Training in Agriculture: Motion.

Mr. Murphy

I move:

That Seanad Éireann would welcome a statement from the Government on the steps it intends to take to provide for the training of those engaged in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing.

The purpose of this motion is to encourage the Government to give us a statement on the training of those engaged in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing. The Seanad may remember that this arose from our discussion on the Industrial Training Act when it was felt that the provisions being made for the training and retraining of workers should not be confined solely to workers in industry but should also provide for workers in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and fishing. We felt at the time, and it is still my view, that the Industrial Training Act was a measure primarily designed to deal with the training of that sector of the economy and that possibly a distinct approach was needed with regard to training in agriculture. When we talk about training in agriculture we are not talking simply about the training of employees. We are talking also about those engaged in agriculture and most of those are owners, proprietors and managers in their own right.

We are not talking about people working under the direction and control of other people but rather of people engaged, as I have said, working in their own right and not subject to control, direction or instruction. To go back for a moment to the Industrial Training Act, the new board set up took over the work previously done by the Apprenticeship Board and if we think for a moment of the work involved in the Apprenticeship Board and relate it to what happens in regard to agriculture, we shall probably see the serious shortfall in regard to agriculture.

A young man entering a trade, to be taught a skilled trade, is subject to the board which succeeded the Apprenticeship Board. They see to it that the young man gets an adequate training during a number of years so that when the training has been completed he is fully skilled and well-qualified in his craft. We have all accepted that that is desirable, but when we look at agriculture we find that here we have people engaged in an occupation or vocation in which they are not, in the same way as an ordinary industrial or other skilled worker, working under direction, control and instruction of somebody else but are their own managers, their own planners, their own cost accountants, their own organisers. Still, we see that in circumstances where to my mind, anyway—I think the Seanad will agree—prior training is even more necessary, there does not seem to be in this country any orderly, well-understood or generally applicable way of training people who are to spend the rest of their lives in agriculture.

Agriculture and the workers in it are very important. The efficiency of our farmers largely will affect the survival of this country as an economic unit and, indeed, as a nation. That may not be an exaggeration. Even if we enter the EEC it will not solve all our problems. Our farmers will be in competition with farmers in the EEC who, as far as I know, have a great deal of training in their occupations as farmers.

At this juncture I confess that I am not an expert in regard to agriculture or training for agriculture and if in my few short remarks I omit or fail to acknowledge the work of certain groups, this will be solely ignorance on my part and not any slight on them. The point I wish to make is that I have no general information about the picture in EEC countries but I remember having heard on television recently that approximately 90 per cent of the young people entering farming in Denmark have had previous training in an agricultural training school or college. In other words, up to 90 per cent of our future and, indeed existing, competitors in the British market are trained before-hand—have had training in the very important vocation of farming.

Again, let me point to my shortcomings in this matter. In this country it seems to me that the training of people for agricultural careers is disconnected, haphazard. We have, I understand, about 23 agricultural schools and each of these trains between 30 and 40 young people per annum. Most of those trainees have reached leaving certificate standard when they enter these colleges and the limited number who are produced through this method are largely absorbed in what I might call the fringe of agriculture—advisory services, salesmanship for agricultural machinery, some sort of job where a background of agricultural knowledge is expected.

Again, I am going on limited knowledge. They are not people generally who go back to spend the rest of their lives at farming their own acres. Even if they did, it will be obvious to the Seanad that the number is very limited indeed. It would represent 900 people per annum at the moment who have done a one year course of training in agriculture before going back to spend the rest of their lives, I hope, in a very skilled occupation. I repeat that not alone have they to know their own craft but they have to be managers, organisers, cost accountants, planners and everything which in ordinary industrial work is done at a different level.

I know that the vocational schools also provide some service in regard to helping in the training of people who are to devote their time to farming. I am told—again my information is limited—that about half an hour a day is the most spent at this work in the vocational schools. It is very good in itself but it does not and cannot match up to the type of training young people get in Denmark, for example, who are about to enter the vocation of farming.

I am sure Senators will join with me in acknowledging the great work being done by Macra na Tuaithe and Macra na Feirme in regard to helping and educating people in the agricultural community for agricultural occupations. Macra na Tuaithe largely cater for the age group 14 to 18 years. They encourage the young people to engage in projects and from what we have seen on television of some of those young people they seem to do a very good job. This work deserves credit. Again, Macra na Feirme provide lectures, discussions, mostly for young farmers of a higher age group.

It seems to me, however, that the impact on the number involved in agriculture is limited. I am particularly concerned about the small farmer. Farming, as such, is a very skilled occupation but where a farmer has a limited number of acres the need for a far higher degree of training is obvious if he is to make a success of the operation. I do not think these organisations are able to reach that and even in so far as they have been able to do so their impact is limited. We cannot possibly see a situation in which the sons of small farmers will get an opportunity of going to these agricultural colleges. There are a certain number of scholarships available but again these are limited. The fraction of the people who get education through these agricultural colleges compared with the people who enter agriculture every year I have been unable to discover, but the Minister will probably be able to assist us in this matter.

To come back to the problem of the son of the small farmer, these scholarships are very limited, and in so far as scholarships are given on the basis of scholastic attainment, they would seem to be taken up by the people I have spoken of, those of leaving certificate standard, who go in to get this type of training in order to get employment on the fringe of agriculture. They do not seem to be able to cater adequately for the son of a small farmer. Now we have a situation where we have provided free secondary education for the son of the small farmer as well as the son of everybody else, but if the small farmer wants to send his son to one of these agricultural colleges, he has to pay. There is no free education for this very important occupation of farming.

As I said, the purpose of putting down this motion was to encourage the Government to give us a statement on the training of these people. We all agree and accept, and I am sure the Minister fully accepts, that there is need for the best possible training in so far as the economy can afford it for people who will enter agriculture. Not alone is it due to them as citizens but it is a good investment in itself, and if we are to make a success of agriculture, it is essential that the training we give the young people entering agriculture should be at least up to the standard of that provided in other countries. As far as I know, with a limited knowledge of the position, it is not anything near what is at present provided in West European countries.

I have not dealt with forestry or horticulture. It seems to me that the problem there is not so severe in so far as the person in forestry is working under skilled management like the ordinary industrial worker. He is not out on his own and is not his own manager and organiser. The same would apply to horticulture. In regard to fisheries, progress has been made in recent years. There are now schools where young people wishing to take up the occupation of sea fishing are trained. I think we have made good progress in that direction. In regard to agriculture, I feel we have fallen behind and that there is a great need for a very strong training drive for those who will take up the occupation of farming.

The purpose of putting down this motion, as I say, was to get a statement from the Government. We are grateful to the Minister for coming here this afternoon. I do not know what he will be able to say to us but perhaps after giving us some details of what is proposed, it might be appropriate, if the House agrees, that we should not conclude the debate this afternoon; in other words that we might be given an opportunity of considering what the Minister has said, discussing it and coming back and making our views known at a later date. I am not pressing this very strongly. It largely depends on the type of statement the Minister might be able to make but I hope that he might be able to facilitate us in this direction.

Senator Miss Davidson will second the motion. She, I think, is better qualified on this subject than I am. May I repeat that if I have omitted giving credit—I forgot to give credit to Telefís Éireann for the good work they are doing in regard to education for agriculture—it is because of my ignorance of the subject? I became involved in it because of interest in and involvement with training for industrial workers. The problem in regard to agriculture is different. I believe it could be approached differently and I therefore move the motion.

Miss Davidson

I second the motion. As Senator Murphy has pointed out, when the Industrial Training Act became law, it made no provision for any training scheme to cover agricultural, horticultural, forestry workers or workers in the fishing industry. It did, however, provide for the retraining of agricultural workers for industrial employment—an inadequate but unfortunately necessary provision in present day circumstances when there is a constant cry that the drift from agricultural employment is endangering the industry. It was because of these facts, that is, the non-provision of training for workers within this important industry and the offering of retraining opportunities in other industries to workers engaged in agriculture which prompted me and my colleagues of the Labour Party to table a motion aimed at discovering what steps the Government contemplated to provide training for workers within agriculture.

In earlier days training in agriculture was on a more formalised basis than it is today. When a boy started on a farm, he was put in the charge of an experienced farm hand or was watched over by the farmer himself. When he was considered to have gained sufficient knowledge, he was given individual tasks and responsibilities with older colleagues teaching him how to do the job. He would emerge eventually as a skilled artisan and a capable farmer. There were no rules or regulations governing this training procedure. It was just an accepted practice, yet it worked almost like an official apprenticeship scheme and the results were very valuable to the industry as a whole. Such practices, of course, depended on a system of farming which required many more people than is the case today and, regrettably, on a plentiful supply of cheap labour.

The system began to break down with the introduction of the internal combustion engine and the tractor, and it eventually ceased to exist at all. Nothing has ever effectively taken its place. Today the newcomer into the industry has to find out as best he can without any real guidance, and yet the amount of knowledge he requires today to do his job properly is far greater and wider than hitherto. The most important industry in this country is and always has been the agricultural industry, yet I hardly think that it can be contradicted if I say that the recruitment of workers for this industry is the most careless and haphazard process imaginable, that is, if it can be called a process at all.

