I move:
That Seanad Éireann notes the serious plight of those engaged in agriculture.
I welcome the opportunity of discussing this motion however displeased I feel at the very long delay. It is about 12 months since the motion was put down but the important thing is that it has not become less important since it was originally put down. If anything, the need for this House to discuss the plight of those engaged in agriculture has increased. I am very concerned at the present situation, the apparent lack of interest on the part of the Government and the lack of effective action. I am critical of the Minister for Agriculture because while in office he will have achieved many records as Minister for Agriculture that are not very commendable. Under the present Minister for Agriculture we will have had more people leaving the land than under all the previous Ministers for Agriculture since the State was formed. That is a serious record.
In regard to the previous Bill—on which I shall not comment to any extent—I do not know who the agricultural worker is. I have a reasonable knowledge of agriculture as I look after a few acres myself. I find it very hard to define an agricultural worker or to get one at present.
The conditions under which they have worked and survived and the whole economy of the industry have been so bad that the agricultural worker has nearly disappeared. It is only the farmer's son who has kept the farm going as a business to maintain the family unit, who could be classed as an agricultural worker. They are the only agricultural workers that I know exist. There is the man who has a tractor, farm machinery, who works for his neighbour and does contract work in the area. Outside those people, who are part of the farming unit, it is difficult to find a farm labourer. Some time ago in my county I saw a long queue at an employment exchange. I stopped and had a talk with the 83 people that were there. To my sorrow and amazement I found that all of them had previously been engaged in agriculture. Subsequently, some of them went to road work, some to forestry work but originally, all of them had come from farms. That leads me to say that the Minister for Agriculture will hold a record for having displaced more people off the land than any previous Minister, than all the previous Ministers together. That is no boast for me to make in the Seanad: I am very close to those who have to survive and make a living on agriculture.
There are many reasons why I criticise the Minister for Agriculture. First, the farm modernisation scheme has been in existence for some time. The Minister has yet to convince those who are engaged in agriculture that he has played a major role in formulating a farm modernisation policy which suits the needs of those engaged in agriculture. It is becoming more evident that this is an EEC policy, that the civil servants in Brussels have contributed to the formation of the farm modernisation policy without any real influence from Ireland or from the Minister. If we even had a greater percentage of civil servants from the Department of Agriculture involved in formulating the policy in Brussels, we would see some semblance of how it might be related to Irish conditions.
On examination, we find that it does not measure up to our needs and does not take account of conditions here in Ireland. I could give many details of how the scheme does not suit Irish needs. I can give an example in my own county where we have 1,024 applicants for participation in the farm modernisation scheme. These applications have been in for some time. At a meeting last Monday I found that only 24 are processed and will qualify out of 1,024. If I were to tell the House nothing further than provide that information from an agricultural county like County Donegal where agriculture is the basic industry, where the people are largely depending on a living from the land, it should speak for itself. The Minister and his Department will accept that that scheme will be very difficult to administer in my county and in other counties in the West. I see no reason for that difficulty except that the scheme is complicated and lacks consideration for the needs and conditions in Ireland. The Minister is largely responsible for this situation.
I would describe the Minister for Agriculture as a nice, decent, quiet man, but he lacks the power, punch and initiative to go out and bargain at a time when the whole future of Irish farmers is at stake. Those engaged in agriculture know that never before did they lack someone to go out and fight their battle. This is a crucial time and there is a complete lack of confidence. I checked those 83 people and found that they came off the land and they now form part of the 103,000 unemployed. That is a sad situation.
I can go on to give many examples where our Minister for Agriculture has failed the people. The money that is provided for the slaughter premium has become a bit of a joke and has been referred to by many people. I fail to understand how the Minister cannot see that the slaughter premium is not reaching the producer. You do not need to be a lecturer in agriculture or to have a great brain to see that the people who are packing meat have made millions of pounds. This is not a slogan to be used by newspapers or by anybody who wants to talk about agriculture; it is evident to everybody that the meat packers have made millions, while the small people in agriculture have been driven out of it.
The Minister has the responsibility of seeing that does not happen. He seems to be there unconcerned and allows it to happen daily. I have visited slaughter houses that work overtime and work on Sundays slaughtering young heifers that are underweight. These animals got away under the eyes of the Department vets. Young heifers of under 6½ cwt. are being slaughtered. Seven out of ten of them are in calf. You can set up in this business very simply. You can get five or six agents around the country to buy young cattle and sign the forms. The man who slaughters them gets the premium. This is very simple. If our Minister for Agriculture does not understand that this is happening, that there are people in the meat slaughtering business becoming millionaires and that the farmers are not getting the slaughter premium, then he should not be Minister.
I am sorry to say this but I would be failing in my duty as a representative of the agricultural community if I did not use the opportunity to tell the Minister that. Those engaged in agriculture do not believe that the Minister understands what is happening. This is a sorry state of affairs.
About seven or eight months ago I attended a meeting of executive members of the IFA in my county. About 700 attended the meeting which was addressed by the President of the IFA, Mr. T.J. Maher. Much to my amazement not once did he mention the farm modernisation scheme. Those people have lost their teeth from the time that they were standing across the road outside threatening to pull down the railings around Leinster House. Listening to the speeches that day I heard the IFA President say: "We must understand the Government's difficulty but we want nobody in politics to speak for us; we are able to speak for ourselves". I was one of those in that hall and I knew that Mr. T.J. Maher was a candidate or a potential Fianna Gael candidate himself——