I moved the adjournment of this debate last week because I was impressed by the appeals of the Minister for Agriculture that he should receive enlightenment from every Party. He now, apparently, anticipates receiving that enlightenment from every Party in the Dáil— and there are more than there were—within the space of ten or fifteen minutes. I fear he will be disappointed, but I will not take very long. I venture to think that the Minister's diagnosis of the injury caused to agriculture when he spoke last week, was not an entirely correct one. He spoke of an injury amounting to £5,000 in a year inflicted on a few individuals, but that loss, which is no doubt the net loss, is not inflicted, as a general rule, on the farmer. The farmer has sold his cattle before they are shipped to England, so that the loss on the cattle slaughtered in England during the period of detention, does not fall on the farmer. It falls on the dealer. But the dealer, not being in business for his health, safeguards himself by giving the farmer a lower price when he buys his cattle, in order to provide for this possible contingency, so that the real loss to the farmer, what I might call the gross loss, is a great deal more than £5,000 a year. It means, perhaps, a shilling, or possibly even five shillings—I do not know the standards that the trade adopts—off the price of every bullock sold in Ireland. The Minister dissents. Does he think that the dealer does not safeguard himself against possible loss? If so, the Minister has less experience of selling cattle than I have. It does, and must, affect the farmer in the long run, because the farmer is the producer of the raw material. I agree with the Minister that it would be very unwise if we were to admit any liability in this matter of foot and mouth disease, if we were to admit that foot and mouth disease could possibly be developed here, because under existing conditions, almost by a miracle, we are free from it.
I think that the Minister's Department is entitled to very great credit for that, that the arrangements made for disinfection, and so on, have worked satisfactorily, and although England has been a hotbed of foot and mouth disease, we have so far escaped, and we ought not to put ourselves in a position of admitting any liability for it. But I venture to think that, taking a wide view, there is some cause for what Deputy McKenna asks, that a man should not suffer merely because his cattle happen to have been shipped across the water. I do not say that the whole of Deputy McKenna's motion is a possible one. To begin with, it involves the concurrence of the Government of Northern Ireland, and we here have no power to bind that Government, for the time being. In addition, there is a very different case; there is the case of cattle bought at fairs in the Saorstát and shipped from ports in Northern Ireland. If Deputy McKenna's motion was adopted, I am not clear who would be liable for compensation in such cases. Would it be the Government from whose ports they were shipped or the country of origin? The bulk of the cattle bought in Sligo are shipped either from Belfast or Derry. I would imagine that the bulk of the cattle from Tirconaill are shipped through Derry, so that in the doubtful and disputed cases each Government would deny liability, creating friction between them. That is quite a different case, and it is not met by the motion on the Paper. I would like to suggest—it is only a suggestion; it would require much more than my resources to say whether it is entirely a practical suggestion — a general scheme of insurance for cattle under the auspices of the trade; insurance against foot and mouth disease as long as these cattle are in Irish hands and belong to Irish proprietors. The adoption of that would relieve the State of liability in cases where cattle are slaughtered for foot and mouth disease in Ireland. In return for being relieved of that liability legislation would be necessary. The usual barrier—the Minister for Finance—would probably not be set up in this case, because it would relieve him of a very considerable contingent liability. If the State were relieved from that liability it might reasonably be expected to guarantee the financial soundness of the scheme, and to facilitate the trade in organising it by every means in their power. Of course, actuaries would be required. It would be necessary to have calculations made, for no private individual has the means of making them—probably even the trade itself has not the means of making them. That does seem to be a way out of it, and under such a scheme the farmer would know for a certainty that his cattle were covered by insurance against the possibility of foot and mouth disease as long as they were in Irish hands. I think there is something to be said for that, and I hope that the Minister will take it into consideration.
