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.