Last night I was dealing with some remarks made by Deputy Dillon and his accusation in connection with my loyalty, as he termed it. I do not think he understands what loyalty is, not to mind the meaning of the word. Any gentleman who could come in here as the leader of a Party and then shed his loyalty to the people who sent him here by shifting across, surely does not understand the meaning of the word "loyalty". The Deputy also made a few statements in connection with a meeting which was held at Killeagh Fair during the last election. I have spoken at Killeagh at about 25 Fair meetings in my 32 years and this is the first time that Deputy Dillon came. He announced the meeting with a big advertisement in the Cork Examiner, fixing it for half-past eleven.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 49—Agriculture (Resumed).
I do not see what this has to do with the Estimate for Agriculture.
I am replying to the statement made by Deputy Dillon yesterday on this Estimate. When I arrived at a quarter to twelve there was no trace of Deputy Dillon, except a big lorry with a special arm-chair for the Minister and two acolytes waiting, one at each end of it. Half past twelve came and still no trace of the Minister. The meeting did not start until a quarter past one. I found out afterwards that Deputy Dillon had spent from 11 o'clock that day until a quarter past one, until our meeting had started, in the Devonshire Arms Hotel fortifying himself for the job.
That surely has nothing whatever to do with the Department of Agriculture.
I am very sorry, A Cheann Comhairle, but statements were made here last night on this Estimate by Deputy Dillon of what occurred at this meeting. Surely I am entitled to reply.
Surely the efflux of time at the meeting has nothing to do with the management, good or bad, of the Department.
Unfortunately, that example has been set. I do not want to take up the time of the Dáil on it. I was speaking when Deputy Dillon came up to the meeting and I called for two minutes' silence for the white turkey-cock——
Now in your scheme of economic development, enshrined therein.
——and I got it. Deputy Dillon's meeting, announced to be held at half-past eleven, started at half-past three and he had no less than nine people removed from the meeting by the Civic Guards.
If the Deputy does not come to the administration of the Department, I must ask him to desist.
Deputy Dillon accused me on that day of making statements about guarantees for wheat and barley. I did. I stated before in this House that I did, because I believed they could be carried out. That is the reason. In my 32 years of public life, I have one thing to my credit. Any public statement I make out in the open, if it is a promise, I do my damnedest to see it fulfilled, and no bones about it. It was two years previously, in the autumn of 1955, that a deputation from the Grain Committee of the Beet Association went to Deputy Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, on the price of wheat and he told us that he had a headache for a month wondering what he was going to do with the surplus. That was in 1955. He had the harvest of 1955 and the harvest of 1956. For both of those he did nothing, except to import a pretty considerable quantity of wheat on tick from Canada, to be paid for by the present Government when it came into office. That is how he dealt with wheat. That surplus for three harvests piled up there for the new Minister to deal with and straighten out when he came in.
I have made it a point during my term in public life to be honest with my people, to be straight with them, to tell them the truth and to do my damnedest to get whatever they require. That is why I was sent here; that is my job and that is what has kept me here. Perhaps if I were prepared to shut my mouth and bargain, like the representatives of the farmers I see coming in from time to time, I would be sitting over there now, too, with £300 to £500 pension in my pocket for life as a reward.
Can we all deal with this, Sir, and refer to what was said last night?
However, that did not happen. I am amazed that anybody reading the papers and knowing the attitude of Deputy James Dillon in regard to the subsidy on butter would have any doubt whatsoever that if ever the Deputy got an opportunity as Minister for Agriculture, all the butter would go down like cheese or something else.
The Deputy opposite seems to smile. Here is what Deputy Dillon said about it, as reported in the Official Debates for the 18th June, 1947:—
We are subsidising butter production to the tune of £2,000,000 per annum. How long will that go on? Do we expect butter to get dearer in the markets of the world? Do we expect a time in the early future when the price of milk will become so adjusted that it will be possible to suspend this subsidy or do we intend to continue producing milk for conversion into butter in creameries at an annual cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 per annum? I want it to go on record most emphatically that I think such a policy is sheer insanity and is purely pursued for the purpose of maintaining the prestige of incompetents in the offices of the Minister for Agriculture since Fianna Fáil came into power. If butter cannot be produced for manufacture in creameries and sale to the public at a price which will not involve the community in a cost of 2/6d. per lb. and the Exchequer in an annual grant of £2,000,000, the sooner we get out of producing butter through the medium of creameries for sale to the consumer the better it will be for the consumer and the men on whose lands the milk to make that butter is produced.
How much per lb. did the Deputy say?
Look it up.
Half-a-crown.
In 1948 Deputy Dillon became Minister for Agriculture and for 3½ years carried on the insanity and paid the £2,000,000 and more every year. He came back again in 1951 and carried on the same old game. Then he makes a statement like that I have read. No wonder he offered a bob a gallon to the creameries. This is the kind of tripe dished out by Deputy Dillon.
Then you have the barley position. For 3½ years the minimum price for barley was £24 per ton or 48/- per barrel. At that time pigs were fed, fattened and reared. But there was this difference, that the price of wheaten offals during the whole of that period was held at £20 a ton so that the mixture could be right. When the inter-Party Government came into office a Cabinet meeting was held at which schemes were devised to get money. One of those schemes was that the farmer was to lose £4 per ton on his barley and the pig feeder was to gain nothing. The rake-off was to be got by increasing the price of offals to the pig feeder and collecting money off him for the Exchequer. That is what happened and it went on for a considerable period.
On the 23rd March, 1955, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton, stated as reported at Col. 515, Vol. 149 of the Dáil Debates:
It was originally calculated that the reduction in flour and bread prices as from the 1st May, 1954, would add approximately £900,000 to the bill for subsidy for the financial year 1954-55. In actual fact, the reduction will cost £927,000 against which, however, can be offset items amounting to about £555,000, leaving a balance of £372,000 to be provided for under this sub-head.
The chief off-setting items, of which I shall give details in a moment, are:—
(a) increased receipts by flour millers from sales of wheaten offals over and above the amount originally estimated;
(b) savings accruing from changes in the millers' grist; and,
(c) the fact that milling costs proved to be lower than was thought when the original estimate was prepared.
Increases in the price of offals, from £20 to £23 per ton in September, 1954, to £24.10. in December, 1954, and to £26 a ton in January, 1955, account for increased receipts by millers of approximately £170,000.
That was the agreement made by the saviour of the farmers, Deputy Dillon, and Deputy Norton, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I was anxious to see how far they had gone. On the 15th February, 1956, I put down a question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce to find out how much he had gathered. It was answered by the then acting-Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Corish, who said:—
...the increased receipts for millers from sales of wheaten offals from September, 1954, to August, 1955, have been calculated to amount to £431,000; and for the period from September, 1955, to the 1st February 1956, to £186,000.
That is £617,000 they had collected then.
I was still anxious to know what was the total loot collected by this extraordinary collusion between the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, so on the 24th April, 1957, I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce:—
...if he will state in respect of the period September, 1954, to January, 1957, inclusive, the total amount of the increase obtained by Irish flour millers as a result of the increase in the price of home produced wheat offals to that of imported offals; if he is aware that this penal imposition on pig producers had, and continues to have a very grave effect on the production of pigs and bacon...
The reply was:—
In the period from the 1st September, 1954, to 31st January, 1957, 219,870 tons of offals were produced in the flour mills in Ireland. The prices at which offals were sold during that period varied from time to time with the changes in world prices, but, over the whole period, the total receipts from offals sales came to £5,488,000 approximately. Had the average price remained at the level prevailing in August, 1944, viz., £20 a ton, receipts from offals sales would have come to £4,397,000 approximately. The difference between these two figures will, I hope, give the Deputy the information he seeks...
