Agriculture (Amendment) Bill, 1971: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time.'

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. J. Gibbons)

The purpose of this very short Bill is simply to enable county councils to give increased contributions where necessary towards the financing of county committees of agriculture in the local financial year commencing 1st April, 1972, and subsequently.

The committees of agriculture are financed each year by means of contributions from their respective county councils together with State grants related to such contributions. The State grant normally approximates to the local rates contribution by the county councils, but in the case of the 12 committees of agriculture in the small farms areas of the west and north west of the country, further State assistance is granted by way of a contribution of 75 per cent instead of the normal 50 per cent towards the cost of employing adequate numbers of advisory staff.

The existing statutory ceiling of county council contributions, which has been in operation since 1st April, 1970, is a sum not exceeding 27 times the produce of a rate of 1d.—that is 2s. 3d.— in the £1 in the area consisting of the county, exclusive of any urban areas therein. Under section 1, subsection (1), of this Bill, it is proposed to increase the ceiling to 15p or 3/- in the £ with effect from 1st April, 1972. This maximum does not, of course, make it mandatory on county councils to reach it or indeed to meet the demands of committees of agriculture, unless they see fit.

Section 1 subsection (2) would enable county councils to make any necessary preliminary arrangements during the current financial year with a view to adopting a suitable rate contribution, within the proposed new maximum, in respect of the coming financial year.

The short title and collective citation of the Bill are dealt with in section 2, which also proposes, in subsection (3), that the Bill will come into operation on 1st April next.

Expenditure by committees has risen steeply in recent years due mainly to a progressive increase in the numbers and cost of the county advisory staffs. Total expenditure has risen from £828,000 in 1963-64 to £2.1 millions in 1970-1971. The total number of advisory officers has increased from 402 in 1963-64 to 602 in 1970-1971, which represents an increase of no less than 50 per cent over that period.

In the current year 13 committees have requested and received from their respective county councils a contribution based on the existing maximum rate of 27d. in £ but it is estimated that some of these committees will require to go beyond that maximum in the financial year 1972-73.

The proposed Bill is required to ensure that those committees, which in the immediate future cannot carry out their statutory functions on their present incomes, will be permitted to seek sufficient funds to enable them to do so. My Department will, of course, continue to provide grants for the committees on the same pro-rata basis as before.

I recommend the Bill to the House.

Mr. McDonald

I should like to half welcome this Bill to the House as I feel it goes about halfway to meet the problem. In this I am being very generous and very conservative.

In the last paragraph of the Minister's speech, he certainly owned up to the fact that he understands the situation. I should like to add a further bit to that because I think that seven counties will find themselves in the red, even if this Bill goes through unamended, and will be unable to meet their requirements at the end of the financial year. This is mainly because the Agricultural (Amendment) Bill introduced here in 1970 fell that much short of what was required. I strongly object to the fact that the agricultural sector are always the people who must go shorthanded.

I should like to compliment the very large and very fine Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The more I come in contact with the personnel of that Department the more I appreciate the tremendous amount of work that is undertaken and reasonably and satisfactorily carried out within that organisation. I refuse to accept that those officers cannot see the light. Perhaps I am of a suspicious nature and cannot be blamed if I think there is an effort by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to economically squeeze out the existing committees of agriculture.

We are within a year of entering the EEC, and surely we must expect changes. There must be improvements and we must be able to gear our agricultural industry for entry into the Common Market and for competition, if everything we are told about the efficiency of our competitors in Europe is correct. If we want to give our farmers a chance, we must provide them with the means, with the education and with the educational opportunities. The figures are there to prove, and I know that the Department officials know, that there is an ever-increasing demand on the agricultural advisory services in every county. Even if this Bill is introduced and if this miserable penny is granted, the Minister must be aware that one committee at least will be about £24,000 in the red at the end of this financial year. The additional increase will not be able to clear off that debit balance at the end of the coming financial year. This is not a healthy situation and it is not the way the farming community should be expected to face into a new and challenging era.

At present we have increased demands all over the country for more and better advisory officers. Out of a class of 85 agricultural students who graduated from our universities this year, to date about seven or eight of them have been successful in gaining employment. In my own county we could do with some additional temporary officers in our winter farm school. If we succeeded in employing them, we should be in the red at the end of the year, and therefore the prospects of our getting sanction from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to employ these additional officers are nil. It is most unfair of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to present this Bill to the House. Everybody dealing with agriculture, the majority of the Members of this House, and more especially my 11 colleagues on the Agricultural Panel, are keenly aware of the important role that the advisory services in the county committees of agriculture are playing today. There has been a certain amount of uneasiness expressed by the advisory services themselves. We should meet this challenge and meet it in a forthright manner in the coming year.

