Anyway, in this we have been briefed as to size and so on and we have been briefed at all stages. I would just cite some of our own chief briefs—the Dean of the Medical Faculty in University College, Cork, the Professor of Surgery there and many others. I do not want it to be thought for one moment that we were without briefs, that we were acting in a slipshod way, or that we underestimated the problem in any way. Indeed, I cannot see for one moment why, in this fair city, such free clinical facilities as, say, the teaching of physics and chemistry, botany and biology to pre-medical students should be concentrated in one institution more than in another. I cannot see that there is any case an economist could make for any economy arising out of that. The places concerned will obviously have to have good departments of these subjects, as they have now. Likewise, biochemistry has always been one of the top departments in University College, Dublin. It was a department made famous and built by Professor E.J. Conway and is a lasting monument to him. Its work, teaching and research are not just for medical students. The products of its department, in biochemistry-trained people, may be found in almost all the science departments in University College, and in all the universities; in fact, they are to be found in the department of engineering in University College, Dublin. There is no question of that facility being in any way a duplication of the facility in Trinity College which has a first-class department in biochemistry. That does not say there are not great opportunities for cross-registration at clinical level. Cross-registration would be an advantage in some subjects such as anatomy, physiology, et cetera, and a course might be given in one of the universities and carry credit in both.
I have confidence that every sharing, if it is academically beneficial, will go forward. I cannot see any insuperable difficulty in two pre-clinical medical schools coming together in the one clinical school. The co-ordination of these courses is a routine matter in, say, the United States, where the early pre-clinical work leads to a degree of Bachelor of Science in medical science. The holders of that degree go to medical schools wherever they can get an opening and, therefore, in every medical school you have incoming students to clinical medicine who are from quite different backgrounds but who have got the basic essentials and the basic requirements as laid down for the acquiring of the degree. It is no more difficult than having people coming to graduate school in other disciplines from various universities where they acquired bachelor degrees, often in slightly different areas.
These are all matters which create no real problems today since we have mutual trust and goodwill. That is the foundation on which we build and I welcome the news that the HEA have now concluded their detailed examination of the proposals. My reading of the reports would indicate that the HEA have been sufficiently wise to capitalise on the foundations that were provided by the joint universities proposals. A positive advantage which has flowed from this joint agreement has been the very close co-operation in all matters connected with the university between the four university colleges since then. We are proud of what has been achieved and we offer it to the State in working out the final solution which we hope will not be long delayed.
We in the university colleges are not quite as happy as Senator Jessop about the allocation of funds for last year. Our financial position is in a pretty bad way and the same applies to Galway University and, I understand, to both the Dublin colleges also. The increases in the grant have not in any way kept pace with the increase in numbers much less provided adequately for the devaluation involved. There has been no effort made to bridge the gap between our standards here and, if you want a yardstick, Queen's University, Belfast, where the resources per student are twice what we have. That fact is known to the authorities here. It has been stressed time and time again in debates in Seanad Éireann and elsewhere. We got vague promises about bridging the gap but so far no effort has been made to do so.
I hope it is not too late to appeal to the Minister for Finance to do something about this in the coming Budget. It is disheartening to those of us who believe in non-violence that the Government refused to make the necessary legitimate adjustment in the grants to students until the disturbances which took place in October. This was indefensible. A student grant of £300 which was adequate three years ago was certainly not adequate in September, 1971, when, since the previous adjustment, the value of money had depreciated over 20 per cent.
Why can a Government Department not show initiative and foresight and see that distributive justice is done rather than present the spectacle of being forced into giving justice by methods which we all deplore? The Minister for Education got quite angry at the suggestion that the student protest had any influence on his decision. If the decision had been arrived at to make the adjustment then it was very bad political sagacity not to have done it before the protest took place. There was ample time. The universities had been stressing since early July that they had no option but to increase student fees, otherwise they could not keep open as the banks were pressing. The Government had not in any way alleviated the position. Yet we were told by frantic telephone calls to wait for another week for a decision and this went on and on almost like Jimín Máire Thaidhg's asal. Surely the Government does not expect the presidents of the councils of the university colleges in furtherance of their grievances to take to the streets, or do we still believe in rational consultation?