That means that £1,091,000 was collected in that scandalous manner by the collusion between the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, and the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton. It was collected from the unfortunate pig feeders of this country and the unfortunate farmers were cut £4 per ton on their barley. Those are the facts, given out openly in the House in reply to questions. That is the condition of affairs in which Deputy Dillon gets up here and looks for a solid income for the farmers. Those are the circumstances in which he looks for that. Where are we getting to?
I am not concerned with manoeuvres made by any Government and any Party in respect of barley. My interest in barley, and the interest of my constituents, ceases when the price goes below 48/- a barrel. If the Government want barley grown, the farmers will grow it, but we will not be made to grow cheap feeding so that any Government can turn it into a racket. Those are the matters which bring me to what has happened in connection with those things. We no longer have the spectacle of a bunch of farmers coming in here with "For Sale" on their backs.
Reference to Deputies in that manner should not be made in the House by a Deputy. I shall not allow it.
Very well, Sir.
Force of argument is not increased by abuse.
It is a pity you were not in the Chair last night, Sir.
A Private Bill will be brought in in a few months and we can have a discussion on it then.
Deputy Corry, on the Estimate.
I am wondering by what trick manoeuvring the president of one of those farmers' organisations was lifted by his pockets until he found himself in charge of the Agricultural Credit Corporation.
The matter before the House is the administration of the Department of Agriculture and I must ask the Deputy to confine himself to that. I have already reminded him that force of argument is not increased by abuse.
I want to deal with what has happened as fairly as I can. An organisation called on the Minister for Agriculture last year to fix the price of wheat. They called on the Minister and had a consultation with him. Evidently they came to some agreement but in a short time, the man who made the agreement with me was the buyer. Three months afterwards, he found himself in one of those—what shall I call it—padded cells where nobody could get at him. No questions could be asked in this House about their activities or anything else. There he was and I got his name signed to my docket: "Purchased on behalf of An Bord Gráin", with a cut of 5/9 a barrel in addition.
I notice that there is a considerable sum to cover "losses on the disposal of wheat and payment to wheat growers" in this Estimate. I wonder how that has come about. I found the general run of farmers in my area got back 2/2 out of the 5/9. Lo and behold, for some extraordinary reason, my information is that at the moment there is, lying to the credit of An Bord Gráin, close on half a million of money. I suggest to the Minister now that the decent thing to do with that money is to refund the balance of the 5/9 to the growers and give the rest of it in compensation to the unfortunate farmers, who, on his own admission, lost up to £13 million. It is an extraordinary thing that a body of men should come along and refund to the farmers 2/2 out of their 5/9, while £450,000 odd surplus money was still there when the job was finished. We are entitled to know what became of it and who has got it.
I notice here that £10 is provided for the Agricultural Production Council. Perhaps when the Minister is replying he will tell us the last occasion on which that Agricultural Production Council was summoned to meet, and the reasons, if any, why they did not hold a meeting for over two years. Those are two of the matters I should like to have considered. Would the Minister also tell us what are to be the activities of An Bord Gráin for the next 12 months?
I heard Deputy Dillon last night alluding to some extraordinary swap which could only be conceived, I admit, in the brain of an individual with his views on wheat. The extraordinary swap was that we should send out barley and get back maizemeal. I have been about 34 years on the Cork County Committee of Agriculture and during that period, we have, each year, faithfully paid inspectors to carry out experiments in pig feeding to ascertain the relative values of maizemeal as against barley. If I were to count up what the Cork ratepayers alone have spent on that, it would amount to a pretty considerable sum and now, to keep the boys working, and to justify their existence and their incomes for the next few months, barley is to go to the millers and—I suppose we have ships lying idle—be shipped away and we are to bring in maizemeal instead. That is the most extraordinary brainwave I have ever heard of.
What of the decisions taken and the results of the experiments carried out by the county committees of agriculture and by the Department? At least 100 to 200 leaflets issued by the Department are wholly against it. As a result of the experiments, they point out, 1 cwt. of barley is better than 1 cwt. of maize because it produces a leaner pig and one more liable to become what is commonly known as Grade A. I do not know what the Department is coming to. I listened to Deputy Dillon last night. I suppose he smells the smokescreen. He has a good nose.
The largest item in this bill is the bovine tuberculosis eradiction scheme —£3,500,000. Away back in 1954, Deputy Dillon, sitting over here, announced with a great flourish of trumpets the introduction of the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme in the parish of Bansha in County Tipperary. I wondered what happened in Bansha from 1954 to 1959. I put down a question to the Minister asking for information. I find that on 31st March, 1956, there were 1,114 reactors in the parish of Bansha; in 1957, there were 2,600; in 1958, there were 1,825; and on 31st March, 1959, there were still left in Bansha 1,560 reactors. These are the figures supplied by the Department. They give a total of 7,099 reactors. The Department bought 3,500 and 3,887 were otherwise disposed of. That was from 1954 to 1959.
Figures, again supplied by the Department, show that from September, 1954, to March, 1958, there were 3,618 reactors in Bansha and from April, 1958, to March, 1959, there were 1,146. Now this is the most serious business that the agricultural community has ever been faced with. It is also the biggest racket. I do not know where the Minister got his figures but I leave it to any sensible individual in this House to judge what is happening. I will not go beyond my own county. On 31st January, 1959, there were 14,900 reactors in Cork County. That compares very favourably with Bansha. Of those 15,000 reactors approximately, the Department bought 703. Here, on this sheet I have in my hand, they say they suffered a loss per reactor of £12 10s. I know my farmers. The position is that out of every 21 reactors, the Department bought one. The loss was £12 10s. per reactor. The extraordinary thing is that, while the Department bought 703 at a loss of £12 10s. per reactor, the farmer sold privately, 5,684. Will any man here tell me that eight out of every nine farmers in County Cork were fools enough, having been offered £12 10s. over the value, not to take it and to leave that £12 10s. go somewhere else? The Department bought 700, and 5,600 were sold privately. Why? What was wrong with the Department's price? Who collected the £12 10s. loss per reactor on the 700 odd the Department bought?
In North Cork, in Ballyclough, there were 5,300 reactors. Of those, 149 were purchased by the Department and 2,252 were sold privately. Will anybody tell me that the Ballyclough farmer is foolish enough to sell 2,000 cattle at a loss of £12 10s. per beast? I always heard that the North Cork farmers were the toughest men on God's earth. From what I know of them, they are. In Boherbue, out of 2,000 reactors, the Department purchased 166, and 566 were disposed of privately. I do not think there are any fools in Boherbue, either. In Freemount, there were 2,500 reactors. The Department bought 73 and 711 were sold privately. For every one the Department bought, the farmer sold ten privately, evidently because he got a better price than the Department would give.
Whatever the explanation is, £12 10s. of a loss on every reactor bought by the Department has to be paid by the taxpayers. Who is in the racket? Who is responsible for the racket? If the 5,000 odd cattle that were sold privately had been bought by the Department of Agriculture, on the basis of a loss of £12 10s. per reactor, there would be an extra £70,000 to be got from the taxpayer.
There are still available for the Department 9,314 reactors in Cork county. If we are to have any success whatever in this matter, I seriously suggest to the Minister that he should get whoever is responsible for this and hang him publicly. Anything less would be useless. Who is responsible for the set of figures I have here? Who is responsible for telling me that in the county of Sligo, they bought 1,879 reactors and lost £23. 3. 4. a beast on them, although they paid only £49. 12. 0. for them. It is a scraggy old dry cow now that is not worth £49.