The onus is on the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to equip the members of the county committees of agriculture to do the job they have been elected to do. The Minister—I doubt if he really feels generous—suggests that 15p in the £ is a sufficient sum to carry on an agricultural educational programme in our rural counties. The ratepayers of any county would not shirk their responsibilities in contributing more than 15p in the £. There are very few counties now where the rate is less than £5 in the £. Out of that, the total amount that can be devoted to agriculture is a measly 15p. This is a problem we should face. Everybody is blue in the face listening to the cry that there is free primary, secondary and third-level education for all. Yet for the coming year the agricultural colleges propose to increase their fees to £160 per annum. This at a time when the emphasis should be on agricultural education. All those people, including myself, who are for entry to the EEC place our hope on the agricultural industry reaping a benefit that will more than compensate for those who will be pinched by our joining the EEC and taking this progressive step.

I should like to take a look at the progress made in agricultural education. The Minister kindly sent us today the report on the activities of his Department for 1971, although I knew most of the figures already. In the past 20 years the number of advisers employed by county committees has almost doubled, from 328 in 1959 to 603 in 1971. It must also be remembered that we have 1,400 employed in An Foras Talúntais. This is something which annoys me. We have an excellent agricultural research institute; the universities do their share of research, and piled on top of the load we have the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries blossoming forth with a greater percentage capital increase in their research programmes than the institute or the universities put together. This, for a small country, is unnecessary duplication of an important service.

I often wonder if the personnel in these three branches of research are even on talking terms. The results of some of this research are not 100 per cent in agreement and the system needs to be reorganised. Since the beginning of this century, the application of modern science to agriculture has increased and farming innovations are being introduced faster than at any time before in our history. New agricultural methods and inputs have made it possible to attain substantial increases in output or decreases in production costs, and in many cases both. There exists a gap between what agricultural scientists know to be feasible and what farmers are actually doing. While the existence of this gap is unavoidable, in practice the size of this gap is surely open to influence by those concerned with the planning and implementation of agricultural policy.

As a first step, united research and advisory services would appear to be in the interests of the national economy and it must have the effect of closing this gap to some extent. In the case of the agricultural sector, where a significant proportion of the research institution's development activities depend on the field advisers, it must be obvious that there must be close cooperation between the research and advisory services. It is difficult to see where the work of one body ends and the other begins.

There are good reasons for such organisations being under the same administration. The present arrangement whereby the specialist services of the institute research staff are made available to advisory officers for the solution of difficult or unusual problems provides an essential link for the two-way flow of information between the advisory officers and the research workers. This keeps research workers in close touch with the difficult practical problems being encountered in the field. The research worker is well equipped to deal with such problems because of his specialist knowledge and training and the comprehensive, analytical and diagnostic facilities available to him.

A review of Government policy in relation to our total agricultural output is long overdue. Government intervention proliferates in the agricultural sector and its impact goes right through the whole sector. We must soon attack every problem of priorities and sort them out in relation to suitability, efficiency and market availability. Official policy in developing these priorities must embrace and develop the agricultural sector as a co-ordinated whole and not as a collection of independent and unrelated activities, as it has been in the past.

What is required is a broadening of agricultural development responsibilities to include development of the rural community, including social amenities and close co-operation with industrial and tourist development, and the provision of leadership and greater resources to voluntary bodies concerned with rural development. A national board would act as a top-level advisory group, reporting directly to the Minister. I agree there is a lot of leeway to be made up, but we must have new systems to bring our agriculture into line with the 1970s. The existing agricultural advisory services have done a tremendous job in bringing the agricultural industry to the reasonably good state it is now in.

We should have a rural development authority. Rural development demands the extension of the scope and influence of the present county committee of agricultural system. If the existing committees were broadened to ensure that the rural and farming voluntary organisations were adequately represented they would form the basis for the decentralisation of most of the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and perhaps of the Department of Lands, to county level, thereby contributing to efficiency and economy.