It is very important for the country that there should be adequate staffs in universities. Adequate staffs in universities mean that you will have available a pool of men who can be involved in national and community problems on an advisory or a more active basis. All governments have to call on this type of advice and support from outside. I am not saying that it comes completely from the university sector anywhere. Business people, trade unionists, et cetera, have their roles to play in modern government, on committees, in an advisory fashion, and in secondment. The university is one of the vital factors in that and with the present low staffing we have in the universities it is impossible to contribute adequately in respect of those commitments. I should like to see the whole structure of our administration move far more along the lines of the Devlin Report and, indeed, away beyond that, to involve other viewpoints and other sectors of our national life in Government decision-making rather than keeping it confined as it is at present within Civil Service preserves.
We are all deeply concerned with the employment situation for our young people. Those leaving secondary school have a difficult time. Those graduating from the universities have had it very difficult in the past year. The outlook for the coming year does not show any real improvement. It is aggravated by the fact that other countries are in a similar position. The English employment market is almost worse than our own; so also is the American market. On the one hand, that may be regarded as being to our advantage in that it turns the ideas and thoughts of young graduates towards the idea of working at home. The attractions are not there from the outside. I wonder are we conscious of the great opportunity this presents to us to seek every possible way of involving such graduates in our national development? The stage has been reached where the primary university degree has almost the role of the leaving certificate some 15 or 20 years ago. It is a certificate of a broad general education which should equip the holder to tackle a wide variety of jobs. In the past, people holding the leaving certificate were not put into any special classification. They entered a variety of jobs where they grew up and developed with the job opportunities. The same approach could very profitably be made to the graduates of today. Likewise, on the university side we should lose no opportunity of trying to get across to our graduates that they must be prepared to diversify and tackle whatever comes as a challenge to them as people who have received a certain level of training.
I should like to ask what is the delay about setting up the HEA on a permanent basis? We pushed the Bill through last July. At that stage there was a note of urgency in the Minister's approach. Yet six months later we still have the same ad hoc body and we are left wondering why have the permanent appointments not been made. I appeal to the Minister to treat it as a matter of urgency and put the body on a more solid foundation.
I also ask the Minister for Finance to speed up payments coming from his Department, especially payments on the capital side. We have had considerable difficulties in the past year in the university, and perhaps the same applies to other bodies, in extracting what was legitimately due and fully certified from the Department. We received the impression that obstacles were being put in the way to prevent a speedy payment. I cannot understand why the State should set such a headline.
I should now like to touch very briefly on the problem that is uppermost in all our minds, the question of the Six Counties and efforts to try to achieve a lasting peace. I agree with everyone present that the root cause of the present situation has been, first, internment and, secondly, and even worse, the methods adopted in putting this into effect. It has come as a great shock to everyone to realise that these barbaric methods of interrogation are practised and now openly condoned by the British Government and even by a large section of the British public. I should have thought that the revelation of these methods in the Compton Report would have caused such a revulsion in British public opinion that they would have to be withdrawn. I am puzzled at present about the calls for ending internment and putting those against whom charges can be preferred on trial. In the present situation I do not think it would contribute a great deal to have a whole series of trials which would be based largely on membership of various organisations advocating violence and on some of the events arising therefrom. In every country where violence takes place eventually when you get to the conference table and a solution has been arrived at there is a fairly wide amnesty for what one would call either political offences or offences of violence. They come in every country under that banner and the North is no exception. When a settlement has been reached surely that settlement will carry with it the usual efforts to wipe the slate clean, carry the usual amnesty that is associated with such settlements.
At present, where the urgency is to reach a settlement, the demand should be more for a standstill or a type of truce rather than be for trials or anything of that type. In other words, there would be no further arrests, and no recurrence of this revolting and barbaric type of interrogation. At that stage we should be able to get some kind of conference going. If we look at any country in which there was a revolution or violent methods used we realise that any conference, to be a success, must be representative of all the people involved.
One of the most urgent necessities in the northern scene is to find out who really represents whom there. I suggest that there should be an election there, at the earliest possible opportunity, based on proportional representation. Such an election would sort out the representation and the support that all the various sectors have, whether they be the Alliance Party, the IRA, the UVF, the SDLP, the Nationalists or any others. It is vital to find out where the support lies. Likewise, the various strands of opinion within the Unonist Party would be clearly identified. If it happens that there is a very large right-wing in the Unionist Party it will be an unpalatable fact that we will have to face. That can only be shown by elections, but the elections would have to be based on proportional representation where right-thinking people support one another by the exchange of their No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 votes, and so on.
