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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 30 Jun 1955

Vol. 45 No. 1

Seed Production Bill, 1955—Report and Final Stages.

I move:—

In page 7, line 29, Section 18, sub-section (4) (c), to delete "wilfully or negligently".

This is the one amendment which it is proposed to submit to the Seanad. This amendment has been set down to meet a point made by Senator Cox on the Committee Stage.

Could I ask a question on a point of explanation arising out of this amendment? Will the Minister say if a person will be liable, if he makes a false entry by mistake? If we omit the words "wilfully or negligently", the person who makes or causes to be made in the record any entry which is false or misleading if he makes a false entry by mistake, will now be subject to a penalty, whereas in the original draft it had to be wilfully or negligently made. He might take great care without being negligent and yet make a mistake and he is now subject to a penalty. I am just asking for the Minister's comment on that, whether this change is in fact a narrowing down rather than a widening.

I think, possibly, the words that originally appeared would be more acceptable to me but I understood that the mind of the Seanad would be that it would wish to delete the words and, as I was anxious to meet the mind of the Seanad, I offered this amendment for their deletion.

I agree with the Minister that the original drafting is rather better. Are we now prepared to penalise somebody who makes a genuine mistake whereas originally it had to be proved that the false entry had been made wilfully or negligently? Now, he can be penalised even if the mistake is made in good faith.

Surely any mistake is either wilful or negligent, and in any case of this kind it will be either wilful or as a result of negligence? I do not think it makes any difference; the fact we want to emphasise is that if a mistake is made, no matter what the cause, the person who makes it will be liable. I do not think a man would be able to argue that a mistake was neither negligent nor wilful.

I would remind the Senator that we are not on the Committee Stage; it is the Report Stage that is being considered.

What I was trying to suggest is that one could, without being negligent and without wilfully desiring to do so, make a mistake. It is possible to make a mistake without negligence; it is possible to take every precaution and still make a mistake.

I would like to support that proposition that it is possible to make an error in preparing those records without being negligent or without wilfully desiring to do so. This change certainly makes the section more drastic as far as the licence holder is concerned. Under the original draft a person required either "wilfully or negligently" to make or cause to be made in the record any entry which was false or misleading in a particular manner. When we delete those two words, a person who makes an entry which happens to be false, even though he may not have acted wilfully or negligently, is now liable to a penalty. We are certainly making this section more drastic by deleting these words. In making records a person may be extremely careful and, nevertheless, something may be entered which is not absolutely true. The person making the entry may believe it is true. He is not negligent; neither does he wilfully desire to deceive anybody. Yet, because it is found that the record is not true, he becomes liable to a severe penalty. It would be bad legislation and I think it is something we should not include in this Bill.

What is the will of the House? Does it want the amendment or does it want to reject the amendment?

I want to make it perfectly clear that it is a matter of complete indifference to me—whatever the Seanad wishes. One course is just as acceptable to me as another.

I think the words give some protection to the public and for that reason might be retained rather than deleted.

The Senator means the words of the amendment?

The words in the section which it is proposed to delete. The section would appear to have been drafted for the purpose of giving a defence to people who are charged and if that is so, we should leave them the defence which the Minister and the Minister's Department have given them.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill reported without amendment.
Agreed to take remaining stages now.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed—"That the Bill do now pass."

There is one question I would like to ask the Minister. Of course I heartily approve of the principal purpose of this Bill and I hope the principle will be extended to a great many other things such as the so-called patent medicines. The question I want to put to the Minister is: The purchaser in future will have a guarantee of the quality of the material he is getting. I think this will require a certain amount of instruction so that the farmer will know exactly what to look for. He will have to know the standards he requires and, in fact, will have to be educated in it. That raises at once the question: We give him good, guaranteed material, but how are we to know that he uses it? He may be diverted to purchasing something else that is quite inferior. I wonder does the Minister contemplate a short course of propaganda or encouragement to enable the users to get this good stuff or would it be wise to consider putting a tariff on rival, uncontrolled seeds and fertilisers so as to give the high grade material that the Government Department stands over a better chance, or will it be possible even to give a bonus for some years until the users had got into the habit of recognising the good quality of the guaranteed material?

That, really, is the only question I want to ask the Minister. He is providing a high grade substance of known standard but how will he be sure that it will be used?

As I have indicated on other stages of the Bill, I am in complete agreement with the general principle of the Bill that we should seek to promote the production of home-grown seeds in this State and that we should afford protection to the producers, protection, I suppose, against unfair imports and protection against detrimental action which might be taken by some person on lands adjoining the area where it is proposed to grow those seeds.

Having said that, I must again protest to this House that the Minister has not met the case that was put up in this House in regard to two matters. The first is that the powers given to inspectors in regard to the entry on farmers' lands are entirely excessive and could be modified without impairing the efficiency of the Bill.

The second point I want to make is that there is no provision whatever in this Bill for compensation to any person who may be aggrieved, notwithstanding the fact that this Bill gives the Minister power to send his inspectors in on any farm, to break down the farmer's fence, to bring in on that farm as many officials, as many vehicles and as much equipment as the inspector may consider necessary and to destroy any crop or plant which the inspector may think it desirable to destroy. There is, nevertheless, no protection whatever for the owner of the land. It would have been a very simple matter to have inserted a compensation clause in this Bill just as there is a compensation clause in the Land Reclamation Act and in the Local Authorities (Works) Act.