And no 50/- on the hide.
Here we have the Department paying £49 and losing £20 a head. Who is at the back of it? If it happened in any other country, the person responsible would be strung to a lamp-post. Who is collecting that loot—that £3,500,000, to be found by the taxpayers this year and distributed in that manner? For whom is the £3,000,000? When those figures were produced at their committee meeting, the Cork County Advisory Body sent a proposal to the Minister that each farmer, on production of his certificate that he had disposed of his reactor, would, on that certificate, get the £12 10s. which is going to some unknown individual to-day. That proposal was sent to the Minister about three months ago and we are still awaiting the Department's decision.
At our last meeting, we had to decide that we would hold no more meetings until we got a decision from the Minister on that matter, because, in my opinion, that is the only way in which you will get rid of the 9,314 reactors left in Cork county. If there will be a loss, as the Minister suggests, of from £12 to £20 a reactor, why not give the £12 or £20 to the farmer and take away the reactor and get rid of it? Why not pay the farmer, on production of the certificate that he has got rid of the animal? Is that not the simplest way to deal with it? If the present position is allowed to continue, there will be reactors in Bansha in 1979.
I am as anxious in this matter as any living man. I am anxious that our herds should be cleared, if it is possible to clear them and that they should be cleared at the lowest cost to the farmer and the lowest loss to the State. That will not be done by offering the farmer £5 or £10 less than the value of the animal and writing down a loss of £12 10s. in respect of any animal the farmer is fool enough to sell. In respect of anything the gentlemen from the Department get a chance of looking at, there will be a loss. Even in respect of the barley for which they were to pay 37/-, they were to have a loss of £4.
I should like the Minister to go into these matters seriously. Undoubtedly, there is a racket somewhere. Any sane person would admit that there must be a racket when he looks at those figures and sees that on the 703 reactors bought in Cork county by the Department of Agriculture, there was a loss of £12.10 an animal and when he sees that the farmers were so happy with the big price offered by the Department that they sold 5,600 animals privately. There must be a racket in it. Let it be ended.
If there is to be any finality in this matter and if we are ever to be able to say that in a given area in a period of from 11 months to two years, the herds will be cleared, we must get down to work. I do not know how the Department sum up these matters. Is there any test on animals coming into this country? A gentleman in my constituency went in for a special pedigree strain and imported animals and I am informed that 83 per cent. of them are reactors. I suppose the bill will be coming along now in respect of the Landrace pig. I am informed that in the case I have referred to there were 83 per cent. reactors. Who is responsible for allowing them to be imported? Is there any check? Will anybody accept responsibility for it?
Last year, we had the worst harvest in living memory. The wheat grown for human food had to be turned into animal feeding. It is rather extraordinary that last year we imported barley, offals and oats to the tune of £4,056,000. Then I read in this Estimate about the losses on wheat. Surely that wheat should be better than the offals? Surely the whole wheat should be better than the skin of the wheat?
What is this for? A sum of £4,000,000 is sent out for the purchase of barley and offals and now we are to send out barley to see if we can get maize for it. In dealing with these matters, I had hoped we would be able to offer our farmers a decent price at least to grow the feeding-stuffs for animals. I suppose it will not be too long before we go back to the Russian oats for our race-horses, as if they cannot gallop fast enough on Irish oats.
We hear talk about expansion of production. Let us get down to bedrock and see where the expansion will go. There is a sum here of £58,000 odd for increasing milk production. At the same time, we are told we have too much of it and we pay a penny for every gallon we have. Which is right? Either that sum of £58,000 should not be there or the farmers should get back their penny a gallon.
The only people who grow wheat at any kind of a reasonable profit here are the ranchers who plough anything from a minimum of 200 acres to 1,200 acres. The rancher can afford to work for roughly £2 an acre. Now consider the 40-acre farmer, the man who grew wheat when this nation was starving and when those other gentlemen would not destroy their good grass by ploughing it. If that man had 10 acres out of his 40 under wheat today, at a profit of £2 an acre, that represents £20 for a quarter of his farm and probably he used the best of his farm for growing the wheat.
I wonder what kind of a living Deputy Dillon imagines the 40-acre farmer would knock out if he put his whole 40 acres under wheat and got £80 profit? However, that is what we have very definitely driven him to, so far as wheat-growing is concerned. I guarantee that there is at least a 25 per cent. reduction in the grain acreage this year and that there will be a further 50 per cent. reduction next year.
My advice to my farmers is to leave wheat-growing to the rancher to do what he damn well likes with it. Unfortunately, a large number of them are stuck up to the neck with Bowmakers and renting associations for farm machinery, such as combines and so on, and they have no way out. If the policy is to leave it to the 400-and 500-acre farmer, and the 1,200-acre Englishman who can come over here, buy the land and knock four or five crops of wheat out of it and sell it back to the natives when it is done, I hope we shall never again see an emergency in this country because we shall be looking for the ranchers to grow the grain.
I have seen that condition develop step by step until, today, it is completely uneconomic for our farmers to grow wheat. I am speaking of an area where the poor law valuation is anything from 30/- to 45/- per statute acre. That means that those people have to find £4 an acre for rates. Unless there is a radical change in our outlook, we shall find ourselves changing over and if the farmer changes over, it is very difficult to get him to change back. I see very little outlook in respect of the rotation of crops for our ordinary tillage farmer.
Deputy Dillon spoke here yesterday. I wonder if he has heard of a place called Ballybeg which is in Deputy O'Sullivan's constituency. I wonder if Deputy O'Sullivan ever asked General Costello about the date on which he bought Ballybeg for the production of ground limestone and on whose recommendation he did it. I want this matter straightened out once and for all, so that we may explode some extraordinary statements made by Deputy Dillon from time to time.
It would be as far back as June, 1947, that we, the members of the Beetgrowers' Association, approached General Costello about getting lime for the farmers. There was at that period about 10 or 11 years' accumulation of what we call sludge lime in Tuam, Co. Galway. We asked the Galway people to use that lime and, as a special favour, we requested Gen. Costello to have some of it dried. They said they would take it if they got it dried and in bags. Something like 100 wagons of it were dried and about two months afterwards, when we were with Gen. Costello again, we received a complaint that there was not one ton of the lime taken. To show him our good faith in the matter, both Deputy Lehane and I ordered four wagons of it and brought it down to Cork. I was afterwards accused by Deputy Dillon when he was a Minister here, of using my position to rob the Galway farmers of that lime and he never had the decency to apologise.
I do not wish to hold up the House but I have dealt here with what I consider very serious matters from the agricultural point of view. The Taoiseach has rightly called our attention to the position in regard to bovine T.B. eradication. I have given here figures supplied by the Department itself. If we are to be told that there is to be an expenditure of £3,500,000 in the next 12 months on the eradication of bovine T.B., we want to see something for that money. We do not want to find ourselves in the position of the people of Bansha with 1,100 of them in 1956 and 1,500 of them today. That is not a very hopeful picture for me to draw for the farmers of Cork County. Above all I suggest that the Minister, by sworn inquiry or otherwise, should investigate the racket that has been going on by which an animal is alleged to have been bought in Cork at £41 8s. on which the Department suffered a loss of £12 10s.
I think the Deputy has already adverted to that matter.
This matter is very serious and £3,500,000 is to be spent——
Are they not fattening them all in County Meath? They will make money on them.
