asked the Minister for Agriculture whether the director of the E.C.A. in Dublin urged him in January, 1951, to introduce a scheme to spend £1,750,000 on the encouragement of liming the land on a greatly increased scale; and, if so, whether he will give the Dáil the terms of the communication which reached his Department from the E.C.A. on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Scheme for Liming of Land.
Mr. Walsh
A communication dealing with this matter was received from the chief of the E.C.A. Mission in Dublin, as stated. The communication does not lend itself to adaptation as a reply to a parliamentary question, but the main suggestion it contained was that the transport of ground limestone should be subsidised.
Does the Minister not consider that it was humiliating to this Parliament and to this nation to find that the representative of a foreign Government had to intervene to instruct the Minister for Agriculture in this country to adopt this lime-subsidising scheme which was so absolutely essential to get increased production in agriculture?
Mr. Walsh
Yes.