.

Sir John Keane

I think it is making a farce of parliamentary procedure to act in this way.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Well, shall we take it to-morrow?

Mr. MacDermot

Or next week?

Mr. Douglas

I suggest, Sir, that we should decide to-night as to what Bills will be put down for to-morrow or what Bills will be put down for next week. The difficulty is that some Senators think that it may be possible, by agreement, to finish the business this week, either to-morrow or on Friday, while others think that we should meet next week.

Mr. Hayes

I would point out to the House that, if you put the Committee Stage of this Bill down for next week, you cannot take it to-morrow; but if you put it down for to-morrow, you can take it either to-morrow or next week.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Well, is it agreed that we shall put it down for to-morrow?

Agreed to take the Committee Stage to-morrow.