These representative bodies would control the agricultural development funds allocated for their counties and build the advisory and other State services or at least help to co-ordinate them. There has been over the past year an amount of uneasiness in the agricultural advisory field. So far as the advisers employed by county committees of agriculture are concerned, there is not sufficient scope for promotion. It is easy to see that there is room for improvement here. I have looked at the structure in the Minister's Department recently and also at the promotional structure in the Department of Lands

Acting Chairman (Mr. Sheldon)

I am afraid this is getting away from a very restricted Bill.

Mr. McDonald

With respect, surely I am allowed to discuss where this money is going? It is being provided for the operation of the county committees' schemes. This includes agricultural education. A certain amount of uneasiness exists among the 602 officers employed jointly by the committees and the Department in regard to the lack of promotional opportunities which exists in this service. I was making an analogy with the promotional ladder in the Minister's own Department, the Department of Lands and An Foras Talúntais. I would submit that in the three ladders of promotion, that is the temporary adviser with a county committee, a full-time appointed adviser, a deputy CAO and a CAO some additional ladder must be inserted.

It should be possible to introduce a common recruitment grade for all agricultural graduates entering the public service irrespective of whether they take up employment with the Department, a county committee of agriculture, a semi-State body or with An Foras Talúntais. If we had that common base it would be possible and indeed desirable for men to apply and transfer from one branch of the service to another. A most important feature of this is that members of the inspectorate from the Minister's own Department who supervise the activities of county committees of agriculture would have had during their earlier years at least a few years' service at county level. In this way these people would have learned a lot by going around and knowing exactly what to expect and what could be done with the advisory service. It is altogether different for a chap to graduate from college, go in as a junior inspector in the Department of Agriculture and find himself in a few years telling the instructors down the country what to do. I have the greatest respect for the inspectors whom I know personally in the Department, the people who supervise activities in my own area and I have no crib with them. Nevertheless, in future when we look at these services we should ensure that these people have a good ground knowledge of the work they are expected to supervise.

Since the ACC have appointed graduates as field officers in the various counties farmers have found it much easier to obtain loan accommodation with the ACC because these officers are in circulation and living throughout the counties. Heretofore one or two officers were employed at headquarters in Dublin and living there. When you have a man on the job he appreciates the difficulties of the farmers that little bit better. I would like to see greater promotional opportunities for our advisers because if the farming industry is to progress in the future it must be through greater output and efficiency. The surest way we can hope to obtain this is by availing of the many educational opportunities that may come our way.

The Minister's Department, who are reluctantly paying half the money, are lacking in so far as the Minister has failed to get across fairly and squarely to the farming community the depth, value and scope of the many services that his Department is providing. In some cases the erratic payments of the various grants by his Department causes an inordinate amount of criticism of the Department. He appears to do nothing to counteract that. In the various schemes, other than grant schemes, operated by the Department and with the help of the county committees of agriculture they fail to get the message across. I know it is easy to be critical of any large Department, but I feel that greater work could be done where there is a spirit of co-operation. From my contact with the Minister's Department I know that his officers appreciate very well the problems throughout rural Ireland, yet I cannot explain the slowness of the Department in doing anything about it. Many of the Department's schemes are too inflexible. This tends to show up our agricultural advisers in a bad light. One year the Department can decide to have the emphasis on increased milk production. By the time the agricultural advisory service have this in full swing and have the produce flowing, we find that the Minister has decided to put the brakes on in some other direction.

Acting Chairman

This is not a debate on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. It is a limited Bill dealing with county committees of agriculture. Anyone can argue anything about agriculture, but not in this case.

Mr. McDonald

I am dealing with the advisory service and how this inflexible Departmental policy puts the ordinary adviser in a bad light. When the June census comes out each year at the end of July or early August and the Department see the way trends are going at that stage, irrespective of what grant schemes they have on they should immediately apply the brakes and ensure that we would have production on an even keel. If the present system continues and if farmers continue to be bitten by accepting wholeheartedly and without question the excellent advice that the Department instruct our advisory service to impart to the farming community, it will undermine the value and confidence that the farmers at present have in the advisory service.

I have one other crib about the advisory service and I would ask the Minister to look at the problem sympathetically. It again deals with the promotional opportunities for a senior adviser on the maximum salary. If he should be lucky enough to be appointed a deputy CAO he will find himself at a financial loss if he accepts this post. Surely this is something which would not be accepted or tolerated in any other occupation or any other sphere. I respectfully ask the Minister to look at this anomaly. There are only 27 or 28 men involved. Because of the fact there are so few men there the minimum salary for a deputy CAO is less than the maximum salary of a senior instructor. This is a very small problem and it should be rectified right away.

