I move:—
That the Seanad disapproves of the action of the Minister for Agriculture in substituting an officer of the Department of Supplies for an officer of the Department of Agriculture as a member of the Pigs and Bacon Commission.
Order No. 237 was made on 9th November and the purpose was to make it possible to alter the constitution of the Pigs and Bacon Commission. The constitution of the Pigs and Bacon Commission was set out in the Act of 1939 and the amendment was embodied in the Order making it possible, so to speak, to eliminate an officer of the Department of Agriculture and to substitute therefor an officer from the Department of Supplies. Frankly I do not understand the purpose of that Order. I do not think that there is any other institution in the country that has brought upon the Minister more criticism and brought more confusion in the minds of a great many people than the Pigs and Bacon Commission. The Minister will recollect that when he was amending the Pigs and Bacon Act I indicated my view about the alteration being then made and urged that the change from the old Pigs and Bacon Board to the Pigs and Bacon Commission, putting the sole responsibility for the control and care of pigs and bacon production in the hands of three people, was not wise. Now the constitution of that commission consisted until recently of the gentleman who was chairman of the previous Pigs and Bacon Board, with the addition, I understand, of one or two officers of the Department of Agriculture. There was an officer of the veterinary branch and an officer directly from the Department of Agriculture. I may say I am all against that method of placing so much of the ordering of our affairs in the hands of what we look upon as the Civil Service. I feel that they are out of touch with these matters and that it is impossible for them to keep in touch. What troubles me about this is that this change has been made, whereas if you had one representative of the Department of Agriculture, one would feel that he would have an understanding of the problems and would have various opportunities in the Department of getting data and information. With an individual like that on the board or on this commission one could hope that there would be a certain amount of understanding of the producers' point of view. When you come up against a situation in which an official like that has been dropped, and has been substituted by a representative of the Department of Supplies, one immediately begins to think that the approach is made from the point of view that the distribution aspect is more important than the production aspect. That is how it appears to me.
Whoever is responsible for this Order, whether it is the Taoiseach as Head of the Government, or whether it is the Department of Supplies acting with or without consultation with the Minister for Agriculture, it is a departure that, from the procedure point of view, I cannot support. It is something of which this House ought not to approve. I am raising this matter because there is a principle of considerable importance involved. What I urge is that, from the point of view of consumers, and from the point of view of the people in the Department of Supplies, it is more important to get production, and if the Pigs and Bacon Commission have any function in respect of production, and if they have any opportunity of assisting production, it is vitally important that the constitution of the commission would be such that evidence would be available to producers that there was somebody there who really understood their problems. I confess I am in the dark as to how this body functions. Apparently, to a considerable extent, it is independent. It is acting under a statute of the Oireachtas, and is independent of the Minister. I presume that it must get information and advice from the Minister. I am not quite clear what control the Minister or his Department exercises over it. It is impossible for outsiders to understand how this body functions. I am not one of those people who consider that we should do away with ordering and regulating at the present time. I do not think we can. I do not accept the view that we can dispense with the authority that the Minister has taken to order and regulate supplies, distribution, and production, where that is possible. You must have some sort of organisation, but I am not clear how this body functions or what is the connection with the Department of Agriculture. I want to get from the Minister some statement as to the connection between his Department and this commission as to how far they are responsible for shaping policy, how far it affects production, and how far there is consultation with the Minister.
If the Minister tells me that there is continuous consultation between the Department and the Pigs Commission, perhaps the case which I make falls to the ground, because although the individual who was a nominee or an official of the Department of Agriculture has taken his departure from the commission, information can still be made available to the commission and the departmental point of view can still be made known. But I imagine that this body was, under the system which operated previously, able to conduct its affairs without having to call in, except on rare occasions, perhaps, an adviser from the Department. The ordering of its affairs should be in the charge of men who all the time in our present circumstances keep the production end in view. My opinion is that production is going to be the whole problem in the future. I agree that if production lessens or falls considerably under what it is to-day, the problem of distribution will be insoluble. I do not know what the Minister's view is, but I may say that I am not at all optimistic as to the prospects of an increase in our pig production in future. I do not know whether the Minister will recollect that a very long time ago, at least seven or eight months before the position became acute, I suggested in this House that by last July the number of pigs available for curing could be cured in one factory. Probably some Senators will recollect my saying that eight or nine months before that position actually came about. I found fault with the whole policy then. What I dislike about the action which has been taken is that it shows a disregard for the interests of producers or for the problem of producers, and, after all, production is the major end. You will really have very little difficulty with distribution if you get production. Production being by far the biggest consideration, the point of view which you have to keep in mind, if any point of view at all is to be represented in shaping the policy which the Pigs Commission formulates, is the point of view that can, so to speak, voice the interests of producers.
I presume that the new departure is now in operation as the Order was signed on 9th November, but this is the first occasion on which attention has been drawn to it. I do not know whether the change has actually taken place but, anyway, it seems to me it is a step which should not be taken and which the Minister should not have assented to unless there are reasons which do not appear obvious to us. Whatever the Minister's point of view may be, I think that any member of the community for whom I would claim to speak in this House, the producers of pigs would have to take exception to it. I recognise that the Pigs Commission have a very difficult part to play and a very difficult task to perform, and that they are subjected to a great deal of criticism. Some of it, I admit, is perhaps not well-informed criticism, because naturally many of the people who talk about these things are considerably in the dark. Nevertheless, the commission itself is not being given a fair chance unless it can bring to bear on the whole problem a balanced judgment. One would have imagined that there was no necessity to alter the constitution of the commission in the way in which it has been altered. Whatever the reasons were, it might be expected that the producers' end could be better served by the original arrangement. I think the general principle underlying this Order is unsound. The policy is not wise. As far as I am concerned, it is not an action to which I could subscribe. I think that some other method should have been adopted if the problem of production presented to the commission a task which, according to its constitution, was beyond it faithfully to discharge. I do not know whether it is possible now to alter the situation, but at any rate the principle is one which I felt should not be permitted to pass without being brought to the notice of the Oireachtas so that an opportunity might be afforded of hearing the producers' views about it.
