I take this opportunity of making a fairly general review of the situation in agriculture as it affects the people whom I represent, in the main. While I am not going to indict the Minister with complete responsibility for what has occurred, one of the most significant features of the economic impact of falling prices in my constituency is the difficulty that has arisen owing to the bad price for turkeys last year, and the egg situation,and the dead fowl trade at the moment. It may be that, when concluding, the Minister may be able to indicate that a brighter period is ahead.
I think the Minister is well aware of the fact that places such as West Cork and, indeed, some of the other Gaeltacht areas where the people went in extensively for fowl, are feeling the difficulties of the present situation. I do not intend to involve myself in an argument as to responsibility. It is sufficient for me to direct the Minister's attention to the fact that unless this uncertainty and this slump that has arisen in that particular industry is effectively arrested, and unless the Minister can show a way to a future in that particular trade, we are in danger that the rapid expansion we were able to get in that industry may be counteracted by an extraordinary contraction. I am not saying that the Minister could have influenced in any way some of the circumstances that caused this slump. It is possible that our costs of production could not enable Irish producers to compete against the surfeit of this commodity that appeared from other countries. However, if the poultry industry, as such, is to survive, I suppose the Minister realises as well as I do that unless there is some return by way of margin of profit for the effort that is put into the industry, it is not likely to remain a feature of our economy. It is a feature in our agricultural economy that is very germaine to the normal life of the smallholder such as I have the honour to represent. It has been a significant part of the agricultural economy in West Cork over a long period. When I talk of the difficulties in the poultry industry there, when I ask the Minister to prognosticate as to what the future for turkeys may be, I do not do so in a spirit of seeking political advantage or in an anxiety to create political difficulty. I do so purely on the basis of trying to get the departmental view and the Minister's view as to the continuation of this particular branch of agriculture in a practical economic way in the future. It is unfair that people who may be concentrating on this type ofproduction should not be given due and ample warning and guidance from the Minister as to the alternative they might pursue rather than to allow them to run themselves into continuous difficulty in this particular trade if its future is fraught with difficulty. I want the Minister to accept my anxiety with regard to this trade in the spirit of one who is anxious to preserve that particular adjunct to the economy common in my constituency at the present time so as to ensure that the people engaged in that particular branch of agriculture will have a reasonable return for their labour.
Another important feature has occurred in the economy of West Cork. Again, I am not, at this particular stage, going to lay the responsibility at the door of the Minister. Suffice to say that the present Minister was vociferous in his criticism, while he was in opposition, of his predecessor, in this particular regard. There is quite a slump in the flax industry in West Cork. It may not be of consequence, in general, to most constituencies in Ireland but in my constituency, apart from being a highly remunerative cash crop, it was also responsible for the giving of considerable employment. We had a number of scutching mills in operation in my constituency that absorbed a considerable labour force over a long period of the year. I know that the Minister can say that this matter is outside his control but I recollect that when his predecessor was in office and took the line that he would not allow the Northern spinners to dictate what the price of flax would be in this country, and when he told them that he would not accept a differential between a grower on one side of the Border and a grower on the other side of the Border, the present Minister for Agriculture, who was then a Deputy on the Opposition side of the House— as well as some of his colleagues— was vociferous in his criticism. In the light of what has subsequently occurred, I think that that tempest of fury was very ill-advised.
I do not suggest for a moment that responsibility can be placed on any Minister for the present collapse butI do think it fair to say that, at least, there was no lack of responsibility in the action taken by the Minister's predecessor. I feel the present Minister could again give guidance if the Minister feels—and he is the person who can assess the situation properly —that it is more advisable to direct these people in West Cork to get out of flax and to go in for the production of certain alternative crops. I think he should have the courage to issue that type of directive and that type of appeal before the season arrives for getting the land ready for flax.
I am not going to suggest, and I think it would be unreasonable for me to suggest, that the Minister can directly influence the price of flax in future seasons. Whether it is possible to preserve the flax industry on an economic basis, outside periods of war or emergency, is a question, I would say, that needs far more careful analysis than can be provided by casual references in debate, but I do feel, involved as I was in the controversy that arose on the flax issue, that the attitude then adopted by the Minister's predecessor has shown in its ultimate result how right his conception was of the reliability to be placed on contact with the Northern spinners.
