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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 6 Jun 1991

Vol. 129 No. 8

Adjournment Matter. - County Kildare Disadvantaged Areas.

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for his patience in this matter. He was here at 1 o'clock but we could not facilitate him then. I also welcome the children from Newbridge who are here this afternoon. They probably think it is standard procedure for the three of us to be here together. I should explain to them that the business of the Seanad has now finished and we are on what is called the Adjournment so it is not the formal business of the House.

My motion refers to the need for the Minister for Agriculture and Food and the disadvantaged areas appeals panel to rectify the disproportionate exclusion of areas of County Kildare, compared to all other counties, under the extension of the disadvantaged areas. By way of preface I welcome the extension of the disadvantaged areas which will bring a lot of good. It is unfortunate that it took so long to have the matter sanctioned but that is in the nature of things. Now that it is here I am sure it will be of benefit to the country.

I am also very happy that we have an appeals system. As part of the Programme for Government it was agreed to establish such a system and that appeals system is now underway. I would say to the Minister that there are very deep feelings in County Kildare about the way people believe the county has been excluded from the disadvantaged areas provisions.

Teagasc in Kildare produced a document which shows that marginal land constitutes 33 per cent of the county. The percentage of the county reckoned under the disadvantaged areas is only 14 per cent. The proposed areas make up less than 40 per cent of the marginal land. Offaly is a comparable county where 35 per cent of the county is marginal land, which is roughly the same as Kildare, but 70 per cent of Offaly is in the disadvantaged areas so there is a huge difference in one respect between two counties with similar farming patterns, similar soil types, similar amounts of bog, etc. There is good land as well as marginal land is Kildare but Teagasc say that the percentage figure of disadvantaged areas as a percentage of the marginal land is 200 per cent. I could quote similar figures for Cork where 37 per cent of the land is marginal and about half of the county is in the disadvantaged areas.

Kildare is down at the bottom of the list and in relation to the functioning of the appeals system it is very important that the system does not say, "We are going to take 1.5 per cent of County Kildare, 1.5 per cent of County Offaly and 1.5 per cent of County Meath for inclusion under the appeals system." Each case should be treated on its merits. In that context it would appear to me that Kildare has been put at a very serious disadvantage — if disadvantage is the right word to use in this context.

There is a perception abroad that Kildare is a rich farming county with nothing but good land. If the Minister were driving home, as he would hope to do early in the evening, from Dublin to Cork, down the main road he might get the impression that Kildare is all good land. Certainly there are very good tillage and dairy farmers in the county but it must also be recognised that we have a very high proportion of bad land, particularly in the west of the county, when you get close to the bog. About 14 per cent of the county is made up of peatland and on the eastern side of the county the Wicklow hills encroach, causing a fairly serious problem.

Several IFA branches within the county have produced good submissions to support their claims for inclusion in the disadvantaged areas and will be putting those claims before the appeals system. One of them is the Clane-Prosperous branch of the IFA. I have their extensive submission here. All farmers are listed and all have supported it. It shows quite clearly that on the five criteria of which the Minister is aware, for inclusion in the disadvantaged areas, it fulfils the requirements on the basis of a fully comprehensive survey. The same goes for the neighbouring Cadamstown-Carbury area. Again, the IFA conducted a survey there in conjunction with Teagasc and a similar pattern emerged. Carrigeen, on the opposite side of the county going into Wicklow, have sent in their submission. Places like Ballykelly near Monasterevin, Ballymore Eustace, Kildangan and Lacken believe they should be included in the appeals system and I recommend the Minister to look very sympathetically at these claims because I believe that deserving people were excluded from the original submission sent to Brussels.

It would be my hope, when we come to the serious negotiations in relation to reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, that we urge as one of our main points that all parts of the country be included as disadvantaged areas. That would stop much of the bad feeling and ill-will generated by one farmer being included and his neighbour, who believes he has worse land, is excluded. Possibly that is outside the scope of what I want to say today.

In relation to the appeals system, I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate the sort of procedure which will be adopted by the appeals board. Are they going to visit townlands? Are they going to meet groups or individuals? What sort of surveys do they intend to carry out or are they going to carry out surveys? How are they going to verify some of the submissions sent into them? Who are the type of people they are going to meet? Are they going to go all over the country? How are they going to manage the thing and what sort of time-scale does the Minister think it is going to take to sort out the appeals?