On section 1 the increase to 27p in the £ in the 1970 Bill, which was permitted by last year's Agricultural Amendment Act, has proved to be insufficient within the year of adoption. Is this not setting the headline? It was not enough last year. We have seven county committees in the red. There are no more conservative public representatives than are to be found in county committees of agriculture. The Minister said the fact that he proposed to increase the demand to 15p did not necessarily mean that each committee must ask for 15p this year.

The people involved are very responsible bodies of men throughout the 27 county committee of agriculture areas. They will not spend the money unwisely. They will not spend it if it is not necessary. Therefore, I would suggest to the Minister to amend this figure now. It is unfair to pass this Bill knowing that seven of the 27 committees will still be in the red at the end of this year. On the other hand, if the Minister agrees to remit the debit balances presently standing in each of those seven or eight counties there might be a case for accepting this piecemeal legislation.

The ceiling of 27 old pence should be increased to 27 new pence. That does not mean that every committee of agriculture will seek the maximum in this coming year. Far from it, but at least it will give those who are £24,000 in debt breathing space and it will give them an opportunity of meeting their commitments to their banks or to their treasurer. It is not as if the committees are reluctant to call on the ratepayers to increase the demand. This is certainly not so. With the huge increase in rates, £5 in the £ is about the lowest rate in the Republic. Out of that sum the Minister will allow county committees of agriculture to ask county councils for only 15p. We are told that agriculture is the backbone of the nation; it is the industry on which we are placing all our hopes. If the Minister is sincere about continuing this very valuable service by equipping the agricultural community to face the challenge of the years immediately ahead we must have adequate finances to do that.

I suspect the Minister's Department will propose changes in the present structure of committees of agriculture. I would impress on the Minister the importance of ensuring that the committees are left with at least the same powers as they have at present. He should utilise the present system on which to build a stronger committee system, giving the committees statutory and corporate powers so that they can get down to work. The committees of agriculture do a tremendous amount of voluntary work throughout the country. Most committees have the backing of the farming community. Many schemes which they operate for the Department are excellent ones and perhaps they could usefully operate a few more.

It was a pity the horse breeding schemes were taken from the committee of agriculture. Perhaps with the new horse board this is not so important, but nevertheless since this particular scheme went into the Department the Irish draught horse has suffered considerably numerically. In schemes such as this local knowledge at grassroots level is of tremendous importance. Therefore, the committees of agriculture, as constituted, should form the basis for building a future structure and their powers should be extended to make them administratively more effective.

I should like the Minister to indicate, when he is replying, whether he will, between now and the next Stage, consider amending this Bill; or, on the other hand, if he will give the House an assurance that he is prepared to remit the debit balances of the seven committees who have overdrafts this year. If he undertakes to remit these in full there would then be a reasonable case for letting things go for another year. This, however, is not a view which is very popular with members of the county committees of agriculture and it is not a view which will be accepted by everyone in this House.

The Minister cannot have it both ways. We must maintain our services. His Department know that there is an ever-increasing demand for the services of the agricultural adviser. The Minister also knows that the small farm scheme requires a farm plan to be drafted. In most counties, where there are so many temporary officers and so many posts to be filled in the committees of agriculture, it is quite a problem for the advisory services to draw up farm plans for the large amount of applicants for this scheme. If we are to continue with the small farm schemes, surely we must supply the county committees with staff or enable them to employ the necessary technical officers and graduates to operate effectively?

There is no shadow of doubt but that this scheme has been successful. It has put many men on the road to success. It is far more preferable to spend additional money on those types of productive incentives than to mix up social benefits to agriculture. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to indicate that he will accept some worthwhile amendments to this Bill or that he will give an assurance that he is prepared to pick up the cheque in the counties that have sizeable overdrafts at the moment.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

May I point out for the information of the Senator or remind the Senator that the Fine Gael Party, of which he is a distinguished Member in this House, passed all Stages of this Bill in half the time it took him to make his speech tonight and that we hope to get all Stages of the Bill over tonight. Surely he does not expect that we are going to carry it over, in view of the fact that there are not that many Senators wishing to talk on it?

Mr. McDonald

I want to say that I was elected by the Agricultural Panel. I am a member of Fine Gael but I am not responsible for what goes on in the other House of the Oireachtas. I shall do my job here as I see it and do it fearlessly.

