This matter arises from the following question which I put to day to the Minister for Lands:
"To ask the Minister for Lands whether he is aware that in a communication of the 13th October from his Department regarding forestry workers, it was stated that reasonable time off is allowed to enable labourers to attend Mass on Church holidays, provided the time lost is made up during the week, and whether this arrangement is the final result of the consideration of the question in his Department."
The Minister's reply to that question was that the answer was in the affirmative; in other words, that so far as he and his Department are concerned they are apparently satisfied that forestry workers who take time off to attend a Mass on a Church holiday must make up that time in the remainder of the week. This is, of course, not a new question. It has been raised in this House before on more than one occasion. It has been raised with the Minister on more than one occasion also outside this House by the organisation representing the forestry workers—the Federation of Rural Workers.
It was raised in April of last year, and in order to help the Minister to remedy the position that existed, representatives of the union suggested that forestry workers might be permitted to take Church holidays instead of the bank holidays which they are permitted to take at the present time. In a communication from the Department it was intimated to the union that this demand was rejected and that the Department would not agree to any alteration of the present system whereby forestry workers are given bank holidays and not Church holidays. Of course, everybody who has any knowledge of rural Ireland—and the Minister has a very thorough knowledge of it—is aware that that arrangement runs completely against the traditional relationship between employer and employee in the rural areas. The ordinary practice in agriculture where holidays are given at all is for the Church holiday to be given to the worker. I do not say that that applies generally through the country, but it applies where agricultural workers have succeeded in establishing it through trade union organisation.
Church holidays are regarded as the natural holidays in rural areas and in the case of forestry workers it was put to the Minister that these workers should be permitted to take the Church holidays with pay instead of bank holidays, but that was rejected. On Wednesday, 16th February, I raised this matter of Mass time for forestry workers, and in column 148 of the Parliamentary Debates, Volume 114, the Minister is reported as saying that no serious complaint had ever come to the Department from the forestry workers about having their wages cut for attending Mass on holidays. Then he said: "I think it is true that they have been victimised." In other words, he admitted last February that in his view the practice of penalising men— and that is what it amounts to—for taking time off to go to Mass on Church holidays was a form of victimisation.
That is going on still. If a forestry worker takes an hour or two off to go to Mass on a Church holiday the forestry branch in effect says to him: "You must make up that time". We are living in a Catholic country. We hear a lot of talk of what is happening in other parts of the world, of all sorts of oppression and interference with the rights of people to practise their religion. In this country we have always boasted of our religion, we have always boasted of the freedom which we afford everybody to practise religion in his or her own way. We are predominantly a Catholic country. The ordinary workers here are almost 100 per cent. Catholic, forestry workers in common with all the others. Despite that situation, which is well known to the Minister, we have the Department of Lands refusing to allow forestry workers one and a half or two hours off on the mornings of Church holidays to enable them to go to Mass unless they are prepared to make up the time in the remainder of the week.
I do not know on what basis the Minister proposes to justify this. He certainly cannot argue that the amount which would be lost if the forestry workers were paid would make any appreciable difference so far as the expenditure incurred in the running of the forestry section of the Department is concerned. It cannot be justified in any way because it is obvious to everybody that it is a complete negation of the custom and the practice in rural Ireland. It is un-Christian. It is certainly a surprising thing to me, at any rate, having had the assurance from the Minister earlier this year when I raised the question on the adjournment and following his answer to an inquiry of mine—having had the assurance that he would examine this subject closely and having had the impression from the examination of correspondence which he addressed to the union representing the workers that the matter would be re-examined. It is surprising to me to find that we have the decision of the forestry Department affirmed by him—that, in effect, the forestry labourers, the lowest paid men in the country—men who suffer the most rigorous hardships so far as outdoor working conditions are concerned; men who are paid even lower than the agricultural worker—will be penalised still further by cutting them in wages if they lose a couple of hours by going to Mass on a Church holiday.
I think this situation reflects the greatest discredit on the forestry section of the Department of Lands. I ask the Minister, in case it has happened that he has been rushed into a asty decision without seeing the full implications of this matter, to tell us for he considers this an equitable system and that the economy of the country demands, in order that the ship of State may be kept on an even keel, that he must not give a couple of thousand men permission to take one and a half or two hours off on the morning of a Church holyday to enable them to attend Mass. I would like the Minister to realise that this is a matter which affects areas other than my own constituency. It does affect my constituency to some extent, but there are comparatively few forestry workers in my area as compared with the numbers of them in the other counties. I raise this matter as one of principle. I think it is despicable that the particular practice to which I have referred should be indulged in by any Government Department. If that practice were adopted by private employers there would be an immediate outcry. I do not think the Government or the House should stand over this practice. I raise the matter in order to give the Minister some idea of the revulsion in the hearts of the forestry workers throughout the country because of this insidious practice. Even at this late stage I appeal to the Minister to take steps to remove the injustice under which these men are suffering.
