The purpose of this Bill, as has already been explained by other speakers, is really simple. Its purpose is to remove a very unnecessary and irksome discrimination against what is held to be one of the most essential sections of our community, a section which has frequently been lauded to the skies for the very useful work they do, particularly during periods of crisis, of economic stress—the agricultural workers. In season and out of season we hear them being lauded to the skies, but when we come to translate that praise into action, I fear that very little in the way of practical support is given to these eulogies which are so often poured out.
In the social code there is discrimination shown against them, in so far as they are the only people who are denied an annual holiday. If they were domestic workers, industrial workers, or commercial workers, they would be entitled, under statutes passed by the Oireachtas, to get an annual break, and while it may reasonably and fairly be argued that there was a stronger case for granting an annual holiday to people engaged in certain forms of industrial work than to those engaged in agriculture—that may, to an extent, be true—it could reasonably be argued that, when it was applied to industrial workers, it was not applied to particular sections but was spread over all sections. The building trade worker, who works in the open air, has much more varied work to do than the agricultural worker, who also works in the open air. The surroundings of the latter are rather dreary, working as he does from dawn to dark, whether in the cow byre or the milking pen. He has a very dreary round of drudgery from one year's end to another, and it is felt that such workers have a reasonable right to grouse against having been specially selected by existing legislation for deprivation of what is regarded as necessary for every other type of worker.
We hear about the flight from the land, and there can be no question that the agricultural worker is wakening up, is looking at the conditions enjoyed by those who go in amongst the lights of the cities and towns and asking himself why he is regarded as a pariah when this House comes to pass legislation. The discrimination is not confined to this particular social legislation. On previous occasions, when particular measures were passing through the House and when we asked for a little practical sympathy for rural workers, a very deaf ear was turned to our suggestions. When it came to a question of the purchase of their homes, there was a very dull response from the Government Benches, and when we recently sought a reduction in the rents of these workers, who previously had been lauded as being great fellows for. having fought on behalf of the farming community in previous campaigns, our proposals were turned down, not once but twice.
Now we come to the social side of the matter, and when they find that the domestic servant and the industrial and commercial worker, in whatever sphere, are entitled to this annual holiday, they rightly ask why they should be specially selected for a 52-week year. I think the granting of this annual holiday would be good for the community generally and for the health of the agricultural worker and would not delimit his output in any way—in fact, it would increase it, because if you have a more contented agricultural working class, you will get a better output at the end of the year. If they could look forward, as can their fellows in the cities, towns and villages to an annual break, if it were possible for them to commingle with their fellows in the towns and cities in respect of what are called holiday savings clubs, organised under the auspices of the tourist association and which are having a very good effect, not alone from the point of view of the actual holiday but from the point of view of the encouragement of the thrift habit amongst these workers, it would mean a very big uplift in the output of the agricultural worker and his wife and family if he could look forward to a week's or two weeks'—one week would perhaps meet the case—annual holiday.
Let him come up and see Dublin. His only hope of seeing Dublin now is when his county wins the hurling semi-final and goes on to the final in Dublin. He is then packed into a crowded train, if he is lucky enough to get a train, or, if he is enthusiastic enough, he will come in a lorry and risk prosecution. He wants to come up and see the bright lights. Would he not like to see his Deputies and legislation being discussed in this House? It would be a great attraction, and he ought to be entitled to come to Dublin, or to go to the seaside, and to get away from his dreary surroundings once a year. He is entitled to it by the nature of his work and by every canon of right and justice, and the House should agree that he should not be debarred any more than other workers who are catered for.
There is another anomaly which I think is even more glaring than the differentiation between country and town workers. It is that the domestic worker even in the country gets the holiday. If, for instance, a person is engaged on the farm in some domestic work such as washing dishes, sweeping up, bed-making or any other activities incidental to home-keeping that person is entitled to the holiday. If, however, a person is engaged in milking cows or looking after poultry—very essential work—the law prescribes that that person is debarred from getting the holiday. The anomaly in that case has gone to great extremes.
There is one stamp for one and two for the other, and it is the cause of endless friction and confusion, I have been told by people engaged in farming. That seems to indicate that those engaged in agricultural work are looked on as a kind of untouchables. We praise them, on the one hand, and, on the other, we definitely set them on one side as a class in themselves who must remain outside the pale of social legislation and who are to get no amelioration of the dreary conditions of their work. I commend this Bill to the House. It seeks merely to repeal the penal section in the existing Act which debars these people from getting what has been given to others, and I appeal to Deputies to give it favourable consideration and to see that the agricultural worker is brought into line in this respect with the other sections of workers already catered for.
