The Appropriation legislation gives us an opportunity to look at the state of the nation. I regret we do not yet have the Minister in the House. The country has been exposed to a much lauded new political beginning in recent weeks and I would like to wish everyone concerned well.
Polls indicate there is 53 per cent satisfaction rate with the Government at this time, which leads me to wonder who comprises that 53 per cent. Are they the beef producers who are finding it extremely difficult to find purchasers for their finished animals? Are they drawn from the ranks of the beef workers whose long term job prospects in this industry are not that rosy, if we are to contemplate the state of the industry at present? Are the taxpayers over-enthused at the Greencore affair, or the Telecom affair or the Carysfort scandal? Are the 53 per cent satisfied citizens drawn from the ranks of the 300,000 unemployed? When we talk about 300,000 unemployed people, we must remember that unemployment touches almost one million people if we are to consider the average family size in this country; unemployment can have a traumatising effect on the extended family.
Perhaps the satisfied citizens are not touched by the long waiting lists for health services. They may all be fit and are not concerned with long waiting lists for hospital services and orthopaedic operations. They are probably not on the waiting list for ophthalmic operations, removal of cataracts, or dental care or on the outrageously long and slow moving waiting list for orthodontic treatment with the health boards.
Many people in this country appear to have adopted a posture of whistling past the churchyard; they do not seem to feel the depressing vibes that are widespread. There is a deeper recession and a greater shortage of finance in this country than most people would care to admit. We have an internal relations problem with the commercial banks at present, and surely those working in banks at all levels have an opportunity to appreciate the economic viability of individuals and of industries. I hope the Government will take an early interest in this dispute and endeavour to bring the sides together to save the country a bank strike. During the bank strikes over the past 20 years many people found themselves in severe financial difficulties when the banks reopened. I deplore any dispute which diminishes the control banks are able to exercise on the accounts of ordinary citizens.
The situation is confusing at present. If we look at unified Germany, dozens of top class companies internationally known and respected in manufacturing industry are experiencing trading difficulties which must have consequences for the German economy. Since we joined the European Community 18 years ago as a nation we have been content to look on our German colleagues mainly as the paymasters of Europe. That day is fast disappearing as all of Europe has undergone changes over the past 12 or 18 months which will affect the mentality of the German people and the German Government.
The Germans are wrestling with the problem of integrating 16 million people, formerly from East Germany and placing their living and working conditions on a par with the rest of west Germany which will cost a lot of money and necessitate infrastructural development. Germany despite its economic power can no longer continue to make the same contribution to the coffers of Europe that it has been making for the past 25 or 30 years. We must acknowledge that and change our policies accordingly.
I would like to see a redefinition of major national policies for our new Government. It is not sufficient for us to presume that the policies this Government may or may not have been elected on a couple of years ago continue to be valid or that they are adequate to meet future challenges.
Agriculture has not been at such a low ebb since the thirties. There is great uncertainty as markets continue to be affected by quota restrictions and contracts. Young farmers beginning their careers doubt if they can make a livelihood from the land. The return on capital gets smaller and smaller and this spring a huge crisis has befallen cattle finishers or beef producers. Many farmers in my area have between 50 and 100 fat cattle of 14, 15 or 16 hundredweight daily getting so fat that the price per pound will be reduced and they cannot find a buyer for them. What are they going to do with them?
We have been exposed to the beef inquiry for many months and rather than clear up the situation, it is sowing seeds of distrust among people dependent on the beef industry. If UMP close down the number of factories and buyers available to trade in this area will be significantly diminished and the price of beef will plummet. When the Easter lamb becomes available in a few weeks time the number of buyers will diminish further. One wonders if anyone will have the money to pay for the cattle, sheep, pigs or other livestock. That is a harrowing and difficult possibility. The cattle trade is difficult to understand given that suck calves or calves two or three days old command practically a third of the price of a finished fat beast. The situation is absurd.
It is unfair to blame the Minister for Agriculture and Food when farmers themselves cannot see the need for fair play. The milk farmers who traditionally have been the best organised seem to be in a dominant position and certainly call all the shots. They have survived probably because they have access to a cash flow unlike farmers in other husbandries.
I would like to see the Minister for Agriculture and Food redefine his policies on the future of the agriculture industry over the next few years. Farmers are fast running out of crops to sow because of quotas and restrictions. There is difficulty in the beet sector this year due to a protracted row between beet growers and Greencore, because Greencore over the years have not paid the farmers for all of the sugar extracted; they renege on payments for sugar extracted from the crowns or the tare of the beet.
Years ago my own farm delivered beet to Thurles and Carlow; Thurles sugar factory was operating then. I have two farms a few miles apart, one of them in the Thurles area and the other in the Carlow area. As loading dockets came in the practice was to load up beet from wherever one had it and to deliver it on the loading date. I delivered beet from the same field to both factories on different dates and the taring standards in the factories were significantly different, which means that even five or ten years ago the Irish Sugar Company, as it was then, were doing the farmers out of their entitlements. There can be a 7 or 8 per cent difference in the amount of tare which is clay or tops that a company will acknowledge. That gives a different price per ton, so that it was hit and miss with Carlow and Thurles sugar factories during the years.
