Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 24 Mar 1955

Vol. 149 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.

I think it might be more convenient for the House if I began by mentioning the sources from which the savings of £447,390 are derived to offset the supplementary sum of £424,400 plus £23,000 of deficiency in Appropriations-in-Aid. There are savings of £447,390 on sub-heads M (9), O (5) and O O (5). Sub-head M (9) relates to the land rehabilitation project. I think the House will understand that the same circumstances that created our difficulties in the Shannon Valley of excessive rainfall and bad weather restricted the ability of contractors working under the land rehabilitation project to carry out as much work as it was hoped they would. The result is that we have £122,390 on hands which we expected the contractors to have earned before the 31st March but which, owing to the inclemency of the weather, they were actually unable to earn. Of course, that money will come in course of payment next year if the work is done.

With regard to Sub-head O (5), there is a saving of £25,000 on the sum provided for the redemption of fertiliser vouchers tendered for payment. It was anticipated that a sum of £41,783 would be claimed by holders of fertiliser vouchers but, in fact, it was not. This is a dwindling service and we have to make a very approximate Estimate in each financial year for a sum which will come in course of payment for these vouchers. The payments cannot be made if the vouchers are not tendered but, according as they are tendered, they will be paid.

Sub-head O O (5) relates to the Grain Storage Loans Act. As is so often the case in matters of this kind, legal procedures relating to mortgages, deeds, and so forth, take a great deal longer to carry to completion than any rational anticipation can provide for. A number of the loans on foot of works done towards increasing storage and drying accommodation cannot be advanced until title documents have been completed. We estimate that the £300,000 which we expected to be in a position to disburse to applicants this year will not, in fact, be disbursed in this financial year, but will have to be found next year, as soon as the legal formalities in connection with title and such like matters are completed.

Now to come to the sub-heads of the Vote. Sub-head E (5) relates to the inquiry into costs of milk production. It was hoped that this inquiry would have completed its work before this financial year began at all and therefore only a token sum was provided. In fact, however, a variety of circumstances have arisen which make it, as we are informed, necessary for the clerical and statistical staff on the inquiry to continue their work for some time, co-relating and evaluating the material which has been collected by field workers. In that connection, I think it right to say that I am not infrequently asked why I do not provide the public with the report of the Milk Costings Commission. The answer is that I cannot provide the public with a report of the Milk Costings Commission until that commission provide me with their report. I do not think it is expedient that I should press upon them that they should waive any procedure that they, in their discretion, think necessary to produce their report. Therefore, I can only await the completion of their operations. As soon as the report is available to me I will make it available to everybody else.

Sub-head G (3) provides for £40,000. This sum is required to complete the winding-up of Eggsports, Limited, which has been in the hands of a liquidator, Mr. Vincent Crowley, of Messrs. Kennedy and Crowley, Limited, Dublin. Mr. Vincent Crowley was appointed official liquidator. I think he has now reached the end of his labours and this sum represents a final payment in the winding-up of Eggsports, Limited. It is well known to the House that my predecessor and myself were not in entire agreement on the expediency of winding-up this business. However, I do not believe any useful purpose would be served in stirring up the ashes of a now dead controversy. Whatever the merits of the case may be, Eggsports, Limited, have been wound up and, once the matter has been placed in the hands of the liquidator, it only remains to enable him to finish the job this House decided he should undertake, in the period of my predecessor's occupation of office.

Sub-head H requires £8,000 and this Charge comes in course of payment on foot of a scheme operated in the previous financial year under which the Government undertook to recoup the county committees of agriculture for certain demonstration plots which they were asked to establish to demonstrate the value of the user of appropriate fertiliser mixtures and, in certain areas, the remedying of cobalt deficiencies. It was possible in the vast majority of cases to recoup the local authority for the expenditure in the financial year in which the plots were laid down, but certain of the local authorities were not able to complete their vouching in that year and this £8,000 represents the balance of unvouched expenditure which was vouched in the course of the present financial year and for which provision has to be made.

Sub-head L (2) represents the total outlay of the Department of Agriculture in the discharge of the duty put upon it by the Government to maintain and supervise the Bryce bequest. This bequest came to the Government under the will of the late Mr. Roland L'Estrange Bryce, who died on the 4th December, 1953, and left certain property at Glengarriff, including Garnish Island, to the Taoiseach in trust for the State until some special body would be set up for such purpose. I do not think I need go into a detailed description of Garnish Island, when I tell the House that having attempted to discharge the duties involved in its supervision and maintenance for some time, I approached the Government and said that in my judgment the Department of Agriculture was not properly equipped to deal with such matters at all and that the property ought to be transferred to the custody of the Minister for Finance and the Board of Works, who have machinery for handling property of this kind. The Government accepted that view and therefore, as from the 31st March of this year, responsibility for the maintenance of Garnish Island will be transferred to the Board of Works— and doubtless on an appropriate occasion an account will be given to the House by the Minister for Finance as to the future of the bequest.

In regard to sub-head M (3), for a sum of £2,000, this includes £595 for the printing of a volume of the register of dairy cattle and £1,405 for the printing of the Department's agricultural leaflets. As the House is aware, we have to print leaflets as they are required. We are constantly trying to revise the leaflets, to withdraw those that have become out of date, and to substitute up-to-date leaflets for those withdrawn. In addition to that, I am glad to inform the House that we have at last filled one serious lacuna in the leaflets available from the Department, that is, that the leaflet on sheep has now been prepared and is in process of being printed. When we have it available I think it will constitute a very valuable addition to the range of leaflets available for the public. Perhaps I might take this occasion to remind the public and the farmers of this country that they can get any of the Department's leaflets for nothing— simply by asking for them. A "halfpenny postcard"—or indeed a postcard without a stamp on it at all—addressed to the Department of Agriculture asking for any leaflet published by the Department will I hope be answered by return of post with a copy of the leaflet—free, gratis and for nothing— to any farmer in good faith who wants to peruse it.

Mr. Killilea

Is there no hope of the bound volume?

Mr. Dillon

Yes, I sympathise with the Deputy's anxiety to see it restored. I am hoping that before this day 12 months all four volumes will be available. We have given up the practice of binding one volume and we now bind the leaflets in four volumes, each one containing related matter. I hope they will be available, but I cannot undertake to provide them free of charge. They have to be purchased from the Government Publications Office for a very modest sum and I think the Deputy will agree that anyone who invests in them gets ten or 100 times the value in money.

Sub-head M (5) is for the provision of a sum of £13,400. This is in connection with the scheme for payments on foot of the guarantee given to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, Limited, to recoup irrecoverable losses on loans made by them under the schemes of loans for the purchase of cattle and sheep and agricultural implements and machinery, including milking machines.

The additional provision of £13,400 includes £310 subvention paid to the corporation for their services in the administration of the scheme of loans for the purchase of fertilisers and ground limestone. For its services in operating this scheme, which was introduced on 26th January, 1954, for a period of 12 months, the corporation receive a subvention of 3/4 per cent. per annum on the average daily balance of loans outstanding from time to time under the scheme. This subvention fell due on 25th January last. Seven hundred and five advances were made by the banks involving a total of £57,000. This scheme is being continued up to 30th June, 1955.

It also provides for the principal and interest payable to the Agricultural Credit Corporation on behalf of the Co-operative Fruit Growers' Society, Limited, Dungarvan. This society was founded in 1950 for the production and marketing of apples on a co-operative basis. Two loans, one of £95,000, the other of £20,000, were obtained from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, Limited, the Exchequer guaranteeing both as to principal and interest. As the society's initial capital outlay was considerably in excess of the sum originally estimated for, lack of working capital became a serious embarrassment to the society. Growers' confidence in the venture weakened; they felt little encouragement to increase their acreage under apples. At the end of 1953, the society's membership had not increased to any extent since its foundation and the acreage was considerably less than the final target of 800 acres of dessert apples.

In order, therefore, to restore the growers' confidence in the venture, it was decided, with the approval of the Government, that payments of interest due by the society on the advances totalling £115,000 should be made by this Department for the period 2-5-1953—1-5-1959 and that payment of instalments of principal should be made by this Department in any year, up to 1st May, 1957, where the society is unable to pay such instalments. Any sum so paid by this Department in respect of principal will be repayable by the society after 1st May, 1957. In the current year a total of £13,078 4s. 3d. consisting of £4,937 7s. 7d. principal and £8,140 16s. 8d. interest has been paid by the Department to the corporation.

A token provision of £10 in respect of the scheme of loans free of interest for farmers who suffered serious losses of live stock, fodder or fuel as a result of the recent flooding in the Shannon area constitutes the third item in this total.

Sub-head M (8) deals with grants for the construction and improvement of farm buildings, £250,000. This is an interesting sub-head, because the demand for farm buildings grants has so far exceeded the Estimate prepared at the beginning of the year that we had to provide an additional sum of £250,000.

Mr. Walsh

Denoting the prosperity of the farmers.

Mr. Dillon

I cordially agree. Since 1948 up to date we may look back with satisfaction on the fact that "one more cow, one more sow and one more acre under the plough" has made the farmers so prosperous that they are becoming extremely difficult to advise and direct.

Mr. Walsh

Hear, hear. No depression there; no depressed prices for agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

Is it not a pleasant thing? Business is good. The Deputy will remember that, each year he was Minister, I was constrained to say I found great difficulty in moving to refer his Estimate back, because I found the general policy pursued by him corresponded so closely to mine. But for the fact that I thought the Deputy a bit seedy on the job, I found some difficulty in proposing the motion to refer back his Vote. I think the Deputy and myself have every reason to congratulate ourselves that we clove so closely to the line laid down by me in 1948 right down to to-day that we can look our colleagues in the face and say that, in very truth, agriculture is what matters in this country and but for agriculture for which the Deputy and I have spoken for the past eight years the rest of the country would be in a very serious plight.

Mr. Walsh

God forbid that we would be so close.

Mr. Dillon

I quite agree with the Deputy that it is a most admirable thing to discover that the farmers find themselves encouraged by the system of farm building grants and the state of their general finances to build what should have been built years ago, the hay barns, without which their farms are manifestly incomplete. They are building them now in great style, with the remarkable result that we have to make this very substantial additional provision for the farm buildings scheme, and I need hardly tell the House that it is a pleasure to the Government to be called upon to make it, because it is evidence of a growing appreciation on the part of the agricultural community of the necessity for equipping their farmyards adequately with hay barns.

I should draw the attention of the House to the fact that on 14th December, 1954, it was decided that no grant would be paid after 15th January, 1955, in respect of a hay barn which was not covered with galvanised iron of domestic production. That arrangement caused some concern amongst merchants who had laid in stocks of galvanised iron of foreign manufacture and everybody proceeded to get hot under the collar, but with a little patience and forbearance, I think a very satisfactory way is being found out of this difficulty by providing that where erectors of hay barns, that is, contractors who erect hay barns, had large stocks of imported iron, they will be allowed to use up to 50 per cent. of their stocks of 22 gauge and a somewhat lesser percentage of 24 gauge iron during the next 12 months. We have no doubt that, as time goes on, we will be able to help them to work off whatever stocks of imported iron they have on hands, so that the changeover to the exclusive user of galvanised iron of domestic production for sheds or buildings subsidised under the farm buildings scheme will be accomplished without causing anybody inconvenience, and, more especially, without causing unemployment in the establishment of any hay barn contractor.

Mr. Walsh

Will the Minister be able to give a guarantee that the farmers can get the iron?

Mr. Dillon

Of domestic production?

Mr. Walsh

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, but certainly——

Mr. Walsh

After four months' delay.

Mr. Dillon

As the Deputy, having been Minister for Agriculture, will fully realise, his anxiety and mine is to see the hay barns put up and covered. Both of us have colleagues whose great anxiety is to see their pet industries kept humming, and just as the Deputy on occasion was obliged to work these things out with his colleagues, so I worked these things out with my colleagues, and I hope that better success will attend the deliberations of my colleagues and myself in meeting the legitimate requirements of the farmers and, at the same time, providing a steady market for the Haulbowline corrugated iron factory than perhaps attended efforts at an earlier stage.

Mr. Walsh

There was no hold up with us.

Mr. Dillon

In any case, I do not think the Deputy need worry on that score; but if any cases come to his attention where the operations of the farm buildings schemes are being held up owing to the difficulty that contractors are unable to get supplies of domestic corrugated iron, if he will get in touch with me, I shall be most happy to collaborate with him in resolving any difficulty that arises and I should greatly value his assistance in keeping me informed of any hold up or difficulty that comes to his notice.

There is a sum of £85,000 under sub-head M (13) for the bovine T.B. eradication scheme and perhaps I had better say a word about that. This scheme, as the House knows, was launched on 1st of last September and it is being operated on two separate lines: (1) in the intensive areas, and (2) generally throughout the whole country. I think the House may be interested in certain statistical material. The intensive areas constitute the Counties of Sligo and Clare and an area which, for convenience, we may describe as the greater Bansha area. The greater Bansha area for the purpose of to-day's discussion consists of the eight parishes of Bansha, Cahir, Galbally, Golden, Lattin, New Inn, Oola and Soloheadbeg and Tipperary. Certain interesting facts have already emerged, one of which is that, in County Sligo, only about 6 per cent. of the cows so far tested have proved to be reactors. In Limerick, the percentage is very much higher. In the greater Bansha area——

Mr. Walsh

Has the Minister got the Limerick figures?

Mr. Dillon

I have.

Mr. Walsh

Could you give them to us?

Mr. Dillon

If you want them—50 per cent. I thought the Deputy might have displayed a little tact. In the greater Bansha area, this interesting fact was obtained. Over the area as defined by me to-day, the incidence is 43 per cent., but——

Mr. Walsh

In the parish itself?

Mr. Dillon

Will you wait until I come round to it? In the parish of Bansha itself, the incidence is only 24 per cent.——

Mr. Walsh

After five years, it is still 24 per cent.?

Mr. Dillon

——in 158 herds tested.

Mr. Walsh

That is bad.

Mr. Dillon

Remember what it probably was when we began.

Mr. Walsh

Yes, but every effort was made to clear it out there.

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Walsh

Then we had not got the co-operation.

Mr. Dillon

The full measure of this present scheme was not in operation in Bansha. A very much more attenuated scheme was in operation there. In regard to County Clare, 12.8 of all animals tested up to the end of February have proved reactors and 22.5 of all cows tested have failed to pass the test.

I think the House may wish to know that the numbers of application forms received to date from the general and special areas combined are 22,442 covering 215,195 cows and heifers and 224,666 other stock so that the demand for the facilities available has exceeded our most optimistic anticipations. We are, I believe, keeping abreast of it but I cannot disguise to the House that the resources of the Department are being taxed to the limit to keep abreast with the demand. That is a very good thing. I think the House will now, perhaps, realise why I was obliged to withstand urgent pressure from many Deputies to extend the intensive areas. If I had given way to that pressure, when the matter first came before the House, I simply would not have been able to deal with it. I hope that when we have got the back of the work broken in these areas and the machine working smoothly we will be able to take in other areas with a reasonable measure of dispatch.

I want to remind the House of the fact that the eradication of bovine T.B. is a long-term enterprise. No country in the world has completed it yet, I think, but those countries who have got near to completion have been from 20 to 25 years on the job. It will take us something like that. It is a big job over the whole country. I am satisfied that we are getting along so far satisfactorily.

