The Minister for Agriculture may, I think, be technically described as a corporation sole. He goes on for ever. The individuality of the occupant of the office for the time being is not revelant to our deliberations here. It is not enough for me to be informed or the Minister for Agriculture to be informed. Dáil Éireann is entitled to be informed when Dáil Éireann is asked to vote £14,000, and I think the Minister ought to inform Dáil Éireann.
I would like, under sub-head M (1)— Advertising and Publicity—to direct the attention of Dáil Éireann to the Irish Trade Journal of June, 1951; they will find there a paragraph in the terms to which I have just referred informing the public at large that on 23rd May the Minister has brought tomatoes under control and that he further warns all and sundry that he does not intend to issue licences for their import in the months of August and September. That notice appears under date 5th May, 1951, Tomatoes Regulation Import Order, 1948, and it concludes with the sentence: “It is not the intention that licences to import tomatoes should be granted during that period.”
I would like to know how the Minister reconciles that public advertisement with his indignant observations printed at column 820, Volume 129, of the Official Report. Like Deputy Sweetman, I believe that the powers of advertising and publicity can be of great assistance in the development of the agricultural industry, but they must carry conviction that the man for them responsible believes what he is saying. I do not think the Minister will now maintain that he believed what he was saying—or, did he?—at column 820 of Volume 129 of the Official Report. I suggest it is not a pleasant thing for a Minister to be convicted in open forum of stating what is not true. Can he deny that on that occasion he stated what was not true? I would not do that again if I were he. He is not looking for a job now. He has got it. Aspirants to public office may go a long way to get what they aspire to but, once they have become Ministers of State, they should not go on record as stating, in their capacity as Ministers, what is not true.
I do not want to rub the Minister's nose in this. It is not a pretty business. Under sub-head M (5) a scheme is provided for loans for the purchase of implements and milking machines. I think the effect is simply to raise the ceiling. That is all right, though I think it is unnecessary, because I believe the loan facilities available at present are quite adequate to meet any reasonable demands. Truth to tell, I am not much impressed by the necessity for granting loans of £700 and £1,000 to farmers for the purchase of machinery. I think the man who can use that amount of machinery on his land is damn well able to get his own machinery without loans from the Department of Agriculture. I believe the function of that Department is to step in and help the hard-working, honest, small man, who has no collateral, and who finds it difficult to get credit through the ordinary credit channels. When I am invited to facilitate a man to buy machinery worth £1,000 for use on his own farm, I must point out that there is ample scope under the land rehabilitation project to give such a man all the credit he wants to buy machinery under that scheme. I think a man who wants machinery costing in the region of £700 to £1,000 ought to be able to get that for himself without the assistance of the Department. However, I do not regard it as a matter of any great consequence.
I do regard it as a matter of consequence at this time to hold out to small farmers the temptation of easy credit to purchase heifers. I think that is daft—pure daft. The demand for heifers at the present time is very, very strong. The prices are their full value. If one makes available to a small farmer unlimited credit to go out and buy heifers with borrowed money, then past experience teaches us immediately that 80 per cent. of such heifers will be bought too dear. What is more natural than for a man who longs for the chance of restocking his holding and is firmly convinced that, by doing so at the present moment, he is likely to make more money, particularly as there is no question of his taking out his own warranty, putting down his own cash, and cutting his suit according to the measure of his own cloth, to go out and pay too much, put it on the long finger and find, when the tale comes to be told, that, by paying too much for his live stock, he has burdened himself with a repayment problem which consumes the profit on his heifers and on the land on which he has put the live stock.
The Minister must know the history of the previous heifer loan scheme when auctions were held all over the country. Most people who are familiar with that period can tell him that the vast majority of the cattle bought were badly bought in, that too much was paid for them by men who could not afford to pay too much, and ultimately the redemption value on these loans constituted an intolerable burden on those who had bought the heifers.
I would be glad to know from the Minister what is the present basis of the ground limestone subsidy and what does the average rate of transport per ton mile work out at? Has he decided in the light of the experience that he now has of the transport problem to zone the country? In the initial stages we determined to allow Córas Iompair Éireann, inasmuch as we knew the officers would do their best to operate the scheme as economically as it was possible to operate it, to deliver the lime at large with a view to determining by experience what the average ton mile cost would be, and by our experience deciding whether it would be expedient to zone the areas to which it might be carried free of charge to a certain circumference around each plant. I would be glad to know from the Minister what the fruit of his experience to date has been and whether he intends to proceed on those grounds or not.
I think the Minister ought to tell us whether he hopes to get the $5,000,000 which it was proposed by the previous Government to spend out of the Grant Counterpart Fund from the American Government because, of course, if he does, that should represent approximately £1,706,000 and ought to pay for whatever lime is distributed in the next five years.
Deputy Sweetman was right in saying that this matter had been considered before the last Government left office and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs recorded, as I read out earlier to-day, that the Government, before it went out of office, had put the appropriate proceeding in train. It is a pity that our successors fell down upon it, although I am not without hope that the good offices of the American Ambassador may retrieve their mistake.
I have heard rumours—if they are only rumours now is the time for the Minister to dispose of them—that some system of levies has been set up in connection with the meat export trade to America. If there is, it is very wrong. The Minister ought to tell us. We are entitled to know.
Under sub-head O (4) provision is made for this trade. It is a very valuable trade. I warn the House of this, that ever since the Department of Finance was instituted in this country they have always longed for the opportunity of getting the consent of some Minister for Finance in principle to a proposal to levy on the live stock exported from this country. Every Minister for Agriculture who ever sat in Merrion Street has always refused even to discuss such a proposal or to admit that such a principle is proper for discussion. A suggestion has appeared more than once, in the course of organising the carcase meat export trade and getting it in step with the live meat export trade, as to the expediency of operating a levy and bounty system in the business, but every Minister for Agriculture, I believe, has always recoiled from that device lest it might be taken as a precedent by the Minister for Finance to levy on the live-stock trade and to bring the proceeds of the levy into the general revenue. Surely the Minister for Agriculture will not initiate or set on foot a system of levy within the trade without informing the House of his proposal. I invite him to give us the details and to correct any misapprehension that anyone may labour under.
When are we going to hear of the setting up of the prices inquiry for the price of butter? Has it been set up? It comes under sub-head Q. The Minister ought to know it is there.
