Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Aug 1956

Vol. 46 No. 10

Eradication of Bovine T.B.—Motion.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I move:—

That Seanad Éireann is of the opinion that, unless the scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. is implemented more expeditiously, our position in the British market will be seriously impaired.

In moving this motion, I should like to make it clear at the outset that this is in no sense a political motion. I speak purely as a vocational member of this House, having been nominated by the national executive of the live-stock trade as one of their representatives in this Chamber. The motion is of vital concern to Irish agriculture which is not only the mainstay of this country but represents the only substantial volume of exports we can count on to-day.

I need hardly remind the House that at the present time the principal market for our live-stock exports is still Great Britain and that any serious change made in the marketing system of Great Britain must have repercussions here. It is surely, therefore, a matter of serious concern that Great Britain is well on the way to becoming a fully attested area. Practically the entire country from Land's End to John O'Groats is now fully attested. As each county becomes fully attested, such county is then officially declared closed and no live stock is permitted to enter that county, unless it is certified as T.B. tested.

What is this scheme of attestation anyway? I have seen no directives from the Department of Agriculture explaining to our farmers what is demanded by these new regulations. There seems to be an element of mystery or secrecy about the whole affair which is difficult to understand. Let me, therefore, try to throw some light on the subject. The scheme first started in Britain on a modest basis about 1945 and was originally confined to the T.B. testing of dairy herds. Beef herds might become attested, but no subsidy was given until shortly after the war. A complete new scheme was put into operation in 1950, and the attestation scheme for all cattle produced in Great Britain has swept the country from end to end.

It is with that complete new scheme that we in Ireland are mainly concerned. I presume that those Senators with a farming background understand all about attestation, but, for the benefit of those Senators not so familiar with the facts, I shall endeavour to clarify the position by outlining the mechanics of attestation as practised across the water. First of all, the owner, at his own expense, has a pilot T.B. test done by his own veterinary surgeon. If there are any reactors, they must be immediately removed. Two months afterwards, a further test is held by Government vets and if it is a completely clear test, the cattle are classified then as fully attested. Should, however, there be one reactor only among as many as 200 cattle the entire test fails. On the removal of that reactor, at the expiry of a further two months period, a further test is compulsory. When herds are finally accepted as fully attested, these herds are then tested only once yearly.

That, in simple language, is the mechanics of attestation and my purpose in explaining that here so minutely is to give Senators an insight into the difficulties that are now arising between the two countries. I have here a white paper issued by the Agricultural Department in Great Britain only four months ago. I would ask every member of this House and every farmer in the country to study this paper well for it may sound the death knell of the Irish store cattle trade. I quote from this paper:—

"At the end of 1955 there were over 6,000,000 cattle in attested areas in Great Britain as compared with 5,000,000 at the end of 1954 and only 2,000,000 in October, 1950, when the area plan was introduced. Approximately 62 per cent. of all cattle in Great Britain are now attested: in Scotland, 79 per cent.; in England, 54 per cent.; and in Wales, 84 per cent."

These figures are official United Kingdom figures and I quote them in order to demonstrate even to people who are not familiar with the trade that this market is diminishing rapidly week by week.

In the very near future the whole of Great Britain will be fully attested and our live-stock exports will be closed out. When that day comes, I can assure you, Sir, that it will be a very sad day for the farmers of Ireland. For the past six or seven years, I have tried to arouse our Department of Agriculture, under both Governments, to the dangers that lay ahead, but my warnings were unheeded. In fairness to the last Minister, the late Deputy Walsh, he did realise that there was trouble ahead and that there was some necessity for legislation to try to avert it. He might have done much had not the then Government been defeated in the last election. To the present Minister, however, must go the credit for being the first Minister to have the foresight and courage to launch an eradication scheme for Ireland on similar lines to the British scheme. It is, I regret to say, about ten years too late. We can hardly hold the Minister responsible for that, but we certainly can hold responsible the advisory officers and permanent officials——

Mr. Dillon

Why, Sir, this is surely a departure.

Professor Hayes

The Minister alone is responsible.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is responsible.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

Over a period does not the Minister take direction from the Department?