Setting up an election based on proportional representation could be very easily done. There is no need to start re-drawing boundaries. There is already a system of constituencies there. You have the constituencies that returned the 12 Members to Westminster and it would be a matter of having each of those return five, six or seven Members under proportional representation. Alternatively, the present constituencies, I think 52 in all, that return Members to Stormont could be grouped in twos to return three Members, or three to return five Members.
However, if you wish to have all shades of opinion represented it would be better to have at least five Members in the constituency. The registers for both of those possibilities are available and it should be quite an easy matter to get on with the election. I suggest that, far from avoiding elections at the present time, we should see in the elections the means of selecting the representatives that would then go to the conference table. I put forward those ideas as being a prerequisite for success of negotiation.
The other question that is agitating us at the moment is the question of our entry into the Common Market. As an independent observer I think that our negotiators have done as well as, or indeed better than, most of us expected. They deserve our sincere congratulations on their achievements. I would single out the much-criticised agreement on fisheries. It is, in effect, far better than any of us expected at the start of the negotiations. I agree with the Minister that it gives almost full protection to our fisheries industry. It covers 92 per cent of the catch at a much higher price. Outside our limits conditions can be imposed which are for the conservation of the fishing potential and, of course, they would be conditions that would apply equally to all members.
On the question of farm produce, worthwhile results were achieved. It was an achievement to begin our participation from 1st February, 1973. The recent controversy over the sugar beet industry has been blown up out of all proportion because this year, which is a record year, we produced an estimated 177,000 tons and that is a long way from the 240,000 tons that was sought in the negotiations. If we are right in our expectations from the Common Market, we see in it greatly increased prices for dairy products and beef. Those products will become much more attractive while the offer for sugar beet is only marginally more than what we have at present and it will undoubtedly be accompanied by higher costs of production here. The profitability of sugar is bound to decrease somewhat while the profitability of dairy products, beef and other commodities, by the figures known to us, is likely to increase very considerably.
For instance, the return from dairy products should be up almost 50 per cent on what it was last year. Consequently, the small farmer who up to this has been depending quite a bit on three or four acres of beet, and a cash return from that, would now be far better off, according to most agricultural economists, by adding three or four extra cows to his herd. He would certainly have an easier labour problem.
Therefore, the call for increased beet acreage is likely to come from those who are going in for farm mechanisation on a large scale, who are likely to get around 30 or 40 acres or more. At that level it is in competition with beef. Agricultural economists would agree that a good job has been done in regard to producing beef as compared with beet. For that reason I think we aimed too high in regard to beet but this need not necessarily be a setback.
In regard to dairy products and beef we are sure of a substantial increase. Last year's figures, released by Córas Tráchtála recently, showed our total exports as £120 million from cattle, £60 million from beef and £45 million from dairy products, all adding up to approximately £220 million. If these exports were exported at current Common Market prices there would be an additional £100 million to this total. The economists take a more cautious figure of £70 million. Costs will, however, rise accordingly but it would still be a large increase.
The real attractiveness of what has been achieved is the opportunity it now opens for development of our agricultural potential. Only today we have a report in the newspapers on the study carried out by the Irish Grassland Association and presented by their president, Dr. Carrick. In it he shows that in a five-year period we could expect an increase of about 10 per cent per annum, giving an increased return of what he worked out at approximately £150 million, that is a yearly return after five years, or an increase of £30 million each year taking it on a gradual basis. The amount of capital involved would be approximately £250 million. This is an alarming amount but taking the returns into account this is a situation in which foreign borrowing could play a large part and indeed could be engaged in enthusiastically on a short-term basis.
We must emphasise that our major industry has not been able to develop in the post-war years to the same extent as agriculture has developed in the rest of Europe. We can put the blame for that on the variability of market prices and on the difficulties of planning ahead. England, on the other hand, had a very high subsidy rate for agriculture. The Continent likewise profited from the post-war period. In all cases the average increase since the war has been of the order of 4 per cent, whereas we have been only marginally better than 1 per cent. They have increased their pre-war production by 150 per cent while we have increased ours scarcely by 50 per cent.