I am glad to inform the House that, whereas at first I was obliged to say that we could provide the double grant in respect of cow byres to those who joined the scheme only in the intensive areas, I am now authorised by the Government to say that participants in the scheme, whether they live in intensive areas or outside them, will become entitled to the double grant if they collaborate with the Department in converting their holding into an attested holding and provision is being made from the National Development Fund to meet this charge.

Grants will be made available for the extension of a piped water supply to farmyards and farms in the case of participants in the scheme. Deputies will remember that under the land rehabilitation project it was possible for a farmer to bring water to his kitchen tap but not beyond it. It was represented very strongly to us that it would greatly assist in raising the standard of live stock and husbandry on attested farms if it were possible for the farmer to bring the water to his farmyard. Accordingly, provision is being made for those who participate in this scheme whereby they will be entitled to grants to enable that to be done. I need hardly tell the House that I am dealing relatively inadequately with the sub-heads but I put myself at the disposal of Deputies to answer any queries they may raise in the course of discussion.

I now turn to the last item which constitutes part of this Supplementary Estimate. That is the item where provision is made for the relief of the Shannon floods situation. I wish I were in a position to tell the House that the outlay of £20,000 satisfactorily disposed of the problem in regard to the flooding of the Shannon valley but I am sorry to say that any such representation would be far from the truth. A very careful investigation regarding the circumstances obtaining in that area obliged the Government to come to the House with what appears to me to be a pretty staggering commitment.

Under the general authority given to me to collaborate with the local people in the relief of urgent and immediate distress certain disbursements were made the terms of which I shall furnish to the House in a moment. Over and above that, the House will bear in mind that we undertook effectively to remedy the position of persons whose homes were perennially flooded by the Shannon in that area, either by their transfer to other areas where an exchange holding would be provided for them or by such change in their housing conditions on their existing land as would render it impossible in the future for their homes to be invaded by flood water in any circumstances. I am obliged to tell the House that we estimate that the total cost of that operation may involve the Exchequer in a charge of up to £90,000.

Further, we have decided that it is proper that we should arrive as near to certainty as we can on the question of in how far it is prudent to carry out public works on the Shannon river itself and to restrict it more closely to what is commonly known as its summer bed. We had this matter examined in years gone by by the engineers of the E.S.B. and the engineers of the Board of Works and it was thought on the whole that if public confidence was to be secured the best thing to do was to ask the Government of the United States of America kindly to place at our disposal engineering consultants who in consultation with our own experts would offer the Irish Government a conclusive opinion of how best the problem of flooding in the Shannon valley could be dealt with.

Accordingly, communications have been proceeding between the American Ambassador and the Government and His Excellency has very kindly undertaken to represent to the Government of the United States that such expert advice should be placed at our disposal. Just as soon as the American Ambassador is in a position to inform us of what experts the Government of the United States can offer, we propose to arrange for a suitable survey to be held. Depending on the completion of that investigation, we cannot accurately estimate what the charge will be which will come in course of payment on foot of whatever recommendations these engineering consultants may make to our Government and on foot of whatever decisions Oireachtas Éireann may take on foot of whatever recommendations it becomes our duty to place before them.

I think the House will agree, although the sum is substantial, that you could not continue to have every four or five years a situation arising in which emergency measures had to be taken and the Army taken out to evacuate people from their homes and require them to make their way home and to town in boats and spend a considerable part of their life tramping around the kitchen in gum boots. Therefore, a survey has been made by inspectors of the Land Commission and those persons resident in the area who have asked to be migrated will be provided with alternative holdings elsewhere. I am not surprised to discover that the great majority of the people canvassed in the area do not want to be migrated, but they do want to be transferred to houses which will, in future, be immune to flood.

There is one point I think I ought to mention. This is something which has not been resolved but which, I think, will have to be resolved finally. A good many of those people who have shown extraordinary fortitude and attachment to their homes would press upon us the desirability of raising the floor of the kitchens, or even raising the fireplace, and raising the floor of the stables so that they could continue to live in flooded premises, keep a coal fire on the hearth and ensure, oddly enough, that their cattle would not be left standing in the wet. They would be quite prepared to stand in it themselves. I doubt if such an arrangement would be prudent.

I do not see the point in asking Oireachtas Éireann to provide vast sums of money to carry out radical improvements in this area if, having carried them out, we are to be faced with a situation year after year hereafter that these people are themselves trampling around in one or two feet of water in the kitchen, with the fire lifted above the flood and the cattle in the cowhouses, likewise, lifted above the flood. Therefore, I feel we ought to say to the residents in this area: "You will have to agree, if you want to have your household conditions improved, to a house being erected on ground sufficiently high to ensure that in no foreseeable subsequent inundation of the Shannon valley will the water reach your kitchen floor."

Mr. McQuillan

Will the Minister give us an idea of the number of families who wish to stay in their present dwellinghouses and have the fireplaces lifted above the flood?

Mr. Dillon

I will try to find that out.

Mr. McQuillan

I would like to hear the number.

Mr. Dillon

There is no use in the Deputy getting excited about it.

Mr. McQuillan

Oh, no. I have not met such people.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy will join with me in saying that it is his opinion, as it certainly is mine, that however understandable this yearning may be, we ought to stand fast and say: "No"——

Mr. McQuillan

I would like the Minister to give us evidence that that feeling is there.

Mr. Dillon

That is my information. However, whether it is there or whether it is not, I would like the House to endorse the view I am submitting now. I think we ought to say: "No." I think we ought to say: "We are prepared to provide you with housing that will exempt you from any probable possibility of inundation hereafter but we are not prepared to spend public money lifting the cattle and the fire out of the flood and leaving you and your children to trample about in one or two feet of water on the kitchen floor." But even though we reject their view, let us not fail in sympathy and understanding to people who are intensely attached to their homes. Remember, somebody who has been living in a house and has not seen it flooded, except maybe once in ten or 15 pears, does not find the prospect of moving easy. It is very hard to say to that person: "We will not do anything unless you give up your old home." Suppose they reply that they will not give up their old home, I do not think there is any power in this House to make them give it up. But I think we are entitled to say to them: "If you make up your mind you will not give up your old home, I will not ask Dáil Éireann to spend public money to carry out certain improvements in that old home which fail to achieve the primary purpose Dáil Éireann has in mind, namely to lift you and your children out of the flood."

Mr. McQuillan

Would not the health inspectors come in there?

Mr. Dillon

When I am inside my own house, the less health inspectors who come in to see it the happier I will be. I want to run my own house in my own way. If that does not please the health inspectors they can go and visit other people. I am quite prepared to help the public health inspectors in public places, but anyone who comes in to sniffle around my house will be thrown out; and the same goes for my neighbours in the Shannon valley, and if they want help from me in that respect I will be glad to go down and help them and, if we find ourselves in the dock——

Mr. McQuillan

Or in the Shannon!

Mr. Dillon

I do not think anybody ought to go around sniffing about in houses—either my house or the Deputy's—if we are rearing our families as we should rear them. That is a general principle. I am obliged to concede there are exceptions to it. It is a general principle that the less people there are knocking their way into private homes the better it is. However, I think we are entitled, when asked to spend public money inside a person's home, to insist upon certain minimum conditions; if the inhabitants do not accept these minimum conditions, then I think we are entitled to say we will not spend any public money, and there will be no hard feelings. I would be glad to have from the House confirmation of the view that we should not spend public money unless we have some certainty that this evil from flooding will not occur in some future year.

I have a list here of all those affected. We surveyed 2,000 odd holdings in detail. I have a detailed list of the circumstances of each one. I had, as the House knows, the invaluable co-operation of Colonel Collins-Powell, without whom, I want to say in public on this first opportunity I have, control of this situation could not have been secured. The work done by Colonel Collins-Powell night and day throughout this whole area is beyond praise. This episode has resulted in a fuller appreciation by the people of how much we owe the Army and the men who command it, not only for their primary duty of defending the country but for their invaluable availability in times of emergency on behalf of our people, rich and poor.

In paying that tribute to Colonel Collins-Powell, I know he would wish me to add this: it speaks volumes. When I first went down to survey this area I called at Kiltoom where a number of affected families were being looked after by the Army. I think I mentioned this in the House before—I made no apology for repeating it—the day I called at Kiltoom the officer representing Colonel Collins-Powell was at headquarters in Athlone transacting some business there, and there were only N.C.O.s and men in Kiltoom. When I went in I expected to speak to people who had been moved from inundated homes and to hear little but bitter complaint about the grievous sufferings they were undergoing. I was both astonished and delighted to hear from them nothing but praise and admiration for the soldiers and the N.C.O.s because of how good they had been to them and the excellent care they were taking of them. I thought it was an admirable thing to see our people being looked after by soldiers and I suddenly recalled that this was neighbour looking after neighbour, and that that was the way they felt about it. To the humblest private on the Athlone unit, to the officer in charge of the whole area, I think everybody in this country has every reason to be particularly grateful for the invaluable help they gave, help which nobody else could have given in the initial stages of this emergency and right throughout it to the very last day when I wound up the committee in Athlone last Monday.

I should be very remiss if I did not mention the invaluable assistance that Colonel Collins-Powell and I had from the county managers, the county agricultural officers and secretaries of county committees of agriculture in the area who, by their specialist knowledge and advice, and indeed, who by the operation of their own local services, made invaluable contributions to the work we did. One must not forget also the agricultural instructors, and, of course, it goes without saying that the officers of the Department of Agriculture tried to fill every gap. I forbear from uttering any words of praise for the officers of the Department of Agriculture. They did no more and no less than I expected of them. They did everything that required to be done. If they did less I should have been shocked. That they did all that was necessary was merely a vindication of my confidence in the invaluable public service that they continue to give day in and day out.

I think, perhaps, I should tell the House how we went about it. Where it was necessary to remove the people into Army accommodation, we fed them and housed them and looked after them while the houses were flooded. Where it was necessary we moved their live stock either on to neighbours' land or on to Army land and we foddered their cattle until it was possible to put them back to the land whence we had taken them. When the floods subsided sufficiently to permit the people to go home, there were, I think, 97 families whose houses had actually been invaded by the waters and in each of these cases a local relief committee in Athlone granted them on our recommendation, £20 and one ton of coal to help them to dry out the houses. Furthermore, the local committee gave to each family where there were children a supplementary grant of £5 per child under the age of 16 years in each house. Where there was a shortage of fodder we asked farmers all over the country to send us fodder and where they were not able to send it, they accumulated it around their own districts and we sent Army transport for it and brought it to Athlone.

A number of commercial firms whose generosity has been recognised in the public Press sent gifts of concentrated feeding stuffs and feeding material of one kind or another. A great number of individuals sent fodder of one kind or another. Macra na Feirme, I believe, are sending a substantial sum of money. Muintir na Tíre helped to gather fodder and foodstuffs of one kind or another for live stock and these were distributed to the people. The Sugar Company made available a certain amount of concentrates at, I think, £28 per ton and as much as they sent us was sold to people who wanted it at cost, or whatever was charged for it without any profit. All that we got for nothing, we distributed gratis and in addition we bought some fodder where that was necessary in order to supplement what we had received by way of gifts.

The next problem, after providing those who required it with hay and feeding stuff and roots, was to try and shorten the time as much as we could when relief of any kind would be necessary and with this in view we surveyed all inundated farms to find out if we could find a four- or five-acre paddock which we would intensively fertilise with a view to getting early grass thus rendering them independent of hay or fodder from the previous harvest. So I think on about 97 holdings we distributed a specially compounded fertiliser in concentrated form "free, gratis and for nothing", so as to avail of the earliest possible bite of grass for live stock on the holdings.

I felt—and Deputies in this House felt—that there would be a danger of serious outbreaks of parasitic diseases among live stock in the area consequent on this flooding and so we examined every beast on every farm, and we dosed 2,000 cattle in the area with a suitable mixture and left a supply with every farmer to repeat the dose after a suitable interval.

Finally, we went all over these cases again with a view to determining where hardship threatened. The House will remember that I was emphatic when introducing the Estimate in asking advice from every side of the House and I think I got it from every side of the House, that in so far as making compensation on the basis of loss was concerned we simply could not do it because we had not the resources to do it and that we must confine ourselves to relieving distress. Therefore, when we carried out all these remedial measures and the Shannon had returned to its bed and physical flooding was no longer there we made a survey of the area to see what persons could be truly said to be suffering from distress as a result of the experience through which they had passed. Having determined that list of persons, grants ranging from £20 to £105 per family were paid in cash of which in every case the local relief fund paid the first £20. If a man got only £20 the local fund paid him £20 and we paid him nothing. If a man was found to require as much as £105 the local fund gave £20 and we gave £85. I understand that all that having been done there is still a not inconsiderable sum remaining in the hands of the relief committee in Athlone. If any exceptional case of hardship emerges which has escaped our dragnet I have no doubt such a case will be sympathetically considered by the local committee.

I am bound to say I am very conscious that no matter how much we did in this area we cannot hope to have pleased everybody. We did not at any stage anticipate that our best efforts would be hailed as an unqualified success, but this I can say with a clear conscience: we left after us no case of distress which had not been relieved and if we erred at all in the cases which we fell to consider, invariably we erred on the side of generosity rather than parsimony, believing that in doing so we correctly interpreted the mind of the Dáil under whose authority we were acting.

A final word about the special circumstances that existed in Castle-hackett area, that is the Tuam area. His Grace the Archbishop of Tuam sponsored a relief fund for a flooded area in East Galway and as he had no machinery at his disposal for carrying out a survey similar to that which we were in process of making in the Shannon valley, he asked if we would assist by surveying the area for which he felt himself to be responsible and make suggestions to him for the carrying out, where required, of relief of distress. We were happy to be able to do that. We did make such a survey and placed all the information we thought requisite for proper dealing with the situation in the hands of the committee set up by the Archbishop. I am glad to say that so far as I know they had ample funds at their disposal to meet every proper requirement of those who experienced distress in that area. So far as we know the area in question is unlikely to constitute any charge on public funds for the relief of distress.

I remember when this matter was under review in December last, both the Taoiseach and the Leader of the Opposition emphasised how eminently desirable it was that although the State had expressed itself as ready to bear the burden if necessary, it was no less eminently desirable that voluntary effort among our own people would produce substantial contributions to the relief of our neighbours' distress. I think we have reason to be proud of the fact that such generous gifts were forthcoming both in cash and kind from all sorts of people who were distressed by these events.

I do not think it would be right if I did not say that many offers of help were forthcoming from generous friends and neighbours in countries all over the world but, by unanimous agreement of the House, we felt that the dimensions of our difficulty would not justify our trespassing on the benevolence of willing helpers had we thought fit to call upon them and so we did not accept subventions of an inter-governmental kind from any source. But the fact that we did not accept them should not prevent us availing of this occasion to say how truly grateful and appreciative we were of the many offers that were made and how happy we were to know that there were good friends in Governments all over the world who, had we required their help, were eager and willing to give it. I think we should take this occasion to say that should similar circumstances afflict other countries in similar conditions, if our help were needed, small as it might be measured by the sum of our resources, we would hope to place it as cheerfully at our neighbours' disposal as our neighbours so generously expressed their readiness to help us in the months now happily past.

To give an adequate and detailed survey of matters of this kind would mean talking at altogether inordinate length in an introductory statement of this kind. I do not propose to inflict that upon the House but I repeat that if there is any aspect of this matter with which I have failed to deal adequately I only await interrogation so that I may repair any omission.

