I thank you for having accepted my request to raise this matter on the Adjournment and I thank the Minister for coming in to respond to it. With the Minister I share the concern that has been expressed in recent days arising out of the controversy that has arisen as a result of recent meetings in connection with the level of compensation under the bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis eradication schemes. The Minister will agree that it is nice to discuss this subject in the quiet of the Seanad Chamber as opposed to the hurly burly of the political hustings of east Galway.
It was at a meeting in east Galway at which both the Minister and I were present that this question of the levels of compensation was discussed at some length. The Minister will agree that financial ruin with which certain farmers are faced as a result of this scheme was outlined in a most graphic manner to both of us and Deputy Dukes on that night. We heard the Parish Priest of Killimer, the chairman of the IFA committee and ordinary farmers expressing deepest concern about the hardships that they face, not through any fault of the Minister but because the costings and the levels of compensation to farmers have not been updated since 1978. Irrespective of whatever compensation we can give in this eradication programme, we cannot now return some farmers to viable farming because their stocks have been so depleted. Their herds have been locked up and because of the regulations concerning the scheme they are unable to carry on any kind of farming. This has put such people on the social welfare level of income. That is a situation that I cannot tolerate and I am sure this House will not tolerate it. I know that the Minister does not accept that this situation can go on indefinitely.
I am a member of the Animal Health Council and chairman of a subcommittee which recommends the levels of compensation to Ministers for Agriculture. At that meeting, as a result of recommendations from the council, the Minister gave a commitment to double the level of compensation. The existing levels of compensation have remained at their present levels since 1978. For cows and in-calf heifers it is £130 on top of the factory price. If that was raised to 1982 levels, it would be £217. For other cattle under 182 kilos the level of compensation now is £100. If that was raised it would be £166. If for heavier cattle — 200 kilos and upwards deadweight — it was raised it would now be £100 instead of £60. In other words, the levels of compensation recommended were in line with the cost of living index.
I made a similar case to the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Dukes, when he filled that office for a short period of seven months. He adjusted the hardship fund and gave a commitment that these levels would be updated. The committee from the Animal Health Council recommended that in view of the levels of compensation which I have suggested and in view of the fact that we were abolishing the hardship fund because it was hard to qualify for it, the levels should be raised from £217 to £250 and from £166 to £200. The level of compensation for heavier cattle would remain as it was because we felt that when animals of that weight gain were slaughtered in the factory there was a reasonable amount of compensation available to the farmer.
The committee's recommendations were made in the light of the constrictions that the Minister might find himself in in a budget situation and the fact that certain levels of compensation, if they were updated to 1982, would be sufficient. The Minister, after the meeting, felt it his duty to withdraw what was a public commitment and the rest of that meeting is now a matter of history.
I suggested that we would also talk about a depopulation fund because depopulation is a necessity in this scheme if progress is to be made. It is not a question of just identifying the animals with disease; we must identify the cause of the disease. Otherwise this scheme on which we have spent £200 million will never be successful. About 400 herds need to be depopulated. They are a source of infection and the Department are aware of this. It is a traumatic experience for a farmer to have his business totally wiped out but if there is an ongoing reactor situation — this is particularly relevant to tuberculosis and not brucellosis — the herd is a risk and should be depopulated. We suggested that there should be an additional level of compensation for such herds because otherwise, apart from the social aspects involved, the trauma and heartbreak for the farmer who has built up his herd, the farmer will be put out of business.
Now that the hustings are over and the political pressures which were on the Minister have been removed, it is appropriate to discuss the anomaly that has arisen as a result of our meeting and the doubts people have about the disease eradication programme. What is the Minister doing about this? At mid-May — the June figures are not yet available — we had over 4,000 herds locked up as a result of tuberculosis and approximately 1,500 herds locked up as a result of brucellosis. That means that 5,500 farmers were out of business. Those in milk production had some sort of income but those, particularly the people in the west, who had dry cattle or smaller stores were unable to sell them to the factories. The animals must remain locked up until they are tested and shown to be clear on two consecutive occasions. We have figures to prove that a farmer who loses eight cows, taking milk production, loss of calves, net replacement cost for his cows and the overall herd reduction in gallon-age, would lose in the region of £6,000. If we take from that the saving in the feeding of those cows the total net loss to a farmer would be in the region of £4,822. I could quote other cases and, whether dry stock or cows, there is a net loss to the farmer from participation in a compulsory scheme.