I raised these matters on Committee Stage and the Minister's reply was that it is not proposed to use this Bill, or the powers under this Bill, very extensively. He does not envisage a situation in which the drastic clauses of the Bill will be enforced on a very large scale. I do not think that is a valid defence. If only one citizen of the State is to be wronged, perhaps cruelly wronged, under this Bill, then it is an unjust measure, if we as a Seanad have it in our power to prevent that injustice from being done. I believe we had it in our power, and have it in our power, to prevent this injustice from being done.

On a point of order. We no longer have it in our power.

Yes, we still have power to reject the Bill.

That would not affect the matter.

I shall not teach constitutional law to the professor but I believe that on the Fifth Stage a Bill can be rejected if it has been found unsatisfactory and I am reasoning now that there are unsatisfactory features in this Bill which we can remedy by defeating the Bill and compelling the Minister to introduce an alternative measure.

In regard to arguments which I used on the Committee Stage, the only reply that I received from the Minister was —column 1723——

I hope the Senator now is not attempting to reopen the whole debate on this last stage of the Bill. If so, he is not in order.

I have no intention of doing so. The Minister, Mr. Dillon, said:—

"I can assure the Senator that in the enforcement of the provisions of this Act no farmer will be shot."

If I may say so, that was a very modest pledge. He only goes so far as to give an assurance that no farmer will be shot. The farmer may be wronged; his property may be unjustly destroyed but one guarantee the Minister gives and that is that the farmer will not be shot.

I pointed out at the time that under similar legislation in Britain a number of farmers had been shot. The Minister denied the truth of that statement. I always feel that it is something of a slur on a member of either House to have his veracity questioned. Therefore, I produce here a copy of a British newspaper which sets out the name of at least one British farmer who was shot in resisting a measure such as this, in defending his farm against the provisions of a measure such as this.

On a point of order? Can we have the name of the newspaper?

I do not think it has anything to do with the debate, especially at this stage. What the Senator proposes to quote has nothing to do with this Bill. It is not in this Bill and it is therefore out of order.

Therefore, I will not give the name of the newspaper nor will I make the quotation, in accordance with your instructions.

It is not in order.

But I can send the Minister the name and address of the person shot and a photograph of the grave in which he is interred and that may convince him, if he is still unconvinced.

I feel that the Minister could have met the House in a reasonable way in this matter. No one has been more emphatic in declaring that it was the right and the duty of every farmer to resist trespass upon his land by Government inspectors, to throw these inspectors over his fence if they dared to cross his fence. The Minister was one of those people who wrongfully and maliciously accused one of his predecessors of attempting to do——

The Senator is not permitted at this stage of the Bill to pursue that line of argument. The issue is "that the Bill do now pass" and it is not going to be widened by any member of the House.

The issue is "that the Bill do now pass" but I am suggesting that it ought not to pass because there is a section in this Bill— Section 16—sub-section (3) and paragraph (c) of which states:—

"If the occupier does not comply with the notice, then, without prejudice to prosecution for failure to do so, an inspector may, with such assistants, vehicles and equipment as he considers necessary, enter on the lands and destroy the plants or render them harmless."

Because that section is in the Bill and because the Minister has failed to meet the logical and legitimate objections to that particular clause, I feel it is necessary to protest and protest very strongly that the Bill is one which, since it was not amended, ought not to be passed. I think nobody has been more emphatic than the Minister in asserting the rights of individual owners. Nobody is taking more drastic action than the Minister in trampling upon these rights without giving any justification in this Bill.

With regard to the point raised by Senator Fearon, this Bill deals exclusively with seeds. I would hope that the reputation of certified seeds produced under this scheme would be such as to command not only a market at home but a very strong market abroad. I would expect the quality of the seeds to be produced under these schemes to be as good as, if not better than, anything in the world. If we set our aims any lower than that, there would be little or no justification for this legislation at all. I would much prefer to work as quickly as possible towards the position in which I would be able to say to the Irish farmer: "You will have first chance of these seeds if you are quick but there are farmers all over the world willing and anxious to buy them." Of course, it is the perennial duty of the Department of Agriculture to emphasise to the Irish farmer the desirability of using the best seeds which, I hope, will come to be synonymous with Irish certified seeds. Therefore, I would be sorry that the business of producing certified seeds in Ireland would be long dependent on fiscal protection. I would prefer that they would be judged on their merits alone and that they would meet competition from any quarter.

I am intrigued to discover that Senator Cogan is about to divide the Seanad on this Bill. He reminds me of the Turtle in Alice in Wonderland saying: “Will you, won't you, will you, won't you join the dance?” I wonder which way is the Senator going to vote in the division he says he is going to call because I am blowed if I know. Doubtless, his colleagues in the Seanad will be able to prophesy.

On a point of explanation. I did not say that.

Question put and agreed to.
Ordered: That the Bill be returned to the Dáil.
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