Mr. Walsh

We have listened to the very eloquent speech made by the Minister for Agriculture regarding the flooding in Dublin and on the Shannon.

Mr. Dillon

No, Sir. My colleague, the Minister for Local Government, will move an Estimate subsequent to this.

Mr. Walsh

Well, the Minister mentioned the flooding. My belief is, rightly or wrongly, that we would have heard nothing from the Government about the Shannon flooding if it were not for the bursting of the Tolka banks. It was only then that we heard that the Government in their generosity were giving £20,000 to the sufferers on the Shannon and they think they have done everything that could be done for the unfortunate people there. The floods in September, October and November of last year were not confined to the Shannon. There were floods on the Suir, the Nore and the Barrow but we did not hear anything from the Government regarding compensation for the people who were flooded there. It was only when an outcry was raised in Fairview and other quarters in Dublin that the Government adverted to the question of doing something for the people on the Shannon who were suffering.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy will remember that I had fallen into the Shannon flood before the Tolka ever broke its banks.

Mr. Walsh

So you might. We did not hear very much about it. However, I shall not deal with the question of the Shannon flooding. There are people better qualified to talk about it than I am.

I am sure it was not very pleasant for the Minister to come to the House this evening and inform the House that he was unable to spend £500,000 that was voted for agriculture last year. I know the Estimates were not his Estimates; they were my Estimates. I find that the one work that the Minister would have wished to have carried out was the one he failed to carry out, that is, land reclamation. He found that he was unable to spend £122,000 on that work. I wonder what the people sitting on the opposite benches would have said to me if I had come into the House last year and informed them that I was unable to spend £100,000 out of the Vote on land reclamation. I see the Minister for Lands is looking through the list now to see what I did spend. He need not go to the trouble. I can tell him. It was about £2,400,000.

Mr. Killilea

He is looking up the flooded area.

Mr. Walsh

That may be. I am surprised that greater effort was not made by the Minister to see that this £122,390 was spent on land reclamation.

Mr. Dillon

Unless I put up umbrellas all over the country, I could not.

Mr. Blowick

How much did his predecessor spend?

Mr. Walsh

The Minister makes the excuse now that he needed umbrellas last year but when the unfortunate people were trying to save the harvest he said that there was not 3 per cent. of the wheat lost. You cannot have it both ways. If there was not 3 per cent. of the wheat lost last year the land was not wet enough to be unable to carry a tractor. It was a difficult year in which to carry out reclamation work but reclamation work does not consist entirely of drainage. Removal of scrub is part of that work and that seems to be one of the jobs that have been neglected over the past 12 months. In 1952-53, between drainage and removal of scrub, we reclaimed 100,000 acres. I know there are parts of the year when drainage cannot be carried out. That applied in 1952-53 as well as in 1953-54 or 1954-55. It applies every year. In October, November and December work cannot be carried out on drainage schemes but there is other work that can be carried out, such as the removal of scrub. We carried out that type of work with the result that we were able to spend very nearly £2,500,000 in a year on the reclamation of 100,000 acres.

There is another item here—the grain storage hold up, as I call it— which the Minister states was due to legal difficulties. I do not believe a word of it. I believe it was due principally, if not solely, to the change of Government last June.

Mr. Dillon

It does not make a ha'porth of difference. It is all bespoken.

Mr. Walsh

The incentive was gone. People who had intended to invest money in the erection of storage came to the conclusion that there would be a change of policy. They were right. Events proved they were right, there was a change of policy.

Mr. Dillon

The money is all spent. The £300,000 is spent.

Mr. Walsh

That is not spent.

Mr. Dillon

But it is spent.

Mr. Walsh

Why is it appearing here?

Mr. Dillon

It has not been lent to them yet because they have not completed formalities.

Mr. Walsh

They are never going to do it.

Mr. Dillon

They have done it. They have spent it.

Mr. Walsh

You told me these cases are being left in abeyance.

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Walsh

At the time I left office there was only one miller in this country who had not made preparations to erect storage. There was only one miller who was not prepared to do that and he was in the City of Dublin. Every other miller was prepared to go ahead with the work. There is no use in telling the House that the hold up was due to legal difficulties. It was due to a change of policy.

Mr. Dillon

I am telling the Deputy the money is spent.

Mr. Walsh

There was £300,000 there——

Mr. Dillon

I am telling the Deputy it has been spent.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Walsh must be permitted to make his statement without these interruptions.

Mr. Walsh

That is the reason why the Minister was able to come in and tell us that we did not spend the money in 1954-55. If there had not been this change——

Mr. Dillon

Would the Deputy allow me for a moment? I seem to have misled the Deputy. The £300,000 is spent and I thought I had made that quite clear. We cannot advance the money to the firms concerned with the building of the storage accommodation for the recoupments to their bankers until they clear the title, if the Deputy understands me. But in fact £225,000 of the £300,000 of which the Deputy is now speaking has been spent.

Mr. Walsh

We were not told that.

Mr. Dillon

Perhaps I did not explain it fully. The fellows who are building the storage have spent it or have undertaken to spend it and they have a claim on us for it. We will not give it out. We have promised them £225,000 but we will not issue it until they complete——

Mr. Walsh

My recollection of the thing was that the advances were to be made in three portions, the first on the erection of the building, the second on the roofing and the rest on the installation of the machinery. If there has not been a change in policy, surely some of the money should have been paid.

Mr. Dillon

As I was about to say, the only thing that is stopping payments is the completion of the necessary legal documents.

Mr. Walsh

Will the Minister tell the House that these stores are erected by the millers or their agents and that the money will be paid out?

Mr. Dillon

Yes.

Mr. Walsh

And is the Minister telling the House that that is true?

Mr. Dillon

I am.

Mr. Walsh

I am satisfied with that and I accept it. I do not, of course, know whether we have sufficient storage or not yet. That is not a matter that should engage our attention at the moment; we shall have plenty of opportunities to raise that question at a later date. I shall turn instead to the other side of the question—the moneys that are now needed. I shall deal first of all with the £4,000 for milk costings. I can well understand why there has been such a delay in the submission of that committee's report. First of all how many officials are engaged in preparing or compiling the necessary figures? I understand the figures have not been supplied to the committee to date. When the committee deal with the figures available they will submit their report to the Minister. At the beginning of the compilation of these figures there were 25 people engaged in the work. Would the Minister tell the House how many are engaged in the work at the moment?

Mr. Dillon

Certainly, as soon as I get the information.

Mr. Walsh

That is probably one of the reasons for the hold up.

Mr. Dillon

I think there are 14 engaged in the work at the moment.

Mr. Walsh

Is not that one of the reasons why the report of this costings committee is being delayed?

Mr. Dillon

They have not asked me for any more people. They are welcome to them if they say they want them.

Mr. Walsh

I wonder if the Minister for Finance would say the same thing. According to the Minister now, the delay is not his fault but the fault of the people dealing with the milk costings. Let us assess the blame where it should fall.

Mr. Dillon

I am sorry, there are only eight of them working on the costings at the moment. The number has been reduced from 23 as a result of resignations, appointments to other Departments, etc. There are now only eight officials engaged in the work.

Mr. Walsh

And there are no replacements?

Mr. Dillon

If they want replacements they will get them. They have made no complaints.

Mr. Walsh

Some of these people on the committee, as reported in the public Press, have been discussing the reason for the delay.

Mr. Blowick

Who have?

Mr. Walsh

I have seen a statement made by the president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, who is a member of the committee, asking why the figures have not been submitted.

Mr. Dillon

Is not that a queer situation?

Mr. Walsh

The Minister should let the people know who is at fault. I am sure it will be made known before this debate is finished. The Minister has already said that it is these people who are at fault not merely for the delay in the preparation of the report, but for failing to get sufficient staff to compile the figures. I know that when the committee was being set up in the first instance I was asked to supply the staff. Ten of the members were given from the Department of Agriculture and we got 13 graduates as well. I understood that there were two others added later. The Minister's figures now indicate that there were 23 appointed altogether, and we will take that as being correct. The Minister dealt at length with this question of the non-payment of grants for imported iron for hay barns and farm buildings. I could produce documents to prove that the people responsible for the supply of iron throughout the country are unable to supply it. I know of one case where a person ordered a ton of five, six, seven, eight, nine foot sheets. All he could be supplied with were five foot sheets in May. He could not get the other types of iron until August. Must the farmers' work be held up in this way, especially during the summer period, which is the best time for the carrying out of all improvement jobs, because there is no iron in the country or because the Minister has decided that grants are not payable on imported iron?

Mr. Dillon

May I trespass on the Deputy for a moment to ask him to let the Department know or to let me know of any such cases?

Mr. Walsh

The Department has already been informed of this.

Mr. Dillon

I am very much obliged to the Deputy.

Mr. Walsh

I can send the documents as well. I should like also to mention that the cost of the home iron is £7 a ton more than imported iron— the difference between £68 and £75.

Mr. Dillon

I am told it is the same. If the Deputy will help me in this matter I shall be very glad to have it remedied if possible.

Mr. Walsh

This information should already be in the Department's possession.

Mr. Dillon

Did the Deputy send it in?

Mr. Walsh

I sent some in myself and I know that other evidence was sent forward. What effect is this going to have on farm improvements generally? It is going to mean a widespread hold up. I am just as anxious as the next man to see that Irish industry makes progress and that it flourishes. I am very anxious that we should produce as much as we can at home, especially of materials which go towards the development of our agricultural economy, but if there are cases where the home industry is unable to supply the home needs it is a different matter. I have documentary evidence that iron is not procurable in the quantities required and I hope the Minister will do something better than the 50 per cent. he is doing at the moment for the people who are already well stocked with foreign iron. A number of people have had applications made for grants and they were unable to go on with the work at the time. Now, however, they find that if they had not the work completed before a certain date their applications in respect of foreign iron will not be accepted for grant purposes. Their applications would not be acceptable if the work had not been inspected before a certain date even though the application was lodged in time.

Mr. Dillon

If the work had not been approved before the 18th January.

Mr. Walsh

The supervisor might not have called round at that particular time. I was informed of one particular case where the application was made before the 18th January but approval had not been received on that date. The applicant has since been informed that if he uses foreign iron he will not get the grant. I was very surprised when the Minister mentioned the results of the Bansha scheme for T.B. It is five years in existence now and I might as well say that I was never overfond of it because I realised that neither the Minister of 1949-50 nor myself in 1951, 1952 or 1953 got the co-operation we should have got in the carrying out of the scheme.

Why I say I am surprised and unhappy about the situation is this. If you were unable to get co-operation in the parish of Bansha, where you have Canon Hayes leading Muintir na Tíre and where possibly you would get greater co-operation than in any other parish in Ireland, I have grave doubts if we are going to eradicate T.B. in the time we hope it will be eradicated. Unless there is co-operation there is no hope of eradicating it. I can give an instance. I remember people coming up to Dublin in 1952, going down to Grange to inspect heifers there, looking at them and saying they were not as good as the ones that could be purchased at the fair, coming back to the Department, getting money, going down to County Tipperary and buying heifers there. These were well tested. They were tested in Grange but they refused to take them with the result that 50 per cent. of the heifers that went in there were reactors. My recollection is that around 1952 the incidence of T.B. in Bansha was about 12 per cent. I see it has gone back to 24 per cent.

Mr. Dillon

Was it 12 per cent. of all cattle?

Mr. Walsh

No, 12 per cent. of cows. That looks very bad for the future of the eradication of T.B. all over the country.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy would not mind my interrupting him for a moment, I will give him this information. If the people have their applications registered prior to the 15th January, 1955, even though an inspection does not take place until subsequently, they can use foreign iron. If the Deputy knows of any case in which that is not authorised, if he will get in touch with me, I will put it right.

Mr. Walsh

I see that Sligo has only 6 per cent. reactors. Is it the Minister's intention or the intention of the Department to concentrate on Sligo for the purpose of replacements in the other areas? Clare, with the incidence of 12½ per cent. of cattle or 22.8 per cent. cows does not seem now to be the most suitable place for getting replacements. Sligo seems to be better. Has the Minister that in mind? Having regard to the low incidence of T.B. in Sligo it might be selected as a county from which he could get replacements because, if we are going to make a success of eradication, the replacement is going to be the big problem. There is at least 10 per. cent. wastage, representing about 120,000 cows each year to be brought back. We have 1,250,000 and we need 120,000 for replacement all over the country. If Sligo could be selected and held as a replacement centre it would be one of the ways in which you could help the Clare, Limerick and Tipperary areas to build up. Otherwise I am afraid that if you are going to rely on the present method of having replacements made from the Department farms you will never succeed.

The only other question I wanted to speak about was this question of Dungarvan, not a pleasant baby—I know the Minister realises that now. Here again it is a lack of co-operation. If there was co-operation from the apple growers in that area, things might have been better. My first criticism is that it was placed in the wrong area. It should never have gone to Dungarvan. If it had been erected in the apple-growing district in Piltown, Kilkenny, it would possibly have been a success. But from my experience of the Dungarvan people there is an annual trip to Dublin now for money and I see the Minister is just continuing that. I had for the past couple of years been paying over money and I wonder when is that going to stop? I did not like to do anything that might injure the Minister's baby. I nourished it as much as I could while I was there. I think there is pretty good evidence of that but I see the Minister himself still continuing that so far as Dungarvan is concerned.

Mr. Dillon

I confess the Deputy will have a gala day if he lives to see it go down. I rather suspect the Deputy is hoping it will go down.

Mr. Walsh

We will wait until the bill is paid and then I am afraid we will have lost our wisdom teeth.

Mr. Dillon

I think it is worth attempting.

Mr. Walsh

Yes, if you want to lose money. But if the Minister had put it in the right place it might have been a success.

Mr. Dillon

It might be a success yet.

Mr. Walsh

But it will take many years. There are other Deputies anxious to speak on the flooding in the Shannon area so I will not delay. I think the truth in this case is that we would not have heard anything about the flooding on the Shannon if the Tolka flooding had not occurred.

Mr. Dillon

I fell into the Shannon before the Tolka broke its banks.

Mr. Walsh

I saw the Tolka flooding myself. In fact I happened to be travelling through Fairview when the track of the water was on the walls there. I can say I saw worse flooding in villages in my own county and there was no talk about it. We had no outcry at all. I could give instances of places where there was much worse flooding.

Mr. Dillon

I wish Deputy Traynor was here.

Mr. Walsh

But when the people in Dublin started to complain the Government had to take notice. Notwithstanding what the people down on the Shannon suffered, each farmer or sufferer was compensated to the extent of £20. I think that was the figure the Minister mentioned.

Mr. Dillon

No, up to £105 in some cases and we are committed to the extent of a further £90,000.

Mr. Walsh

I take it the £90,000 is in connection with the Land Commission scheme for replacements or is it actual cash?

Mr. Dillon

Migration and the building of new houses.

Mr. Walsh

I take it that figure is a Land Commission figure, the cost of migration?

Mr. Dillon

Migration and the building of new houses.

Mr. Walsh

But the actual cash the Government has spent on the Shannon flooding is £20,000? Is that quite true?

Mr. Dillon

Has spent. I do not think it is all spent yet.

Mr. Walsh

Not even £20,000?

Mr. Dillon

We will be spending, I am afraid, over £100,000.

Mr. Walsh

Does the Minister not realise that £20,000 is not fair compensation?