Since there is over-production in practically all food crops in this country it is time for the Government to look seriously at the introduction of non-food crops. Apart from my own particular interest in reproduced sources of energy, a number of farmers in Donegal have been growing flax, which is a non-food crop and I wonder if they have been getting the support they were entitled to expect. The Commissioner and those who comment on the Common Agricultural Policy talk about wine lakes or butter mountains and here we have a group of farmers endeavouring to revive a high quality industry which could be brought back to the glory it reached in the last century and in the earlier part of this century. However, I doubt if those flax growers got maximum support.
The OECD say that by the year 2018 the known recoverable resources of fossil fuels worldwide will have expired. The technology is available to us to grow rapeseed or sunflowers here. Rape-seeds would be the easiest to grow and could be substituted for imported diesel oil. I think the Department of Finance are nervous in case they lose out on the duty paid on hydrocarbons. We could look at this possibility from the point of view of import substitution, it would take about 350,000 acres to replace diesel oil imports in Ireland. Beet contracts amounted to something like 90,000 acres last year. A large acreage of cereals is sown annually yet profit margins are being restricted year in year out making it hard for cereals to compete with the cheap import substitutes.
There is no guarantee for the continuation of traditional Irish agricultural practices of recent decades, which is why I would like the Minister for Agriculture and Food to redefine policy and to take a stand in conjunction with the Minister for the Environment, in co-operation with the Minister for Energy, on the whole question of non-food crops.
Can the Minister for Agriculture and Food explain how a country with 300,000 people registered unemployed can still afford to import over £30 million worth of carrots and potatoes? These two crops can be sown, not just in any field but in any cottage plot or garden in Ireland. There are many questions to be answered here.
For some years we had a junior Minister with responsibility for Horticulture. The Government, to give them their due, set up An Bord Glas to encourage the production of high-class vegetables in order to reduce importation. Despite the expensive infrastructure of An Bord Glas the value and the volume of imports since that board was set up appear to have increased. The Minister for Agriculture and Food should turn his mind to this matter and give us some suggestions on redressing that situation.
Job creation must surely be high on the agenda of everyone concerned for the future of this country, whether for youth or for the development of our economy. In 1957 the Industrial Development Authority was established and I wonder how often that Authority has been able to introduce new ideas or encourage people to provide employment opportunities. In Abbeyleix, we have been told that one of two factories in the town, Manchester Tools, will close down this summer after ten years. That is a huge blow to a small town with a population of 1,200 or 1,500. I have not seen any great efforts by the Industrial Development Authority or the regional authority to help or propose an alternative. This makes one feel that the statutory authorities seem incapable of doing anything to present the demise of these factories. This factory has been in operation for ten years. I wonder if they stayed on only while the grant aid or tax concessions were in place? If that is so, it is a bad basis for industry and there should be an investigation into why we are losing factories once those concessions cease.
I know it is inappropriate to talk about tax under the Appropriation Bill, and I would like to keep off that, However, the incentives the Minister for Finance announces from time to time should be looked at. Perhaps there should be a little more flexibility. It is important to have industry and job opportunities in the smaller towns and rural areas to endeavour to keep people in their native areas. I admit it is not easy and I know we must compete, but I am convinced that we have the potential to do so. There is a fairly high standard of education here and our labour force are capable of producing the highest quality products that should be able to compete with our European counterparts if the environment is right, where we have access to almost 400 million customers.
This Government say they are making a new beginning and I would hope they accept the challenge a new beginning offers, especially in the area of job creation.
In a small provincial town like Abbeyleix, with the prospect of one of only two factories closing down, much sadness and uncertainty are brought to a considerable number of workers and their families. I would like to see a sharper response from organisations such as the IDA who are paid to help in industrial development. There should also be some equality in the amount of aid the authorities can offer. It is a bit of a nonsense that there is such a discrepancy in the amount of grant aid available from one location to another. Perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce might look seriously at that point.
I have dealt with a few points on the Appropriation Act. We have a number of important debates coming up, especially on the Culliton report, and I should like to avail of that opportunity to go more in-depth into the whole area of industrial policy.
In conclusion, I think this country must grasp the nettle of reality. We must face the difficult issues. I earnestly appeal to the Government, and to the Minister present, to have as part of the new beginning at least one policy — that there will be no more Irish solutions to typical Irish problems. We must be realists.
In 1993 we will be in open competition with both producers and consumers in a community of around 400 million people. To give our people the best possible protection we must have a level playing field. We have the opportunity to produce the finest top quality food products. We have a highly skilled and well educated workforce that compares more than favourably with that of any other country in greater Europe. Therefore our goods should be able to stand four square beside anything else that goes on offer. If we are realists and face every problem openly and squarely, then I think there is some hope for us in the future.