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I do not accept that.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator must not proceed any further on that line. The Minister is entirely responsible to the Oireachtas for whatever any of his officials do, or fail to do, so he must indict the Minister, if he wishes to indict anyone.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I accept that. Personally, I am not concerned with politics, but I am concerned with the cattle trade and the future of our agriculture. I have no hesitation in saying to this House, with all the emphasis at my command, that with the vast work to be done, I cannot visualise this country, at the present pace, being fully attested in 50 years. In fact, I notice that the Irish Times stated in a leading article on 5th of last month that we had it from the Minister himself that the Irish scheme will take 25 years to complete. I am not talking about the advisers now; I am talking about what the Irish Times says he said, but I never heard him say it. In estimating 50 years, I think I am being fairly charitable to our Department. In any event, I should like to warn the Government, and the country, that Great Britain will definitely be entirely closed inside ten years. That is the opinion of the leading men, not only on this side, but on the other side, across the Channel.

Will the Minister tell us what is to happen to our store cattle when the day comes when England is completely closed against us? I notice that in a reply to a question asked in the Dáil by Deputy Childers on this subject there was a standardised Civil Service reply of five foolscap pages given with a great maze of figures. It looked very impressive in print. As I was going to say, but I am barred from saying it, if you give a civil servant pencil and paper, he can make out an answer to anything.

Professor Hayes

It is not only the civil servants who can do that.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

There are some leaders of the House who are not too bad at it.

Professor Hayes

The cattle traders are not so bad, either. I have heard a few of them.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I was referring to the Dáil reply and I would like to examine it briefly. It states that up to June, 1956, 21 per cent. of the total number of herd owners in the country had applied under the scheme; that is to say, they had only applied to have their herds tested, and I have no doubt that a fresh army of clerks and officials will be required to tabulate all these applications for some distant examination. This statement claims that 47,700 herds, or 14 per cent. of all cattle in the country, had been given their first test and 15,200 herds had passed the second test. As I have explained earlier, a single certificate, although it is useful, is not of much value really. It is only when a herd has passed the second test that it is on its way to full attestation, so that this five pages of verbiage boils down to the bare fact that 15,200 herds passed the second test, after two years of work on the scheme.

As there is a cattle population of somewhere in the region of 4,500,000, I do not think people will say that this motion is superfluous at this time. This criticism of the Department is made in no political spirit. I have no political axe to grind, but I cannot stand by and see the cattle trade being slowly strangled by the inertia of the Department, who are not so much concerned with the future as they are with the present. I think that most Ministers feel in duty bound to defend their Department, whether it is right or wrong. It is an old Party custom on both sides of the House. I am willing to make allowances for that, but I would impress upon the Minister that this is too much a matter of life and death for the Irish farmer that we should have to listen to diatribes from civil servants, or from any other quarter. I would appeal to him, if there is a shadow of doubt about our being able to complete this eradication scheme in time to save the situation, that he should take the country into his confidence and admit, openly and frankly, that it just cannot be done, so that, whilst still hoping for the best, we may yet prepare for the worst.

In the Dáil last week, the Minister for Finance was very frank and honest with the people about the serious financial position of the country. The Minister for Finance is to be congratulated on his candour. The Irish people must know that the economic position of nearly every country in the world is under a cloud. They have proved their ability to take pronouncements in days gone by. In fact, it was only when they got a really hard pronouncement that they stood shoulder to shoulder. I say to the Minister for Agriculture here to-night that we want the simple truth with regard to this attestation scheme. What is his personal opinion? If it is too late, how does he propose to get our cattle through a closed door? If the Minister thinks it will take the Department 20 years to accomplish this scheme, let him say so in plain words to the people. If it takes that time, then, as I have said, the British market will be completely closed against us, so that, unless his Department is prepared to treble the pace of its work, he might just as well abandon the whole scheme now.

As one piece of evidence of neglect on the part of the Department, may I point out that in the last few years, our veterinary colleges have turned out veterinary surgeons and no sooner are they qualified than they set sail for England where they get double the salary they could earn here? It is galling to think that many of those young Irish vets constituted the biggest asset that the British Department of Agriculture had in completing their great scheme. It is not so much a question of: "Can we afford this extra expense?" It is a question of whether this country can afford to do without the cattle trade. Now, when we are talking about the balance of trade figures, I wonder what the balance of trade figures would be like without live-stock exports? The Minister is well aware that every producing country in the world to-day—the Argentine, Australia, New Zealand—is striving by every means in its power to gain access to the British market. Can we, who have a hold in that market, afford to lose it?