The difficulty that confronts the flax industry is that when a man has his flax grown and dam retted, he is at the mercy of these people when it comes to the question of price and he is also at their mercy when it comes to grading. Bearing in mind the sitution that has arisen in connection with linseed oil and linseed cake, and the experiments carried on by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, which have just been approved, I am wondering if the Minister might not experiment with the possibility of developing flax for seed purposes so as to leave us less dependent on outside supplies of linseed oil. I know I have been told that the Department does not think this is feasible, but I would say, from the experience of some people in that area, particularly that of a former member from West Cork, now the Leas-Chathaoirleach of the Seanad, Senator O'Donovan, thatit is possible to grow flax in West Cork, particularly in the more isolated areas, that has a very good seed content. I would urge on the Minister that in dealing with the flax problem he might experiment wisely with the possibility of developing our own natural resources for the supply of that very necessary commodity, linseed oil.
I shall pass from flax and poultry, leaving the Minister, I hope, under no misapprehension that both of them from the point of view of my constituency are problems of considerable magnitude. It may be that in the national picture they may not have the significance that I try to give them in this House, but the Minister will readily appreciate, representing as he does a farming community himself, that to people on the particular type of holdings and in the isolation in which the people of West Cork live, these problems are of major importance.
We have difficulties—I find it difficult myself—to arrive at a conviction with regard to ceiling or shall I say, floor prices for cereal crops. Pressure has been brought to bear on various occasions with the object of securing that a floor should be put under the price of oats. In fact, it was a most vociferous demand of the Fianna Fáil Party, on the eve of a Donegal byelection, that the Government should buy oats at a certain price. Subsequently some of the very people who availed of the Government purchase of oats had to pay an enhanced price to the Government to get it back. To arrive at what might be regarded as the floor price for oats one has to try to estimate accurately the supply available and the potential shortage that may arise at the back end of the season.
Barley is a sore problem, how sore the Minister has experienced, because he knows the cynicism of some farmers who listened to him explain the barley situation during the East Cork by-election on one Sunday morning when the Minister and myself had occasion to clash. It was idle to talk to them of the price for barley when they had in their pockets—such of them as accepted the price—contracts from themaltsters at considerably reduced prices. Possibly the difficulty which arose was not in the main the responsibility of the Minister himself, probably it arose in the main from an omission of the Minister rather than from any culpable act of his, because a situation had undoubtedly developed, fathered by his predecessor, in which you had an excellent feeding barley grown which, in quality, reached and rivalled barley of any other type grown in the country. You had ymer barley of first quality produced in the country and commercial interests reaping a harvest at the expense of the producer. That difficulty has left a problem in relation to barley that will not prove easy of solution. As well as that, it makes for a distinction between barleys that, in the light of what was bought by the maltsters and distillers in the past year, really should not exist. Because an equal quality article is grown under contract it commands an infinitely higher price than the same quality article not grown under contract. Such difficulties and distinctions have bred uneasiness and uncertainty in the minds of the barley growers and that position calls for immediate attention from the Department now.
I have always subscribed to the belief that the basis of our agricultural economy is effectively epitomised in the adage of our late Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Paddy Hogan:—
One more cow;
One more sow;
One more acre under the plough!
If that particular agricultural economy is to find its logical conclusion it is essential that the Minister and his Department should by way of encouragement and price stimulant urge the farmer to grow more and more of the feeding stuffs we require in order to ultimately ship our beef on the hoof, our pork and our poultry into the markets they command. It is now becoming more and more evident that we cannot have a capricious type of agricultural planning. We can no longer have, as we have had in the past, the basis of our agricultural economy twisted in the political arena. There is no doubt Irish land can produce infinitely more than it is producing at present.There is room for tremendous expansion.
I charge the Minister with certain neglect in that respect. One cannot conceive any sincerity in urging our farmers to increase production in a situation in which the agricultural community is being asked simultaneously to suffer the shock and strain of grossly increased costs of production, plus an increased burden of taxation. Let us analyse the reality, if any, of the Minister's approach to our agricultural economy. But for the wavering and uncertainty of some Deputies on the recent vote of confidence we would have had the farming community asked to bear a still further impact. Though Deputies Cogan and Lehane may try to claim credit for arresting that impact that is not the case. It was the arrival of Dick Barry and Mark Deering into Dáil Éireann that provided the real reason why the design to further bludgeon the agricultural community was blunted.