They are flogging them in Wexford.
I should like the Minister to publish as accurately as possible the number of reactors in this country today and to let us have the same information this time 12 months, so that we can find out whether we are succeeding in getting rid of some of them or whether we shall find, as in the case of Bansha, that the game is so profitable that there is no intention of losing them.
Last night when Deputy Corry rose to speak following Deputy Dillon he made certain allegations against men who occupy and have occupied Ministerial office in this country, with which I intend to deal. He asserted that there were men who occupied Ministerial office in some Governments who were influenced by the fact that they were attracted by the £500 a year pension which they would get if they occupied that office for a certain number of years.
It is only a week or so since the Taoiseach quite rightly made an appeal, in the speech he made having been elected Taoiseach, for an improvement in the conduct of Deputies, and this is the response. The measure to which Deputy Corry objects so much was introduced by his own Party. The first Government of this State had no pensions and no State cars. It was only on the accession of his own Party to office that a Bill was introduced and passed through the Dáil providing Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries—and correctly so—with pensions, having devoted a certain number of years of their life in the service of the country in a full-time capacity.
It is not in order to discuss that Act on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.
I agree, but the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was in the Chair last night when Deputy Corry made the allegations to which, I suggest to the Chair, I am entitled to reply.
He made a passing reference.
He passed it on well to the Press Gallery.
It is reported in today's papers and the Deputy spoke without interruption. So far as former Ministers who now sit in Opposition are concerned, it is well known to all and sundry that they lost heavily by accepting Ministerial office.
If Deputy O'Sullivan is allowed by the Chair to develop this question, other Deputies may claim the same right.
I agree and that is the basis on which I claim the right, that Deputy Corry was given that right last night.
Deputy Corry made a passing reference to this matter of pensions. He had been subjected to a great deal of criticism during Deputy Dillon's speech and the Chair felt he was entitled to make some reply to that criticism. That reply was expressed in three or four words. Because of those three or four words spoken by Deputy Corry, Deputy O'Sullivan will not be allowed to make a speech on Ministerial pensions.
I agree it would not be right that I should be permitted to make a speech on those lines——
The Chair has allowed Deputy O'Sullivan to make a reply to Deputy Corry.
Very good, Sir. I have replied. There will be another occasion when we shall be permitted, I am sure, to develop this point——
I will take advantage of that immediately.
——and protect all members of this House from the type of allegation made here last night. On this occasion the House is considering an Estimate for what is now regarded at long last as one of the most important Departments in the State, and what do we find? We find that there is among the agricultural community considerable concern at the fact that during the year under review it would appear that the Ministry died a natural death. We are told that a certain number of Bills will have to be dealt with before we adjourn for the summer recess. We find that among that lengthy list there is not a single Bill which has any direct application to the improvement of the agricultural community.
We find that there is complete dissatisfaction at the manner in which the present Minister for Agriculture represents the agricultural interests in this Government. We find that the guaranteed prices which operated at the time this Government took office two years ago have in some cases been completely removed and in others reduced and that at a time when other sections of the community, quite rightly, received some increases in income to cushion them against the increased cost of living.
In my constituency, I do not admit that we have the ranchers to which Deputy Corry referred. We have hard working farmers who engage in a mixed system of farming but, in the main, they rely on dairying activities to provide them with a means of livelihood. What do we find in that respect? We find that that section of the community have been picked out by the Government to suffer a serious reduction in their incomes by the imposition of a levy on them for having worked too hard and produced too much. I think that the imposition of the levy on the wheat grower for having done likewise was wrong and that the criticism which Deputy Corry has just levelled at his own Government and Party for their action in passing on to An Bord Gráin responsibilities that were the Minister's referred to a palpable case in which a Government sought to escape from their responsibilities in relation to the maintenance of security in that branch of farming.
If ever there was a case for special protection for that industry, it surely applies in these years when all men in public life continually advert to the importance to our people of retaining the export markets we have for our surplus cattle. Thanks be to God, the day is gone when any Party in the State would decry that industry. That was brought home forcibly to our people in the cities and towns as well as in the countryside a few years ago when this country ran into a serious balance of payments situation. They looked to that sector of our community to work harder, produce more and increase our exports so that the country would be in a position to buy the raw materials of industry and permit our people, whether they lived in city, town or countryside, to enjoy a reasonable standard of living.
That was a troublesome episode in the history of the country but it brought one fact certainly very much to light—how dependent our people are on our ability to export and increase as much as we possibly can the level of exports. When the much-criticised inter-Party Government attained office first in 1948, the level of exports from this country was £13,000,000. We have seen a dramatic increase in the level of our exports. Consequently, we see that we can attribute the standard of living we enjoy to the fact that we succeeded so well in so short a time in increasing our stocks of cattle and livestock—all, I claim, as a consequence of the 1948 Trade Agreement.
The encouragement given by the inter-Party Governments to the people to walk their grain off the land and to recognise that the most suitable outlet for what they grew was to transform it into walking it off the land, was not endorsed by the Party in office today. They criticised very severely our policy in those days. Today in their Programme for Economic Expansion, which was examined in detail last night by Deputy Dillon, it is pointed out that there was now an acceptance of the fact that, due to our livestock industry and our capacity in our climatic conditions to produce good grass, we were capable of carrying a much higher cattle population than we have at the moment. That is one of the greatest conversions in major policy the State has experienced since it was founded.
Deputy Dillon last night cited the instance of an abattoir that was worked full time as recently as 1947. That abattoir was in my constituency. I saw there where the grandest of young cattle were slaughtered for export for veal to Britain. We know that at that time subsidies were given to encourage people to slaughter calves as soon as they appeared in the world. Were it not for the closing down of that abattoir and the stopping of the slaughter which amounted to as many as 147,000 as recently as 1947, we could not have had in the years that followed the level of exports that everybody now realises was so necessary to the country's economy.
By an imaginative and forceful effort in the eradication of disease, we also succeeded in reducing the mortality in that respect. It took a lot of explaining and argument to bring home to many people that the country could safely embark upon increased production secure in the knowledge that, having done so, they could look forward in the harvest time to a fixed price for what they grew. Deputy Dillon on every occasion on which he rose to his feet stressed the point that we should leave the land in even better fertility than when we found it in the Spring.
Deputy Corry referred to the abuses that existed in the growing of wheat and to the fact that so many people mine the land and accumulated fortunes from it. That was Fianna Fáil policy and when the inter-Party Government sought to correct that tendency we cannot say that we met with much co-operation. In fact, I was present in the city of Kilkenny on the occasion of a by-election when Deputy Corry was presented next after the former Taoiseach. The people of Carlow-Kilkenny were advised that, in fact, he was a potential Minister for Agriculture. I heard him promise the people there that, given a change of Government, they would again experience a price of 80/- a barrel for wheat. It was a successful campaign. It won back votes and seats in this House but was it decent? Was it fair? I will say that Deputy Corry came back into the House and admitted that he made that statement. At least he had the courage to do that.
It is true of course that people were led to believe two years ago that far from experiencing the reduction in their incomes they have experienced, they would enjoy far higher incomes in consequence of their change over to supporting the election of the Fianna Fáil Party. During that period, we know how the income of every family has been so seriously affected by Government policy. We know that the Government have acceded to requests from various organised sections to give them increases in their incomes to meet the increased difficulties presented by the increased cost of living.