In all fairness, I think it only right to say this of the present Minister, that no man in this country has done more to secure and sustain that market than the present Minister, often in the face of great political unpopularity. If this market were lost, can anyone appreciate what it would mean? The younger generation might not, but I do not think the older generation would have any illusions about it, because I think that the small farmers of the South and the West of Ireland will remember the economic war to the day they die. As one who has been in constant touch with the live-stock trade for over 50 years, I can assure the House that the British farmers do not want to lose our store cattle. Export connections that took hundreds of years to build up to their present solid state are there, and they are functioning, and while other Ministers are roaming even as far as America in the hope of discovering some new outlet for our exports, we have that established outlet for our cattle.

Let us therefore guard well what we have. Please do not try to make us believe that all is well at this moment, when every cattle man and every farmer in the country know that, unless much more and much speedier work is done, and done quickly, it will be too late, and we in our day will witness the passing of an export market greater by far than anything our globe-trotting Ministers can ever hope to establish for this country. Thousands of pounds we can ill afford have been spent sending trade delegations to the far corners of the world in search of some mythical export market, while here at home the greatest export market, one which has stood the test of time and which is worth more than all the others put together, is in danger of extinction.

In conclusion, I would impress on the Minister that no matter what his advisers tell him, he is facing the most deadly menace that has ever confronted Irish agriculture and on him will rest responsibility for its failure, if it does fail. I have heard some commendable talk in this Chamber recently about taking agriculture out of politics. If any man really means that in his heart, here, then, is a chance to show it. In heaven's name, let us have done with Party bickering; let us attend to the vital work that lies at our hand and, in doing so, we shall be doing justice to a Seanad as it was intended to be done when the Constitution first sponsored its birth.

Mr. Prendergast

In seconding this motion as one of the representatives of the Irish live-stock trade in this House, I want to give expression to the deep concern of myself and my colleagues in the cattle trade for the serious situation which will confront them in the near future if the scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. is not much more expeditiously implemented.

As Senator Sheridan has already pointed out, at the present moment almost three-quarters of Great Britain is closed to them, except for attested cattle, and they are finding that their business is gradually slipping away from them. Some exporters who have spent a lifetime building up connections with markets and with large cattle grazing farmers in Great Britain are now faced with the prospect of their life's work going for nought. They wilt at the thought of what will happen in five or six years' time, when, no doubt, the whole of Great Britain will be closed to all, except attested cattle. There is no doubt that for these live-stock exporters who, as I say, have spent a lifetime building up their businesses, the future is bleak. It is not for them alone—they are only a small section of the community—that the future looks dark if the scheme is not more speedily implemented, but for the whole country, if we find gone from us the bulwark of our economy.

I have no desire to be an alarmist, but I want to impress on the Minister the seriousness of this situation and I am sure that he is as much aware of it as I am. To him must go the credit for the initiation of this scheme. Unfortunately, as Senator Sheridan pointed out, it is many years too late, but, as the old saying goes: "Better late than never." I am afraid that much of the blame for our present predicament must lie on the shoulders of the previous Government who, through lack of foresight when Britain started seriously on the scheme in 1946, failed to keep in line. Ten valuable years have been lost.

It is easy to be critical, but I think a few constructive suggestions for getting us out of our difficulties might be of some value. I feel that the root of the Minister's difficulty is insufficient veterinary staff. He mentioned that in reply to a question in the Dáil last week in regard to the eradication scheme. I have no doubt it is a big problem, but it is not insoluble. We all know that when most of our vets qualify, as Senator Sheridan said, they get the first boat to England. It is hard to blame them because the salaries paid by the British Ministry of Agriculture are double and, so far as I know, when overtime is included, they are almost treble, what they are getting from the Irish Department of Agriculture. I understand there is no such thing as overtime for veterinary officers of the Department of Agriculture. I cannot blame these men if they are not fired with sufficient patriotism to be prepared to do much needed work at home for much less pay. I should like the Minister to consider the veterinary aspect of the problem in that light and I feel sure that, if he does, we will see the emigrant ship turned the other way, as regards vets anyway.

Another point I should like to raise is that, in my travels and from my inquiries from different sources throughout the country, I find that the co-operation on the part of the farmers with the Department officials working on the scheme is anything but what it should be. That is a very regrettable situation and one to be deplored by every decent-minded citizen. I think a lot of farmers may not be aware of the serious effect their lack of co-operation has on the scheme, and I suggest that a bit of propaganda, pointing out how they can co-operate and how necessary co-operation is, if the project is to be a success, should be carried out through the medium of the newspapers and the circulation of leaflets in the areas in which the scheme is now in operation. Such propaganda would be of great value and I suggest also that there might be a request to the N.F.A., which has a very large membership, to give every help possible.