Reward for labour and status within the industry are two factors which cause much hesitancy on the part of many who might otherwise feel an inclination to enter what is the oldest and should be one of the finest and noblest callings in the world. But we find that to our non-agricultural citizens farm work as a rule means unskilled labouring, and that is an image which urgently needs changing. All of us know the school approach to an agricultural career—"Not academically gifted; should be good in agriculture." Whether agriculture is regarded as an inferior occupation or not, the fact remains that this industry, with all its shortcomings, has been the backbone of our economy and will remain so for a very long time. If we go into the Common Market or if we merely live in a free trade atmosphere it seems apparent that it is on the measure of the efficiency of our agricultural industry that we will survive or perish. Yet even today we have no effective training board specifically charged with the task of training our farming community, both employers and employees, to become more competent exponents of their skills and more especially to attract school-leavers into this industry and to train and supervise them when they decide to make their careers in agriculture.

What we have in mind here is a training board which would appoint instructors to work in conjunction with farmers and their workers and which would establish basic standards and proficiency tests for new entrants into the industry. The training board established in Great Britain in 1966 provides for the training of persons employed in agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Its activities extend to all aspects of agriculture including livestock, dairying, record keeping and other incidental matters. Its work is making a valuable contribution towards supplying a superior, technically well-trained work force to the agricultural industry.

I am aware, of course, that there exists in the Republic a farm apprenticeship board. The Exchequer assistance for that board amounted to £200, so far as I could ascertain, in 1966-67. This was increased to £3,350 in 1967-68, but as at present financed the farm apprenticeship scheme is incapable of providing training for a reasonable number of apprentices, and to the best of my knowledge it can contribute nothing at all to the widening of the skills of those now engaged in the industry and designated agricultural labourers, men who must be better trained to get the maximum results from modern agricultural machinery, modern methods of cultivation and the maintenance of soil fertility and such like things. The farm apprenticeship board is made up of a number of representatives of rural organisations subsidised by the Exchequer and representatives of one trade union which organises agricultural workers. I understand that the policy which is being pursued by the rural organisations has not the support of the trade union in question, mainly on the ground that the farm apprenticeship scheme in practice benefits farmers' sons to the virtual exclusion of other prospective farm employees.

I would like if the Minister could say what was the Exchequer contribution towards the industrial training scheme and the total contribution to the farm apprenticeship board, if he has these figures available.

In relation to agricultural education I would like to mention the fine work done by the Agricultural Institute and the agricultural and veterinary faculties of our universities in the matter of research, cultivation methods, control of disease, etc. I should also mention the contribution of the county committees of agriculture through their scholarship schemes and advisory services. While giving praise to these institutions, however, I feel that sufficient is not being done to pass on this knowledge to the important workers on the lower edge of the industry who may never see the fine publications issued but who must, nevertheless, have the knowledge made available to them. We believe a training board could deal with this problem. If we have developed our agricultural education at top level, it is reasonable to expect that we should ensure that it reaches the lower level as well. In this I dare to say, with much respect, that we appear to have started the undoubtedly fine work at the wrong end.

If we have not got the trained skilled artisans who will be able to put into daily practice on the farm the improved techniques resulting from the work of their more learned colleagues at the top of the profession, then the valuable findings of these experts are useless in the task of improving the agricultural industry.

Having said all this, there remains the more mundane aspect of the problem of building an efficient agricultural industry. There must be a complete review of the reward aspect, that is, the pay structure within the industry. It is unrealistic to expect trained personnel to remain in the agricultural industry when other industries offer better wages and conditions. The Pilkington Committee in its report on agricultural education in 1966 estimated that of the 15,250 young persons who entered farming, only 10,000 would remain by the time they were 19 years of age—and this was in Great Britain where wages and conditions for agricultural workers are much better than those available in this country. Improved wages and conditions will attract into the industry a stream of trained efficient workers which must react to the advantage of the industry as a whole. It is for the reasons I have set out that we seek a statement from the Government on the steps they intend to take to provide training for those engaged in the agricultural field.

Mrs. Ahern

I have just a very small contribution to make. The last two speakers referred to many fields in which training is given to rural people, farmers and so on, which covers the university, domestic science schools and agricultural schools. It is very surprising that neither of the Senators mentioned Bantracht na Tuaithe, which is one of the oldest organisations we have in this country. Macra na Tuaithe and Macra na Feirme were mentioned but neither speaker referred to Bantracht na Tuaithe, the oldest agricultural organisation in Ireland and the oldest educational organisation in that field which grew out of the co-operative movement. It has done all it can down through the years to put the idea of rural Ireland and the co-operative movement before the people. I am very surprised that neither Senators thought fit to mention the great training programme at An Grianán. I know they referred to university levels but neither of them mentioned the great work done by this great women's organisation. They have done very great work in the agricultural field. It is very well known on the Continent that if a farm is not a paying proposition the first person invited is not the agricultural adviser but rather the home adviser. Therefore, I think the women of Ireland are to be congratulated on the work they have done in regard to rural home economic advisers. It may not be known that there are only about 12 or 18 already in that field. This organisation have been clamouring for rural home advisers side by side with agricultural advisers all over the country.

We know that the farmer's wife plays as important a part in the farm business as the farmer. Until such time as the Government and all strata of society take this into account, I am afraid we are not going to make the progress we should among the farming community. Quite recently the Irish Countrywomen opened a horticultural training society with the help of the Kellog Foundation. I should like to put it on the record how much they should be complimented and congratulated on doing this and for convincing a body such as the Kellog Foundation that women could handle this project. As a matter of fact, it is the women of Ireland who have always been interested in the horticultural field. We all know the hard fight it is to get the men to sow a few head of cabbage. It is the women who have kept the horticultural industry alive in this country. Not alone should they be helped from an economic point of view but they should be helped from the health point of view. This is just to draw attention to the fact that the women are in the field of agriculture just as much as the men. I hope that anything the Government can do to help this body of women will show that they are not alone in this matter. I hope that everything possible will be done to help them financially if ever the Government are requested.

Professor Jessop

I also welcome this motion and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the various matters which have been raised. When I read it first my only worry was that it was, perhaps, a little narrowly worded because it says "for the training of those engaged in agriculture". I thought that would rule out any reference to people who might be enticed into this type of work. However, I note that Senator Miss Davidson referred to recruitment of the actual schools towards this particular activity. Therefore, I hope the Minister will be able to say something about his views on this particular aspect of the problem.

I am quite certain that the industry as we know it in Ireland today cannot prosper until some positive effort is made to recruit better people into it. This process must start in the schools. We all know that the atmosphere in the schools here has changed in recent times and they have all become more ambitious. As Senator Miss Davidson said, agriculture has been regarded as the refuge of those who are not so clever at school. This should be corrected. I have on previous occasions mentioned the possibility of taking a step in this direction by associating secondary schools with some agricultural activity.

There is a limited number of our secondary schools which are so associated. I have the honour to be connected with one of them. The students there carry on an ordinary secondary school course. They take the usual examinations of the Department of Education but there is associated with them an active and well-run farm. They can take part in the work of this farm as they please. They are encouraged to do so and they are encouraged to become familiar with the fact that agriculture needs brains and agriculture can be an attractive reward and a challenging occupation.

The success of this school is such that it should be encouraged. It has only been in operation for less than ten years but already it has made a considerable difference to the farming community in West Cork, where it is situated. Many students in this country who might have gone into insurance offices or banks in Dublin have gone to agricultural colleges and have then gone back to their own farms or assisted in farming projects elsewhere. This approach should be considered by the Minister if we really want to have a proper recruitment programme for agriculture.

Associated with that, I should like to mention that in the area of science, which is very relevant to this situation, we have so far neglected the most relevant aspect of science, that is biology. We have for some years in our schools taught physics and chemistry. It is necessary to have a good understanding of those in order to follow the scientific aspect of agriculture but we must also have a good understanding of biology. At the moment I do not think any school is teaching biology at honours level in the leaving certificate. I know they plan to do this and I hope they will be encouraged to bring their plan forward as rapidly as possible. I should like the Minister to advert to that when he is replying. I might suggest scholarships or some other enticement to students to take an interest in agriculture. Certainly, as Senator Miss Davidson said, improvement in the wages and conditions side of things is necessary. I should also emphasise that there should be improvement in the agricultural industry at the level of scientific agriculture. This would go a long way towards improving the recruitment position.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

I should like to compliment Senator Murphy and Senator Miss Davidson also on the very wide field they covered in connection with this matter. They both claim to be outsiders but I can claim to be on the inside for the greater part of my life. I should like to join in this discussion as one who was born on the land and as a youngster had to do practically everything that was to be done on the land. Subsequently, apart from attending a national school of which I am proud and where I attained a middle grade honours, I matriculated in Latin from that national school. After that I had experience of forestry.