I ask: what has the small farmer got to cushion him against that impact? I contend that when bread and flour and butter were increased in price to the level to which this Government succeeded in increasing them, the people who live in the open and who work hard on the land were most seriously affected by the resultant increase in the cost of living. What do they find? Although they are required to pay 7d. per lb. more for butter, when they bring their milk to the creameries, they receive a penny or a penny halfpenny less for it. That is indeed a strange result from a Party which promised all and sundry in the dairying counties that, given a change of Government, they would secure much higher prices for milk delivered to the creameries. We do not know whether they believed they would get that but it was a rash promise, and again it was an effective one.
Now we have Deputies rising on the Government benches, and, in very moderate terms, appealing to the Minister to remove the levy which he imposed on that industry. There is no mention now of the 3d. a gallon increase in the price of milk to creameries. They would be quite happy if they could restore the price to the level at which it was when the previous Government left office. The people producing milk have to suffer increased costs not alone in their own homes but also through the fact that they have to meet increased rates consequent on the increased cost of maintaining institutions and every single thing they have to buy has gone up in price. If those in industry suffered the same impact on production costs, they would very legitimately come to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and we would have the Minister coming into this House and striving by every means in his power to cushion that industry against any ill wind that blew. Here we find that at a time when this industry has to bear the unprecedented charge involved in ridding herds of T.B. affected animals, those engaged in it are also asked to bear this reduction in their incomes.
It is also true that last year, in addition to this serious disruption of their livelihood, because of weather conditions, there was an extraordinary reduction in the output of milk. Notwithstanding that the Government and the Minister for Agriculture were so oblivious of the conditions that existed that they still persisted in the extraction of this levy which, it was claimed, was intended to meet the charges that would have to be met on the export of butter. There was no particular drive to find an alternative output, a more economic output for milk. It was quite apparent that far from there being this enormous, embarrassing surplus, due to weather conditions and due to the poor state in which the cattle were after the serious winter, production would be so reduced that the Government would be relieved of that embarrassment.
Two years ago, fixed prices were available for wheat, beet, milk and barley. Today only one of these commodities carries a price which the grower is assured will be payable to him at harvest time. I say that it is dangerous to introduce this system of the levy. We were told at the time it was introduced in relation to wheat growing that it was at the instigation of the representatives of farming interests, but we say that the responsibility is the Government's and that every Government do not accept everything put up to them by outside bodies. They are obliged to listen to people who quite legitimately claim to represent large interests in the country, but having accepted proposals which they have advanced, if things do not work out in the way expected, the outside interests cannot be blamed. The responsibility is the Government's and they cannot shelter behind anyone else.
Deputy Corry was quite right when he pointed out that there now exists almost £500,000 profit made on the extraction of this levy from the wheat growers. Today we do not see anybody rising on the Government side to make the case for the all-Irish loaf because it is realised now that if the country was to adopt the all-Irish loaf, it would mean a serious impact on the cost of living and require the people to pay a much higher price for bread. No doubt, if there had not been a change of Government, we would have had all kinds of outrageous demands being made on the inter-Party Government to do this, that and the other thing, now that we have secured 400,000 tons of dried Irish wheat as the amount requisite for our requirements.
At the moment we do not know what the Government intend to do because they have not said so, but there is some talk of a substitute system whereby the growing of wheat will be let on a contract basis. That system, of course, was examined by other Governments, but is it practicable? We know how easy it is in relation to beet to let it on a contract basis. Where the amount grown is less than the requirements, you can bring your requirements up to the level you want by issuing licences or permits and by the making of contracts. Where you are dealing with commodities surplus to your requirements, such as wheat, it would be very interesting to know from the Minister how he or the Department could frame a scheme that would be equitable and prevent abuses.
We know from years gone by that such a system was tried in other directions and of the grave abuses that existed under it. If there is a solution to that problem, then it would be well for us to know the details. Indeed, the Minister's continuing, in an obstinate fashion, to take from the wheat growers in the circumstances in which they had to harvest their grain last year, was indicative of his lack of concern for those circumstances. Above all, it was a complete breach of the assurances given and the hopes aroused among those engaged in wheat growing.
In relation to barley growing, Deputy Dillon last night asked the Minister whether there was any substance in the rumours which are prevalent that there is a scheme afoot to export feeding barley and to reintroduce maize for pig feeding. Deputy Corry quite rightly pointed out that one of the results of the change over to barley growing was an improvement in the grading of pigs. It was a hard fight to get people to leave what was an accepted source of foodstuffs and to adopt the new system of growing feeding barley.
It is true that county committees of agriculture have assisted, and assisted ably, in getting people in parts of the country where barley growing had been a failure in years gone by to realise that because of the new varieties available, the improved fertility of the land, and the availability of ground limestone, it would now be possible for them to grow on their own lands the feeding barley they needed. Deputy Corry was extremely curious to know what could be inspiring this suggestion but he seems to have forgotten that it was his Party, with his support, which erected the storage around the ports of this country. The suspicion is that vested interests have advanced this proposal which would help them to redeem some of their losses, but it certainly would cause the utmost concern, both amongst grain growers and pig feeders, if the continuous advance in recent years in the growing, usage and consumption of feeding barley and creamery milk, as a substitute for maize, were to be radically changed by this scheme which, on the face of it, appears to be outrageous.
In relation to credit, there existed two schemes which were of considerable advantage to people who did not have the capital to do what they wanted to do in the improvement of their holdings. One was in relation to the spreading of ground limestone and the other was in relation to Section B of the Land Project. The Government have seen fit to abandon Section B of the Land Project and to throw so many young men out of employment, young men who were attracted by their advertisements and purchased land project machinery. These men have been very badly let down by the withdrawal of Section B of the Land Project.
The limestone scheme, together with the scheme that has been abandoned, was very simple from the administrative point of view. Both were very good schemes inasmuch as people who could not meet the cost of the purchase and spreading of lime and the cost of machinery to carry out operations under the Land Project, were able to meet the cost by a system of instalments on their annuities. However, there are a number of farmers who were attracted to redeem their annuities at one time or another and they are outside the facilities of this scheme. They did that at a time when they possibly saw no future in the improvement of their land, otherwise they would have spent that money to more advantage by availing of the Land Project and the fertilising schemes. At the time they redeemed their annuities they thought it was a wise thing but they find that, in consequence of that, they are not now catered for in these schemes. I would ask the Minister to see if there is any possibility of catering for these people. They are small in number but they should be catered for, in justice and in equity, in the same way as those who had not redeemed their annuities in earlier times.
Deputy Corry adverted to the importance of the ground limestone scheme and to the fact that a plant was first sited in Ballybeg, in the North Cork Constituency. Since that time we know of hundreds of other plants which are giving good employment and are providing good service to the farmers in the provision of ground limestone. There is no doubt, no matter what complaints are made to the contrary, it was Deputy Dillon who was responsible for the change over to the more economic and more effective means of getting limestone on to the land. I can clearly recollect the criticism levelled at the scheme at its commencement by people who sought to decry it for political reasons. People were told that ground limestone could never prove as effective as burnt limestone. I think it was a retrograde step on the Minister's part to reduce the subsidy on ground limestone because we know that there are still many thousands of acres of land crying out for the application of still more ground limestone.
In relation to the all-important matter of marketing, the Government, with a flourish of trumpets, in their Budget statements announced their intention of setting up a marketing committee, and considerable hope was inspired amongst people who felt it would result in dramatic improvements in the furthering of markets for our surplus produce. So far the results from that committee are not very encouraging. They merely set out in writing that the Department should engage in certain activities where it is known that for many years the Government have been seeking, through the Department of Agriculture, to secure these markets. With some dismay we see that our competitors in the British market have secured some advantage over us while we here saw fit to spend almost nine months in a political controversy when we should have been applying ourselves to problems such as marketing.