I was glad to see from the Minister's reply in the Dáil that he intends to introduce legislation in the near future to give him more power to implement this scheme. That is a step in the right direction, in the direction of a speedier implementation of the scheme. The present serious financial situation in which we find ourselves is no doubt a further problem which the Minister must face in implementing the scheme, but the present situation —and I am sure everyone will agree with me in this—will be nothing compared with the kettle of fish with which we will be confronted in a few years' time if the British market is closed to our store cattle because the scheme was not more speedily implemented. For that reason, I appeal to the Minister to see to it that there will be no curtailment of the money allocated to the scheme. I understand that there are several million pounds of Marshall Aid funds put aside for agricultural projects; and, if that is the case, it is my opinion that this scheme should get priority and this should lighten the burden on the Exchequer.

At this late hour, I do not wish to delay the Seanad, but, in concluding, I should like to appeal to the Minister, if he can possibly see his way to do so, to reimburse the exporters who have been, and still are, exporting attested cattle and paying for the attestation themselves. That would certainly lighten the ever-increasing burden which they are carrying. I have no doubt that the Minister will accept this motion and it is my sincere hope that, instead of the 20 years he has in mind, we will see the country clear of bovine T.B. within ten years.

Mr. Dillon

Far be it from me to suggest to the House that the problem of eradicating bovine T.B. is anything but a very anxious one, but there is no use simply saying some-think will have to be done. I think it may be a very useful thing at intervals to raise matters of this kind and rebuke a Minister for his failure to act energetically. At least, it makes him ask himself: "Am I doing enough?" Of course, if a Minister is to take the Seanad fully into his confidence, he will be charged with being puerile and seeking to defend himself. Meaning no disrespect to Senator Sheridan. I do not give a fiddle-dee-dee, because I will do my best, whether I am queried in the Seanad or whether I am not, and I elect to take the risk of having it alleged against me that I proceeded to explain my policy and to pooh-pooh Senator Sheridan's representations.

Of course, I do not pooh-pooh Senator Sheridan's representations. I sympathise with his anxiety; I even understand, although I do not approve of, the terms in which he spoke; but accepting his references as being directed exclusively at the Minister for Agriculture for the time being, the plain fact is that we began in 1954 what the British began in 1935. The British have been at it for 20 years and they are getting results. We have got to face the fact that, when the Dutch put their hand to it, the U.S.A. stepped in and said: "We will pay half the cost, whatever it is." The more the Dutch spent, the more the U.S. Treasury provided. We have got to face the fact that the Danes were at it a long time ago, and undoubtedly can claim that they have eradicated the disease in Denmark, but it is to be borne in mind that they started it in 1893. There is no use in my trying to persuade the Seanad that, having started it in 1954 we can, by waving some magical wand, eliminate the time differential between our campaign and the campaign in Great Britain and elsewhere.

There is no use in my withholding from the Seanad the knowledge of the limitations that exist and within which we have to make our best effort. One, is the number of veterinary surgeons available to us; two, is the degree of co-operation that we get from the farmers; and, three, is one that the most experienced live-stock men very frequently overlook—that is, the question of replacement. Suppose I had the money and the staff to walk into the County Limerick, the County Cork and the County Tipperary and sort out half the cows, what would become of the live-stock industry in this country? Half the cows! Where would I get heifers to replace them? What would the farmers do from whose holdings I take these cattle away? Let us think on that.

Mr. Prendergast

Are they not being exported?

Mr. Dillon

I am talking about cows.

Mr. Prendergast

The heifers are being exported.

Mr. Dillon

If I swept out half the cows, what would the effect of that be on the farming economy?

Mr. Prendergast

The heifers that are being exported would replace them.

Mr. Dillon

I have circulated, for the information of Senators, a map of Ireland so that they might see the lines on which we are proceeding. I think Senators Sheridan and Prendergast overestimate the number of veterinary surgeons who leave this country. I suppose some of them do. I have an advertisement in the paper to-day for 20 veterinary surgeons. Now, I cannot take veterinary surgeons by the neck and make them serve in the Department of Agriculture. Of course, as Senator Prendergast says, if I doubled the salary, that might possibly lure some of them back; but that is not a very practicable proposition and, if I go into competition with the British Treasury, it is manifest who will ultimately win.