In rural areas two members of the family could remain there, according to the number of girls who might marry neighbours or somebody else but naturally one boy remained on the farm. That is what happened in our case. Two of the boys had to seek employment elsewhere.

That is the theory on which Fianna Fáil work; that we could not maintain everybody on the land and we would want to provide industries for them.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

And emigration.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

I do not interrupt the Senator and if he continues to interrupt me I shall sit down.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Do not tempt me.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

If the Senator wants an interrupting match I shall help him.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

I have experience of forestry. Fisheries actually is the only heading in this motion of which I have no experience. Even I have not the experience of catching a trout. In later years I had an interest in horticulture. I spent a year in forestry and it was one of the best years of my life as far as physical exercise is concerned. We were up at 7 o'clock in the morning and we learned horticulture as well as forestry and had plenty of physical work as well as work in the woods. Today I can look with pleasure on places where I helped to plant trees.

At the end of that period I was wondering what would happen to me in life. My matriculation certificate helped me to enter the veterinary college and there we met again the lot and the difficulties which the man on the land has to experience and do the best he can with to get over.

It appears to me at present that we use the term post-primary education and this, to my mind, does not mean secondary education. We should get this differentiation between vocational and secondary schools clear. My appeal to the Minister would be to develop the vocational system for the agricultural community, for the workers and the farmers on the land so that they will be conversant as far as possible with this post-primary vocational teaching in those schools. It is my hope that the small farmer will get some adequate form of education to help him to deal with the problems he has to encounter on the land.

Some work to that effect is being done in vocational schools and nowadays I know, from conversation with friends of mine, that training in mechanical engineering should be undertaken by those who work with tractors, and so on. That brings immediately to my mind the unfortunate evidence from day to day of the unsatisfactory education young people get in this regard. Practically every week we read of some fatality in the working of agricultural machinery, mostly tractors. This, to my mind, is simply a demand for better vocational education. There appears to be more stress on what we call secondary education where there is teaching of languages and higher education, as it is allegdly called.

The ideal should be to get satisfactory vocational education complementary to the ordinary information which boys and girls mainly get. Here I should like to compliment a member of the Irish Countrywomen's Association for pointing out—which a speaker like Mr. Murphy might naturally forget—the work they are doing.

My principal feeling here is that we cannot employ everybody on the land. What we should do is try to ensure that those who have remained on the land will remain there and will have sufficient education to deal with the agricultural problems that arise from day to day. An agricultural man, be he employer or employee, is a greater technician than any of the technicians we read about. They are technicians of the first order.

I speak for both agriculture and horticulture. Forestry, of course, is developed as a separate industry under the Department of Agriculture. It is a natural development and I think it is a tremendous development at the present time.

Everybody will point the finger of scorn and say that development on the land is diminishing from day to day. Unfortunately, the tendency is due to mechanisation. Machinery, which, unfortunately, is often neglected now, does the work of a few people who in my time worked complementary and supplementary to the family members or otherwise.

I shall exclude the secondary school as to the present definition but if those who leave the land would go into the few schools provided by the State for a year's agricultural training and then subsequently to the universities and get a degree in agriculture they would do a great service to the agricultural community.

One speaker mentioned the increase in the number of agricultural advisers. They are helping and will continue to help the agricultural community.

There should be greater co-operation and collaboration between the agricultural advisory system in the various counties and the vocational schools. My picture would be a vocational school that would provide information for the great number of farmers' sons, young farmers, working on the land, which would provide them with information which cannot easily be provided on a whole-time basis and that members of the advisory committees would give lectures. The whole scheme to my mind could be coordinated to give under the vocational schools scheme a good education to the members of the agricultural community so that in afterlife they would be able to assimilate the complicated information transmitted to them by the agricultural advisers, veterinary advisers and engineering and other technologists.

Senator Jessop referred to the necessity for courses in biology and zoology and also in botany. The amount of botany that a farmer should know is quite high indeed. As far as zoology is concerned, I was interested in reading a booklet issued by An Foras Talúntais dealing with experiments they are conducting in Leitrim with regard to the part played by the fresh water snail in the life of the fluke worm. It is of the greatest importance to know that the fluke worm, which is the cause of so much fluke in our cattle and sheep, spends half of its lifetime in one of our fresh water snails. Technical and supplementary information on botany and zoology is of great help to the farmer and the best method of imparting that information is through the vocational schools.

That is the line of approach which I would suggest rather than sending members of the farmers' family to secondary schools. Perhaps it is right that some members of the farming community should go forward to secondary schools but it might be that the wrong type of person to impart training and information would go forward. In connection with horticulture, the best development that I can picture for the small farmer today is the provision of raw materials for the factories that produce Erin Foods. Agricultural papers have published figures of the fantastic prices per acre that can be obtained by farmers growing celery and other such vegetables. The production of vegetables for the Erin Food factories holds the best prospects for our small farmers and the best hope for developing the agricultural industry lies in the production, sale and distribution of the various Erin Food products for export to every country in the world. We should do it and I think we could do it.

There is no other subject arising in this debate into which I would like to go very deeply. I am glad to have had an opportunity of taking part in this discussion and of hearing the views put forward by the representative of Labour. I do not know what grade of labour is represented by the mover of the resolution but he has given us grounds for an interesting discussion in which I am glad to have taken part.

Mr. Cole

I should like to say a few words in this important debate and I should like to hear the long-term views of the Department of Agriculture with regard to agricultural education. There is a general feeling throughout the country that we still need much more agricultural education and my personal view is that there should be an agricultural school for every two or three counties. I should like to see that. I have served on vocational education committees and I have noticed that classes in those courses in which one would expect young farmers to concentrate, such as agricultural science, are not well attended. I think the reason for that is that at that stage they or their parents have made up their minds that they are going out of agriculture. Many of the courses seem to have a trend away from agriculture and, perhaps, that is designed because the student is going to leave the farm altogether.

I was surprised to find that trend when I was a member of a vocational education committee and, to my mind, there could be a great deal more bias towards agriculture in the primary schools. It would not do any harm to any child to get a wide interest in agriculture in his primary school days and it would do a great deal of good to the children in the city schools. I remember on one occasion quoting in this House from a reader used in primary schools 60, 70 or 80 years ago and even today the articles in that reader, which dealt mainly with agriculture, compare very favourable with the leaflets put out by the Department of Agriculture on vegetable growing or forestry. It was widely used as a reader in the primary schools in those days and it gave the children an interest that is absent in the agricultural community of today. Perhaps the reason for that is that, because of the work they have to do at home, they regard agricultural education as drudgery with no great interest.

There should be an opportunity given to every farmer's son to go to an agricultural school. At the moment, a boy going to an agricultural school is regarded as going for a Government job: he will get a Government appointment—an inspector of this or an inspector of that—and if he does not he can take some minor agricultural position. The percentage of those who go to agricultural schools and return to farms is comparatively small in relation to the number of farmers in the country and I should like to know if the figure is available.

I agree with Senator Ahern that there is wonderful work being done by the different organisations, the women's organisations and the young farmers, but they only touch the thing in a voluntary or amateur way. This is an agricultural country and when we look at the type of education we are giving we must ask how much of it concerns agricultural subjects, side by side with training for industry and for professions such as medicine, architecture and engineering. If there was an agricultural school even in every two or three counties and if in a short time its existence was brought to the notice of children, a great many boys and girls would go to it. Money spent in this way would be well spent and entry and attendance should be on terms suitable for farmers' sons so that they could be on leave at the busiest times of the year.

The chief point I wish to emphasise is that we should consider seriously an effective increase in agricultural education. Most farmers will tell you that they can see the benefit to the farm when a son has been at an agricultural school. Probably most Departmental inspectors can do the same if the Department do not already know it. You can see it in the land if you go on a farm. It is an advantage not only to the farmers concerned but to the country. Such farms are looked up to in the neighbourhood but there are far too few of them.

Therefore, every farmer's son should be encouraged to go to an agricultural school. I should like to harp back for a moment to a financial point which I raised before. The First Programme for Economic Expansion suggested that we should devote money to agricultural education even at the expense of the Irish language groups. That is a very serious suggestion by a programme produced in the way that it was. I do not think we are doing nearly enough for agricultural education. It has to be encouraged from the earliest days of the child and I hope to hear something from the Minister about a long-term programme to produce more places for farmers' sons for a really good agricultural education, not just courses lasting six months or a year.

Mr. McDonald

I wish to support the motion because it is past the time when the Department of Agriculture made up their minds on what they will do about agricultural education. Farmers and the general public have become browned off listening to the agricultural sector being praised as the backbone of the nation, responsible for so much, yet in this all-important field of education we find that though there is free post-primary education there is no free education for those who wish to pursue post-primary courses in agriculture.

