I want to express my complete and utter dissatisfaction with the reply of the Minister for Health to my question with regard to the wages of the agricultural labourers employed at Portrane, Donabate. Some 12 months ago representations were made to the Grangegorman Joint Board, which is the body with powers delegated from the local authorities to care for the institution and to look after the people who are working there. These representations were made by the unions representing the farm workers. Some 18 or 20 of these farm workers are permanent employees of the joint board, while some 30 are casual workers.
The Minister, in his reply, stated that one of the advantages which these workers are enjoying is that they have continuity of employment; in addition, they are given sick leave and have other advantages. That refers only to the permanent workers and not to the casuals, who are in the majority.
The original wage claim arose from the fact that the Grangegorman Joint Board found it impossible to obtain the necessary labour for the working of their farm at Santry Court, County Dublin, which is a subsidiary of Portrane. The reasons why they found it impossible to get that labour are obvious to anybody. Farm or rural workers of any category living on the fringe of Dublin City have to contend with economic conditions which are almost parallel with city conditions, and city workers' wages are related in so far as the unions can enforce them to city conditions; but in the county, in the rural area, in common with other rural areas throughout the country, the wages of the labourers are considerably lower.
It was felt, not alone by the workers and the unions, but by the members of the joint board, that an effort should be made to afford these men a chance to live. Following discussions which took place between union representatives, a sub-committee of the board, and Mr. T.C. O'Mahony, who was then manager of the institution, a recommendation was made to the Department to increase the wages of these workers to £4 per week. One of the vital considerations which influenced both the manager and the joint board in this recommendation was the peculiar set of circumstances that surround the employment of farm labourers in Portrane. Practically every one of these workers, numbering 50 in all between casuals and permanents, are men of long experience, some of them with over 20 years' experience on the farm. Even the casuals have ten years' experience in many cases.
A farm worker with 20 years' experience of working on a well ordered farm is not a labourer in the accepted sense of the word; he is a skilled operative; he must be, in the nature of things. Yet we have the position that these men, with their years of experience, are receiving 60/- or 65/- per week, while unskilled workers in other departments, men assisting boilermen—boiler-makers' helpers—are receiving wages £2 per week in excess of those being paid to highly skilled farm labourers. I feel sure that was one of the considerations which influenced the decision of the joint board. It was with the utmost disappointment and surprise that I heard from the Minister to-day that he did not propose to implement this decision. It seems to me that in this matter the Minister is merely following in the footsteps of his predecessor, that he is allowing himself to be shackled by precedent and, in fact, I would suggest that he is allowing the restricted and conservative outlook for which the officials of the Department of Health and of Local Government, as it formerly was, became notorious throughout this country. He is allowing that particular outlook to be forced upon him.
I do not consider that it is at all a wise thing for the Minister to reject the recommendation of the joint board. Several statements have been made by leading spokesmen of the inter-Party Government to the effect that we stand for maximum control by the local authority. That is a principle which is dear, I am sure, to every one of us on these benches; but in this case we find it is being abrogated. I feel that the Minister should not make a final decision on this matter without further consideration.
In 1936 the wages of farm workers in County Dublin were 27/6 per week and the wages of farm workers at Portrane were 39/6 per week. The Grangegorman Joint Board have always had the reputation of endeavouring to deal as equitably as they possibly can with their employees. In the case of builders' labourers, a number of whom are employed there, the joint board has chosen and the manager has recommended and, I take it, the Minister has agreed to sanction, the payment to them of the city rate in order to give effect to the principle of allowing these men sufficient wages to enable them to live. The Minister appears to be anxious to tread the same road in regard to policy as his predecessor. I believe that that policy is very badly applied in this case. I have had an opportunity, in discussions about wages, of dealing with the farmers of County Dublin for a number of years —and the farmers of other counties too, I may say.
The sole argument which has been put up by the employers among the agricultural community against the payment of higher wages to farm labourers is their inability to pay. They admit, and I have even heard their spokesmen in this House state, that farm labourers, as a body are, at the moment, underpaid. They claim that because of the condition of agriculture that they are unable to extend wages beyond their present limits. This is not an argument which can be advanced by the joint board, nor, apparently, does the joint board wish to advance it. The Minister referred in his reply to the fact that the minimum rate for agricultural labourers, as fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board, is 65/- per week in the county, particularly in this part of it. One thing that I am happy to say is that the rate fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board does not run in County Dublin; the majority of farm labourers in County Dublin have been organised for some years past in a trade union founded by the late James Larkin, as a result of which they have secured a shorter working week—50 hours in summer and 47 in winter—a weekly half-holiday and annual holidays. When the Minister, then, refers to the fact that farm workers at Portrane are enjoying these conditions, he should not understand that these are exceptional conditions, but that they operate in the bulk of the farms througout County Dublin. At the present moment, we have a situation developing in the institution of Portrane whereby men who have worked on the farm for 20, 21 or 22 years and who, as every Deputy in this House will readily appreciate, are very skilled workers, are now being forced to apply for unskilled work in the engineering department as boilermen's helpers, simply because it will mean a wage increase of £2 per week.
There is no equity, nor can any argument be adduced to justify the continuance of the payment of these men at so low a wage. I feel that it is incumbent upon me to protest in the strongest possible terms against the decision of the Minister. I would ask him to review that decision, to examine the matter more closely, and, in doing so, to bring into this question an element which has hitherto being lacking, an element of humanitarianism, and a recognition of the fact that farm workers are skilled men, and men who are just as entitled to decent wages as any other section of the community.
I would also like to point out that as far as the Agricultural Wages Board is concerned, it does not purport to fix maximum rates. Quite the contrary. I have a strong recollection of discussing with the chairman of the Agricultural Wages Board and with Deputy Dr. Ryan, one-time Minister for Agriculture, the question of minimum rates for agricultural wages, and on each occasion it was pointed out that these rates as fixed by the board were the minimum below which no employer could pay and be immune from the penalty of the law. It was stated that many farmers do pay more. It is true that employers do occasionally pay more, but not very many, to my knowledge. I would like to impress upon the Minister the fact that it is a very bad precedent, a very bad principle, for a local authority to be forced against its will to pay an unsatisfactory wage.
Finally, I will again appeal as strongly as I possibly can to the Minister to break those conditions that these men have been suffering under for so long, to resolve that the claim of these workers will be adjudged just, because anything less than this figure of £4 per week in County Dublin is a starvation wage and we have got city conditions to deal with even in the rural areas. I shall be glad if the Minister will indicate in his reply that he does intend to review this decision.
