As one who was associated with this project in its very early stages and up to the time that I was a candidate for the Seanad, I should like to give a reasonable, fair and honest picture to the House. I want you to consider an area in North Mayo where nine-tenths of all that you can see, standing at the highest point of the highest hill in the area, is blanket bog, where there is not an industry of any type or shape, where the people are depending on the dole and the money they can earn by migration and emigration. You are asked here today more or less to compare that area with an area where grass can be produced naturally without any development whatsoever, where the land on which it is produced is eminently suitable for tillage, market gardening, beef production or vegetable production.
Now let me say that in the beginning when the original Min Fhéir Teoranta were set up, the board sought and got every single bit of help and co-operation from all those people in this country and outside it who were engaged on the effort of reclamation of blanket bog area or fen country. We had a pilot scheme in operation at Gowla under General Costello and we had the big development carried on during the last war in the fen country in England where efforts were made to reclaim part of the fen country for the purpose of producing grass meal and protein. Both of these schemes were examined. The personnel in charge of these schemes gave the utmost help and co-operation.
We first acquired 2,000 acres of bog land at Glenamoy. Approximately 680 acres of that was grass land on the side of a hill and was reasonably dry and capable of being drained immediately, but 1,400 to 1,500 acres was low level, flat blanket bog which was entirely unsuitable for any use. It was not required for turf production, it was completely unsuitable for mountain grazing. Cattle could not walk on the place. Sheep could, with difficulty, but did not try because it was absolutely water-logged. We started into a scheme of development of 680 acres, and that was drained in fields 100 feet wide. We found that those drains at 100 feet centre to centre were not capable of draining all the bog in between, so eventually we had to divide our fields into 50 feet wide fields. Drainage had to be carried out in a three year period to be effective.
In the first year you could just break the bog grass and get down into the moving peat which was underneath. If you went too deep the whole thing caved in on you. After the second year you could go down a certain depth lower, and in the third year we succeeded in putting in drains about 3½ feet deep. Then that particular 680 acres was solid enough to bear some of those tracked machines for the purpose of rotovating and we did seed down some of that in the third year. I am not surprised now that there is a certain amount of opposition to the original or to this scheme and to the proposal before us, because when we had reached that stage and 680 acres was actually ready for cultivation and some had been seeded down, the board were closed down by the inter-Party Government.
During that time men were employed entirely during the summer period as long as it was possible to work, and as many men as were required were employed during the winter period in the maintenance of the drains. That was the first time in the history of the Barony of Erris where a number of men had a pay packet even for eight months of spring, summer and autumn during which they could be permanently employed. It was the first time in the history of Erris, and this scheme was closed down and subsequently, I may say, it was the first choice after a most intensive investigation of that area of the country. Then when that was closed down it was handed over to the Peatland Development Company, and the man who was put in charge of the Peatland Development Company was our second officer.
I may say that we advertised for a manager and an assistant manager. We held interviews and, let it be mentioned here to our credit, that the manager who was first selected for this particular scheme in Glenamoy was Mr. Con Murphy, who has since left for the Sugar Company and is now one of the outstanding men in connection with the development of youth employment in this country. Second to him was Mr. P.J. O'Hare who was left in charge of the Peatland Development Scheme and is still in charge. Both these men up to today have absolutely the keenest possible interest in the grass meal project as it is now being carried out at Geesalia.
So much for the beginning of the scheme. When we tried to go on to a new scheme in fact the second area was more water-logged and more difficult than the first in so far as we did not have 680 acres of reasonably high ground which was reasonably well-drained in advance. I can assure Members of the House that I tramped through those bogs on Sundays with my colleagues in wellingtons, and without wellingtons you would not be able to go 100 yards in any direction on that 2,500 acres which they acquired for the second scheme at Geesalia. Eventually drainage work had to be carried out as in the original scheme, and indeed we found the area was so difficult that we had to put in solid roads in order to try to bring out the grass to the mill when it was ready for cutting. That was an expenditure which was not foreseen and which greatly added to the cost in the initial stages.