When we have such a national industry as agriculture, responsible for more than 75 per cent or our total exports, if we are to survive as an exporting nation we must pay a little more than lip service to that industry. We have about half a dozen agricultural colleges throughout the 26 Counties which means that the vast majority of those who attend them must do so as boarders at their own expense. Even the limited number of pupils who qualify for scholarships in those colleges are required to contribute between £25 and £40 each. The Department of Agriculture have failed in this respect. They have lagged behind the Department of Education in providing opportunities for those for whom they are responsible. Always there has been a tendency to keep agricultural education as something different and it will remain so until the responsibility for agricultural education is transferred to the Department of Education along with every other branch of education.

In his opening remarks, Senator Murphy said that 90 per cent of those entering agriculture for a livelihood in Denmark have the benefit of post-primary agricultural education. There are no precise figures available here and I ask the Minister to challenge the suggestion that 90 per cent of the boys and girls who go into farming in Ireland do so without the benefit of any post-primary education. That compares badly with Denmark and with Holland where 83 per cent of those entering agriculture for a livelihood have the benefit of post-primary agricultural education.

The Department of Agriculture have done nothing to remedy this situation and the industry in general is suffering to a large extent from it. There have been great strides in the modernisation of agricultural technique but very little has been done to equip farmers to utilise and avail of the research that has been carried on in agriculture during the past few years.

In County Laois the County Committee of Agriculture in order to do something in this regard opened a winter farm school last year. This catered only for 24 students and it proved successful. That is due to the hard work and the effort put into that course by the county's team of agricultural advisers and instructors but surely this is not what those people were appointed for. I should imagine that their work is to be available to assist farmers on their farms with the day-to-day problems, to help and advise on proper farm plans, to help farmers to utilise the findings of the many experiments carried out by An Foras Talúntais. Here, out of necessity, we find that the county committee of agriculture must divert those men to work for, unfortunately, a very small percentage of the total farming population. Granted it is only for a few months of the winter but at the same time it is a very grave burden on those instructors and it is difficult for them to fit it in and at the same time give an adequate service to the general farming community of the country.

I should like to see the Department of Agriculture if they are to continue to be responsible for agricultural education devoting more money to the problem of agricultural education. They must tackle this problem in a virile and dynamic way. The farm apprenticeship scheme was, perhaps, a help in this regard but, unfortunately, it is a drop in the ocean. This year the first batch of apprentices graduate. I think they number only 17 or 18. This surely is a very inadequate number of qualified people entering the biggest industry in the country—18 qualified apprentices being infused into an industry employing some 350,000 people. It is certainly not a realistic figure. I should also like to see more specialisation in the farm apprenticeship scheme. I feel, for instance, that the apprentices should have an opportunity of specialising in the management and care of, say, a dairy herd of 40, 50 or 60 cows using the very newest and best equipment. As well as that, I feel that the farm apprenticeship scheme must be amended and enlarged in order to give the farm workers an opportunity of availing of it.

One great problem facing Irish agriculture at the present time is the scarcity of farm workers. Young men are certainly not being encouraged to take up farming as a career. Farm wages are the lowest in the country. As a matter of fact, most people would qualify for higher social welfare benefits if they stayed idle than if they took on the hard and exacting work that farm workers must of necessity do nowadays. Here we have an industry which is losing between 14,000 and 20,000 able-bodied men and women each year and it is starved of qualified workers. We have the bones of an apprenticeship scheme which is starved for the finance which it must get if it is to measure up to what it was originally intended to do. The Minister must make some announcement on the position regarding this scheme. I am sure that the 17 or 18 boys who are coming out this year as fully qualified apprentices are highly qualified. My information is that they are excellent young men but it is a pity that the opportunities that they have had should not be made available to far greater numbers. The Minister will have to have a farm apprenticeship scheme which will release into the agricultural industry at least 1,300 to 2,600 people per year. That is not a large number when one remembers that there are 26 Counties.

If this country should become a member of the European Community unless we are able to tackle this problem in a realistic way, I cannot see how the farming community can be expected to compete when we look at the figures regarding this problem and take into account the numbers of graduates who take up work on the land in other countries like Denmark and Holland which I think are our principal competitors. The Minister must surely see the danger there is if we are to take this easy-going attitude and persist in doing nothing. I should like to quote a table from volume 1, No. 1 of Manpower and Applied Psychology. It is contained in an article by Professor Thomas F. Raftery of UCC. Table 5 states that the number of agricultural graduates obtaining first employment in farming in this country is only four per cent. There are only four employed on farms in Ireland compared with 27 in Italy, 35 in France and 20 in Denmark per year. That is 2 per cent for Ireland, 50 per cent for Belgium, eight per cent for France and 22 per cent for the Netherlands.

While I know that the vast majority of our graduates go into advisory work, it surely puts the Irish farmer at a disadvantage. The Department of Agriculture right down through the years have been most negligent in the aids that they have given to the farming community. Little or no heed was ever taken of the findings published after the many surveys and reports. I recall that in 1959 the Gilmore survey report on agricultural education and credit was published, and yet it would appear that nothing has been done about that until the Minister's latest announcement on the small farm plan, which is the first step that has been taken following the exhaustive and exacting work that Fred Gilmore put into that survey. After nine years we now find that the Minister has introduced a plan designed, if successful, to bring the family farms incomes of people working on the land up to £700 a year. We could expect something better after nine years' study of that particular report.

Too much is left to the idea of co-operation which the Department of Agriculture is trying to sell among the farmers. Farm co-operation is all right in its own context, but it would appear that unless the farmers do things themselves nothing is done. If the Government were to tackle this all-important facet of agricultural education, then a new generation of farmers with the benefit of a good sound agricultural education would be much better equipped to utilise the precepts of co-operation to a greater degree. There are many things, indeed, that farmers are lacking in in this country. The only thing they are getting is lip service.

I should like to avail of this opportunity of complimenting Telefís Éireann on the very excellent programmes that they have put out over the past few years. Mr. Ted Nealon in "Cross Country" and many others whose names I cannot recall at the moment have done trojan work in this field of agricultural education. It is perhaps unfortunate that we still have a section of farmers in the more sparsely populated areas unable to benefit from these excellent programmes and discussions on Telefís Éireann for the simple reason that they have not got the rural electrification system because they would be uneconomic subscribers or members of the ESB network. I would appeal to the Minister that if he is going to do nothing for agricultural education he should devise some form of supplementary grants to the ESB to help those people faced wth bi-mensal overhead charges of £5 and £10—give a special grant to them to enable them to connect up to the rural electrification network, and at least they would then have the benefit of purchasing a TV set and seeing the excellent programmes put on weekly by Telefís Éireann.

Mr. Murphy

Very good.

Mr. McDonald

Agriculture is now such a difficult occupation, with remuneration so very small when you compare it with other walks of life, that it is most important that we should have the best possible people engaged in that industry. There is a notion abroad, especially in urban areas, that the farmers are almost parasites, and pay no rates or taxes, but this is not true. It is quite true that farmers under £30 or £33 valuation have rate concessions, but the people over £30 still pay colossal rates for which they get little or nothing in return, and the great injustice of this is that the system does not take into account the ability of the particular farmers to pay.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Sheldon)

The Senator cannot stray too far.

Mr. McDonald

Under the present set-up there is nothing to encourage a farmer to send his son at his own expense to an agricultural college because the prospects for the industry are, indeed, not so bright. We must between now and next September come up with some plan that will be able to bring more farmers' sons or, perhaps, heirs apparent or whatever you wish to call them into contact with post-primary education. If the present situation is to go on the percentage, particularly of the farmers' sons, who are given post-primary education who will opt to go on into other employment will increase. Those of them who are lucky enough to qualify for scholarships enabling them to become graduates either go into the advisory services or go into industry or emigrate, so that there is no hope for this country unless we are able to attract back on the land a better percentage of graduates each year. Surely this can be done if we are to work and expand the activities of the agricultural apprenticeship scheme.

The present scheme is designed to pay those qualifying £500 with which to start off, but I am not too clear on what they are expected to do with this, or whether they will get the option on a Land Commission holding on which to establish a farm themselves. I remember that when this agricultural apprenticeship scheme was going through the House it was suggested that there should be a better tie-up between the farm apprenticeship board and the Land Commission. Whether this has been carried a further stage I am not too clear, but I feel, that, perhaps the Land Commission could consider assigning Land Commission holdings to agricultural graduates with management qualifications. If that was done we would have, perhaps, initially to create a greater interest in education and we should have these people given holdings strategically placed throughout the country so that the neighbours could watch their progress over the hedge as it were. It is quite true that many thousands of farmers each year benefit from the one-day open days in the An Foras Talúntais farms throughout the country.

After all, those open days are not that successful from the point of view that you have many thousands of farmers walking around one farm one day and it is difficult to absorb all the information that the gentlemen of An Foras Talúntais try to impart at that brief meeting. If we could have throughout the country graduates on farms—not necessarily estates, but farms—which would be representative of the farms in that particular area with somewhat similar acreage, similar quality and that sort of thing it would be much better. The Department would do well to devise a scheme for keeping those people on the farms. They could demonstrate to them how by educational qualifications the standard of living and the standard of production on Irish farms could be greatly increased.