That does not arise on this Estimate, either.
I agree it does not, but I wish to advert to the fact that we have not on record, in the last two years, any of the improvements in the marketing of our produce such as were expected and were announced by the members of the present Government.
Again, I was amazed to hear from a Deputy on the opposite side that he was a member of a committee of agriculture who are on strike at the moment because the Minister could not see fit to reply to correspondence sent to his Department. That is a very strange turn of events, that a committee of agriculture in the largest county in the country should be treated with such discourtesy and such disrespect. If we are to achieve improvement in that industry it can only be achieved by good conditions prevailing between the Minister and the voluntary bodies throughout the country who are doing their best to assist in bringing a better knowledge of farming to those engaged in it, and to assist the people to overcome any temporary difficulties they may have to face.
At the moment there is some concern at the recession in cattle prices but it is to be hoped that will be of short duration and that the demand for cattle will improve. There will not be any word, act, or deed of ours in Opposition to embarrass in any way the Government in relation to that because we can recall what our Government suffered in office when a recession completely outside the control of Government, occurred in cattle prices. That recession was utilised by prominent members of the Party now in office, and by their daily papers, to spread dismay and concern, and stampede the farmers into the belief that there would never again be a recovery in cattle prices. Thanks be to God, their efforts were futile. Some people suffered because they were affected by that propaganda, but there will never be such an act of sabotage by this Party because we have always held that the cattle industry is the basis of our agricultural economy. Whatever lip service the present Taoiseach may pay at this late hour to the importance of the cattle industry, and agriculture in general, he must follow that up by deeds.
We have had no evidence in the last two years that this Government are any more aware of the importance of agriculture to the country's economy that when they were a long time in office before. We want to see some evidence of good faith on the part of the Government but we cannot find it. We see that far from encouraging stability of price levels to those engaged in agriculture there is quite a lot of concern, quite a lot of unrest and quite a lot of doubt.
We must recall that we did not secure the increased production we desired until such time as the Minister responsible was in a position to give certain guarantees over a period to those engaged in the industry. If we have any more actions such as that perpetrated by the Minister in his extraction of the wheat levy the effect will be serious. That levy on an agricultural product was imposed on the grounds that it was expressly for a particular purpose and when, in the event, the need for it did not arise the Minister still would not give way. Instead he indicated that far from the stated reason being the original purpose of the levy, in fact it was to ease the impact on the Exchequer, and he became a tax-gatherer assisting the Minister for Finance. That was the reason for the imposition of the levy in the first instance.
It was indicated by another Deputy that there still remained in the hands of An Bord Gráin £500,000 and, in view of the extraordinary circumstances of last year, the least the Minister could do would be to give that back to the people from whom he took the money. I warn the Minister that if he persists in the reduction of milk prices he will see a serious reduction in the number of milch cows in the country and consequently the dairying industry will suffer a severe setback. The improvement that had been effected is now realised by all of us here and we should not risk its impairment by action which results in the drastic reduction of the incomes of so many people at a time when they are presented with the most serious challenge ever presented to them—the eradication of bovine T.B.
Deputy O'Sullivan inquired if the Department of Agriculture was at a standstill. The great majority of our farmers are asking the same question today. Those of us who had an admiration for the work of the Department know quite well that, of all our State Departments, in none of them have we more experienced personnel, men with a thorough knowledge of their job. That praise has been expressed here on all sides over the years. Whatever else we may boast of, or regret not having, we have the makings of a very fine Department of Agriculture.
Today that Department is bankrupt of leadership and the question that Deputy O'Sullivan asked has been asked by practically every farmer—is there a Minister for Agriculture in the State today? What is the position? The farmers are looking forward to the next harvest to ensure their recovery after last year's bad harvest which was the worst in 100 years and brought financial distress or ruin to many good farmers. What do we find? We find that as a result of a change of Government we have a new Minister for Agriculture and the farmers are faced with the prospect of less for their milk while those of us who must buy butter have to pay 7d. per lb. more for it. The farmers are faced with the prospect of less for wheat but those of us who have to purchase bread or flour must pay more for it. Cattle prices are down and producers get less for their pigs but we must pay more for bacon. A levy of 5/9 per barrel is extracted from the pockets of the wheat producers, they were told they would get it back but got back only 2/2 per barrel, the Minister still retaining 3/7 per barrel, approximately.
The greyhound industry is completely in the hands of the Fianna Fáil organisation so that employment may be found for those favourably disposed towards that Party. The Land Project is at a complete standstill. There is a dispute going on, which has been in existence for some time, between the veterinary offices and the Department. You have a reduced subsidy on ground limestone.
A catalogue of calamities.
Surely, such a record of dismal failure has not been or cannot be attributed to any other Department. That must be considered against the Fianna Fáil election address circulated at the last General Election and its particular reference to agriculture—"A Plan for Agriculture." We all know, particularly older members, that Fianna Fáil always had plans. They were never short of plans and it is true to say that when the two inter-Party Governments took office they found plans. The shelves of Government offices, including the Department of Agriculture, were weighed down with plans which were covered with dust and surrounded with cobwebs, and I venture to say this "Plan for Agriculture" was on one of those shelves.
"It will be the aim of Fianna Fáil to bring farmers' organisations and county committees of agriculture into the closest contact with the Department of Agriculture" ... "It will be the aim of Fianna Fáil to provide a proper marketing organisation...to help toward increased production by extending the system of agricultural credit which will be provided for all our farmers...T.B. eradication... land reclamation will go full steam ahead...greater prices for wheat... greater prices for barley...for oats ... for beet." These were all the things Fianna Fáil promised the farmers at the last General Election. We know quite well they never had any intention of fulfilling those promises. They knew they were making promises they could never fulfil. That did not worry them. They wanted only to get the votes. They got the votes and the moment they did, the "Plan for Agriculture" was immediately put aside. They proceeded as if deliberately to wreck the prosperity that the farmers enjoyed before the election. If they went about with the deliberate intention of pauperising the Irish farmers and making their livelihood more difficult, they could not do any worse than they did in the past two years.
It cannot be denied that agriculture is the backbone of the country. Without a prosperous agricultural community there can be no prosperity for other sections. Unless we have a contented farming community who have confidence in the Government and unless there is a spirit of give-and-take between the Department and the farmers there can be no progress. There was a spirit of give-and-take during the years of the inter-Party Government but the spirit of give has gone and the spirit of take has been the order of the day since the Department fell into the hands of the present Minister.
It must be borne in mind that the income of every farmer is lower today; his outgoings are higher, his overheads and his rates have gone up and his cost of living is up. It is much more difficult for him to earn a livelihood than before Fianna Fáil came into office. The Minister knows quite well that he himself was a party to this. This was one of the main props by which the people were deceived in the last general election—and particularly the farmer. Were the farmers told in the last general election that, as far as wheat was concerned, they would be treated in the fashion in which they have been treated?
The farmers were told that if a Fianna Fáil Government were elected there would be 82/6d. a barrel guaranteed for wheat. At every fair, on every platform, in every place that a group of farmers could be seen discussing the elections, Fianna Fáil spokesmen immediately intervened to say: "Not alone will you have more for milk, greater prices for cattle, greater prices for pigs, greater prices for everything you can produce, more for poultry, more for eggs, but you will immediately have 82/6d. a barrel for wheat; and you can grow all the wheat you are able to grow; there is an unlimited market for it and we will guarantee you 82/6d. per barrel." They went further and they said, in areas they knew were not suitable for wheat growing, that the farmers could concentrate on the growing of barley and immediately they assumed office there would be a 5/- increase per barrel. They were going to see to it, through the people who were responsible for the giving out of barley contracts, that they would be given out for the asking, that there would be no hindrance whatever so far as barley growing was concerned.