I should like to give the House some figures, because it is left without a lot of information, and I can vouch for these figures for I have got them from the chairman of the board. In 1964 in Geesalia, 900 tons, 17 cwts of grass meal was produced at a cost of £27 15s. The weekly rate of wages for a labourer at that time was £8 10s. Drivers of tractavators were getting £9 1s 10½d; chargehands had £9 1s 10½d and a foreman had £10 15s. In 1965, 1,356 tons were produced; in 1966, a difficult year, the production was 1,071 tons; in 1967 the production was 1,503 tons; and in 1968 the total amount produced was 1,805 tons. The cost of producing 1,805 tons in 1968 was £27 11s 1d as compared with the first year figure of £27 15s. In the meantime the labourer's rate of wages had increased from £8 10s to £10 10s, the driver's rate of wages had increased to £12 9s 2d, the chargehand's rate of wages had increased to £12 2s 6d and the foreman's rate of pay had increased to £13 12s 6d. The price of sacks went up from £34 2s 10d per thousand to £40 10s 4d; phosphate and potash increased in price from £10 15s to £18 1s 8d; nitrogen increased in price from £16 17s 6d to £23 10s.
Therefore, when Senators take into account the extra cost of wages, of fuel, of sacks, of manuring, quite a reasonable job of work was done and reasonable returns were shown, because between 1964 and 1968 the amount produced went up from 900 tons to 1,800 tons and the cost dropped from £27 15s 5d to £26 11s 1d. During the summer period there are only 31 people employed. During the winter, because of lack of capital, of money of any kind for expansion or further development, the number employed, on maintenance alone, is 12.
Some comparison has been made, or some fault has been found with the protein content, with the quality of the grass meal produced in Geesalia and Glenamoy. As in any other area, it varies according to the amount of manuring, particularly in proportion to the amount of nitrogen used in the manuring. The Grass Meal Board have produced grass meal with a protein content as high as 21 per cent, and 21 per cent to 16 per cent is regarded as high. Fourteen per cent to 16 per cent is standard and below 14 per cent is sub-standard. We are asked to compare the protein content of grass meal produced in Glenamoy and we are apt to forget that we are operating entirely on a bleak, exposed area on the sea coast subject to all the storms and excess rainfall coming in from the Atlantic, on ground on which it was not found possible to get even a sheep to walk; we are asked to compare that with production from land in County Louth which is entirely suitable for any form of agricultural produce— beef, milk, market gardening. I wish Senators would keep those two things in mind and that they would keep them apart—that they would give this scheme at least a fair crack of the whip: that they would take into account something which they decry here, the social aspect of the scheme.
Particularly they should keep in mind the fact that men can look out for the first time in their lives, for the first time in the history of the area, on 2,000 acres of green, not on blanket bog, not on barren mountains, not on an area completely denuded of any form of growth except heather. If this scheme failed now, at least the developed grass land will remain. I hope Senators will bear that in mind.
The only interest I have in this scheme is the interest any person would have who was associated with it from the beginning—the interest of a person who has seen the outlook of these people changed, who has worked among them. Let this thing be criticised as much as you like, but let it be fair, just, honest and above board criticism. Let Senators kindly bear in mind the circumstances in which the Grass Meal Board are trying to operate the scheme and do not compare it with another area where anything in the world can be grown at the cheapest possible cost.
It has been said we have not given any information as to the number of crops produced in a year. That has varied considerably because at one stage we were producing crops of grass which was growing to such an extent that we were not able to put it all through our mill because the capacity of our drying plant was not sufficient to enable us to use all the grass that came in in a good season, and the grass was allowed to ripen, it was cut and sold as meadow to local people. In different circumstances, in a bad year, the output and the number of crops varied. This is not a peculiarity of grass meal production. Bord na Móna found when they carried out their first experiments in milled peat production at Rathmogan in the vicinity of Bangor Erris that they got six crops of milled peat in the first year. I doubt if they are averaging three crops now in good years. That happens in relation to any other crop in any other area.
There has been the greatest possible co-operation between the development people and the people at Gowla. General Costello gave every possible help and co-operation at the beginning. He gave men for the commencement of the scheme, he gave prototype machines, he gave every possible help and I wish to pay him a tribute for having done that. On every side, people who came to see the scheme in Glenamoy were anxious and willing to give every help and co-operation. Indeed, I must say as far as the officers appointed by the Grass Meal Board are concerned, they did not work for wages: they worked as a challenge, they worked to improve the lot of the less well-off in the worst and most barren part of rural Ireland.
Senator Crowley does not think the Government are being fair to the House in the presentation of this proposal with regard to the increase of the share capital from £200,000 to £350,000. He then went on to criticise the number of men employed. As I stated at the beginning, it took at least three years, in good circumstances in the better areas of comparative drainage before any seeding could be done. In the worst areas it takes four years, so you can see the development depends entirely on having sufficient money available in order to look forward, not from year to year but for three to four years ahead. The wages are mentioned as being £13,000. The number employed, as I already stated, is 31 during the summer months and 12 during the winter months.