This, perhaps, may sound a little far-fetched. At the same time, I feel that in industry a great effort is made to put in the best possible brains and the best possible talent. This has not been done in regard to what we call the most important industry. This is being treated in exactly the opposite manner. This surely must be regrettable to any fair-thinking person. The time has come when the Department must either hand over the responsibility for agricultural education to the Department of Education or they must announce a comprehensive policy for agricultural education which will give some hope to those people engaged in the industry.

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Blaney)

I think the first thing we had better dispose of and get out of our system is what Senator McDonald would have for a policy. The first is the introduction of a small farm scheme, which I do not think has a great deal to do with what the sponsors of this motion would have us discuss. He did not pay a tribute to this as being no small part of Gilmore's effort nine years ago. He had great experience in regard to this as well as many others nearer home.

The next thing was a higher subsidy for the ESB so that farmers could instal television and listen to Ted Nealon's programme. The next was that farms of over £33 valuation should have a sort of means test applied to determine whether they should get special consideration, and the next was that apparently those farm classes, winter schools and classes, should be abandoned because there is misuse of the advice given.

Mr. McDonald

I did not say that.

Mr. Blaney

As far as I was concerned, that is what the Senator said.

Mr. McDonald

Why are the Department not doing anything about it?

Mr. Blaney

What are your people doing about it? I still say that is what the Senator said. Apparently he does not understand what he said. The advisers are provided and 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the total cost is paid. They will be paid for by the Department and have been pushed on the committees of agriculture over the years. The actual cost, which is paid by the Department, has moved up from 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the total cost. This is the problem of the committees of agriculture and the other advisory services. Why should they not with their skilled knowledge, direct those classes and contribute by virtue of their knowledge to those who are desirous of obtaining it? Surely this is the whole reason for those services? Is that not far better than taking samples of clay to see whether there is lime in it which is a job which any kid could do.

Mr. McDonald

Why do the technicians not do it?

Mr. Blaney

If you cannot take it, you should not make it.

Mr. McDonald

You should sanction the advisers we have paid for.

Mr. Blaney

Indeed, you should.

Acting Chairman

The Senator must cease interrupting.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

The Senator does not know what he is talking about. The Senator grunted once before.

Acting Chairman

Senator Ó Maoláin should also cease interrupting.

Mr. Blaney

I do not think the Senator really understood what the motion is about. The provision for the training of agricultural workers is not taken care of by An Chomhairle Oiliúna. This was so stated during the debate on this particular matter and that is probably the reason this particular motion arose. The reasons for this are fairly well accepted. An Chomhairle, so constituted and provided for, gives training in industrial and commercial activities. It was then stated by the Minister in this House, I think that in the spheres of agriculture, horticulture and fishing this was considered the type of training which could be tackled most effectively in agriculture rather than through this new industrial training board. I believe this is accepted although there are those who would feel that, perhaps, it should not have been abandoned by the other activities of the board.

That is the way it has been. That is the way the board has been operating up to the moment. I should say it was stated specifically that in regard to people leaving agriculture and going into other employment, industrial, commercial or whatever it may be An Chomhairle holds itself out to train those leaving agriculture. However, it will not train agricultural employees or farmers in further elements of farming or agricultural industry. Those people are taken on to be trained for other industries if they are leaving agriculture. Unfortunately, a number of them leave year by year.

Perhaps it might be possible to try to put into perspective in some way the clamour there seems to be about the wrong people in agriculture. Is there anybody here in this House, in the other House or outside who has not to some degree, if he looks over his outlook through the years, been a little bit to blame for this? How many people here or outside who talk about this matter of the wrong people retained on the land have not contributed in their own way to that sort of situation? How many people are there who seek to keep a son or families on the land who have been the cause of this? This is the real kernel of the matter. We would all like it to be otherwise. Let us be realistic. It is not otherwise. It may be improving somewhat and the outlook may be changing.

There may be a growing recognition of the importance of those who work on the land, whether they be on farms large or small or whether they be employees of these farms. There are very few who would, in fact, seek to put their families back on the land other than in a very well established large farm. I could not see anyone seeking to put any of their children back on a small farm on the chance only of viability or below. Neither could I see any of them look except with abhorrence on seeing any of their children go back to work on a farm. Let us clear the cobwebs away and see who is to blame. We are all to blame until we can change the entire outlook, and that will not be done merely by talk of education. This will not change our outlook basically.

In so far as what is being done is concerned, there is a great deal being done over the years in trying to help the agricultural community, both worker and farmer, to work more efficiently and we hope with more profit to the farmer himself. We also realise that in this matter of giving education, providing education or training for our agricultural people we will be dealing with and we are dealing with a far greater number of people who are self-employed in agriculture than in industry or in any other walk of life.

This is one of the aspects we must keep in mind. We are dealing with a great bulk of people who are self-employed and this suggestion in a sense, this matter of training and education puts them in a different rôle. It sets them apart from the treatment that might be useful and desirable in the case of industry and commerce. You are dealing in a large measure with self-employed people and this in itself makes difficulties as I am sure all of the Senators here fully understand.

Our training in agriculture, as a result of this, naturally must follow a different pattern to that which has been applied and has been useful in so far as industry is concerned. There is need for the operation of an extensive system of education in so far as agriculture is concerned. When we look back over the years it is only fair that we should say despite my criticism of the general outlook of those who work on the land, that over the past twenty years we have made quite an amount of progress, though we are far more ready to point out whether any of us are satisfied with the way we are going.

Over those 20 years, to give a little review, the number of boys attending full time courses in agricultural colleges has more than doubled. We have opened extra schools in those years and the number of scholarships in that 20 years has approximately trebled.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Could the Minister give the numbers?

Mr. Blaney

I will as I go along. There seems to be, as a result of that sort of interjection, a feeling that I have not got them.

Mr. McDonald

They are so small you are ashamed to mention them.

Mr. Blaney

If your intake is as good as your output you would not understand that. I will give them at a later stage. I am giving a general run down and will give further details later on. Scholarships have trebled in that period. Provision for capital grants to set up colleges and schools of rural domestic economy increased fourfold since 1960 and forty-fold since 1956-57. Senator McDonald might like to mention the figures for 1956-57.

There has been a considerable increase in the number of agricultural advisers employed by our county committees of agriculture. I shall give the numbers at a later stage. Winter farm schools and the farm apprenticeship scheme have been established although criticism has been levelled at them that they are not doing enough. In recent years these things have been established and are operating though at too slow a pace to suit everybody which is an indication that they are worthwhile. Otherwise, you would be knocking them saying that they are not too good. But here people are saying that we are not going fast enough which means that they are good and you have not enough.

The number of students pursuing horticultural courses has increased considerably over the past ten years. In so far as giving more detail on this is concerned, I would say in regard to the advisory services that these are operated by the county committees of agriculture in co-operation with my Department and they undoubtedly play a very vital role in the training and education of those people engaged in agriculture and trade and they are helpful to those right down on the land which I think is where we want to get to a greater degree the greatest possible assistance by way of education, by way of demonstration on the farm or by those night classes in the localities which are capable of being attended by the greatest number of our people who are actively engaged in agriculture or their employees. The fact is that those agricultural committees in co-operation with the vocational education committees have since 1959 been conducting these winter farm schools and they are open to young farmers and to workers alike. This is something people should take cognisance of. Where these are open in general, we should encourage the attendance of workers as well as farmers.

In so far as winter farm schools are concerned the vocational schools and committees of agriculture have provided courses over a wide range of subjects and they extend over two winters. They comprise in all 220 hours instruction and in 1966-67 these particular schools were held in 34 centres throughout the country giving a total enrolment of 567. We feel that these winter courses are an invaluable method of training for persons who, for one reason or another, cannot manage to spend a year in an agricultural college. By virtue of the nature of the people we have to deal with, their occupation and their being self-employed. they cannot in many cases give up and take a training course which would be invaluable to them. What we are trying to do is to bring those classes close to them and to give them an intensive course during two winters and these are the equivalent of the residential year they might spend if they could afford the time in some of our colleges.

The winter agricultural classes are somewhat different from the one I have mentioned which is the winter farm schools. These winter agricultural classes were held during 1966-67 in 167 centres and attendance ran in this particular type of class to over 4,000. These agricultural classes, again, have been running through the winter and they are open, of course, to farmers and workers and they are held in the evening as most of you know in a local school or parish hall or at whatever premises may be available. During the years these have proved of great importance to the farmers.

One cannot over-emphasise the value of our various advisory staffs over our various counties. Their worth cannot be over-emphasised. Their we know that this increase will number has increased from 213 in 1960 to 322 at present, and the most striking feature of that increase is that in the North and West, where we need them most, the increase has been from 100 to 170 since 1963 up to the present time. I should say that the likelihood of this increase being greater than the national increase may be because we have, through the Department and the Exchequer, upped the Government support from 50 per cent for the rest of the country to 75 per cent for these areas. The overall increase is satisfactory and the increase in the North and West still more satisfactory, and we know that this increase will continue in this year and go further in the coming years.