Mr. Dillon

We did not try to compensate anybody.

Mr. Walsh

It is no compensation.

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Walsh

Why?

Mr. Dillon

Because my charge was to relieve distress.

Mr. Walsh

Why were the people in Fairview compensated?

Mr. Dillon

I do not think they were.

Mr. Walsh

I think they were. In many cases I think they were overcompensated. From what I heard, whether their stocks were totally damaged or not they were paid for in full. That is my information in regard to many of these shops along Fairview.

Mr. Dillon

I do not think that is true.

Mr. Walsh

It is my information that it is true. In the Shannon area and not merely in the Shannon area but, as I have said, in the Nore, Suir and Barrow areas, where we had severe flooding, there was no compensation for these unfortunate people. There would not have been any compensation for anybody in the rural areas had it not been for the people on the Tolka. However, there are Deputies in the House who are better qualified to talk about the Shannon and I will leave it to them.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Davin)

I want to refer, and only very briefly, to that portion of the statement made by the Minister in connection with the Shannon flooding, the distress and the problems arising therefrom. I was personally very glad that the Minister himself, at the request of the local association of residents and farmers, came to the very representative meeting that was held at Banagher in the early days of January. Previous to that, the Minister, by personal visits, made himself fully acquainted with the position in the area at that time. I intervened in this debate because it was only yesterday, at very short notice, that I met the selected spokesman of the residents' association who came here without any previous notice, as far as I am concerned, in the hope that he would get the Minister to discuss the present position and certain proposals that he wished to put to him on behalf of the local people.

The Shannon flooding has got to be faced from two different angles. One is, how far the Minister or the Government can go to relieve the immediate distress which confronts the people in the area affected. The Minister has given particulars here to-day of what has been done up to the moment, but I understand there are problems yet to be faced and dealt with, namely, what is likely to be the position in regard to fodder for the live stock in the area in the autumn of this year. I am not going to put before the House or the Minister the points which were made to me yesterday at short notice, because I pointed out to the spokesman concerned that I would prefer, in the first instance, to have a discussion with all my colleagues in this House who represent the constituencies that surround the Shannon area, namely, Roscommon, Galway, Longford, Westmeath, Laois and Offaly. Deputies of those areas met on many occasions previous to the flooding.

I would like, before going to the Minister, or before making any suggestions to him in this House, or outside the House, to hear the position fully explained by the officers of the Shannon Residents' Association, and then, perhaps, the Minister would be good enough to hear a small deputation of Deputies who would put before him not alone the views of the residents' association, but their own views, so far as they were prepared to support the views and proposals of the residents' association.

It may be said, and has been said, that the Shannon Residents' Association is not fully representative of all the people concerned. That may be so, and there may be some other committee that can claim to speak on behalf of the people affected in other parts of the Shannon valley area. I would like members of this committee to put their heads together, and then to approach Deputies. I would like the Minister to give an assurance that, at some later stage after these discussions, he will be good enough to hear the considered opinion of the Deputies representing the affected areas, and a small number of those representing the residents affected.

I was delighted to hear the Minister, when he spoke with the authority of the Government at Banagher, announce that, through the good offices of the American Ambassador, application had been made for engineering experts who are internationally known in matters of this kind, to come from America. I hope the arrangements will be completed at an early date, and that, when these experts visit the Shannon valley area, they will consult beforehand with our own experts before this year is out. The sooner this is done the better. You have to deal with the immediate distress and the reasonable requests of the people concerned, and try to get agreement between the engineering experts who have promised to come here, and our own experts, as to what can be done, as soon as possible, to prevent a recurrence of the disastrous flooding which took place, particularly in December of last year.

I will join with the Minister, as I did elsewhere, in paying a well deserved tribute to Colonel Collins-Powell, to every one of his officers, and to the members of the Army, for the invaluable assistance they rendered at the right time. I think that, without their assistance at a critical time, and their intervention in the effective way in which they undertook their duties, many lives would have been lost, and much more property destroyed. No words of mine could convey to them the grateful thanks of the residents for whom I claim to speak. I also want to say that, from the information at my disposal, the people concerned acted in a very cool and reasonable way, and that the claims so far as I know made by them to the local committee, and probably directly to the Minister himself, could be regarded in the majority of cases as very reasonable. I do not know whether it would be possible to meet all their claims fully. I suppose it would not.

I heard the Minister, in his statement—I had not heard it before—referring to the request that some of the people living in the affected area should be provided with financial assistance from the State to enable them to remain in their homes even under flooded conditions. If I have an opportunity of conversation in the near future, I will certainly discourage anybody who would make silly suggestions of the kind referred to by the Minister. I do not think public money should be wasted, as I believe it would be wasted, in meeting, I suppose, what would be regarded as a small number of people making applications of that kind. I do not think it would be wise from the point of view of the number of people who should be asked to accept alternative holdings elsewhere. I think, before this is pressed home on the people concerned, a decision should be taken by the Government, arising out of the report of the engineering experts, as to what, if anything, could be done to prevent a recurrence of the flooding. It might be possible for the Government, acting on the advice of the American experts and our own engineers, to prevent a recurrence of the disastrous flooding, either by building embankments, deepening the river, or widening it. Let us wait to hear the collective wisdom of those experts who are coming here, before pressing the people who live in the Shannon valley area to go to alternative holdings.

I can assure Deputy Walsh that when I was down there I had very painful experiences. I have had the honour to represent the constituency for nearly 34 years, and I never met men who experienced anything like what was seen following the disastrous flooding of December last. In my view, a lot of the people who insisted on remaining in their homes to watch their live stock as well as their families are entitled to our congratulations for their courage in doing so—especially under circumstances such as those under which I saw some of the people trying to exist during that particular period. Not alone could you not use the lower portion of some of the houses at Shannon harbour but you would have to get a boat to bring you from a certain point alongside the Shannon to a house and then you would have to use a ladder to get to the second storey of the house, where two-storey houses were affected, as, to a great extent, they were affected by the flooding.

I make this appeal to the Minister— and I am sure he will listen to it—to try and use his good offices to get these American engineering experts here as soon as he can and, in the first place, to get them to consult with our own engineering experts. I would put this final suggestion to the Minister that, before the engineering experts who are coming here take a final decision, presumably after consultation with our own experts, they should first hear the viewpoint of some of the engineering advisers who have been helping the Shannon Farmers' Protection Association for some years on this vital and very difficult problem.

When the Minister is replying I should like him to tell us who was responsible for the allocation of fertilisers that were recently distributed to many of the farmers living in the flooded areas. I have been informed that some of the people who were lucky enough to get a supply of fertilisers neither applied for them nor were expecting to get them and that some people who had made application and believed they were entitled to get a share of them have not so far received them. I should be very glad to know who was responsible for the allocation and distribution of these fertilisers that were recently distributed to those concerned in the area.

Mr. McQuillan

I wish to say a few words in connection with the alleviation of distress caused by flooding in the Shannon valley. I have already referred on a number of occasions in this House and outside it to the methods used by the Government to deal with this distress. In the course of a debate, the Minister interjected during the speech of the former Minister for Agriculture to emphasise that he fell into the Shannon himself. He was trying to convey, in other words, that he knew all about the Shannon flooding and the serious conditions that obtained in that valley long before disaster overtook the residents in the area. I do not dispute that he knew all about it: he did. As he himself said, he was nearly drowned in the Shannon when he went to visit the area and have a pow-wow with those people whose homes and land were flooded. We are all delighted and thankful that he was not swept away in the Shannon floods. However, when he did visit the area the best hope he could hold out to the people there was interest-free loans. He held up his hands in horror at the idea of compensation and gave it as his view that no Government could for a moment tolerate the idea of compensation. However, he said that interest-free loans would receive his sympathetic consideration.

Quite a number of people in the area felt very depressed when they heard this news but, a few weeks afterwards, the Tolka came to their rescue. A few weeks later, the River Tolka took a trip outside its banks and did a certain amount of damage in Dublin. Then every Deputy in Dublin City, whether Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour or Independent, tied himself up in knots in his efforts to get into the Taoiseach's office to ensure that the unfortunate people of Dublin would be compensated for the losses they suffered at a result of flooding by the River Tolka. Of course, it was the first time that Dublin residents and Deputies realised that water can be used for more purposes than for washing themselves or for making tea. It was the first time they realised what the unfortunate people living along the banks of the Shannon have had to undergo by way of hardship year after year for the past 30 years. I have, of course, the greatest personal sympathy for those people living in the Tolka area who suffered losses and whose homes were damaged as a result of the flooding. However, as the saying has it, out of evil cometh good. The fact that the Tolka overflowed gave hope to the people living in the flooded Shannon areas that they would be compensated.

I have always regarded the Minister as a strong-minded and strong-willed man. As an individual, he gives the impression to the public that, no matter what Government may be in office, he is one man who will stand up for the rural community. I know that certainly he can throw his weight around. However, when we compare what he has squeezed out of the Government for the people in rural areas with what has been squeezed out of the Government by the Minister for Local Government for those whose homes have been flooded in Dublin we can see that the battle was won by the Tolka residents. The amount of money in this Supplementary Estimate in respect of the Tolka flooding is £110,000. That is the sum for the alleviation of distress caused by the flooding of the Tolka.

What is the position so far as the unfortunate sufferers in the flooded Shannon areas are concerned? Bear in mind that the Shannon valley occupies quite a considerable area. The amount for the Shannon area is in the region of £20,000. Therefore, we have the spectacle of the Tolka winning by £90,000 on the question of the alleviation of distress. The Minister states that a further £90,000 is coming to the Shannon area. We see nothing in this Supplementary Estimate in that regard. We are told it is in connection with land transfer, the erection of new houses and the giving of new holdings in other areas to people in the Shannon area. I have not seen the provision here for that.

We have just heard Deputy Davin say that he believes the Government or the Department of Lands should be slow to transfer people out of this area until we have got the report from the American experts. Personally, I could not disagree more with Deputy Davin in that attitude. The frame of mind he has shown is typified by the chairman of the committee set up to represent the interests of the people who were so adversely affected by the flooding of the Shannon. That gentleman—he is a clergyman—does not represent the views of the majority of the people who are affected.

Mr. Davin

I am not quoting his views.

Mr. McQuillan

I am not suggesting the Deputy is quoting his views, but I have heard him use the same words. He has expressed himself strongly. The Minister for Lands was present at the same time when this particular person showed himself to be against the idea of transferring people from the flooded areas.

Mr. Blowick

And there was not a single dissenting voice at the meeting when the reverend chairman suggested that.

Mr. McQuillan

How dare you suggest any such thing?

Mr. Blowick

Except Deputy McQuillan, who was not flooded.

Mr. McQuillan

Were representatives from the Clonown area not present and did the Minister not suggest to Mr. Hughes that he was glad he intervened?

Mr. Blowick

Yes.

Mr. McQuillan

What did Mr. Hughes say?

Mr. Blowick

And even after that there was not a single voice in favour of migration. Tell the truth. I was there as well as the Deputy.

Mr. McQuillan

I want this on the records of the House, so that the people of that area will understand now what the Minister for Lands has in his mind. Was there a statement made by the leader of the Clonown group to the effect that they did not want anyone to be forced to go but wanted people to be allowed to transfer out of that area if they wished to go? Was that statement made by Mr. Hughes to the Minister or not?

Mr. Blowick

After the statement, did I not get up and clear the air?

Mr. McQuillan

I am asking the Minister to answer a simple question, "yes" or "no".

Mr. Blowick

I will answer if I am allowed to speak in a little while.

Mr. McQuillan

Just answer "yes" or "no". In the area I am speaking for and which I represent—the Clonown area on the Roscommon side—a number of people are anxious to get out of that area and their spokesman expressed that view at the meeting in Banagher.

Mr. Blowick

Not publicly.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not want to be rude to the Minister.

Mr. Blowick

Do not. You can if you like, I am well used to it.

Mr. McQuillan

I can assure him that if these people of the Clonown area could hear him now there would be no doubt it would be the first and last visit he ever paid to Clonown. He would be sailing down the Shannon.

Mr. Blowick

I do not think they are such a crowd of savages as the Deputy suggests they are.

Mr. McQuillan

I did not say that. They have shown for the last 30 years the greatest sense of restraint at the way they have been treated by successive Governments, in so far as they have been completely neglected in those years and that this flooding, though it may not have been as bad in other years, caused considerable damage each year for the last 30 years.

Mr. Blowick

Throwing Ministers into the Shannon is not a pastime of the Clonown people.

Mr. McQuillan

It might be a good thing for you—you would have a good swim. I wish you were there and I would put you in if I were there.

Mr. Blowick

I am afraid you are taking on a big job.

Mr. McQuillan

The only trouble is that the floods would rise in the Shannon, as high as they ever did as a result of the heavy rainfall, when you would fall in.

Mr. Davin

I do not want Deputy McQuillan to misunderstand. I have no objection, and never had, to people applying to the Land Commission for holdings in exchange, if they want to leave their own holdings. I want to emphasise that it is my personal opinion that until the American engineering expert's recommendations are made known these people should not be compelled to go out of the area.

Mr. Blowick

There should be very little done until we hear what he has to say.

Mr. McQuillan

I am glad to hear that point. There is no suggestion by anybody that compulsory action be used to get people to leave the Shannon area. I am not advocating that and never advocated it. I am sure that there are individuals outside who would suggest that my method would be to use compulsion. If people in the Shannon area wish to leave, it is the duty of the Minister for Lands to ensure they are given alternative holdings. What I am afraid of all along is this. Deputy Davin knows the Land Commission as well as I do; he is 30 years trying to get them to do it.

Mr. Davin

Indeed I am.

Mr. McQuillan

If the Land Commission get any excuse in the world put up to them that they should not move fast, they will certainly take that advice. If the Land Commission get any excuse, on the ground that no action should be taken in this area to transfer people out of it on the basis that we should wait for the report of the American experts, then you may be sure the Land Commission will not be seen next or near the Clonown area or any other area for as long as they can avoid going there. That is only natural to expect of a big body like the Land Commission which moves so slowly. Now, I have suggested here that the Tolka people have won this battle on the question of compensation or alleviation of distress.

Mr. D. Larkin

Not yet, not by a long shot.

Mr. McQuillan

So far we are hoping that, by the time the matter is properly discussed and the position clarified as far as the Shannon is concerned, there will be no doubt in the final analysis as to who will win and who ought to win.

The Minister, in the course of his long statement, suggested that quite a number of people in the Shannon area are anxious to stay in houses that are flooded and that what they want is the State to raise the fireplaces. I presume that the suggestion to the Minister would entail the provision of stilts for those people to move in and out of their houses. I want the Minister to let me know and to let the House know the number of such applications that have been made to him from the flooded area. We want to know, in regard to my constituency, in the Clonown area, how many people wish to remain in the flooded houses and how many people have made application to have the fireplaces raised. There is nothing as bad as to condemn a whole area on the basis that there are two or three awkward individuals in it. There is not a parish in Ireland in which you will not find two or three awkward individuals, but it is very wrong to pick out those two or three and depict them here or elsewhere as typical of the remainder of the people.