Yet the potential is there. We should insist strongly on recognition of the fact that the development of our potential has not taken place and this should be appreciated when we come to sign the Protocol so that if in the future there was a glut of dairy products in Europe which necessitated some form of quota restrictions, our special position would be honoured. This I consider only just and in keeping with the spirit of the Community, that all areas should develop their potential and not be a drag on the other members.
We cannot develop unless our main industry is given full scope. I am not alone in this view. It is perhaps a milder version of the expansion proposed by Dr. Michael Walsh from Moorepark, about six months ago. Also there is a report in today's newspapers by a Dr. Jones, head of the advisory service in Britain, in which he sees even further greater possibilities for expansion in British agriculture. Dare we fix a figure of an increase of £250 million a year after five years? The general attitude there, as stated by the British Minister of Agriculture in his New Year's message, was that for England the EEC offered the green light for farming expansion.
In this respect, there is quite a lot of hope for us. If we take the difficulties of the small farmers, for whom all are concerned, we realise that so far there has been no effective Government answer to them. The Government do not seem to be grappling with the situation. They have faced, on the one hand, the problem of encouraging production but they have not so far given any realistic help to the small farmers to plan for their survival.
The first thing we have to acknowledge is that by European standards we have very few small farmers of the type who are termed small farmers in Europe. The average acreage here is almost double what it is in Holland and is more than three times what it is in Belgium and in Germany. But the need is quite pressing here because the small farms are not developed. Take, for instance, a farm with something of the order of 30 to 40 acres where at present the standard in dairying is somewhere around ten or 12 cows. A living cannot be made from that level. That acreage has to be made to carry what it is capable of carrying under modern intensive agriculture methods. It means that in place of carrying ten cows it has to carry double that. That adjustment has to be made quite rapidly; I would suggest in a matter of five years.
One can see then the necessity for a capital injection there, a capital injection that will enable that farmer to put on the extra stock. The rewards are so good—and it is a question of the difference between survival or not—that it might be legitimately expected that a certain amount of the capital could be paid back. Therefore it would be good investment by the State to give as much as possible by way of outright grant. We cannot afford to lose those small farmers from our economy. Above all, we cannot afford to lose from the nation the stock that they represent in our community.
Senator Keery mentioned the NIEC and their work. Is it not sad to think that that body are still functioning without any agricultural representative despite the fact that there have been calls from all sides in relation to the necessity for broadening the NIEC to include some agricultural representatives? These calls have been made for the past eight years. So far no action has been taken. While figures can be given to show the potential and to show what can be done in given situations to develop farms we must never forget that we are dealing with human beings. Therefore we are depending a great deal on a certain initiative on the part of the people concerned. In that regard the change from low level to medium level production involves a certain number of buildings. It involves silage lay-out and it involves some milking facilities. The planning of these is a specialist activity. Their erection is something that the ordinary farmer cannot cope with. Consequently I am suggesting that in attacking the future we need units of contract services available who will go in and carry out those jobs, just as for the land project in the past we had contractors who carried out the work involved in that project.
So also the question of farm development should now figure in exactly the same way and we should encourage, by every means possible, the development of teams to carry out this work. It could be amalgamated with land project type work and every encouragement should be given to get on with that work.
Agriculture has suffered quite a bit by comparison with non-agricultural employment by virtue of the five-day week, in other words, the matter of leisure which is a hallmark of our time. That can only be provided in the case of agriculture by organising pools of relief work from regular centres like co-operative centres. The ordinary farmer does not worry about milking his cows but he gets very tired having to do it seven days a week without any relief. Likewise there is inability to take a holiday when he sees others taking time off. This facility can be provided in our context very easily from the co-operative centres by simply having in those centres trained operators who, on receipt of a telephone call, will do the milking for an evening, or for a couple of days, or for whatever length is required. That to my mind is even more essential than capital to put the small and medium farmers in a position to go ahead with the developments they must carry out if we are to meet the opportunities of the Common Market. Of course it has the advantage that it provides for an opportunity of really worthwhile employment for many of our people.