Their value is accepted as being beyond any over-emphasis. Their best advantage is that they come to know the farmer; they know his individual farm problems; they get to know the man as a farmer, what his circumstances are and what his land is capable of. They can then go in on his farm with an intimate knowledge of the operator and what he operates and give him the sort of advice which can take into account all his circumstances, whether he is capable of attempting certain things, what he is capable of spending without running into debt. These are the intimate things which the advisers can take into account when giving advice to individual farmers.

There are also about 79 horticultural instructors and 93 poultry instructors. I should say that 49 of these poultry instructors have received special training in farm home management. I was glad to hear Senator Mrs. Ahern advert to the fact that this was regarded by the Irish Countrywomen's Association and others as a very worthwhile venture. We are helping in that work and will continue to expand it. As I have said, 49 of the 93 instructors have received this special training so that the number is higher than the Senator had hoped it was and we hope to push it to greater numbers in the near future. We believe that the function and usefulness of the partner, the wife, the woman in the house, on a farm is more vital to the enterprise of farming than is that of the wife in other walks of life. That will be accepted by those who know the country and who know how the wife can add to the income and how she can conserve the outgoings of the farm in relation to the ingoings which are sometimes so finely balanced that if not properly related, they would be gone for their tea.

This is putting it crudely in one sense. There are many other more sophisticated elements where the farm home advisory service can be of added value and create much more comfort in the home itself. However, basically it can help to make viable and more profitable farms that might not otherwise be either profitable or viable and whose owners might otherwise have to leave them as so many have had to do.

With regard to residential colleges for boys, we have three of these run by the Department and we also give quite substantial grants towards the maintenance and capital costs of six privately-owned agricultural colleges, all of which provide the one year course in agriculture for young men. The winter classes to which I have already referred are probably the next best thing to the residential year in these colleges. This year at such a college is probably the best form of training that can be obtained by any person embarking on a farming career. We feel that this is so and has proved so, but, if I may add a personal opinion, far too many of these lads who participate in this residential year seem to get other ideas when they have been there and take themselves to other climes and other pursuits after the year which they embarked upon basically to improve their knowledge of agriculture.

Far too many of them do not return to their home farms and the good training which their year in a residential college has given them is largely lost in so far as its basic intent is concerned. However, in most cases it is not completely lost because many of them return to serve the farming community either through the public service or through the Civil Service in the Department. I do make this personal remark that too many of these people do not return from whence they came after getting this useful start.

In regard to fees in the Department's colleges, I should emphasise that for boys from holdings of low valuations and for the sons of farm workers, special low fees are arranged. About 530 boys are at present attending these residential colleges, and of these, 340 are there by virtue of scholarships provided by committees of agriculture. The eligible sons of all residents of rural areas can compete for these scholarships and the fact that such a high proportion of the 530 are on scholarships is a fair indication of the great effort that is being made to give more and better education to the boys interested.

The suggestion is that there is no parallel between what is being done for the farm worker or the young boy or girl on the farm and the post-primary education scheme. Those who now make such comparisons were saying 12 months ago that the post-primary education scheme was not right. Two years ago they were screaming that it was wrong, that it could not be done, and now they are comparing it with what we are doing in agriculture. Of course, this is fair game but at the same time I should not like them to mislead themselves so far as to push the post-primary education scheme to such a degree, in trying to cut down on the agricultural side, as to get themselves into bother at their Party's next meeting. Others will be reading what has been said here and may take a poor view of it.

At the same time, we can ensure-this is something I raised already-that there is extension of our post-primary education scheme facilities to help those who wish to have better post-primary education in subjects related to the development and working of agriculture. This is being examined and will be pursued in conjunction with the many other things we are already doing. However, I think the House will accept that the post-primary scheme is open to all and sundry, all children, boys and girls, and this surely is the basis on which further agricultural education, particularly technical and scientific knowledge of value to farmers, can be built-not just on the basis of those who leave the national schools because that base would be slightly narrow to carry the usefulness of scientific knowledge, expertise and knowhow to the farmers or to the workers on farms of tomorrow.

We will have more consideration given to this; we are considering it and will continue to consider it. I think we can promise that we can and will integrate further facilities for agricultural education into the post-primary overall plan which is now working.

We have as well a series of classes on other subjects, possibly isolated ones but very useful, such as management of milking machines and silage making, farm management, handling and maintenance of farm machinery. Earlier this evening somebody mentioned the lack in this respect. These classes have been held at Departmental schools and other centres in recent years and it is our wish that more of them will be held at more centres to facilitate greater numbers of farmers. The help and advice and the money that will undoubtedly be needed will be forthcoming as heretofore, from the Department of Agriculture.

The farm apprenticeship scheme has been criticised. It was indicated that there has not been a sufficient turn-out from the scheme and this is in effect an acceptance of the fact that it is a good scheme. Under it, as the House is fully aware, awards of £500 each may be made by the Department to apprentices to this four-year training scheme with selected farmers who pass out at the end on special merit. This scheme should be very attractive to those wishing to take up farming. About 86 apprentices so far have participated and I have the feeling that the prospects of increasing the numbers in the future are quite encouraging. Therefore, to those who feel we are not going quickly enough, I say that the evidence is there that the pace will quicken as time goes on. On this scheme, I should remark that the sons of workers, the sons of employees and farmers' sons, are entitled and are welcome to participate in the scheme. Indeed, there is an arrangement whereby a high proportion of the £500 awards is directed to the lower income group whether they be small farmers' sons or the sons of workers. The scheme has been tailored in that way so as to get more of these awards to a greater number in the lower-income groups than to those in the better-off classes.

On the subject of courses for girls, we have in the Munster Institute a number of them. In addition to those courses, which are designed to provide personnel for advisory and teaching posts, there is a training course for technicians in poultry husbandry and poultry production. This is useful and important and has been organised by the Department of Agriculture. There is a course also for butter makers and cheese makers and for persons required to deal with the marketing of eggs and poultry. This litany of the things we have been doing may be boring but this is the subject we are dealing with and it has so many aspects that there is a litany of things already done and of things yet to come. We have got to have them all if we are to have an overall picture of what is being done and of where the gaps are which must be filled in the future.

In recent years we have seen an increasing emphasis on horticulture, and properly so. There are undoubtedly various ways of crop management and processing and horticulture should play an ever-increasing role in the wellbeing of many of our people, if not on the economy as a whole. At present, in so far as education in that sphere is concerned, we have the two-year training course in the Botanic Gardens for persons between 17 and 25 years who intend to take up horticulture in their own right or who may seek employment as gardeners after they have done this course. This two-year course was inaugurated in 1959 but was then only a replacement of the separate one-year courses held at Johnstown Castle and the Gardens. I should add that in the original scheme there were 20 places —ten each year. There are now 40 places or 20 a year in this two-year course. I should also say that one of the State-aided agricultural colleges runs horticultural classes for boys and that the remaining colleges include horticulture as a subject in their agricultural courses.

With the support of the Department of Agriculture and the Kellog Foundation, the ICA propose to introduce a one-year horticulture course at An Grianán at Termonfeckin. As Senator Mrs. Ahern has said, this is not only a novel but an excellent idea. Horticulture in the home or on the farmstead has been sadly neglected in this country and it is true for the Senator to say that it is not possible, on any sort of active farm, to get any man about the place to sow even a few heads of cabbage. So I think the ICA with the aid of the Kellog Foundation and whatever support we give them have decided to do the job themselves. All I can say to them is "Hear, hear" because that is the only way that they will get it done. From whatever experience I have had I think they will be talking for a long time before they get the cabbages they have been looking for and if this means that they provide them themselves, more luck to them and I would say better eating to the husbands who heretofore would have to be fed out of the proverbial tin. This is novel as well. I think it is a great idea and I look forward to the outcome of it with a great deal of interest and pleasure.

Day-release courses for nursery workers and others engaged in commercial horticulture are held at the Botanic Gardens. Classes in horticulture are also conducted in a number of counties by instructors in horticulture. During the year 1966-67 classes were held at 35 centres and attracted a total of 755 pupils. With the growth of the horticultural industry the demand for the skilled horticultural technician is growing and we are pushing ahead with plans for a new residential horticultural college to be run by my Department in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park near New Ross in County Wexford. I have the utmost confidence that this college will, in the years ahead, confer very great benefits on the economy and on the country. In this new college we hope students will receive a thorough training in the theory and practice of all aspects of commercial horticulture. Of course, the college will have the added benefit of being capable of being used during the summer holiday period to provide refresher courses for our horticultural advisers. This is naturally a very important aspect of education. It is important not only to give the education but, as the years roll on, to bring up to date those who were educated before certain things were found out. This need will be served by the college as an addition to its main role of providing a residential centre for the commercial horticultural technician or operator or whatever you like to call him.