I can recall a Fianna Fáil meeting in my constituency, in which all the speakers knew they were speaking in a barley-growing district, where there are a number of maltings and a brewery. They all promised that there would be 45/- a barrel for barley. The position is that, having been promised 45/- per barrel, they have got 37/6d. There was no question whatever of restoring the 82/6d. a barrel for wheat. I want deliberately to accuse the Minister of standing by and seeing the wheat growers robbed in so far as the levy is concerned.
I remember that Deputy Hughes of this Party, some other Deputies and myself subscribed our names to a motion. The motion was debated in this House; it was one in which we called upon the Government to restore in full the wheat levy. The Minister for Agriculture saw fit to make a statement some place down the country some days afterwards, that the wheat levy was being restored. But he did not tell the farmers that they were going to get only 2/2d. of it. The amount stopped was 5/9d. per barrel.
I made no such statement.
The Minister said he was hopeful—to use his own words.
I really do not want to intervene at all, irrespective of what the Deputy alleges; but, Sir, I made no such statement as that, privately or publicly, or at any time.
Well, I can very fully recall that when Deputy Hughes and I spoke here on the wheat levy, we put the question to the Minister on that occasion: "Are you going to refund to the farmers the amount of 5/9d. per barrel, the amount of the levy?" The Minister refused to speak. When the question was put to him again, he said: "I am hopeful.""I am hopeful"—that appeared in all the papers and it is on the records of this House that the Minister said that he was hopeful. That conveyed to the Irish farmer and particularly to the wheat grower——
I want the Deputy to read that statement of mine. It was on the occasion of a discussion on the adjournment. I remember it very well. I remember the words I used. It had no relation whatever to the restoration of the wheat levy. I say again, Sir, that I never at any time, in private or in public, gave any such assurance as that.
It is usual to accept a denial when it is made in the House.
I am not prepared to quarrel with the Minister at this stage. I will check up on it certainly in the Debates, as it is on the records of this House. When the Minister was asked whether they would refund the levy or not, the Minister said, in his usual manner: "I am hopeful." That, appearing in the papers, gave hope to the farmers who read it—the wheat growers—that they would get 5/9d., that the levy would be refunded in full.
I say again that I made no such statement.
I have already pointed out to Deputy Flanagan that it is usual for a Deputy to accept a denial.
It arose out of a question?
Yes, on the adjournment.
We shall solve that problem before the debate ends.
I wish it would end soon. There are two city Deputies here and three from the country.
Having succeeded in robbing the wheat grower, ruining the wheat grower, depressing the wheat grower and deceiving the wheat grower, we now find that the latest to get a very serious knock on the head is the beet grower. I represent a fairly good beet-growing constituency. I should like to hear from the Minister what message he has for the beet-growers. It is common knowledge that this year there has been a greater curtailment of beet contracts than ever before. There has been no explanation. Advertisements have been published in the newspapers. All the daily newspapers of Friday, 1st May, 1959, carried an advertisement under this heading: "Irish Grown Beet Now Supplies the Home Market with Sugar."
I put it to this House that that is not so and the sugar which is manufactured from Irish-grown beet is used for export on Imperial Preference to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Minister must be well aware of the fact that some thousands of tons of sugar were exported by the Sugar Company to Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the sugar used on the home market —I want the Minister to deny this now, if it is not so—is cane sugar refined from raw cane sugar imported from Cuba. If that be so, the misleading advertisement did not carry a message of any great hope to the Irish beet grower.
Beet growing is a very important part of our farmer's livelihood. The position is that the sugar used in our home market is manufactured from cane sugar. As the raw cane sugar is purchased only by dollars drawn in London, the British Government will not permit the export of cane sugar from Ireland into England and only beet sugar is permitted to be exported to Britain. Ireland is losing the dollars for England's gain and we are repaid only in sterling for dollar sugar. I would ask the Minister to investigate this matter fully. The farmers have been asked to grow more beet, particularly in the midlands. Even in County Galway they were asked to grow more beet to keep the factory at Tuam going and the same applied to the farmers living around the Mallow factory in Cork. But the Irish farmer has now been given a reduced acreage of beet contracts because it is more profitable to import cheap sugar cane refined in Irish factories than it is to pay our farmers and give employment at home.
If that is the policy of the Sugar Company, how long will the Minister allow them to treat the beet growers in this manner? When the beet industry was established here, the principal motives behind it were to provide our home requirements of sugar, to give employment and to have a profitable crop for the Irish farmer. Now we find that our sugar is manufactured from imported cane, that the sugar manufactured from Irish beet is exported to England and Northern Ireland and that we have reached the stage in which the farmer is denied a beet contract. Deputies from beet growing districts are, I am sure, worried by this. I can speak on behalf of farmers who have grown from 10 to 25 acres of beet. An amazingly large volume of correspondence was exchanged between farming organisations and the Sugar Company, particularly a month or so ago when practically every beet grower had his contract reduced and some farmers who had contracted for a small acreage had their contracts entirely cancelled.
The policy of the Sugar Company is mad. I do not believe the Chair would permit me to make any reference to the manner in which the affairs of the Sugar Company are conducted and it would not be right to do so, but they are not working in the interests of the Irish farmer. They have no regard for the interests of the beet grower and the Minister for Agriculture should investigate the matter. I hope to have correspondence with the new Taoiseach on this subject. He should give this matter his very serious attention. The function of the Department of Agriculture should be to protect the interests of the beet growers but that has not been done over the past year. I trust some action will be taken to improve the position next year.
Since the Minister now states he gave no undertaking to refund the wheat levy I want to know, when the money is there, why can it not be given even at this late stage? Would it not be giving back to the wheat grower what is his and what he is entitled to? It was taken from him unjustly, in disguise and in what was, perhaps, the worst harvest in a century. Deputy Corry and others have told us the money is available. Why not give it to the people entitled to it? If the Minister wants to help the farmer, he should lose no time in giving this money.
May I refer very briefly to the fact that a few moments ago the Minister stated he gave no undertaking and that he never said he was hopeful in regard to this question of the wheat levy? I shall quote from the Dáil Debates of 27th January, 1959, Column 1128. The Minister for Agriculture said:
On 7th January in this House, in reply to a Parliamentary Question by the Deputy who has just spoken, I gave the reply:
"I hope to be able to make an announcement in this matter before the end of the present month."
I am still hopeful.
There we see the Minister saying he was still hopeful.
In relation to what?
In relation to the wheat levy.
The Minister did not mean that but everybody else thought he did.
I was asked if I would give an assurance that I would make a certain announcement by a certain time. It was within two days of the date I mentioned in my previous announcement when this matter was raised in the House. In reply to a statement made by the Deputy now in possession I said on such an occasion I would give an assurance and I would make an announcement on this matter on such and such a date and I added: "I am still hopeful."
The Minister is inclined to twist it now.
Indeed I am not.
I can assure you that the farmers and wheat growers thought the Minister was hopeful about the refund. He should have made that very clear.
If the Deputy reads the report he will see.
The Minister can twist the statement any way he likes but what it conveyed to the wheat growers was that the Minister was hopeful about a refund of the 5/9 per barrel.
The records are there.