Mr. Honan

I must congratulate Senator McDonald for the mileage he got out of a very simple Bill like this. I am sure the Acting Chairman was very indulgent because the only thing I see in this Bill is the giving of permission to the county councils to put them in funds to give an extra contribution as required to the various committees of agriculture. I am on one of these committees and from my knowledge I do not know how these committees got themselves into the red, because our CAO certainly would not allow our committee to get into the red.

Be that as it may, I have always seen amongst the county councillors, 85 per cent of whom come from rural areas, that they are very parsimonious in handing out money to the committee at all. At the same time the committee have been able to function successfully and we have never found ourselves at any disability in getting new agricultural advisers when we required them. I think that possibly in years to come this may have to be reviewed again. This would be welcomed both by the county councils and by the committees of agriculture.

I would be afraid to accept, if I were the Minister, the proposal that the overdrafts of seven committees would be met by the Minister and that they would still have this available to them. I know myself—and I am not talking about committees of agriculture now— that it is common practice throughout the country with other committees to overbudget, to budget for deficits, and then to go to the Department and say "We are in the red so you must get us out of the red or we will have to sack a lot of teachers." I think that this Bill is satisfactory. It is only to meet a very small operation and I am satisfied that it will be welcomed by both the county councils and the committees of agriculture.

Mr. J. Fitzgerald

I think I can agree to a certain extent with Senator Honan that this is a small Bill, but it is a very important one. I do not think that we can deal with this as lightly as Senator Honan dealt with it, but one does not need to go so far into it as Senator McDonald has done. It is a simple Bill. Every Member of the Seanad is getting used to this type of Bill. In my ten short years in this House this is the third time we have had amending legislation of this kind. It is the third time we have had this kind of amending legislation since 1964 because we had it in 1964, 1970 and again we have it in 1971.

When a similar Bill was before us in 1970 I made a plea to the Minister to increase it to the 15 new pence, otherwise we would be back here in two years seeking to have it increased to 15 new pence. As a member of an agricultural committee since I first entered public life—I was appointed a member of the Meath County Committee of Agriculture and I am still on that committee—I know that I and my committee are not affected by this Bill, as the Minister and his officials are probably aware. Last Monday we had our estimates meeting for 1972/73 and we still have not reached the old figure of 27 pence for the past year. There are reasons for that because a penny in the £ in my county brings in almost £2,400. When you contrast that with a penny in the £ in a county like Longford or Leitrim, bringing in one quarter of that, £600, this is where the problem arises.

There are one or two things which I should like to ask the Minister and I would deem it a favour if he would answer me. Why is it that committees of agriculture are inhibited by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in the way in which they are? A ceiling is put there for the committee of agriculture, "thus far and no further must you go", and the result is that in certain counties—and again I may say that my county is not affected—they find that they cannot live, operate and give a service that the agricultural community demands on the ceiling that is imposed upon them by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Those of us who are members of local authorities will know what I am talking about when I talk about the old joint mental hospital boards. They met and they fixed a rate for the coming year and that demand was presented to each of the local authorities within the joint board's area. That had to be met and no questions asked. You have the same situation with the vocational committees. When we sit down in a few months' time to deal with our estimates for 1972/73 we will be getting a demand from all the regional health boards and councillors may ask questions. But you cannot take one halfpenny off that; it is mandatory, you have to write the cheque and hand it over.

The agricultural committees are being treated as if their membership were composed of a type of second-class citizen, or somebody who is not to be trusted. The heavy hand of the Department must be over them and they are told "You cannot exceed 27 pence" and now we are asked to increase that to 36 pence. I am dealing in the old pence, I think it is the easiest way. It is increased to three shillings.

I do not think the Department are being realistic in imposing a figure of three shillings. In section 1 (1) it is proposed to increase the ceiling to 15p in the £ with effect from 1st April, 1972. This maximum does not, of course, make it mandatory on county committees of agriculture to reach it or indeed to meet the demands of the committees of agriculture unless County Councils see fit. We all know that is the situation and we all know that county committees of agriculture are in the main composed of members of county councils who are the rating authorities. They have a responsibility to the ratepayers of the county, they accept that responsibility and they carry out that responsibility as members of committees of agriculture and as members of the county councils. I do not think there should be any fear that they will make excessive or wild demands on their local authority when it comes to the striking of the rates.