I calculate that at present in any reorganisation of our farms, with increased stocking, to give just one day per week relief service on all farms engaged in milking would provide employment for about 5,000 people. In our context that is quite a sizeable figure. Indeed, to put up industries to cater for 5,000 people would require about £3,000 capital per worker, in other words something of the order of £15 million. The State, by way of capital and so on, would be prepared to put up £7 million or £8 million of that. That gives some idea of the potential full employment that is available in agriculture at present.
At this stage I want to turn to the unemployment situation where we have this very frightening total of 70,000 unemployed and increasing quite a bit. I accept the fact that this figure, or part of it, is occasioned by the drop in emigration due to the poor employment situation in England at present. Nevertheless, we now have brought home to us a task which previously we passed over to Britain. We have to face the fact of 70,000 unemployed and we have to ask what short-term or long-term measures can be resorted to do something about this.
At the top I would put the question of our service industries. If we expand and go ahead as we hope we will, the service industries will become more and more a feature of our lives. Indeed, they are becoming that in any case. Also, there is general dismay at the low standards prevailing in these industries. I was at a meeting recently in Cork of a Soroptomists group and their condemnation of the ESB for their low standards of servicing and the lack of satisfaction given to customers in the area was very damning indeed. I think it is in line with what many of us know. This is not confined to the ESB; it seems to permeate all our service industries. I suggest that in the present situation where we have a number of people available for work we could use this opportunity to do a great deal of retraining in our service industries, beginning with those that are State-controlled. I should like to see a determined effort being made in the service section of the ESB to retrain their workers by allowing, say, about 20 per cent of the present workers time off to do retraining, whether in the local technical school or by any other arrangement that can be made. This programme could be carried out over several months. This would involve replacements being made. We would hope, however, that in the period ahead the service industry would expand to absorb those replacements.
The question of the training of apprentices applies at the other end of the scale also. Most apprenticeship-training, whether it is in the electrical or garage apprenticeship sphere, is very valuable for many facets of future work, whether on the land or in an office. The training with equipment, whether for a garage or otherwise, is highly valuable. At this stage, realising the number of people we have available in the 18 to 21-year-old group, we should open recruitment into the various trades as a matter of urgency. We should seek the full co-operation of the trade unions to achieve such opening. There is too much of a "closed shop" about apprenticeship in this country. If we have any confidence in the future we should show that confidence by boldly training apprentices in excess of what conservative thinking at present would regard as normal recruitment into those trades.
The time has come to reflate the economy. In fact, the deflation carried out by the last Budget was much too drastic. It compares with the deflation that was carried out in 1957. Admittedly, the economy was not in as bad a condition and, therefore, the damage is not quite as bad but the effect has been very similar. It has been a case of over-cautious Ministers for Finance going along too much with the doctrinaire economic advice given at the time. They were afraid to take a chance. That is very characteristic of the present Budget and of the great deflation that was occasioned by it.
The English Government corrected their position last July. So far we have made no sizeable correction of our position. We have the people available and it is time to get programmes of public works going quickly. The advantage in dealing with public works is that they are already planned—and indeed super-planned in many cases —and have been awaiting sanction for one, two, three or four years. If the green light were given for many of those projects they could be under way in a very short time. We know that there is a great deal of unemployment in the ranks of skilled tradesmen, carpenters, plumbers and so on. Therefore they would be available at very short notice to get on with those tasks. That is the greatest method of making an immediate impact on our numbers of unemployed.
I was also talking about agriculture and what I outlined there about relief services could very well absorb at least 2,000 people, rising to perhaps 7,000 or 10,000 over five years. An imaginative approach by the Government for the first year or two could make the project completely self-supporting.
Senator Crinion referred to the question of farm apprenticeship. It has been discouraging and disheartening to many of us who spent a lot of time and energy in the late fifties trying to get this scheme going to see the ridiculous mini-scheme that emerged. The numbers turned out in the current year are of the order of 40 or 50 apprentices when we should be talking in terms not of tens but of thousands. We should at least be capable of turning out anything from 2,000 to 3,000 of our young people trained in this way. The openings are there. In rural areas we have youths leaving school at 16 and 17 years who are at present unemployed and who would be excellent for such a scheme.
If we believe in the forecasts that are made about the development of agriculture, the one thing we can say for certain is that in the future it is likely to suffer from a scarcity of skilled labour. Therefore, if we go ahead now and train those young people and place them as apprentices on farms of an acceptable level, then not alone will we be reducing the ranks of the unemployed but we will also be carrying out very vital training for the future.