Mr. Prendergast

The Minister does not expect them to stay here when they can make double or treble in England.

Mr. Dillon

It is difficult to argue that case at this hour of the night. I am listening to people deploring emigration all over the country. I am prepared to demonstrate that most of those who emigrate are getting three times as much and, yet, people seem to think it is a crime that they should go. There is that aspect. An engineer, or a veterinary surgeon, or any person in a profession in which there is a temporary dearth in Great Britain, or Canada, or the United States of America is liable to be paid very highly and we are in the position that it is difficult to meet that competition. But we are getting as many veterinary surgeons as we can get. I agree with the Senator that no number would be excessive to resolve this problem and I am bound to say that no requisition made by me on the Minister for Finance to date for funds to meet the cost of this very, very costly operation has been withheld. I have had no more sympathetic colleague in the task of tackling the eradication of bovine T.B. than the Minister for Finance. We hope—and, mark you, in doing this we shall do what no other country in the world has done—to be in a position to declare the County Sligo a T.B. free area within 12 or 18 months. So far as I know, no other country in the world, after three years of campaigning on bovine T.B. eradication, was in a position to declare an area T.B. free.

I assure Senator Sheridan that causes me no sense of complacence and I think I am entitled to say, without departing from the ruling of the Cathaoirleach, that the picture of my presiding over a Department where a doey-eyed indifference to this problem permeates the atmosphere is so fantastic as to be ludicrous. I have to deal with the problem. Now, it is desperately easy in the face of a formidable problem for someone to get up and say something will have to be done. But it is I who have to provide the answer as to what will be done.

Senators should remember that this country is a democracy and one has to carry the people with one. I have got to bring the people gradually to a realisation of the character of this problem and secure their adherence to the measures requisite. I can assure the Senator that if I march out with compulsory powers to roll up this problem in a Draconian way, it is not the problem that would get rolled up. I would get rolled up. Mark you, I would do no service to the country if, as Minister for Agriculture, I approached this problem in such a way as to antagonise. If I cannot win the goodwill of the farming community, then no Minister for Agriculture will resolve this problem.

In that concept, I am very grateful to Senator Sheridan and Senator Prendergast for introducing this motion into the Seanad and for speaking as they did because it helps me to carry home to the minds of the farmers how urgent the problem is. Senator Sheridan may like to know that, having chosen Sligo owing to the very low incidence of the disease there, I went down to Sligo County Committee of Agriculture and informed them they were to be the first T.B. free area and, therefore, to finish the job in that area, it would be requisite to seek from Oireachtas Éireann compulsory powers to require the 1 per cent. recalcitrants, who would not join the voluntary scheme, to comply; it would be requisite for Oireachtas Éireann to give me power, as Minister for Agriculture, where such recalcitrance existed, to treat T.B. in that area on the same basis as I would treat foot-and-mouth disease.

Now the Senator should not imagine that I elicited from the County Committee of Agriculture in Sligo anything like an enthusiastic approval of the course proposed. On the contrary. I received solemn warnings not to go too fast, and not to try the people too far, and that it might be greatly resented. I know that those of us who recognise the gravity of the problem are sorely tempted to give way to impatience and say: "To hell with these people. We have got to cope with it." Thanks be to God, this is a free country, and you cannot do that there here. Long may this country retain that character. One must convince the people. One must get their goodwill. One must carry the people with one.

So far as Senator Sheridan, by rebuking me for my apparent lethargy, draws the attention of the farmers to the fact that, far from using unnecessary compulsion or stress upon them, I appear to him, long experienced in the trade, to be dragging my feet, I thank him for the motion he has moved here to-night. Maybe, I thank him for another reason—that the solemnity of his words and the prudence of his contribution will cause me further to examine my conscience as to whether anything can be done that I have not so far put in train.

I think it right to tell the Seanad this: I believe we are going on the right lines in the intensive area. We are now about to sort out every reactor in Sligo. We are within reasonable prospect of attaining to a position wherein we can sort out every reactor in Clare. That will give me two sources for replacements in other areas of intensive eradication. The cordon sanitaire which I have indicated on the map will shortly surround County Sligo. The aim is to spread the operation down west of the Shannon and into Donegal, thus securing a T.B. free area extending from Donegal to Kerry.