Deputy Davin, in the course of his remarks, suggested there were two problems—the immediate alleviation of distress in the area and the long-term question of fixing up those people in the area and having something done with the Shannon. That is quite true. We must take into consideration, when dealing with methods of giving immediate relief, the fact that it may be years before anything will be done with the River Shannon itself. Therefore, I would urge that if the Land Commission have embarked on a scheme to build new houses and give new holdings of land to a number of farmers, they should go full tilt ahead with that programme and not be diverted from their aims by the hope that the American experts will give a report that action could be taken to relieve the flooding.

I believe that in order to satisfy everybody concerned it is desirable to get the report of these American experts, but no matter what that report may be, whether it is favourable towards carrying out temporary measures of drainage on the Shannon or whether it gives hope of relief by the erection of embankments, we must bear in mind that it will take years before these reports and findings can be put into operation. In the meantime, this annual flooding takes place. It is only natural for all of us to hope that we will never again see the like of the floods we had last winter. We have no guarantee that we will not have them, but I want the House to know that next winter and the winter after that and every other winter in the Clonown area there will be houses flooded. Only four years ago I brought to the attention of some people here in Dublin the serious conditions that existed in the Shannon area and some of the Sunday newspapers were good enough to send down to that area photographers who took photographs that are available now of houses flooded exactly as they were flooded last winter.

It may be admitted that the water was only 18 inches high in the houses at that time and that it was three feet or four feet in the recent flooding, but most Deputies will admit that a flood of 18 inches in any house will cause as much damage as three feet would. Once the water comes into the house at all, it practically renders it useless for a month at least afterwards. That condition has obtained with many of those unfortunate people for years past. I ask that we take steps to provide alternative holdings for everyone who wishes to go. For the remainder, where suitable sites are available, grants should be given for the erection of new houses and this work should be put in hands at the earliest possible opportunity.

I understood from the Minister that once the Government had made up its mind to move into an area the whole question of distress would be viewed on a broad basis—not merely on the basis of giving a grant of £20 and a ton of coal but on the basis of deciding how these people were to get into and out of their houses. It is a well-known fact that, on the road from Athlone into Clonown, there were three feet of water last winter and that people had no means of getting out of the flooded area, except by a very narrow road which was almost impassable at times. That is a case where a special grant must be made available so that proper roads can be provided for these people to enable them to get in and out and so that their tractors, their carts and so forth may be utilised.

It is no good reconstructing houses in these areas unless you give the people the means of getting in and out. I do not want to see the county councils in Laois-Offaly, in Roscommon or in Galway saddled with the burden of providing the necessary money for carrying out these important works out of the rates. It should be a national charge and it is a matter—I am not suggesting that the Government will not do it—which should be borne in mind. That charge should be borne by the Government and not by the rates. The various county councils have quite enough to do in the normal maintenance and repair of roads without having to foot the bill for abnormal cases like this.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government mentioned the distribution of fertiliser and said that a certain amount of dissatisfaction exists. I have had similar complaints. I do not propose to bore the House and the Minister with them, but I have sheafs of letters from people who are dissatisfied with the method adopted by this committee in Athlone for the relief of distress. I am not in a position to judge whether the committee is at fault or not, but I am in agreement with the view expressed by the Parliamentary Secretary as to the desirability of all the Deputies representing the Shannon valley having a meeting with the representatives of the farmers concerned, apart altogether from the Shannon committee, to thrash out the difficulties that have arisen. We can then go to the Minister in the form of a deputation and put our views and the views of the people concerned before him.

I want to conclude by stating again —the Minister will not like my taking this line—that I am dissatisfied to see rural Ireland taking second place to the Dublin area in this matter of the alleviation of distress.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Even though ten times as many houses were inundated in Dublin?

Mr. McQuillan

Will you not be annoying me?

Mr. Carter

The Parliamentary Secretary has only a nuisance value here.

Mr. McQuillan

I am sorry if I was abrupt with the Parliamentary Secretary. I want to point out that there is a lot more than damage to houses concerned and a lot more than the purchase of Odearest mattresses for individuals. There is the point that many of the people in Dublin, in spite of the fact that their houses were flooded, could walk out and get their pay packets of £6, £7 and £8 each week, but in the case of the farmers in the Shannon valley, their land was flooded and their means of existence gone. They had nothing. The damage done to houses in the Tolka area does not compare at all with the damage done in the Shannon valley because the damage done to land must be taken into account—the damage done to a man's means of livelihood. So far as the Dublin people are concerned, I am all for them, and more power to them.

Mr. D. Larkin

The Deputy does not appear to be taking that line, seeing that everything in the world that some of the people concerned possessed, they lost, for the reason that everything they possessed was contained in one or two rooms.

Mr. McQuillan

I prefaced my remarks by stating that I had nothing but sympathy for the people of Dublin and the fact is that their representatives deserve the greatest possible credit for being able to bring so much pressure to bear on the Government, while we as rural Deputies failed to impress the Government with the seriousness of the situation in the Shannon area. It has proved that the Dublin Deputy, the Dublin representative, can bring stronger pressure to bear on the Government than a Deputy from rural Ireland can.

Mr. O'Sullivan

That is not true.

Mr. McQuillan

I have always held that view and I am completely convinced that it is right now.

Mr. O'Sullivan

It is a wrong view.

Mr. McQuillan

I still hold it.

Mr. O'Sullivan

And you are entitled to hold it.

Mr. McQuillan

And I still have to be convinced that I am wrong.

Mr. O'Sullivan

You are entitled to hold it, but nevertheless it is a wrong view.

Mr. O'Donovan

The Deputy should know it is not true.

Mr. McQuillan

We have two Supplementary Estimates—one from the Department of Local Government giving a grant of £110,000 for the alleviation of distress in the Tolka area and the other, giving a grant of £20,010 for the alleviation of distress in the Shannon valley.

Mr. O'Sullivan

And £90,000 to come.

Mr. McQuillan

We have not seen the £90,000 yet.

Mr. O'Sullivan

£98,000.

Mr. McQuillan

The £90,000 which the Deputy talks about added to the £20,000 totals £110,000, which only makes them even.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Not comparing the number of people affected.

Mr. McQuillan

Does the Parliamentary Secretary, as a representative of a rural area, consider that the Shannon valley area has received the full measure of relief it deserves in comparison with the amount of money made available for the people in the Tolka area?

Mr. O'Sullivan

Yes.

Mr. McQuillan

Great play was made by the Minister with the fact that the local relief committee in Athlone, the committee which functions under very Rev. Dean Crowe, has given a considerable amount of help to the people who have suffered losses and whose houses have been flooded and that wherever a grant was given by that local committee, it was taken into account by the Minister's Department in giving further grants. If we compare the total amount of money made available in the Lord Mayor's fund with the amount of money in the fund under the administration of the Very Rev. Dean Crowe in Athlone, we will see what the comparison is. The entire voluntary funds available in Athlone will be expended within the next week, but I do not think that situation will apply so far as the voluntary funds in Dublin are concerned. These funds have been in excellent hands and the citizens of Dublin are privileged and lucky that they will have such a sympathetic man to help them, if the State does not relieve them to the full extent in relation to the losses suffered, but I am afraid the people in the Shannon area will not be so lucky because there will be no fund left after this week, although there will be many cases still to be dealt with.

However, I hope we will have a meeting very soon at which all these difficulties can be discussed and suggestions as to the best means of alleviating the distress of those remaining can be put forward. I think it would be better for us to have that discussion outside the House. In view of the remarks made by Deputy Davin I will restrain myself from making any further comments on this particular item mentioned by the Minister.

Mr. Carter

I thoroughly agree with the suggestion made by Deputy McQuillan regarding the condition of the roads in the flooded area. I was surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government spoke at length and made no reference whatever to the condition of the roads in the flooded areas, especially in the Shannon valley. One would think that the first care of the Minister for Local Government would be the resurfacing of the roads.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Local Government has no responsibility for this Estimate.

Mr. Carter

Sorry, I am referring to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government who spoke on the Supplementary Estimate. He made no reference whatever to the condition of the roads in those districts and no figures are available or have been published of late so far as I know to indicate the mileage of roads in need of repair. I think a survey is one of the first things that should be put in hands.

Mr. Davin

By the local authority.

Mr. Carter

Because the farmers who evacuated the area and who have to go back there now in the face of their spring work will need roads that do not resemble dried-up river beds. That is what the roads in the area resemble at the moment.

Mr. Davin

Will the Deputy allow me? I think the Deputy knows that on the 7th January a grant of £100,000 was notified to the local authorities, including the local authorities for that area. They were directed, not advised, to spend that money in the areas where the flooding took place.

Mr. Carter

I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary is as well aware as I am that £100,000 would go no distance towards repairing the roads in the area seeing the amount of money which was made available to the City of Dublin. I make no bones about saying that it is the duty of the Government, apart even from the local authorities, to make a special grant available for the area affected. The Minister for Agriculture, when introducing his Supplementary Estimate, talked at length about the Shannon and, as we heard in Banagher, he dwelt on the subject of bringing over American experts here. We all know that the Shannon Valley has been subjected to floods in the last century and in this century and the British Government, when they were here, carried out numerous investigations into the Shannon flooding. Up to, I think, around 1882, according to the report of the Drainage Commission, something like £850,000 was expended on the stretch of Shannon from Lough Allen to Corbally Lake in order to relieve and prevent flooding. The Minister knows as well as any Deputy from the area that there is nothing the American experts can offer by way of alterations to the Shannon that cannot be offered by our own engineers at home and which have not, in fact, been put on paper for them in the Drainage Commission Report of 1938-1940.

Mr. Donnellan

What was?

Mr. Carter

If you read the Drainage Commission Report you will see it.

Mr. Donnellan

I did read it but I do not think the Deputy did.

Mr. Carter

You should read it. It is part of your business.

Mr. Donnellan

There is nothing about American engineers in it.

Mr. Carter

What length of the Shannon is giving trouble then if you read the report?

Mr. Donnellan

Answer the question I asked you.

Mr. Carter

I am asking you a question. I will answer it. I will enlighten the Deputy.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy does not need to.

Mr. Carter

There are 13 miles of Shannon from Lough Allen to Corbally Lake.

Mr. Donnellan

It was always that.

Mr. Carter

What is more, I will give you the figures in regard to the acreage of land involved. From Lough Allen to Lanesboroough in the County Longford, if the Deputy knows where that is, 5,000 acres of land are subject to flooding. From Lanesborough to Athlone, 2,250 acres; from Athlone to Meelick, 9,260 acres and from Meelick upwards 7,190 acres.

Mr. Davin

The Parliamentary Secretary has all that off by heart.

Mr. Carter

The Parliamentary Secretary might give me a chance. I did not interrupt him when he was speaking.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Carter is in possession.

Mr. Donnellan

Tell me what is in the Drainage Commission Report about American engineers?

Mr. Carter

There is nothing whatever.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy said there was.

Mr. Carter

I beg the Deputy's pardon, I did not.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

The Deputy's ears deceived him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Carter should be given an opportunity to say what he wants to say.

Mr. Carter

I said there was nothing the American engineers could write into the Drainage Commission report by way of improvement. I maintain that.

Mr. Donnellan

You might be right.

Mr. Carter

All it needs is for the Government to loosen the purse and the Parliamentary Secretary to impress on his colleague, the Minister for Finance, to put up the cash in order to carry out the recommendations.

Mr. Donnellan

More was put forward this year under the Act than was ever put forward before.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Carter.

Mr. Carter

As I said at the outset, there are something like 24,000 acres of land involved in this problem and strange to relate during the lifetime of this House nothing of a constructive character was done to relieve the situation other than to issue the Drainage Commission report. Up to 1952, 34,500 acres of land were subjected to flooding. As a result of the improvements carried out up to that date it fell to 24,000 acres.

I am not concerned with the political aspects of this problem but I am concerned to see that something of a constructive character is done to relieve the flooding. This area was subjected to flooding three times inside something like a century and, as was mentioned by other speakers, farmers in those parts lost all they had.

They lost the harvest. They lost all the produce they had in their haggards and they were left practically on the road so that I say it is up to the Government not to rely on the advice they may receive from the American experts. It is up to them to put the advice of their own experts into operation. The adage: "Live horse and you will get grass" is no good to the Shannon valley farmers who are subjected to this flooding. In any contemplated scheme towards the relief of flooding in this area the various voluntary organisations should be taken into consideration.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Davin, spoke about a deputation approaching the Minister for Agriculture with a view to straightening out the difficulties which may obtain at the moment in relation to the allocation of money, or goods. I think that Macra na Feirme and Muintir na Tíre and other voluntary organisations which have proved their worth by providing funds, food and fodder for the farmers should be included on any deputation that waits upon the Minister.

Mr. Davin

And the Red Cross?

Mr. Carter

The Red Cross, certainly. There are some organisations I might leave out, but I would not leave out those I have mentioned. The suggestion that there might be some differences of opinion about the way in which the money or goods are allocated is one that could be resolved by the local committees responsible for making representations. I am sure any applicant with a good case would receive consideration.

The Minister mentioned propaganda and leaflets. He said the leaflets would be available again, and that extra leaflets were published. We welcome that, but I do not see why these leaflets should not be made available in the offices of the agricultural committees throughout the country. We talk about decentralisation of Government; this may be only a very small contribution towards that object, but I do not see why those leaflets should not be made available in every county. Granted, a farmer can avail of the leaflets by sending a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture and he will have the leaflets by return of post. That is not the point. It is the principle I am concerned with; I would like to see these leaflets available in the offices of the county committees of agriculture in every county.

I am glad that the farm buildings scheme is progressing and that an increased number of applications is coming forward in connection with the installation of water supplies. I have had experience of dealing with applications in that direction and I think it is a pity that the scheme could not be co-ordinated with the provision of pumps under the local authorities. I know of isolated villages which could avail of the scheme jointly but which, because of lack of an adequate source of supply, are unable to avail of it at the moment. I asked a question recently as to the number of applicants in my county who applied for this scheme jointly and I was informed that only one area made representations, and even that was not carried through eventually. That is a pity. When a pump is provided by a local authority some foresight should be used and it should be erected at a point where the greatest possible use could be made of it in order to co-ordinate it with a scheme for the laying on of water to farmers' houses and farmyards in general.

I have often thought it a pity that there is not more collaboration or cooperation between the Department of Local Government and Department of Agriculture in that direction. The Department of Local Government would have some advice to offer and, similarly, I presume the Department of Agriculture could tell Local Government something about it. There should be some method of consultation inter-departmentally.

I was disappointed to learn the figures for certain areas in connection with the T.B. eradication scheme. To my mind, it denotes an ill which, as the Minister said, will have to be cured as fast as possible. It is one item about which too much propaganda cannot be made.

I see under sub-head A, Grants to County Committees of Agriculture, an additional sum of £8,000 is required. I was not here when the Minister was explaining the sub-head, but I presume it is for demonstration plots.

Mr. Dillon

It is just a balance from a scheme belonging to the previous year for which certain local authorities had not the vouchers ready.

Mr. Carter

I come now to the Bryce bequest. The Minister mentioned he had advised the Government that the Department of Agriculture were unable to cope with the bequest and that his Department was handing it over to the Office of Public Works. I hope that the Office of Public Works will maintain the island and gardens in the same manner as hitherto. I had the pleasure of visiting the island and I have to admit it is a lovely place.

Mr. Dillon

When was the Deputy there?

Mr. Carter

Last year.

Mr. Dillon

It was under my charge. I am glad the Deputy approved of my administration.

Mr. Carter

I am not disputing the ownership. It has not long been bequeathed, but I hope it will be kept in the same condition as hitherto.