I made these suggestions through the Animal Health Council to the Minister on the basis that the abolition of the hardship fund was part of the total package. In 1982 the Government provided £1,150,000 for a hardship fund. Relatively few people qualified for the hardship fund this year. Taking that into consideration and the fact that it is a fund which can be carried over from one year to another, perhaps the Minister would tell us what specific amount is now unexpended in that fund. We are almost at the end of a round of testing and the number of reactors between the end of the round of testing and the beginning of a new accelerated programme, which is being discussed in Europe, will not be great. There is an obligation on the Minister to answer the commitment which he gave and to do so quickly in the knowledge that he has a fund available to him from which to do it — a balance in the hardship fund and the fact that there is £4 million unexpended from a pre-movement test, agreed by the Minister for Finance, Deputy MacSharry, in Europe in 1981. This has not been expended because of a staff embargo. Taking those two funds into consideration, the Minister should not have to await a further budget to ensure that there is money available to compensate people on a realistic basis.
In a statement which the Minister issued he said that the existing rate of reactor grants were fixed in 1978. He said he was fully aware of the difficulties being experienced by farmers in certain areas and the rates of grants were currently being reviewed in the context of the extension of the disease programme for a further two years. He said that he has received our recommendations, which were very helpful. He expected a review of these grants to be completed very shortly. We are still faced with the problem of trying to ensure that nothing will stymie the progress of the disease eradication programme. While there is doubt about the level of compensation that will be paid to people and whether they will get more for their reactors next week or next month, it is only human to expect that they will refuse to co-operate. The Minister heard farmers — even taking into consideration the levels we announced — saying they were going to refuse to co-operate unless we took their plight and their loss of income into consideration. Testing will grind to a halt and we know what happened before when testing stopped; the incidence and the level of the disease went up to an unacceptable level, and they are high enough at present. It is a totally unacceptable level for the amount of money we have put into it.
With the commitment of the Minister to the eradication of the disease and the programme we have now adopted at the Animal Health Council, in conjunction with the farming organisations, the veterinary surgeons involved in the scheme and the officials of the Department who are members of the council, I am sure they have now a specific programme for the total eradication of the disease accelerated in such a way that we can make progress in the foreseeable future and that we will not always be begging in Europe for derogations of directives to allow us to have a further breakdown in the time factor. The only way we can achieve the fullest co-operation is to ensure that farmers are adequately compensated. Where there is an element of doubt and indecision on the part of the Minister about these levels of compensation, we could finish up having a diminution of the tremendous support which was there from all sides in respect of this level of compensation that became an election issue, an emotive issue and one in which all of us were subjected to certain pressures because of the situation that people found themselves in.
I would welcome a commitment from the Minister tonight. It would do a lot to bolster the goodwill that has been damaged in some way by this indecision. If not, I would ask the Minister to seriously consider making these levels of compensation retrospective to the famous night in Portumna on 12 July, when we sowed the seed in their minds that there were additional compensations forthcoming. If we do not do that we will have let down the people who have always co-operated, the first people who went into this scheme when it was voluntary and contributed in no uncertain way to its success.
In my own parish of Bansha in County Tipperary the late Canon Hayes started this scheme as a pilot scheme and we replaced the animals physically when they went down as reactors. I know it is not possible to do that now but at least we should make some gesture to compensate people for the tremendous losses they have incurred as a result of the eradication of the disease. They are willing and able to participate and co-operate with the veterinary practices throughout the country, the DVOs who are trying to isolate the cause of the disease and the epidemiology tests that are going on in the Department. I commend the Minister and his predecessor for having set aside funds to do that. If we do not identify the cause, the actual identification of the reactors is not enough. We will get that co-operation if we do not have an area of indecision or doubt in people's minds and I hope that the Minister in his response to this motion will avail of the opportunity to dispel any doubts that might be in farmers' minds, either about the levels of compensation or the actual date from which it would apply.