I mentioned a review of the advisory services. This review has already taken place, as Senators are aware, but so far as any decision on the report of this review is concerned neither I nor the Government have yet come to final conclusions on it. I should say that we are departmentally not only evaluating the report but we also invited comments from any and all interested parties whether they were voluntary organisations or whatever you will. We asked them to comment on the report on the advisory services. This, of course, will take some further time before we can go to the Government with final recommendations or before the Government are in a position to make their decision on this particular report. I should also add that this review of the advisory services is not the only report. I have received a report on agricultural education which is what this motion is generally about. This report on agricultural education was prepared by a team comprising the staff members of two committees of agriculture and an inspector of the Department, aided by a steering committee representative of the Department, the committee of agriculture and the Irish Agricultural Officers' Organisation. This report has only been fairly recently received and is still under consideration in my Department.

In so far as improving facilities in the future is concerned, allowing for what has already been done I feel that there is a growing need for agricultural education facilities both at local and at college level. On the local side, we are anxious that increased numbers of advisory officers would be employed by the committees of agriculture so that the number and variety of day courses could be substantially increased. We are also, of course, giving every encouragement to the development of Farm Training Centres in each county for the sons and daughters of farmers who are remaining on the land. Again, I should like if we could devise some way of ensuring that when they decide to take up whatever places we have in these farm training centres that they would stay on the land or even have the intention of staying on it. I think it goes back again to what some Members have said that they sort of pick out the fellow who is not likely to make good on the books and send him back to the land. Even on some of the courses we run, and they may be too few in the estimation of many, unfortunately, in many cases members of the family are deliberately sent forward not with the intention of going back to make a better job of the farm but hoping that in some way through these courses they may get some other sort of job maybe associated with the land but certainly not on it. I would hope that in this new venture we are trying to push that we will get more people who will stay on the land after they have completed these courses.

In so far as day courses are concerned, arrangements have been made for the use of facilities at two of the Department's agricultural colleges. These are for young farmers in surrounding neighbourhoods and they are organised and conducted by the county advisory staffs. The county advisory staffs are an absolutely essential integral part of this. In so far as localised training and education is concerned, we have the matter of short courses and the coming of increased numbers of specialised short courses at the agricultural colleges generally. We are examining this at the moment and I hope we can do a great deal more in expanding these courses as well as expanding the subjects that we have been doing up to the moment but what is required is not just more money but more premises and it is dependent in many cases on a greater number of officers being appointed by many counties which as yet have not taken up anything like what could be regarded as their quota of these very useful people.

Attention is being given to the improvement of facilities for one year courses at agricultural colleges and to the development of courses for students who want to avail of the more specialised forms of agricultural enterprise.

Any review of our education in agriculture would, I feel, be lacking if we had no mention of the voluntary organisations. Senator Murphy and Senator Miss Davidson have been chided for not mentioning all of them. I hope I will not be so chided because I intend to mention all of them. We have Macra na Feirme working in close association with the advisory services, doing very valuable work in organising educational, cultural and social activities. Lest anybody feels that we do not give them the sort of recognition that they deserve, we give them the sort of recognition that they recognise—that is financial—which is more than those who laud them possibly may do on most occasions. We have been supporting them financially and we hope that their work will continue and we will continue to support them because of the good that they are doing.

I have already mentioned the ICA and I shall not go further into that except to say that again in that regard we have been supporting them by various grants-in-aid. We hope to continue to do so and that they will continue to do more good work in the future. In addition to that, of course, they have an offshoot of their association known as Country Markets Limited. We have again recognised that group by some financial assistance because we feel they are doing a fairly useful job and can do even better in the future. We have Macra na Tuaithe newly organised and strengthened and continuing its good work of providing an out of school programme of education for our young people in rural areas. Again, in the most meaningful way we show our appreciation of their work by making some financial aid available to them. This, again, we propose to continue, and we hope that their endeavours in the way in which they have been operating will be expanded in the future as well.

Forestry is not my particular responsibility, and I have taken the opportunity since this motion was indicated as being on today to get a few notes from the Minister for Lands. As Senators realise, he is not the same Minister we had yesterday, but I am sure that the Minister for Lands today will not contradict what the other Minister for Lands gave me yesterday morning. What I have here is what the Minister for Lands would wish me to say as regards forestry: that the educational and training facilities available in this country are fully comparable with those available in Britain, though naturally the courses available at University level here do not cover as wide a range of specialised forestry subjects as they do in British universities. The British universities have to cater for a large body of Commonwealth students while, in the main, we need cater only for the needs of the Irish State forest service. One of the difficulties in the matter of forestry education at University level is that up to a few years ago opportunities for forestry graduates in this country were few and the annual throughput of students was too small to justify the provision of a large teaching staff. With the rapid expansion of State afforestation during recent years it became clear that there would be further openings for such graduates, and in 1959 the Minister for Lands arranged for a special annual subvention of the order of £2,000 to £3,000 a year to maintain a chair of forestry at UCD in addition to the existing lectureship.

Forestry education at subprofessional level is provided by the State. The course is of three years duration and is residential. About 30 places are available annually and are filled by means of an open competition held by the Civil Service Commissioners. The first year is spent at Kinnitty Castle, Offaly, and the students, most of whom have no forestry background, are familiarised with the annual cycle of operations at a practical level. The second and third years are spent at Shelton Abbey, County Wicklow, and instruction is given in practical and theoretical forestry there. In addition, short courses, are provided by Departmental or other experts on certain specialised subjects. The scope and content of the course in Shelton is similar to that provided in the British forestry commission school but, again, the training is tailored to meet this country's needs. A further extension of forestry education in this country will be secured when the proposed forestry extension school is opened at Avondale House, Rathdrum, County Wicklow. This building is being extensively repaired and restored, and work is expected to be completed shortly. The primary function of the school will be to provide refresher and extension courses for foresters and forest management inspectors in new developments. It will also provide short practical courses for supervisors, machine operators and so on, as well as appreciation courses in forestry for rural science teachers and members of rural organisations as well as for university students. On the whole, it is evident that a good job is being done in the matter of training in forestry in this country.

Turning now to Fisheries, in my Department we have training schemes for boys as fishermen and fishermen as skippers in existence since 1959. The terms of the boys' training scheme have recently been revised, as Senators are probably aware, following an extensive examination of the whole position by an inter-departmental committee specially set up for the purpose. The duration of the course is now ten months. During that time the boys will be maintained free and receive an allowance of £3 per week. This course covers particularly navigation at sea, the use of instruments, seamanship and cookery. Instruction in the shore-based part of the course is being given as a temporary measure just now at Moville, County Donegal, pending the completion of plans for a permanent residential fishery school which, as I have already announced, will be located in Greencastle, County Donegal.

The skippers' course consists of 16 weeks' instruction given in Galway Vocational School for selected fishermen following which they undergo an examination for a certificate of competency which will enable them to skipper boats up to 50 tons. While on the training course they are paid £7 a week plus a dependent relative allowance where this is necessary. I should say that 13 fishermen participated in this course in 1967 and subsequently all 13 of them were successful in obtaining their certificates. Many fishermen, just as we have mentioned in the case of farmers earlier, are not free to absent themselves for six or 12 months to attend residential courses, and, of course, many fishermen find it difficult for other reasons to go where these skipper courses are held. For this reason Bord Iascaigh Mhara, in recent years organised a number of short intensive courses held at ports in the evenings when fishermen are available locally. By this means 93 persons who have participated have so far secured their skippers certificates. These people are qualified to take out boats up to 50 tons, and this is quite a considerable achievement for many of these people who are just studying in their spare time and probably not in the best sort of educational premises or surroundings and under pressure while doing the job.

I hope that more will participate in the scheme and will be qualified in future, because this is the sort of progress we badly need if we are to avail of the upsurge that now is apparent in our fishing industry. While I say that there is an upsurge I feel that it is still only a little better than scraping at the surface, but unless we have the trained personnel, unless we have the educational know-how, unless we have the knowledge to take out the larger boats as well as the knowledge of how to fish them, then we cannot possibly by building piers and building boats and handing them over with the aid of grants or loans, produce more fish unless we have men competent not only to handle the boats competently but to fish them competently. Thus, we dearly desire to see more people participating in these schemes and availing of these courses and getting their skippers certificate so that they can have bigger boats and proceed to deeper waters and better fishing which a number of our fishermen are showing us is there, and very much to their advantage and profitability.

In addition to these training courses which I have mentioned for the boys on the one hand and for the skippers certificate on the other hand, which is a residential course, there is a localised course for these boys in scattered areas. In addition, practical instruction is being given and will continue to be given in modern fishing methods by foreign experts organised by Bord Iascaigh Mhara, and this has been organised as a regular feature of its advisory services. The Board brings in experts from abroad who are notable experts on various aspects of fishing and who demonstrate their information on the spot, something in a sense comparable with the agricultural advisory service, right on the spot, in the sea and on the boat.

