The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries admits that the financial position in some counties is bad. He admitted it in the last paragraph of his speech. He says:
The proposed Bill is required to ensure that those committees which in the immediate future cannot carry out their statutory functions on the 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 committees on the same pro rata basis as heretofore.
I wonder if this is on a pro rata basis? Some committees are in a very bad financial position. When one examines the way that this money is collected and distributed, particularly the money collected from rates, it is an unfair type of taxation and the distribution of it by central Government is equally unfair. Take County Leitrim alone: if we increase rates by an old penny in the pound it gives us an increase of £640. We then get a pro rata grant against it of 1d which gives us £1,280. In County Meath if rates are increased by 1d they get £2,500. They get 1d from the Department which gives them £5,000. There is a difference there of £3,720. It is most unfair and unjust. Senator Nash said here the last day that some committees are getting 75 per cent, but they are getting only 75 per cent recoupment against employees in the advisory services. Agricultural committees have other costs. For that reason, this whole situation would need to be looked at. Even now with the increase from 2s 3d to 3s, which is an increase of 9d, there will be approximately seven to nine counties which at the end of the financial year will not be cleared with the bank. We know the position of banks at the moment. Let it be private enterprise, committees of agriculture, the industrial world, these people are squeezing hard to get down overdrafts. It is an unfair situation for committees of agriculture to find themselves in.
There is much talk in high places about taking powers from the committees of agriculture and getting rid of them. When one hears of this, particularly at a time like this, one can only look at the recently appointed health boards and one is inclined to ask himself how satisfactory these are functioning. The public representatives have been squeezed out. They might have one of a majority on most health boards. At the same time the people who have been appointed to these health boards, other than those elected by the popular vote, are responsible to nobody but their own organisations. These people, in my opinion, are not giving the service that was expected of them. We were asked to give the health boards a trial. That is being done and I have no doubt when their demands come out at the end of the financial year the ratepayer will get a far greater surprise than he will get from the miserable few pence the Minister has agreed to give agricultural committees.
I wonder if the Minister would consider looking at agricultural committees in a different way. We have in the agricultural committee a local organisation consisting in the main of public representatives. It is reasonable at this stage to suppose that we are going into the EEC. It is also reasonable to think that our farmers will have to be much more highly geared for the competitive market they are going to meet there. Agricultural committees in the main down the years have been a kind of educational service to the farming community providing advisory services, winter classes, and instruction. They did a very good job for the minor scope they had. When one looks at the increased number of instructors in the country over the last 12 years the increase has been approximately 275 instructors, or nearly double. I do not think we have gone far enough. We all know there is too much overlapping in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The whole situation could be quite easily solved.
Take an average-size county. If there were three to four offices set up in each of these counties, with the advisory services of the land project, the farm building section and representatives from the Department of Lands, these people could operate their services from these centres. They could be supervised by the county committees of agriculture as they are now supervised in the advisory service.
The merit in this suggestion of combining together the four services which are now operated on a separate basis would benefit the farmers, especially if there was more co-operation at local level. There does not seem to be co-operation between the farm building section and the land project section and the Land Commission. There is an obligation on the Department of Agriculture to get this co-operation and introduce decentralisation so that most decisions can be made locally. It would be a great achievement to get the heads of the various sections working together at local level and the Minister should look hard at this. These people would have first-hand information. They would have the local knowledge and know the requirements of a given area. After a short time they would even know the requirements of each individual farm.
At present under the 1931 Act no county committee can erect a building to house staff from any other section of the Department of Agriculture. That is a pity and something should be done about it. My second suggestion would be to enlarge the small farm bonus scheme to the level of what I would call the farm development scheme. The farm bonus scheme has been in operation for some years by the committees of agriculture and it should be enlarged. At present only a farmer who has a poor law valuation not exceeding £25 or if his area of land is under 50 acres can get into the farm bonus scheme. The new type of farm development scheme should be open to all farmers big and small.
We must remember that on entry into Europe we must increase our agricultural production. The scheme could run on the lines of a farm bonus scheme with a programme of four to six years of planning development, including a bonus at each successful stage. It would work out much more satisfactorily than the scheme which is operating at the moment. It might be no harm if grants were no longer paid to people who would not enter this type of scheme and that they would not qualify for grants for farm buildings or land project or any other grants on offer. Senator Nash referred to this type of person here when he stated in Volume 71, column 1557 of the Seanad Official Report of Wednesday, 24th November, 1971:
But it is now about time the agricultural 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.
If that type of person is there he should not be allocated a grant because we are not getting any production from him. The Government's agricultural programme is aimed at increasing production. Farmers who do not expand agricultural production should not qualify for grants. The reward for following a planned development programme need not necessarily be a bonus. It could be a loan free of interest or a subsidised loan, which operates in some of the EEC countries already. It would help our farms to get ready for going into Europe.
The two suggestions are, in brief: the setting up of many departments at local level, incorporating all agricultural services and giving as much control as possible to the local committee of agriculture. These people would know the local problems and know how best to deal with them. At the same time these services working together would be able to run a farm development scheme such as I have mentioned.
The Minister for Agriculture should give very serious thought to this, because it would be most inadvisable to abolish agricultural committees. Having served in one for the most part of 30 years I sometimes think they are not doing what they should, but we do what is possible with the limited amount of money which is available.