Regarding the question of buildings, silage units, et cetera, if these are encouraged by something akin to the land project scheme they will provide a useful means of absorbing a large number of our people.
In regard to the question of unemployment, I suggest that we seriously consider reducing the age limit for the old age pension from 70 years to 65 years. Why are civil servants, university professors, et cetera, compelled to retire at 65 and get their pensions whereas ordinary workers have to wait until they are 70? In the present situation in which there are many redundancies it would be a suitable time to take this step. The cost involved would not be excessive because a pension is paid in place of unemployment relief. At the same time it is more dignified for the person concerned if he can retire at 65. His pension is more acceptable than unemployment relief at that stage. People in the higher age group are not easily trained to new techniques and despite their best efforts find it hard to adjust to new conditions. Therefore, why should we force them in this way? Reducing the age to below 65 might be considered. I offer these as means by which we can endeavour to make some impact on the unemployment situation. The impact must be constructive, viewed in the light of our future prospects and our future hopes.
We cannot be happy with the lack of progress in reform in the country. The Devlin Report is gathering dust as are all the other reports that went before it. We are expert at setting up committees, getting reports and then, once the first impact is over, we calmly forget about them.
The Devlin Report offers many worthwhile ideas on the reorganisation of the public services. I urge the Government to take positive steps to implement these ideas and give value to the taxpayer. This should begin here in Leinster House where we operate in the same way as Parnell operated in his time. We still have the same procedures, the same approach, the same lack of consultation with the Government Departments and those who make the real decisions.
We are facing, as Senator Keery put it, a time of rapid change and uncertainty about the future and in shaping the future in the Common Market or in the northern situation a united effort is called for. It is rather hollow to call for a united effort in the North to solve their problems without giving the lead from here. The time has come for a national Government. The type of party politics we know and which we have at present is outmoded and outdated. Only a national Government, drawing on the best efforts of all, can give the positive leadership we need in the five-year period ahead. If we can ensure that national government does not become national dictatorship and resort to the provision in the Constitution for having referenda on various matters of major policy we can make the transition. At the same time we can sit down and calmly plan for the future and see what shape of political development or political structure we need. I do not envisage that a national Government should be anything more than a type of an emergency measure for a period of five or seven years. After that, we should have some modernised parliamentary system.
The fully developed committee system must come. We, in Seanad Éireann, would be giving a better return to the people and would be far more deserving of our allowances if we had a properly developed committee system. There is nothing new or revolutionary about a committee system. We all talk about committees. We take part in committees in various ways but if we want to see how the committee system works at parliamentary level all we need do is go to the small countries in western Europe. We can go to Holland and see a very well-developed committee system there. Attached to the Parliament there are the committee on agriculture, the committee on primary education and the committee on university education. There are probably a dozen committees. On those committees there are people of different political backgrounds but all having in common some particular competence for the work of the committee of which they are members and something particular to offer.
The initiative for changes in legislation, or similar developments, could come from such committees. They could report to the Minister concerned that they thought legislation along certain lines should be initiated. If a Minister were about to introduce legislation he could consult the committee first and work it out with them before issuing a White Paper. If we had some system like this we would not have the awful muddle which the Government have got into in the present constitutional amendment situation. If there had been consultations with the parties concerned this Civil Service omnibus measure would not have been brought in. I feel certain that had the two political parties been consulted in advance of this constitutional amendment a much more acceptable form of question to be put before the public would have been evolved and the arid controversies that it has caused would have been avoided.
It is essential that we get on with political reform if we are to cope with some of the worst features of the Common Market. It is a very bureaucratic structure where the Commission in Brussels wield extraordinary power. We will have to make representations to that Commission on many matters of vital concern. That raises the question: who is making those representations? Are we going to have a repetition of the beet fiasco where we had a Minister who had not got the opinion of the organisation concerned? The Minister accepted something and then returned and it was only at that stage that the organisation concerned made their views known and so the negotiations have to be reopened. We cannot do very much reopening when we are in the Common Market permanently. The local government machinery and the Civil Service Departments will have to be in much closer contact and consultation with our various national organisations.