Mr. Dillon

I am much obliged to the Deputy for this graceful tribute to my care of it.

Mr. Carter

I am not exactly paying a tribute. The Minister need not be so vain as to think I am paying him a personal tribute.

Mr. Dillon

I was merely being grateful.

Mr. Carter

I would pay him a tribute under certain circumstances. I am paying a tribute to the island and its surroundings. Killarney was described as the king and Glengarriff as the queen, and this island, lying off Glengarriff is well worth the attention and care——

Mr. Dillon

I shall be constrained to blush if the Deputy praises me more.

Mr. Carter

——of this House and the Office of Public Works. I notice the Minister was inclined to congratulate himself on the state of agriculture. I understand on this Vote we are more or less confined to the items that are in the sub-heads as they appear in the White Paper. But there is nothing to be complacent about in my opinion regarding our over-all agricultural effort. Were it not for the prices that live stock is fetching on the hoof at the moment I think our effort would amount to next to nothing. I hope that cattle on the hoof will continue to fetch high prices.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. Carter

So long as they do, it is all right, but let it not blind us to the other difficulties we may meet with in the near future. On the main Estimate, we will get a chance to talk about this; it would not be fair to bore the House with it on a Supplementary Estimate. I wish to wind up by saying that I am glad this question of the imports of galvanised iron will be resolved because there is a certain amount of confusion in various areas regarding it. Some people who had iron purchased for the erection of haysheds do not know whether or not to go ahead and erect the sheds. Having purchased the iron and drawn it to their farmyard, and laid it on the ground they are still in a quandary. The Department of Agriculture which usually facilitates a Deputy every time he makes a query and goes to all rounds to get the information required, was not in a position to give a ruling as to whether payment would be made on imported iron after the date announced by the Minister. If the shed was not in course of erection——

Mr. Dillon

If the application was received in the Department before the 15th January.

Mr. Carter

——the Department would pay the grant on imported iron, otherwise "no"?

Mr. Dillon

Unless the contractors have a special licence under the scheme to facilitate them in disposing of accumulated stocks.

Mr. Carter

That is all I wish to say. I am glad that point is cleared up because it was causing a certain amount of confusion.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

Only one of the Deputies who spoke so far on this subject tried to misrepresent the position and although he vehemently protested he was not making political use of it he did his best to do so. I want to recall to Deputy McQuillan that at that meeting in Banagher which he mentioned in connection with the Shannon flooding——

Mr. McQuillan

What have politics to do with it?

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy was trying to make political use of it——

Mr. McQuillan

How?

Mr. Blowick

At that meeting the Minister for Agriculture and myself gave an outline of what the Government's intentions were, so far as the Land Commission side was concerned, regarding some kind of permanent alleviation of the flooded Shannon areas. I found one person after another getting up and disassociating themselves from the very idea of migrating people from the Shannon valley. After an hour of that kind of thing I began to feel I was an arch-criminal, a scheming scoundrel coming down to the Shannon valley with a plan to migrate the people from the valley and leave it barren and deserted. I was constrained to say before the end of the meeting that I had no such nefarious intention at all. I made that clear. I was told that Deputy McQuillan was the only person who said there should be migration, and let me say now in case there should be any misunderstanding that I agree with him—that there should be a certain amount of migration from the Shannon valley.

Watch the terms I use—" a certain amount". I believe there should be a certain amount of migration despite all the protests of the people there and I think it is not good enough to leave people in holdings, particularly small holdings, that will always be subject to flooding in the Shannon valley. Unless very strong representations are made to me to the contrary I intend to proceed, and the Government intends to proceed, with a certain amount of migration there.

One thing I have never been quite able to see was this. The meeting was a fairly large one with, I should say, between 700 and 800 people present and I could not understand why not one of them gave me an idea of what their intentions were. I do not know whether Deputy McQuillan was speaking for Clonown people or not——

Mr. McQuillan

Did any representative of Clonown speak to you?

Mr. Blowick

Some gentleman spoke to me briefly after the meeting but I could never understand if he felt that way why he did not raise his voice when he found the design of the meeting going against his opinion. He had the same freedom of speech as anyone else. I want to say I certainly felt—and had the Minister for Agriculture been there I am sure he would have felt—that we were both being pictured as two gentlemen who had come down there determined to do something to injure the whole Shannon valley. Such was not our intention at all. I think we expressed our opinions and I think we were expressing the opinions of the majority of the people who had suffered from the freak floods, the terrible floods of last winter.

Let me say this: a certain amount of doubt has been cast on the value of the American experts which the present Government has asked to come over here with a view to attacking this flooding problem. We have the River Shannon as a permanent feature of this country and from time to time it breaks loose and floods the surrounding countryside. We have to do one or other of two things and since it is impossible to jack-up the country high enough so that the Shannon cannot flood it we have to see if there is any other means of controlling the flooding. That is what we have asked these experts to do.

I think it was Deputy Carter who said that there was nothing the Americans could tell us that our own engineers could not tell us. I have the greatest respect for our own engineers, but I believe that two heads are wiser than one. We must not forget, too, that the experts we have asked over here are those who have carried into effect the Tennessee drainage—I am sure most Deputies have got the booklet concerning this vast scheme— and surely those who have been associated with that gigantic task must be able to give the benefit of their experience in the case of a river like ours. In comparison with what they dealt with, the River Shannon is only a minor stream and their experience is bound to be of some use to us. I do not see anything wrong, and the Government acted wisely, in asking those people to come here.

Mr. McQuillan

Hear, hear!

Mr. Blowick

Furthermore, I would like to see something permanent done with the Shannon. I think it was Deputy Carter who said there were 24,000 acres flooded at present but I think in the very area of Athlone there would be almost that much flooded by the freak floods of last winter. I think the 24,000 acres would be an underestimate. Let the arterial drainage schemes for the major rivers be put into operation for the purpose of tackling this problem and bringing permanent relief to the people who are affected by flooding. The Government is not afraid of its responsibilities in this respect. Some Deputy said that the Government should loosen the purse-strings, but the Government has not tightened the purse-strings. The Government is fully aware that the flooding by rivers is doing immense damage.

The Land Commission has made a detailed survey and has the most intimate details of every house in the whole flooded area. They have a plan for doing it.

Mr. McQuillan

When will they take the steps?

Mr. Blowick

Do not mind when they will take the steps. I want to point out to Deputy McQuillan that during the time that the Land Commission inspectors were visiting the Shannon area, doing that, Deputy McQuillan was tabling anything from 15 to 30 questions to me and on many occasions the inspectors had to drop the work on the Shannon area and ferret out the information that Deputy McQuillan was seeking, and in respect of half the information he was seeking I do not know what he wanted it for. I am not protesting that Deputy McQuillan has not the right to put down parliamentary questions on any subject but it is only right to let him know that every question must be answered truthfully and as accurately as the officials of the Department can provide the information. I am quite prepared to answer the Deputy when he puts down a parliamentary question but it is only right that Deputies should know that the tabling of awkward questions may involve a great deal of official time. Occasionally it happens that the Minister has to reply to the effect that to give the information sought would involve the expenditure of time and money which would not be justifiable.

Mr. McQuillan

Am I to take it that the Minister has suggested that I have held up investigation work in the Clonown area by putting down questions about land division?

Mr. Blowick

And not one of them about Clonown or the flooded area.

Mr. McQuillan

I have been putting questions down about Clonown and the flooded areas for the last five years to you and your predecessor.

Mr. Blowick

It was most remarkable that the flood of questions came just at the time the inspectors, under my instructions—and my instructions were from the Government—were making a complete comb-out of that area. The Deputy can put down 40 or 50 questions a day from now on but I am letting him know that it is not without a certain amount of waste of officials' time because the information must be given accurately.

Mr. McQuillan

You do not like the questions. I can see that.

Mr. Blowick

It is the privilege of the Deputy and any other Deputy to put down as many questions on as many subjects as he likes but it is only right that the Deputy should know that the Minister does not walk over to his office, open a book and find the information he gives. It may mean sending three or four Land Commission inspectors chasing all over their area, interviewing people, finding, when they go to the houses, that the person they wish to see is at a fair or a market or the bog. It struck me as being most peculiar that at the time the inspectors were engaged in this work, and Deputy McQuillan must have known they were engaged in this work, that that was the time he chose to put down a flood of questions in order, in my opinion, to distract them from the work they were engaged on. I think it was most unfair of the Deputy to do it.

Mr. McQuillan

On a point of order. Can I take it that the Minister is making a definite charge that I put down these questions in order to prevent the Land Commission officials from carrying out a survey of the Clonown area? Is that the charge the Minister is making? Say either yes or no.

Mr. Blowick

I will say just what I like on the subject. I will repeat what I said. I said that it looked very strange that that was the time the Deputy chose to put down a flood of questions day after day. The Deputy can make meal or malt of that as he likes.

Mr. McQuillan

How many times have I questioned you as to what action was going to be taken in the Clonown area?

An Ceann Comhairle

We have had enough about questions. Let us get on to the Estimate.

Mr. Allen

On a point of order. On a point of information.

Mr. Dillon

That is another cup of tea.

Mr. Allen

Is every Deputy entitled to put down a parliamentary question which is in order?

Mr. Blowick

He is and Deputy Allen is long enough in the House to know it. A privilege for which I will fight to the last inch is the right of a Deputy to put down any question.

An Ceann Comhairle

I shall rule out the operation of questions absolutely on this Estimate. We have had enough of it.

Mr. Cunningham

That is the second time this month that we have been told we should not put down questions.

Mr. McQuillan

It is a deliberate effort on the part of the Minister to prevent Deputies from putting down questions.

Mr. Blowick

It is not.

An Ceann Comhairle

I want the House to discuss the Estimate as presented to the House.

Mr. Cunningham

This is the second threat from the second Minister.

Mr. Blowick

The problems created by the flooding of the Shannon and the flooding of the Tolka valley are different. There is a certain difference. I think it was Deputy Denis Larkin who interjected to say that the people in this area had all their furniture and household goods in one room. That is perfectly true. I was through a great deal of the flooded area in the Shannon. I was in houses where the water was three feet high. It was a most depressing and desolate sight. Homes that had been neat and tidy had water lapping around the walls and slapping the doors. It was as if they were dumped in the middle of a lake. Only the roof and half the windows were above water.

We have dealt as generously as possible with the people of the Shannon. It must be admitted that there was a much greater number of houses damaged in the Tolka flood than in the Shannon valley because down the years the people along the banks of the Shannon had the opportunity to choose dry sites. Many did so and were out of reach of even the highest floods. Unfortunately there were some who had not a suitable site or sufficient money to move to a new area. We intend to come to their rescue.

Deputy McQuillan seemed to be very interested in the number of people who decided not to move, who decided to remain on the old site. We will not force anyone to go. I do not think we have law to do so and, if we had, we would not use it. There are certain sentimental ties that attach everyone to his hearthstone, the place where he was bred, born and reared. If a person feels so strongly that he will not surrender that, neither I nor any member of the present Government would dream of forcing such a person to move. Despite what the Minister for Agriculture has said, I would feel like making these people an offer, at least, to raise the whole floor, to spend a little public money on raising the road into the house, the yard, and so on.

I intend putting that proposal to the Government some day. While at first glance it would seem that if a person gets an offer of a new house, new out-offices on his own land, it is churlish on his part to refuse, nevertheless, in some cases, as I know too well in migration schemes, some people have sentimental strings tying them to the old place and will not tear themselves away. Many rearrangement and migration schemes have fallen down because of that, and no Minister for Lands has ever sought power in the Dáil to force them to give up the old spot if they do not do so of their own free will. If they feel so strongly attached to the old site and the old house, I would feel like helping them and spending a little to raise them above the water level.

Mr. McQuillan

I agree with the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy McQuillan said something about raising the hearth. I would suggest raising the whole floor— the street, as it is called—the yard and approaches to the house and also the out-office buildings.

Mr. McQuillan

And the fireplace.

Mr. Blowick

Naturally enough, if you raise the whole floor the fireplace comes with it.

Mr. McQuillan

Why not put it on a second storey?

Mr. Blowick

It is much too serious a subject to make a joke of it.

Mr. McQuillan

You are making a proper joke of it.

Mr. Blowick

Where people refuse to move we will spend money on raising the floor, raising the approach roads and buildings to a level above the flood. I do not see much of a joke in that.

Mr. Davin

Does not that mean helping people to sleep in a room with water underneath the floor?

Mr. Blowick

Is it not better? If they refuse to move surely it is not proposed to bundle them out by force by the Army and the Gardaí.

Mr. McQuillan

If there are children in the house, what about health regulations?

Mr. Blowick

That is their business.

Mr. McQuillan

It is not their business.

Mr. Blowick

It is their business. If they refuse to leave, does Deputy McQuillan suggest that we should use some kind of military force to bundle them out of the house?

Mr. McQuillan

What about the children?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy McQuillan spoke already.

Mr. McQuillan

He asked me a question. May I answer it? I believe that if there are children in a flooded house and an alternative house is offered to that family it is the duty of the family to take the new house and to see that the health of the children is safeguarded and the State should ensure that that should take place.

Mr. Dillon

Hould you hoult there, brother.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy has twisted now and said that it is the duty of the family to take the house.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy has said that it is the duty of the State to fix them.

Mr. Blowick

And that is where I cross swords with Deputy McQuillan. If a man wants to live in a bog hole, under the Constitution of the country he must be allowed to do so and we cannot do anything to root him out of it.

Mr. McQuillan

But he cannot keep his children in the bog hole.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Should public money be spent on these people if they wish to stay?

Mr. Blowick

What Deputy Seán Flanagan wants to tell the people of his constituency in South Mayo has been proved to be a damp squib. I do not know who raised this question first.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I asked the Minister a question as to whether or not it would be proper to spend public money on the relief of people living in a house unfit for human habitation.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Seán Flanagan may speak later on in the debate if he desires.

Mr. Blowick

The Government is quite prepared to stand over the undertaking given to the House by the Minister for Agriculture, by the Minister for Defence and by myself during the debate on the floods. If these people prefer to go they will be assisted in getting new holdings, but if they refuse to accept our assistance there will be no coercion.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Is the Minister afraid to answer my question?

Mr. Blowick

There has been a lot of fuddled thinking on this subject. We are getting an American expert to tell us what can be done with the Shannon. That will not take so long. After that I intend to proceed with the scheme, but if he says that nothing can be done to relieve the flooding, if he says that there is not sufficient fall in the river between Athlone and Ardnacrusha and that nothing can be done along these lines, we have a plan ready to go into operation at a moment's notice, and plenty of money to back it up.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I wish to thank the Minister for having answered my question.