Then I have the source of replacements, which I must have before I can contemplate an all-out assault on Limerick, Tipperary and Cork; but I do not want Senators to be under the illusion that, in the meantime, these other areas in Ireland, outside the intensive areas, will become abandoned. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have got to tell the Seanad that the original scheme, initiated by me in 1954 for the non-intensive areas—areas outside Clare, Sligo and Bansha—has not yielded the results that I had hoped for and, accordingly, I am in the process of amending that scheme with the veterinary profession, the National Farmers' Association and with the Livestock Consultative Council, under which we propose now to make it possible for individual herds to become attested.

I do not want to trouble the Seanad by going into the details of that scheme, but where an individual farmer is prepared to get his own herd tested, it will now be possible for him to do so, whereas hitherto in the areas outside the intensive areas there was only a gradual progress, designed to convert an area, without any eradication proceeding, into an area where it was possible to contemplate an intensive approach. Accordingly, we hope to have in the areas east of the Shannon and in Limerick a growing number of responsible farmers who will clear their own herds in collaboration with the Department.

I do not want to deceive the Seanad. In view of the limitations to which I have referred, and they are veterinarian, a realistic financial policy, and the possibility of replacement, we have got to face the fact that the eradication of T.B. from this country is a long-term problem. I myself used the phrase "25 years". Possibly we may do it in less. I can only give the House the best estimate I have. I believe we will have one T.B. free area, at least, within two years, two within three years and within five years we will have a substantial area in the West cleaned up.

Things may go faster. It may be possible to go faster. If it is I hope we will but it would not be right for me to mislead the Seanad at this stage. I think it is a long-term business. Senators will say I did not deal with Senator Sheridan's query: What are you going to do ten years from now? Now there are twa ends to this problem. I think the Senator's long experience in the trade has probably led him to the conclusion that they did not buy his cattle for the love of his blue eyes. They bought them because they wanted them. Does the Senator follow?

I quite agree that if this country showed a surly indifference to what they considered to be an indispensable characteristic of the live stock they were prepared to purchase we might push old friends and valued customers into a very unco-operative frame of mind but I can assure the Senator that the contacts between our Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture in Great Britain are close, sympathetic and understanding. I entirely agree with the Senator that unless there was a clear conviction in Great Britain that we were moving towards the complete eradication of T.B. as expeditiously as it was possible for us to do, I would entertain the grave apprehensions he mentioned to the Seanad to-day but inasmuch as I know that the view is rightly held by my professional colleagues, veterinarians in the public service in Great Britain who are the colleagues of the veterinarians in the public service of Ireland, that nothing is being left undone that could be done, I think we will find a way.

I endorse entirely the sense of urgency that Senators Sheridan and Prendergast desire to impress on the Seanad. I want to correct the degree of emphasis, which, if uncorrected, might do harm which I know Senator Sheridan would not wish to do. I do not think the live-stock trade of Ireland is going to vanish in five years, ten years, 20 years or, I hope, in 100 years. I believe we are moving in the right direction. I cheerfully accept the precept of Seanad Eireann to move as quickly as it is physically and technically possible to do towards the goal of complete eradication. I cordially endorse the emphasis the two Senators have thrown on the gravity of this problem and I only mention the reassuring element in this situation lest too despairing a view would cause confusion in the minds of our farming community.

Let me close on this note. I agree we must exert ourselves to the limit of our capacity and ability but my belief and confident prophecy is that the fruits of our exertion will be such as to secure the continued and uninterrupted flow of store cattle from this country to our traditional markets in England, Scotland and Wales.

An Cathaoirleach

What does the Senator wish to do in regard to the motion?

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

The hour is late, but I wish to state that I am deeply grateful to the Minister for what he said. I know he is alive to the situation. I also think he is right in saying that so far as the farmers are concerned he does not want compulsion. I do not think that anybody in his sane senses wants compulsion. I also agree with the Minister that there are probably farmers in this country who are not enthusiastic about the testing of cattle, but I think the Minister is right in saying that it is better the opinion should come possibly from outside the Department as it has here to-night because if they do not get on with the job, the compulsion is there. They are going up against a stumbling block. I am very grateful to the Leader of the House for permitting the motion to be discussed and to the Cathaoirleach. My only regret is that we have been kept so late, but I do not think I am entirely to blame.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

The Seanad adjourned at 12 midnightsine die.