I understand that a standard applications procedure is to be implemented and that advertisements are to be placed in newspapers. Perhaps the Minister has information on that. Under the original system one would have to be in an area adjoining a disadvantaged area to be included in the extension. I understand that now islands of land separate from what is already included will be considered. Perhaps the Minister can verify that or say otherwise. There was a suggestion that 3,000 acre blocks in islands which are not actually attached to existing disadvantaged areas might be included.

It is satisfactory that most of the townlands originally submitted from County Kildare have been included in the new extension of the areas. Only three of these have been excluded, the most serious being Lullilmore where all the townlands on the list have have been excluded. It is a very serious problem within the county. Many farmers are understandably quite angry about the fact that they appear to have been passed over in the original application and are now wondering how they can get in, if that is the right phrase to use, under the appeals system and how that appeals system will operate.

First, let me concur with Senator Dardis and endorse his welcome to the Newbridge schoolchildren who are here in the Chamber and also welcome an important delegation from Dunmanway in west Cork.

I am surprised that Senator Dardis considers that County Kildare got a raw deal in the proposed extension of the disadvantaged areas. I would welcome him to west Cork to see how the people of west Cork fared. In fact, Kildare did proportionately better than most other counties and I could not help but note the name of one townland, Prosperous. I could name some townlands in west Cork, Cnocdubh, Cnocamhadra, Cnocán and places like that where the very names suggest that they are above sea level and on poor land.

The problem in Kildare is not the spectacular increase but whether we consider the glass half full or half empty; in relation to Kildare, the extension is quite a large one. Nationally, the extension is the largest ever secured since our accession and represents a 20 per cent increase in our disadvantaged areas. In Kildare, the increase represents a 518 per cent increase on the last occasion; the existing disadvantaged areas of Kildare comprise of 3,400 hectares and that is now extended by 19,300 hectares bringing it up to 22,700, a 518 per cent increase.

I now want to turn to the areas not included. I accept that there is a difficulty with regard to omitted areas and I know that a less than scientific method was used in designating areas. From my own personal knowledge of the area I represent I cannot understand or justify some areas which are included and other areas which are excluded. I am very happy to welcome this appeals commission and board to review marginal areas and the areas left out.

The commission for appeals met yesterday and they will commence their work immediately and will initiate their appeals procedure next week. Among the first steps in the process will be the placing of an advertisement in the national and local media to notify groups of farmers not included in the extension proposals of the appeals procedures.

Senator Dardis made a couple of specific inquiries, one of them being what method they would use. That is a matter for the appeals board but there will be a 100 per cent survey of areas under appeal. The reason for some of the glaring anomalies in the existing situation is the fact that only a spot survey was carried out and we are dealing with a small number of farmers and individual townlands. Individual townlands could have been unlucky in that relatively large farmers in a small townland may have been surveyed and interviewed leaving some of the smaller farmers out of the reckoning.

The independent appeals body will have regard to objective criteria and will carry out a detailed, 100 per cent, painstaking survey and I hope at the end of that there will be a measure of equity in the overall area designated as disadvantaged. I take the point made and I am sure until such time as we have the whole country designated as disadvantaged that it will be impossible to satisfy the demands of individual farmers. I welcome the appeal and I have total confidence in the chairmanship of Professor Séamus Sheedy. The members of the commission are people of quite outstanding integrity and have a long record of service to the agricultural industry, whether as farmer representatives or lay land commissioners.

For the benefit of the House and Senator Dardis, I want to give the terms of reference of the appeals panel. They are: to act as an appeals body in connection with formal appeals by groups of farmers representing particular district electoral divisions or townlands against the exclusion of their areas from the list of less favoured areas or against the classification accorded to their areas; to determine the manner in which such appeals may be made; to consider such appeals in the light of departmental survey data already available and to arrange for further surveying by the Department of areas where the panel considers this necessary and to make recommendations to the Minister in regard to areas which, in the opinion of the panel, meet the criteria laid down by or agreed with the European Commission. That, briefly, is the situation regarding the disadvantaged areas appeals panel in relation to Kildare.

I appeal to farmers in townlands who consider themselves aggrieved to take note of the advertisements which will appear in the national and local media and to make full use of the resources of Teagasc in drawing up detailed documentation and supporting data to ensure that their areas get the full benefit of this review body.

I thank the Minister for his reply.

The Seanad adjourned at 3 p.m. until Wednesday, 12 June 1991, at 2.30 p.m.

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