Mr. O'Malley

The alleviation of flooding in the different areas where it has occurred has properly occupied a considerable portion of this debate. I shall confine myself to drawing the Minister's attention to the fact that very little has been done following the inquiries made by the Milk Costings Committee. I appreciate the fact that the findings have not as yet been submitted to the Minister, but I do think the Minister had an opportunity to-day of weighing the minds of the dairy farmers throughout the country and that he should make a detailed statement on the entire position. Not a day passes on which we pick up a daily paper when we do not see a protest from somebody or other urging the Minister for Agriculture to have the findings of the Costings Committee published, and surely the Minister will agree that if a delay exists—and obviously it does—and an emergency exists for the dairy farmers, the Minister should do something to expedite the publication of the Costings Committee. At no time was it envisaged that the findings of the Costings Committee would take so long.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. O'Malley

When the committee was originally set up by the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh, it was never envisaged that the Costings Committee would take so long to promulgate their findings and I would impress on the Minister that an emergency now exists in the dairying industry and that due to the fact that an emergency does exist he should take some concrete steps to alleviate the hardships being suffered by this much maligned section of the community. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy O'Sullivan, was sitting there in the seat of the Minister for Agriculture when he went out and I was hoping that he would be here and that he would possibly give us the benefits of his expert knowledge on the dairying industry, because since he went over to that side of the House he has completely forgotten all the promises he gave when in opposition to the dairy farmers. He advocated an immediate increase in the price of milk and actually the Minister for Agriculture himself, when in opposition, advocated an increase in the price of milk. In fact, he said that the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh, did not go far enough when he gave an increase of one penny a gallon. Deputy Dillon then advocated a further increase. I shall refresh the Minister's mind on that. At column 674, Volume 126 of the Official Report, Deputy Dillon said:—

"The policy of the inter-Party Government was and continues to be to raise the average yield of our cattle from 365 gallons per cow ultimately to an average somewhere between 400 and 800 gallons, fully conscious of the fact that to arrive at anything like an 800-gallon average was a very long term policy, but that to arrive at a 500-gallon average was a reasonable objective."

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is discussing policy. That can only be discussed on the Vote for the Minister's Department.

Mr. O'Malley

Actually I was reading the wrong passage. I just wanted to bring out where on a previous occasion the Minister for Agriculture, when he was in opposition, advocated an increase in the price of milk.

An Ceann Comhairle

And that is policy. The Deputy may not discuss policy on a Supplementary Estimate. He will have an opportunity if he so desires to discuss the policy of the Minister on the main Estimate.

Mr. O'Malley

I was only going to say that the Minister for Agriculture, when in opposition, said this:—

"I wish to pay a tribute to the present Minister for granting us a rise of 1d., but I say that he did not go far enough."

He said that on the 18th July, 1951.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Deputy quoting me?

Mr. O'Malley

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

Would the Deputy give the reference?

Mr. O'Malley

I did not believe it myself. It is in Volume 126, column 1858, of the Official Report. Am I entitled, a Cheann Comhairle, to read an extract from the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Sullivan?

Mr. S. Flanagan

It is a waste of time. He never did anything but talk.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair cannot give a decision in advance. If the Deputy proceeds the Chair will know whether or not it is a matter that may be discussed.

Mr. O'Malley

I want to go on record as saying that the Irish creamery milk suppliers would be well occupied in advocating that the suppliers and producers should devote their energies to getting increased productivity and increased yields. It is all very well to talk about a "drink more milk" campaign and to urge a Government to give an increase in the price of milk but they, on the other hand, have an onus on them and an obligation to the community as a whole. It is my opinion that because of their present conduct and attitude they are not meeting those obligations. However, I do say that the Minister should turn around, in view of the delay of the Costings Commission, and give an interim increase of 1d. per gallon, maybe after the local elections.

Mr. Dillon

Again I thank the Deputy for this indication of his belief in my disinterestedness.

Mr. O'Malley

I want to point out that the wheat subsidy saved a considerable amount of money and the reason the Minister for Agriculture and the Government took that decision was evidently that they alleged that the producers of wheat were exploiting the community as a whole. Now that that money has been saved, why will not the Minister turn around and give an interim increase of 1d. a gallon to dairy farmers? I understand that on an estimated annual production of 740,000 cwt. of creamery butter the cost to the Exchequer of an increase of 1d. a gallon, with no increase in butter, would be £801,666.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy help the Chair by pointing out under what heading of the White Paper before him he is discussing the present matter?

Mr. O'Malley

Am I not talking about the Milk Costings Commission?

An Ceann Comhairle

No, the Deputy is not. He was talking about the delay of the Milk Costings Commission in publishing a report.

Mr. O'Malley

With respect, Sir, I sat here for two and a half hours listening to Deputy McQuillan and the Minister for Lands talking about various boglands and I do not know what heading that comes under.

An Ceann Comhairle

There was a discussion in respect of the relief of distress consequent on the flooding of the Shannon valley.

Mr. O'Malley

I am not suggesting the dairy farmer was distressed due to flooding, but I respectfully suggest that under the Milk Costings Commission I am entitled to talk on the plight of the dairy farmer.

An Ceann Comhairle

No, the Deputy is not.

Mr. Childers

The Deputy has failed to read the section on the Supplementary Estimate dealing with bovine T.B. He may claim that he is in order on the ground that an increase in the price of milk would help farmers to improve their buildings and so reduce the amount of bovine T.B.

Mr. Dillon

That cock will not fight.

An Ceann Comhairle

That would be a very tenuous relevancy.

A Deputy

Is it not very nice to see a city Deputy anxious that the producers would get more?

An Ceann Comhairle

I cannot allow this discussion to be broadened beyond what is in the White Paper. If the Deputy will keep to what is in the White Paper I will allow him to proceed but he must be relevant to that matter.

Mr. Dillon

I really have no serious complaint to make about the general approach of the House to the Supplementary Estimate which I have introduced. I think I would like to refer to one or two points that were made by Deputy Walsh. Dungarvan, to which he made reference, has not had an easy time, but it is an experiment in cooperation which I do not regret and which I have high hope may yet justify itself very fully. But I am obliged to confess that they have not been lucky. They started just at a time when circumstances made apples for industrial use relatively valuable and the result is that the service they have to give the apple grower has not been as indispensable as it used to be, but it will be again in time.

Secondly, they started at a time when other branches of agriculture, owing to the beneficent operations of the inter-Party Government, had become extremely remunerative and in those circumstances it is very difficult to get farmers to plant orchards. The fact is that the farmer who plants an acre of apples in 1955 will get no return from that acre until 1960, for it takes five years for an apple orchard to mature. However, I think it is only just to the farmers' co-operative in Dungarvan to say that they met reverses which came their way with resilience and courage, that they are diversifying their activities. If their members and the rest of us are prepared to help them through these difficult years, we have every reason to hope that this apple-packing station will amply justify itself and will continue to be what it now is, as well equipped and as good an apple storage unit as there is in the British Isles.

I hope I have now made it clear what the position is in regard to the user of foreign galvanised iron on buildings built with the assistance of grants under the farm building scheme. I would like to recapitulate the facts briefly so that they may be on record. In respect of any application for a farm building grant which the Department received on or before 15th January the applicant is entitled to use any iron he likes, foreign or domestic manufacture. In respect of applications reaching the Department after the 15th January, 1955, grantees are required to use galvanised iron of Irish manufacture to qualify for the grant.

But that regulation is qualified by this exception, that in order to meet the difficulty of hay barn contractors who had large stocks of foreign iron on hands prior to 15th January, the Department is prepared in certain cases—and notification has been sent to those people who are entitled to this concession—to allow that in respect of 50 per cent. of the stock of foreign iron they now hold they may use it on the construction of buildings to be paid for in part, at least, out of grants under the farm buildings scheme. I think that arrangement is working out all right. If any Deputy has a special case in mind on which he thinks misunderstanding has arisen, or somebody has not got their rights, if he will write to me personally or to the Secretary of my Department, we will immediately examine the specific case in which he is interested, in order to see that what can be done is done to meet the convenience of all parties concerned.

Deputy Walsh also said that he had some anxiety because he was informed that people who wanted to construct hay barns were unable to get supplies of iron of Irish manufacture, and that therefore the whole farm buildings scheme might be held up. I would be glad if the Deputy would draw my attention to any such cases of which the Deputy knows. General allegations of that kind are often made, and yet, when you come to pinpoint them, you find that the complainant is very hard put to state a positive case. It is important to ensure that, if there are genuine complaints, they will not be overlooked. The only way I can assure that is to depend on my colleagues in this House, from whatever side, to write to me personally or, if not to me, to my Department, drawing my or the Department's attention to the specific cases. If they are misinformed, they will receive the facts as we know them, and we will appreciate their efforts to help us even though, on further inquiry, it may appear that the information given to them was not as watertight as it appeared when it was related to us.

I recoil from the old concept that we ought all to enter into a horrible kind of competition in this House for opportunities to shovel out public money without any regard to the merits of the case. It is much easier for me, when I am Minister for Agriculture, or when Deputy Walsh is Minister for Agriculture, to come in here and announce that we are going to shovel out public money to anybody. That is always a popular thing to do. If I interpreted correctly the direction I got from this House, in so far as the Shannon floods were concerned, I was to examine the case of everybody whose farm or homestead was inordinately flooded, and to relieve distress, erring on the side of liberality rather than parsimony. It was in that spirit that I undertook the task.

I do not think we left any individual in the Shannon valley labouring under disress. I call in evidence the fact that if that were so, if we were leaving disress after us, the local fund in Athlone town and Tuam town would be exhausted long since, and the position would be that I would have a large area of uncompensated distress; but that is not the fact. There is a subsantial balance left in the Athlone find unappropriated. My information is that the fund in Tuam is more than sufficient to look after everybody who experienced distress in that area. I suppose any of us could have found means to rattle out more public money to the residents of the Shannon valley, of that was the purpose for which we went there. It is true to say that I was rather concerned that people would look down their noses at me for being improvidently ambitious in envisaging a liability of £90,000 for the rehabilitation of families in the flooded area, together with an unascertainable possible outlay for the control of the river, on the advice tendered to us by American engineering experts, in consultation with our own. I do not think anybody could come into this House and ask us to take steps to undertake a liability of anything between £100,000 and £200,000 to deal with the problem in that particular restricted area. I think it is a formidable sum. If I interpreted the mind of the Dáil correctly, it was that they were determined that there should not be a recurrence of the kind of problem with which we have had to grapple in the Shannon valley during the autumn and winter of last year.

It is in that spirit that I have put these proposals before the House, but I do not think we should regard them as a trivial expense into which we can walk lightheartedly. It is not a small sum, but I think it is a sum that we would be justified in spending if it gave us reasonable assurance for the future that we had effectively abated the problem which has perplexed us in the past few months. I would urge the House not to make it an issue of confusion and bewilderment as to what we are going to do in the rehabilitation of the living circumstances of those people. It is quite plain, and I think it is a good thing, that we can, in some matters in this House, argue bona fide on all sides, without finding ourselves falling into the ordinary political phalanx for the purpose of the discussions.

It is quite clear that the Minister for Lands is much more sold than I am, on the desirability of reconstructing houses where they now stand to alleviate the circumstances of the residents. I agree with Deputy McQuillan that, if a person wants to stay on the old hearthstone, and endure perennial flooding, none of us have the right to force him out of it. We can say: "Very well, if you want to stay there, well and good, but do not ask us to raise public money to be spent on the floor or spent on the fireplace, because no matter what arrangements we make, if there is bad flooding, instead of having two feet of water in the kitchen, you will have 12 inches of water."

I can understand that the Minister for Lands has really a more intimate knowledge of the housing conditions in rural Ireland. He is obsessed with the intense devotion which we all know certain people have for their homes. People will find this hard to believe but it is true. At the worst period, when we were seriously apprehensive of certain houses getting completely flooded, responsible representatives of the Athlone committee went into a house in the Shannon valley where an old man lived alone. They found he had his bed suspended from the rafters and he was tramping around the kitchen in high boots. When night fell he climbed on to his bed suspended from the rafters—and the water was then up to the handle of the door.

A responsible Army officer said to him—they were trying to persuade him to evacuate but he would not go—"The water is now up to the handle of the door. What will you do if it goes as high as the lintel of the door? How will you get down?" The old man replied: "I have provided for that. I have loosened a sheet of iron in the roof and I can climb into a boat I have tied to the gable." You could not force that old man to leave the house. As a matter of fact, he was not a very old man: he was an active man in his sixties.

To most of us it seems approximate to madness that a man would seriously insist on remaining in a house where the water was three feet high in the kitchen and where the bed was suspended from the rafters and a sheet of iron was loosened in the roof and a boat tied to the gable. As it happened the water did not go as high as the bed. You have to allow for that type of mentality. That is what the Minister for Lands has in mind when he says he feels we should try to help those people in their existing homes. My feeling is that if you put a foot under that man's floor the only difference it would make is that, instead of having his kitchen flooded by three feet of water, as was the case last December, it would be flooded by two feet. In my view, to do so would be a waste of public money because, no matter what alternation you make to the house, you cannot guarantee effectively that he will not be sloshing about in water in his kitchen if the Shannon goes on the rampage again at any future time.

I do not think we have to make any apology for the fact that the Minister for Lands and myself revealed to our colleagues a certain difference of opinion on this matter for the purpose of eliciting views from Deputies on all sides of the House. I say that we should say to those persons: "If you agree to move, we will shift you either to a new holding or to a new site, and if you will not move we will not spend public money on reducing the possibility of your kitchen being flooded by three feet to the possibility of its being flooded by two feet." As far as I can find out, the weight of the opinion expressed here to-day by Deputies on all sides of the House is rather against the view of the Minister for Lands and more in favour of my view. There may be some Deputies in the House who have not spoken and who incline more to the view of the Minister for Lands. I can assure them that if they make their opinions known their opinions will be valued and considered in whatever the final decision must be.

Dean Crowe's fund, the Athlone fund, as I understand it, is still receiving subscriptions. Deputy Carter asks: "Why get any engineers from abroad?" I think the Minister for Lands answered that question. When I went down to Shannonbridge to the meeting and announced the Government's decision to call in American consultants—I think Deputy Carter was there—I said: "I do not think foreign consultants would give us an information which our own adviser have not already given us but it will ease the public mind if, having called in the best consultants we can and put them in touch with our own engineers the consensus of foreign and domestic opinion is the same." I think that is useful even if they have nothing new to tell us. I think it is important to convince the people that we have left no stone unturned to find a remedy, if one can be found, and, if one cannot be found, the people will know it was not for the want of looking for one.

I think Deputy Davin asked who decided where the fertilisers should be put. We did. The primary purpose of the fertilisers was to try and get early grazing on as many holdings as we could so as to avoid the possibility of people being left without fodder between now and the growth of grass in May and June. I did not quite follow what the Parliamentary Secretary meant when he said that a lot of people were uneasy about the fodder situation in the Shannon valley next autumn. If there is one part of Ireland in which there is no prospect of such a shortage next autumn it is the Shannon valley, which has the richest fallow meadows of any part of Ireland.

Deputy Carter referred to the condition of the roads in that area. I understand that, over the years, most of the roads in that area have been raised. It is remarkable that it was only at the very apex of the floods in those areas that the roads disappeared. I went along roads there and, though the land seemed to be inundated for miles, the roads remained above the flood. In the Clonown area the road disappeared beneath the flood but down between Clonown and Barrow— the place where I fell into the flood— though the flood extended for many square miles the road was above the flood and it was only when the flood undercut the road that the edge of the road gave way. I know that the county engineers of the area have the question of the roads present in their minds and I believe the matter is under review.

I did not mention to-day, although perhaps I should have, that, over and above the work I reported to the House of a specific character designed to relieve distress, there remains in operation the general offer of interest free loans to anyone who lost stock, fuel or fodder as a result of the floods. That is on a much more general scale than the question of distress, in regard to the committee which was charged with relief of distress. The offer of interest free loans extends to anybody who has suffered the loss of stock, fuel or fodder——

Mr. Walsh

Outside the Shannon area?