I should like to ask the Minister when he is replying to clear up one point. Why has the figure—which is sailing so close to the wind and is making it so difficult for committees of agriculture in certain parts of the country to carry on—to be 15p rather than, say, 30p or 35p? Is it because committees are not to be trusted or is it because committees are about to be phased out? There is grave suspicion that this is the case and that this is the reason why we have this piecemeal legislation coming in here every couple of years aimed at getting another couple of shillings to keep the county committees of agriculture in business until we decide what we are to do with them.

Usually, when a Minister introduces a Bill in the Dáil and subsequently, when it has passed through all Stages in the Dáil and is introduced in the Seanad, we find if we read the Minister's speeches introducing the Bill in the Dáil and Seanad that there is a great similarity in the speeches. I notice, on reading the Minister's speech on this Bill in introducing it in the Dáil and on reading his speech introducing the Bill here tonight, that there is a grave omission in one paragraph. It might be no harm to read from his Dáil speech so that we could put it on the record of the House. It appears in volume 256, column 2127, of the Dáil Debates of 16th November, 1971. The Minister, in introducing this Bill in the Dáil, said:

This Bill I should explain is basically an interim measure designed to enable the more hard-pressed committees of agriculture to pay their way in carrying on their very important work until such time as a final decision is reached on the whole future of the agricultural advisory and educational service which, as Deputies know, have been under comprehensive review. The new maximum rate will meet the needs of those county committees which in the immediate future cannot carry on without a contribution in excess of the present permitted maximum. Otherwise, those committees would have to consider curtailing the scheme and possibly the number of their advisory staff. Such a contingency would not only be highly undesirable but would be seriously detrimental to the interests of the farming community.

We can all agree with that but the hidden message in it is that the fears that are being expressed by members of committees of agriculture that they are about to be phased out is, I think, evident in that paragraph which the Minister omitted in his Second Reading speech here tonight.

The leader of the House got a bit annoyed when Senator McDonald indicated that he proposed to ask the Minister to reconsider this figure of 15p. He pointed out that this Bill went through the Dáil in a very short time. I do not wish the leader of the House to think that I am making a threat here tonight but I think we have a democratic right, if we feel that we can in any way improve the Bill, to put down amendments. I propose to put down an amendment to this 15p mentioned in the Bill because I think it is an inadequate sum. I know the Minister knows it is inadequate too. I think this figure should be increased to at least 25p so that it will give a breathing space to the seven committees, as Senator McDonald has said, that are seriously in the red and who would have had to curtail their services were it not that their bank managers were so accommodating during the year.

I do not wish to take up much more of the time of the House but there are still one or two small points that I should like to refer to and which I hope I can refer to without incurring the wrath of the Chair. There are references here to the normal 50 per cent towards the cost of employing adequate numbers of advisory staff. For the benefit of those who are not au fait with committees of agriculture, the general basis in a number of counties is pound for pound: for every pound put up by the rates the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries put up a pound.

In the 12 underdeveloped counties the system is different, but as a person who comes from the eastern part of the country we are supposed to be enjoying the 50 per cent, or pound for pound, generally indicated. I wish to point out that this is not the case and it is something that should be put right immediately. In my county, when we were dealing with the estimates last week we found that we were being short-changed by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to the extent of £1,615 on our 1972-73 estimates. This arose by reason of the fact that we do not get the 50-50 ratio we are supposed to get. I believe the same applies in a number of other eastern counties. It is entirely wrong that this type of Victorian legislation should be carried on into the seventies. I would respectfully ask the Minister and the Department to have a look at that aspect of the matter because this short-changing of the Meath Committee of Agriculture of £1,615 is approximately the equivalent of three-farthings—if you would pardon me for talking of farthings in this affluent age— in the £.

There is one further point I should like to raise and that is the question of the representation of committees of agriculture on the regional development organisations. I am sure the Minister and his officials are as aware of this as I am. Where there were applications from four county committees of agriculture to become members of the regional organisation they were inhibited from doing so because the Department of Agriculture would not sanction the payment of a subvention to the regional organisation. I believe this applies all over the country. I do not know what the reasoning behind it is. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that in his winding up speech.

I feel that the committees of agriculture have a role to play in regional development and that they should be members of the regional development organisation. I also feel that, if they are to be members of the regional organisations, they should be full members and that they do not come in merely because they happen to be committees of agriculture who are inhibited from paying any subvention, thus playing the role of the second class citizen on the regional organisations. I would respectfully ask the Minister to have a look at that and see if there is anything that can be done to enable the committees of agriculture to pay the small subvention of perhaps £100 or £150 that may be demanded in order that they may have full membership of regional organisations.