I have gone through practically all the litany which I am sorry to have inflicted upon the House, but as I said at the outset it has so many aspects that even if we may be said to be doing too little, if we add up everything it does amount to a very great deal. Although educational efforts in the past may not have reached the ideals many of us would like to see, I think we have got to take the practical view, as I expressed at the start, that we are dealing not so much only with lack of education in so far as the agricultural community is concerned but all of us are basically responsible to some degree, greater or lesser, for the outlook that still obtains that those who work on the land are working in an inferior occupation. There is no point in codding ourselves that we have not contributed to this.

I feel education in the broadest sense is liquidating and reducing this outlook but I do not subscribe to the view that education alone will be a quick way and in a short time bring about a situation in which many of us here would wish to have our families back on the land in small farms just on the verge of viability. I am sure none of us would wish that any member of our families should become agricultural workers employed in small farms and on small wages. No amount of discussion will get us away from the fact that this is the outlook of practically every one of us. If we are to change that it will not mean education alone on the part of our people in the broadest sense but education in a basic sense that those who are working on the land, whether they be ordinary workers or farmers, large or small, can be up-graded in our minds and that we can come to realise the value of agricultural work to our people and that those who are doing that work are very highly skilled people.

The unions were mentioned here today. I do not believe those people are regarded in the same light by the unions as workers in other industrial occupations which do not require one tenth the skill and knowledge which a good agricultural worker requires. Those people have got that knowledge despite what might be said about the alleged lack of educational opportunities in agriculture. Those people have acquired that knowledge, they have grown up with it and this is a fund of knowledge which should be recognised. It is not being recognised to the degree it should be.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Why will you not remunerate them?

An Cathaoirleach

It is now after 6 o'clock, which is the normal time for the Seanad to adjourn for tea.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I think, as the Minister is finishing his statement and there is only Senator Murphy to conclude, we should not adjourn for tea.

An Cathaoirleach

That is all right if the House is agreeable.

Mr. Blaney

I shall not be more than five minutes. It is very interesting to hear the Senator on remuneration. The fact of the matter is that this is basically what I am talking about. I am not one of the airy-fairy, woolly people who talk about appreciating this category of workers unless I am talking about remuneration as a very real remuneration. When I talk about remuneration, I mean real remuneration not just the airy-fairy woolly sort of thing. These people are very great people but they are not accepted as such by most of us when we take industrial workers into account. They have not been measured in the same terms. Education and knowledge in many cases is far greater and the requisite knowledge is far greater than that required in industrial occupations.

This is not the fault of anybody in particular. I say we are all to blame for this. Until we bring about the change that will give true recognition to those who work the land those people will still be regarded in the way they are at present. We should help people in agriculture to be better educated in agricultural knowledge and techniques. This can be done by the various schemes I have mentioned here, which we already have, and the ones which we hope to implement in the years to come.

We have not been remiss to the degree that some people would suggest. The litany of things which we have been doing is probably a revelation to many people who are inclined to say that those people have not been given any opportunities. I have not the slightest doubt that there is a great deal more to be done. However, so far as I and my Department are concerned we appreciate that there is a great deal to do but we want the help and understanding of all the people of this country that this is a job well worth doing and if we have to charge the community more for this sort of service that they will give willingly as well as freely of their money so that those people will be capable of reaching the educational attainments they should and will be capable of reaping the reward for their occupations as they would in other walks of life.

That is about all I wish to say except to emphasise that we should step by step get ahead with the education of those people who are engaged in the vital industry of agriculture so that they will be capable of reaping the reward they should and that we will endeavour to give to them the same things we give to the other sections of the community. Agriculture is our basic industry and we should all realise that.

Mr. Murphy

When I opened this debate I suggested we might adjourn it after hearing the Minister because I hoped the Minister would be making some important statement in regard to what was proposed in regard to the development of the educational training for people in agriculture and in the other occupations mentioned in the motion. I think I am correct in recalling that when we were dealing with the industrial training measure here in this House there was an indication from the Minister responsible, the Minister for Labour, that possibly the Minister for Agriculture would be making a statement about the development of training for those engaged in agriculture.

That was about a year ago, if I am not mistaken. This motion has been on the Order Paper of the Seanad since then. Quite frankly, when I was told that the Minister was prepared to come along here this afternoon I expected he was going to tell us, as asked for in the motion, the steps the Government intend to take to provide for the training of those engaged in agriculture et cetera. The Minister has told us quite a lot of what is being done and has been done. There is an air of complacency about this which I find rather horrifying and alarming. We have the situation now that the Minister's statement is very useful, particularly for people like myself who are not familiar with agriculture. However, throughout this debate some of those who spoke on both sides of the House expressed concern about the position and there was a feeling that a lot more needed to be done in regard to the education and training of those embarking on agriculture. Such concern was expressed. We have now heard the Minister tell us in great detail about the number of people who attend courses, about what has been done and will be done, but there is no indication of any breakthrough, of any real dynamic approach to this probelm or of any new steps to be taken. We have been told that a report on agricultural education has been received and is being examined. Again, there is an air of satisfaction that there is no urgency about this. May I again, for the umpteenth time, confess that I am not disparaging, but like most of us here I am not very far removed from the farmer? We all came from the land. I speak to farmers. I speak to people who work in agriculture. I am conscious that people who now work in agriculture are far more enterprising and more intelligent than people who entered agriculture 25 years ago. We are all aware of that. But, equally, we are aware that they are not trained sufficiently to compete against people in Britain and in the West European countries. Indeed, those who have had the opportunity, the more enterprising and intelligent of them, of visiting those countries and looking at what was being done are frankly alarmed at the position and feel that we have not a chance, that we are not properly trained in agriculture in comparison with our competitors. We have this air of complacency by the Minister about what is being done and what has beeen been done in the past ten years. In the National Income and Expenditure 1966 Booklet compiled by the Central Statistics Office on page 8 it is stated:

As a proportion of total national income the income from self-employment and other trading income in the agricultural sector showed a downward trend between 1958 and 1966, from 20.8 per cent to 16.4 per cent, while remuneration of employees in the same sector decreased from 3.4 per cent in 1958 to 2.3 per cent of national income in 1966.

There is a decline of importance in agriculture in the economy. It is good that we have had this industrial expansion, but I do not think it is sufficient to say that we have had this industrial expansion when we have capacities and capabilities which have not been exploited in agriculture. I think there is a sort of acceptance of a policy of approach to agriculture of larger farms and fewer farmers. This is the solution to the situation, the amalgamation of farms and fewer people employed in agriculture. That is not the answer. What is involved is, in fact, better training of people employed in agriculture. We must give them good adequate basic education. We have failed completely to train them in the very skilled occupation of farming. A young fellow learns from his father; he works with his father and he inherits this knowledge. That is not sufficient. None of us would regard as sufficient that a chap who worked with an electrician was provided with efficient training as an electrician. We insist that he should go to a vocational school for training, that he has refresher training courses and a good employee sees that he is brought back after a few years for these refresher courses. In agriculture the refresher training is that the boy works with his father and that he is all right. He has the assistance of the agricultural adviser. I have the highest praise for them that the Minister gave but what I am talking about is the training of the young fellow before he takes on the responsibility of working the farm.

We all know you can acquire training and skill up to a certain age but if you wait until you are 30 or 40 and try to learn those things and try to benefit from such publications as that of An Foras Talúntais we do not seem to be able to have the people who are able to absorb and benefit from these publications. I am rather disappointed with the debate this evening, with the contribution of the Minister. I had hoped that after a year of having this motion on the Order Paper we would be told what the Government intend to do, rather than the Minister would tell us what has been going on, what has been the increase and the number of attendances at these courses.

Mr. Blaney

Surely the Senator does not expect his motion to produce a policy. Is that what he wants?

Mr. Murphy

I do not think the Minister is facing up to the problem of the education of people entering farming as a vocation. I think it is a bad situation. All I can do is point to our concern about the position. I hope when the Minister has had an opportunity of examining the report on agricultural education that he will bring in something more dynamic. I would expect something better from the Minister, something more dynamic on this problem. The number attending training schools before entering agriculture in Denmark is about 90 per cent. I do not know what the percentage is in this country. I suppose it is five per cent or two and a half per cent. The fact is that these are our competitors. These are the people we will have to compete against in the agricultural market in Britain and in Western Europe if we get into the EEC.

Senator Mrs. Ahern chided me kindly for omitting some organisations. I did try to absolve myself earlier on. I said that I do not know of these and if I omitted any it was not deliberate and it was not any slight on them. The Minister, strangely, omitted one of them from his list too. I do not know the organisation. I know of the ICA and I know the ladies but we are not including the ICA as engaging in the training and education of farmers. They do an excellent job of training housewives in house management. This is as important for the electrician's wife, the labourer's wife as it is for the farmer's wife and they are doing an excellent job.

The debate for me has been disappointing. I hope we will have further announcements from the Minister when he has had an opportunity of studying the report on agricultural education. I should like with the consent of the House to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 27 Mar 1968