Mr. Dillon

Inside.

Mr. Walsh

Not outside?

Mr. Dillon

No. Would the Deputy not agree that if he made that offer generally to the whole country there is hardly a farmer in the whole of Ireland who could not produce evidence of having lost stock, fuel or fodder? How are you to determine——

Mr. Walsh

Distress as a result of flooding. We had distress in other parts.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, but where there was distress outside the Shannon and the Tolka areas the Red Cross were asked to act as the agent, and they did so.

Mr. Walsh

Are the Government prepared to give interest-free loans in those areas?

Mr. Dillon

Does the Deputy think we should?

Mr. Walsh

It is a matter for the Government.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, the Deputy is entitled to say it is a matter for the Government and that he is damned if he is going to give any advice on it, but I thought there was a general truce in regard to the flooding problem. I am bound to concede and admit that, in the deliberations which have taken place so far in regard to Shannon flooding, I have experienced no evidence—with one exception—of an effort to make Party capital out of the difficult situation with which we are contending. We got a lot of valuable help from the Opposition in their suggestions.

Mr. Walsh

This is not Party capital. I know other people——

Mr. Dillon

Does the Deputy think we should make interest-free loans available all over the country to anyone who has lost fodder, stock or fuel?

Mr. Walsh

No, no, any person who is in distress as a result of flooding should get an interest-free loan.

Mr. Dillon

I think he should get a grant. I think the Red Cross is authorised——

Mr. Walsh

I see no reason why it should not be done for the Barrow.

Mr. Dillon

I understand the Red Cross is authorised to come to the assistance of anyone anywhere in dire distress.

Mr. Walsh

They have not sufficient funds at their disposal.

Mr. Dillon

If there was dire distress to be relieved, they had authority to go to the relief of people, in the assurance that they would get back whatever expenditure they undertake in good faith.

Mr. Walsh

I assumed that the Government, being in a generous mood, giving £20,000 to the Shannon area, might do something for the areas outside the Shannon.

Mr. Dillon

I think that was the device employed, that the Irish Red Cross was charged to deal with any case of dire distress outside the restricted areas. Is not that so? I think that is so.

Mr. Gilbride

And they did so.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy knows of any case of dire distress and necessity for grant——

Mr. Walsh

Interest-free loans.

Mr. Dillon

Let us deal with one thing at a time. If the Deputy knows of a case of dire distress and refers it to the Red Cross, I imagine the distress will be promptly relieved. When it comes to the interest-free loans, interest-free loans are provided not for the relief of dire distress but for the relief of persons who had losses of fodder, fuel or stock in the exceptional flooding of the Shannon valley. Now, I am asking the Deputy if that criterion had been applied to the whole country and if every farmer who had suffered a loss of fuel, stock or fodder had a right to free loans, would not practically every farmer qualify for it?

Mr. Walsh

No, we had interest-free loans in 1947 for the purchase of stock.

Mr. Dillon

But not for fodder, fuel or stock. How many people lost stock this year from flooding?

Mr. Walsh

We do not know yet how many may lose stock as a result of flooding.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy will help me to give the cattle the two doses of Minel.

Mr. Walsh

That does not save them.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, and assuming that we secure the——

Mr. Gilbride

It is a poor substitute for hay or meal.

Mr. Dillon

It is not a substitute for one or the other, but a very useful adjuvant in order to prevent premature death.

Mr. Walsh

You cannot cure them of parasitic disease.

Mr. Dillon

I do not believe Deputy Walsh believes what he is advocating —or Deputy Gilbride either. I would like to make interest-free loans available to everyone, but the question is, is it practical politics?

Mr. Walsh

We did it in 1947.

Mr. Dillon

Devil a much. I do not want to chew the rag about that.

Mr. Walsh

We will chew that rag, if you like.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Carter spoke of the desirability of installing stocks of the Department leaflets in the county committee of agriculture offices. Now, if the Deputy presses that view strongly upon me I will give it very careful consideration, but I think that if he discusses it with Deputy Walsh, Deputy Walsh would share my view that if you started sending leaflets in bulk to county committee offices it would be awfully hard to keep them clean and neat. You need a regular installation to keep leaflets of that kind clean and in order and readily accessible. The county committees have not all got the kind of accommodation which they could use for that purpose. The danger of this kind of leaflet getting scattered about is not inconsiderable. In addition to that, the leaflets are always kept under review in the Department and sometimes we have to take a whole 200 or 300 copies of a leaflet and throw them away and put into the pigeon hole a new leaflet. If you scatter them all over the country, it is not easy to do that—it is not impossible, but it is not easy.

I do not doubt that if any C.A.O. in Ireland sends to the Department and asks for a dozen copies of a leaflet he will get them—and if he is not entitled to get them I will see he is. If he wants a dozen copies to give to farmers at a lecture or demonstration of some kind, I am sure Deputy Walsh would agree it would be very desirable to facilitate him in that way. Ordinarily, however, if the farmers are made aware that by writing in they can get any leaflet they like, it is probably the best way to distribute them. If Deputy Carter has in mind that the C.A.O. should have the right to bespeak a dozen or two dozen copies of a leaflet on potatoes, where one of his officers is going to give a lecture on potatoes, I have no doubt that can be arranged.

Deputy Walsh asked were we going to lean on Sligo for replacements of eliminated cows in intensive areas. The answer is that at this stage of our plans, where we have as yet created no attested areas, our aim is to try to get replacements from within the herd. Our ideal would be to persuade the farmer not to bring in any strange beasts after reactors had been eliminated; or, if he must bring in some, to get them tuberculin tested before he brings them on to the same part of the land where he has the tuberculin free herd. Do not forget there is going to be in every intensive area a period of compulsion. When we reach a stage when about 90 per cent. of the farms in the area are attested farms, we will then have to bring legislation into this House to get power to require the remaining 10 per cent. to bring their farms up to the attestation level. Until we get every farm in an area attested we cannot call it an attested area.

Mr. Walsh

Might I ask a question? In the case of an individual farmer who wishes to get his farm tested, how does he arrange regarding the fencing, his fences with another farm? Is there provision for that in any of the schemes?

Mr. Dillon

I do not think so. I think he has to do that himself. There is no subsidy for fencing, not that I know of. I am pretty certain that answer is right. Deputy Walsh knows this himself, but may I say to others that nothing gratifies the Department of Agriculture more than that responsible Deputies should formulate inquiries of that kind, so that we can give them authoritative answers which they can communicate to their constituents? Deputies will be asked every kind and variation of question.

I know they cannot send them all to us, but if they are asked a question as to what the people are entitled to under a particular scheme, let them not hesitate to write it on a sheet of paper and send it to the Department, so that we may send them a categorical answer that they can use thereafter in informing their constituents. I know it is hard for Deputies to know all the ins and outs of a scheme like the bovine T.B. eradication scheme at this stage, because it is all new. Especially in the case of Deputies like Deputy Gilbride or one coming from one of the intensive areas, I hope they will not hesitate to press on the Department any inquiries they get, so that we can provide them with the material to disseminate amongst their constituents. Eventually there will come a time when 90 per cent. of the farms in Sligo are attested. We will then have to come into the House and look for power to compel the remaining 10 per cent. Then all Sligo will be an attested area.

Mr. Walsh

Will you not be up against that before you reach the 90 per cent.?

Mr. Dillon

I do not know.

Mr. Walsh

Could you not find yourself in that difficulty at 20 per cent.?

Mr. Dillon

I am told not. I am told that the experience elsewhere has been that to proceed up to about 80 per cent. on a voluntary basis is the soundest procedure.

Mr. Walsh

One farmer in six can throw you out, can put you out of gear completely, regarding the fencing.

Mr. Dillon

I am assured that experience has taught that the best way to proceed is to proceed on a voluntary basis up to a certain level and then, when you reach the optimum on the voluntary basis, you must come for compulsory powers, but that it is futile to seek compulsory powers before you have got the maximum co-operation that voluntary effort can evoke. When you get Sligo attested and it is declared an attested area, it then becomes what Deputy Walsh was thinking of, a fountainhead for supplies of attested cattle and, in those circumstances, the people of County Sligo are riding high, wide and handsome, because, as things are going at present, it appears almost certain that Sligo will be an attested area years before any other area around and that must put a very substantial premium on dairy cattle from County Sligo, so that I hope and pray that, at this crucial hour, the Sligo people will not make the appalling mistake of throwing away their foundation shorthorn stock.

I want to make this prophecy, and prophecies are dangerous things to make, that this day five years the shorthorn heifer from County Sligo will be worth from £10 to £15 more than a shorthorn heifer from any other part of Ireland. The people who have shorthorn herds in County Sligo will find that the progeny of these herds of dual-purpose shorthorn cattle, and particularly the female progeny, are worth from £10 to £15 a head more than heifers of equal age and quality from any other county in Ireland. The awful danger is that, instead of appreciating the immense potentialities of that preferential position, the farmers in Sligo will suffer themselves to be swept away by the present passion for Aberdeen-Angus cattle.

There is no harm in crossing a good shorthorn cow with an Aberdeen-Angus bull, if you want a saleable store beast, but if they have good cows that could produce good heifers, let the farmers of Sligo bring them to dual-purpose shorthorn bulls which we will place for them in County Sligo. If they turn out to be bulls, let them burn the horns off them in the first week of their lives. If they are heifers, I would take the horns off them in any case, but that is as each farmer thinks best for himself to do. With or without horns, the heifers will be worth from £10 to £15 more than any other heifers and if you burn the horns off a good shorthorn bullock at two and a half years old, fat, there will be very little difference between him and the best blue or black bullock that ever was bred.

I shall be much obliged, as I said before, to Deputy Walsh or any other Deputy who hears of a case of somebody who is seriously inconvenienced by inability to get supplies of Irish galvanised iron, if he will give me particulars, so that we may investigate the case without delay.

Lest there be any ambiguity or doubt about the difficulties in regard to the milk prices tribunal, the decline in the staff may not have been remedied because there is no use in getting untrained staff. It is not like getting staff for the land project or some similar enterprise which you can train in a relatively short time. The staff required for a costings body must be a fairly highly trained staff, or they will be no good at all. You cannot just go out and get half a dozen highly trained fellows for an enterprise of that kind.

Mr. Walsh

A few adding machines will do in this case.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know the ins and outs, but the difference is that, if you are looking for semi-trained staff, they are quite easy to get, but, if you are looking for trained staff, they are apparently not so easy to get.

Mr. Walsh

The technical work is finished.

Mr. Dillon

All I can say is—and I say this with full authority as Minister for Agriculture—let not the Costings Commission delay their deliberations for the want of staff. If they want staff, I will give it to them, if I have it, but I cannot manufacture highly trained staff, if they are not there. It may not be worth while training them. If it takes six months to train a suitable man, the Costings Commission, having been asked to get a report out in six months, there is no use in training a man for a job which will be over before his training is finished. I do not know what the procedure is. I have never interfered, mixed or meddled with it, but let them not delay their deliberations for want of staff. On the other hand, I say to them with equal emphasis: let them not be bustled or hustled or bamboozled into making precipitate or premature reports because they think the public are getting impatient. Let them do their job right as they think it right to do it, and, as soon as it is finished, whatever report they give me, I will communicate to the public, but when I communicate it to the public, let us bear this fact in mind: there is no human creature left on the face of God's earth who wants to buy butter at the price at which we are prepared to produce it. That is the bleak, inescapable fact. The verdict of no Costings Commission in this country is going to alter the fact which Deputy Walsh had to face when he was Minister and which I have to face now, that we can subsidise the price of butter on the domestic market——

Mr. Walsh

There are other means of getting over that difficulty.

Mr. Dillon

Over what?

Mr. Walsh

That difficulty of subsidisation.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know. There comes a time when our people have eaten all the butter they want to eat and there is a surplus of butter which has to be sold. I cannot make people outside Ireland pay more for butter than they want to pay. It is a source of gratification to me at present that, for such exports of Irish butter as we are making, we are getting, I think, the highest price paid to any exporting country in the world, for the small surplus we have to export, but, even so, we have to pay a heavy subsidy in order to get it out, so let us start thinking about that inescapable fact. There is not left on the face of God's earth a single living creature outside Ireland who is prepared to pay for Irish butter the lowest price at which our people are prepared to produce it.

Mr. Walsh

What was the export price?

Mr. Dillon

At the moment?

Mr. Walsh

During last summer, when you did export.

Mr. Dillon

About 380/- to 385/-.

Mr. Walsh

We were buying butter at that rate from New Zealand. We sold New Zealand butter at a far higher price than that—411/- for New Zealand butter.

Mr. Dillon

Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ascalon. I got 412/- for Irish butter in the recent past, but——

Mr. Walsh

You should not at 384/-.

Mr. Dillon

——after 1st April, I very much doubt if I will get anything like it again. Let Deputy Walsh or the Minister for Agriculture search the world to get the highest price we can for Irish butter.

Mr. Walsh

There was a market in June and July.

Mr. Dillon

Both of us will agree that to the best of our ability we will search the world to get the highest price we can for Irish butter, but no matter how far we search and how diligently we search there is not left on the face of God's earth, from China to Peru or from San Francisco to Vladivostok, a single human creature who is prepared to pay for butter the price at which our people are prepared to produce it.

Mr. Walsh

Possibly they will not but last summer we could have done it.

Mr. Dillon

That is a fact we can brood upon between now and the date upon which Deputy Walsh's commission to inquire into the production costs of milk publishes its report. I guarantee to this House that as soon as I get the report the Deputies of this House will get it, quick as lightning, but when they have got it, or even before they get it, I would be immensely grateful to Deputies from any side of the House for their suggestions as to what we are to do with the surplus over and above what our own people are prepared to consume, where we are to sell it, how we are to sell it and how much of it we ought to produce for sale. I think that for to-day I had better leave it at that.

Mr. Walsh

We will have another day.

Mr. Dillon

I would remind Deputies on all sides of the House that providentially the prospect is that the more calves that are reared the more money we can make.

Mr. Walsh

Our cows can only have one calf each.

Mr. Dillon

That does not mean that they are all reared.

Mr. Walsh

Well, yes.

Mr. Dillon

No, it does not. The sad part of it is that out of every ten calves three die.

Mr. Walsh

That was in the past.

Mr. Dillon

You would be surprised at how many die of white scour.

Mr. Walsh

Two per cent. and it was down to 1 per cent. at one time.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy will join with me in impressing on the people the desirability of using effective therapeutic remedies for the prevention of disease and the desirability of feeding young calves from their birth at the highest possible level. There is one very easy way of doing it and that is to allow nature to take its course and if you can persuade a cow to rear two calves——

Mr. Walsh

That is the——

Mr. Dillon

——she might take her sister in tow.

Mr. Walsh

That does not serve.

Mr. Dillon

It is something I would suggest to Deputies to reflect upon. I can assure the Deputies that when that calf reaches maturity I will have no difficulty in getting a remunerative price.

Mr. Walsh

It is too expensive. You are after feeding it on about £35 worth of milk.

Mr. Hughes

Cut his throat again.

Mr. Dillon

In regard to butter, I earnestly exhort my Fianna Fáil friends in Dáil Éireann to give me the benefit of their counsel as to where I can find any living creature outside the four shores of Ireland who is prepared to pay the minimum which our people are prepared to accept for creamery butter.

Vote put and agreed to.