Mr. Nash

I think it would be no harm if the voices of some of the taxpayers who are not farmers were heard in relation to this Bill. Out of approximately 27 committees of agriculture there are 12 in respect of which the State pays £3 for every £1 put up by rates. Therefore, the ordinary man who is not a farmer, for every £1 that he pays in his rates pays a further £2 in ordinary taxation to meet the expenses of the committees of agriculture. We are told of the importance of the agricultural community to the nation. We all accept that. But it is about time the agriculture community realised that all the time they cannot be at the taking end of the nation's pocket. Throughout this country there are farms and farms and farms which are growing furze, which are inadequately tilled, which are improperly used and for which the ordinary taxpayer is expected to pay.

Mr. McDonald

They are Paddy Smith's farms. They went out 20 years ago.

Mr. Nash

Excuse me. I did not interrupt the Senator. If they are to improve those farms, any improvements they do entitle them to substantial grants. We are now being asked why there should be a ceiling put on the contribution from the rates. The rates have gone up considerably and now, in most counties, they are up to £5 in the £1.

Mr. J. Fitzgerald

They are only £3.50 in Meath.

Mr. Nash

Any person who improves a small cottage in a rural district in Ireland will have a poor law valuation of £10 or £15. For every £1.50 he paid before—he may not even be a farmer —towards the committee of agriculture, the Bill now entitles the Rating authority to demand £2 from him. I do not disapprove of that because farming is so important, but in addition to having to pay this £2, an extra 50p in rates, he will have to pay another £2 in taxes. If he lives in one of the 12 out of the 27 areas he will have to pay a further £3 in ordinary taxes.

Surely it is time that some regard is had for the ordinary taxpayer when dealing with the agricultural community. Senator McDonald made a very very strong case here that this figure should be increased. Senator McDonald is a member of the Laois County Council. The Laois County Council are governed and controlled by members of Senator McDonald's party—the Fine Gael Party. At the moment, they are entitled to demand from the rates in old money 23p in the £1 in respect of the county committee of agriculture. All they demanded last year was two-thirds of that—16.32 new pennies. If they had demanded 23p, if all these winter classes are required that he talks about, they could have fixed a rate of 23p. The ordinary taxpayer would therefore have had to pay a further 23p. They could have increased by 7p and the ordinary taxpayer who was not a farmer would pay 7p in respect of that and he would pay another 7p in his ordinary taxes. They did not do that. If all the winter classes were required there was no trouble in the world, if that was their policy, in having them.

Mr. McDonald

Our county is not affected but seven counties are.

Mr. Nash

They demanded 16.32 new pennies. There must be some limit and there must be some reason in this. I think it is most important that a limit should be fixed. The ordinary John Taxpayer, who is not a farmer, for every £1 that is paid in 12 of those, he must pay £3 in his ordinary taxes. He also must pay his ordinary rates.

One of the reasons why the rates in the country have gone so high is because the farmers have recently taken advantage of the fact that there are no rates payable when the poor law valuation is under £20. There is a personal allowance if two people own the farm. Therefore, a farmer who has two farms with a poor law valuation of £80 puts one of them in his wife's name, £40, he puts one of them in his own name, £40, and there are two personal allowances. The rates that he does not pay the ordinary taxpayer must meet.

Mr. McDonald

The Senator is in the EEC already.

Mr. Nash

I know one farmer with 300 acres of land and he is paying little or no rates. Even though all his children are under age he has one of his farms in his own name, another in his wife's name and he has five more in the names of each of his five children. He is practically paying no rates——

Mr. McDonald

Tipperary is a quare place.

Mr. Nash

——whereas an ordinary poor fellow who is earning a wage in a factory or elsewhere has got to make up for the rates that that farmer does not pay. I do not begrudge to the farmers the increase being made in this Bill. I approve it, I welcome it, but I think there should be a limit and I think the Minister was wise in putting a limit on it. It is nearly time we faced these facts.

Mr. Butler

I welcome the Bill, even though the increase in the allocation is small. Anything small will be welcomed by the county committees of agriculture. All those years they have been living on a shoestring. By increasing the allocation, the Minister accepts what is indeed a demand from the county committees of agriculture. This will be of great benefit to the local people because it will enable the agriculture community to continue to get advice at county level.

It would be sound advice to hold on to the county committees of agriculture and I am glad that the Minister accepts this idea. Those county committees of agriculture have played a vital part in the development of agricultural policies, for which they have received very little credit. The advisory staffs attached to the committees have done very valuable work not alone in the advisory field but in the educational field.

If we become members of the EEC there will be a greater demand by the farmers for more up-to-date knowledge, education and advice and this is what we should expect. We should continue to improve so that we can get the maximum benefit from the land. Our country is built on agriculture. Irrespective of what Senator Nash has said, the agricultural community has been downgraded.

I would advise the county committees of agriculture to employ socioeconomic advisers. They may not be available at the moment, but they could be easily trained. At the moment there are many agricultural advisers and many agricultural graduates unemployed. Now we have the opportunity to retrain them and to give them a few months' training on the social side of the business. With our entry into the EEC there will be many changes and there will be demands for socioeconomic advisers.

There are many farmers who have unproductive holdings and who are unable to do anything about it. They do not know where to go for advice and such advisers would be able to give the farmers any advice they need. They could be advised of the benefits that could accrue from giving up the land, from the long-leasing of that land and from co-operating with neighbouring farmers in order to form a co-operative farm that would be productive. This is the type of information that should be coming from the county committees of agriculture and would come by the use of a socioeconomic adviser. We have advisers for agricultural matters, perhaps not sufficient, but in addition we need the socio-economic type.

The county committees of agriculture, especially in the dairying areas, should employ dairy graduates. Again in this field there will be re-organisation and the farmers will need advice to prepare them for that re-organisation. In many counties assistance is given by the creameries, where the salaries are half that paid to agricultural instructors. This type of co-operation between the dairies, the creameries and the agricultural advisers in the county committees of agriculture should exist in all the western counties, as well as in all those counties involved in the dairying industry. The county committees of agriculture would be well advised to consider such advice. We need to develop our farms because we are nearing the date of entry to the EEC and we should be well prepared for that event. We need more advice and more production and all the help that can be given through the county committees of agriculture. The small increase that is to be granted is not sufficient to meet the needs of those committees. Notwithstanding the small amount granted, I welcome the Bill.

Mr. O'Sullivan

I welcome this Bill which will increase the amount the county councils can give to the county committees of agriculture. I would be much happier, though, if the amount were much greater. I understand the Department have decided to reconstruct the advisory services with a view to providing a better service for the Irish agricultural community. When he is having the whole structure examined, the Minister should give every consideration to the retention of the county committees of agriculture as they are at present composed. I should like to go further and suggest that the Minister should consider giving greater powers to the county committees of agriculture.

I have been a member of the Cork County Committee of Agriculture for a considerable time and I know the value attaching to these committees and the great work they do for our farming community. In 1955 we had only about six instructors in agriculture and horticulture in the whole county. Today we have more than 30, which is proof of the great changes that have taken place in agriculture and in methods of dealing with it. We are satisfied that there has been great development and the attitude of "what was good enough for my father is good enough for me" has gone completely. Young farmers today are looking for more advice and education and are insisting on getting it. Therefore, it is necessary to have the best advisory services to meet their demands.

With the advent of our entry to the EEC, because of competition in the open market it will be necessary to have an excellent advisory service available to our farmers so that they can grow the best possible quality produce and secure the best possible prices. That means there will be greater need for agricultural advisors. There is greater need for proper silage testing and for seed selection and all that goes with it.

I should like to congratulate our CAOs and our agricultural instructors for the great job that they are doing in very difficult circumstances. Despite their limited numbers, they have dedicated themselves to helping the farmers in every way possible. I know instructors in my own county who have worked all day, giving advice to farmers, particularly in regard to the best way of using their farms and machinery. In addition, they conduct night classes in order to help farmers give a more efficient service. I should like to see greater powers given to county committees of agriculture.

An Cathaoirleach

May I interrupt the Senator for a moment. It is now 10 o'clock. Does the House propose to adjourn or to continue?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I am still hopeful we can finish the Second Stage of this Bill. I have the responsibility for steering the business of this House and I should like to point out that we have no other business tomorrow morning. If we do not finish the Second Stage tonight we will have to sit in the morning to hear one or two speeches and then adjourn and have the Committee Stage next week.

The Seanad adjourned at 10.5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 1st December, 1971.

Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Nov 1971