What has happened in the Minister's Department in regard to the Land Project? Is it not correct to say that the Land Rehabilitation Scheme is at a standstill? I fail to understand why the Minister has acted in the manner he has towards one of the greatest, if not the greatest, schemes ever undertaken since native Government was established here. We talk about exports and increasing the nation's wealth, but we should not fail to realise that, as a result of that scheme, we have one million additional acres of arable land.
Arable land?
Most of it is arable and any of it that is not arable can be very well grazed. Whether it is now grazing or arable land, we have one million acres of reclaimed land which had been waste and useless and could not properly be described as land. If any of us took up the newspapers and read that in any European country, or any country in the world, as a result of their own skill, hard work and industry, they had been responsible for reclaiming and creating an extra one million acres of land, would we not say that they were the greatest people on the face of the earth? Here in our own country, through hard work, Government assistance, enterprise and energy, we now have, as a result of the land reclamation scheme, one million acres more land than we had before the scheme was commenced.
The aim of the Fine Gael Party is that the land reclamation scheme should go full steam ahead, reclaiming land for the biggest and the smallest farmers, for the richest and the poorest farmers, until every single acre of land which can suitably be replaced is replaced. That is not the Fianna Fáil policy. The Fianna Fáil policy is to bungle, belittle and criticise the scheme and, where possible, to bring it to a standstill.
I put it to the Minister that his efforts with regard to Section B have had the result of successfully sabotaging that scheme, bringing the work to a standstill and shaking the confidence of the Irish farmers who still have land to be reclaimed, in the future of the scheme. May I say from these benches that when there is a change of Government, as there will be a change of Government, the aim and the duty of the next Government, in which Fine Gael will participate, will be to revive, to its fullest possible extent, the land rehabilitation scheme, to see that the purpose for which the scheme was initiated will be fulfilled, and that the scheme will be in existence until the very last acre of land which needs to be reclaimed has been reclaimed?
Including the rocks of Connemara.
Every acre of land which needs to be reclaimed will be reclaimed. There has been a great deal of talk about certain experiments which the Department was to undertake on waste bogland. Probably the greater portion of my constituency is comprised of bog and, as a result of the activities of Bord na Móna, and the peat work during the emergency, there are some 100 acres of waste bogland in my constituency. The forestry Section have not taken any action, and most of my constituents are waiting for the Department to initiate some scheme, apart from the experiments that have been carried out at Clonsast. Having regard to past statements, we expected that the Department would have sent down officers and that suitable action would have been taken so that all this waste bogland could have been put into use to produce suitable crops and to provide suitable employment in those areas. Is it too late to ask the Minister to take some positive action in this regard, particularly in counties that have such a huge acreage of waste bogland?
Reference has been made today to the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme. Whilst Deputies may be inclined to offer criticism of that scheme, in itself it is perhaps the most important scheme we have on hands at the present time. It is the duty of every farmer, every public representative and every county committee of agriculture, in so far as it is humanly possible to cooperate in achieving the ends for which that scheme was intended. I feel that the voluntary basis is best.
While Deputy Corry may offer criticism of the scheme, it cannot be denied that since it was commenced, 106,000 herds have been completely cleared. That is no mean achievement. It might be better instead of offering criticism to try to encourage everyone to participate in the scheme. We know very well that the Minister himself has been mainly responsible for any holdup there has been, more particularly because of an unfortunate dispute between the veterinary surgeons and the Department, but probably the least said about that the better.
I believe a voluntary basis for the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme is best, and I am glad to say that so far as the Midlands are concerned, most of the farmers appreciated very much the advice given by the officers of the Department. They co-operated very fully in furthering the schemes. The Minister will recollect that when he was invited by the Offaly Committee of Agriculture to attend a meeting to impress upon the farmers the importance of this scheme a very proud record of success was submitted to him on that occasion.
We should encourage our farmers, and advise them, and even assist them financially in a greater measure than we now do, to replace their stocks. It is very disappointing to hear that there are still farmers who are afraid to participate in the scheme because they feel they will encounter some difficulty in suitably and properly replacing their stocks. That doubt is still in their mind; it has not been got over by the officers of the Department. Some positive action in that regard will have to be taken.
The price of milk was one of the principal vote-catchers which the Fianna Fáil Party used at the last election. The Minister may deny many things but he cannot deny that at a place called Templequain in County Limerick, during a bye-election campaign he spoke from the high fences of the church and bitterly criticised the inter-Party Government policy on milk prices. He did not tell his listeners that if he were elected, he and his Government would reduce the price of milk by 1d. a gallon. The speech had an entirely different tone.
Reducing the price of milk, having regard to the high cost of living and the high costs of operating dairy farms, constitutes a very serious handicap on farmers generally and milk suppliers in particular. We can see the results from a report published in the Irish Independent on 5th May last. The heading is: “Less Milk Supplied to Creameres.” The report says: “Milk supplied to creameries for the first three months of this year was down by 30 per cent. on the corresponding period last year, said Mr. P. O'Leary, President of the Irish Creamery Managers Association at its annual meeting in Cruise's Hotel, Limerick.” What is responsible for such a statement as that being made? Why have the farmers in the milk producing areas not alone been disappointed but lost heart in their work? Why have they lost interest? The answer is the manner in which the Government have failed to give a favourable ear to their legitimate grievances.
The farmers in Limerick, Cork and North Kerry may feel they have a very genuine grievance. Quite a large number of dairy farmers in Kilkenny and Laois have very genuine grievances, too. Recently discussions took place between these farmers in Kilkenny and the main point discussed was the need for the immediate removal of the levy of 17/- per cwt. imposed on butter in April, 1958. If the Minister stops at any street corner where a group of men are assembled, men of average intelligence, and talks to them about the price of butter, the first thing he will be told is that we have to pay 4/4d. per lb. for butter here while Irish butter can be bought in London, Birmingham, Bristol or Hull for 2/10d. per lb. That does not make sense to the man in the street.
At this meeting in Kilkenny, the dairy farmers asked to have this levy removed. I cannot understand why Government policy should stand in the way of progress from the point of view of our dairy farmers. Amongst the many points raised at that meeting at Kilkenny was the point that today the dairy farmers in these areas are in a worse position than at any time in the past 30 years. It was pointed out that suppliers' debts to creameries were 2½ to 3 times their normal size at this time of the year—that was in May last—and very many milk suppliers have mortgaged this season's supply of milk. That is a very serious situation. They went on to complain of widespread disease amongst dairy cows. If this complaint has been made to the Department of Agriculture, I am anxious to know what the veterinary section of that Department has done with regard to carrying out an inspection and examination of the cows in the area. A complaint of that nature made by a responsible body of dairy farmers is one which should have the immediate attention of the Department.
The fact was discussed also at that meeting that there has been a heavy withdrawal by dairy farmers of deposit accounts in banks. Obviously, they had to withdraw the money for some other purpose. When a large gathering of representative and responsible farmers make a case of that kind, it cannot be contended that we have a healthy agricultural industry or a sound agricultural policy. Very little has been done to help these farmers to recover from the effects of the disastrous year through which they have passed. They all expressed the hope that they would be able to play an active part in the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. The only way in which they can do that is by getting a greater measure of financial assistance from the State and from the Department of Agriculture in particular.
Represented at that meeting were members of the Dairying Industry Committee, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, the Irish Federated Creameries Union, the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society, the Irish Creamery Managers Association, the Dairy Disposal Company Suppliers, etc. I should like to add my voice as one Deputy representing a constituency in support of the case put forward by these people. It is a case on which the Minister should act without delay in order to apply suitable remedies.
Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the drop in cattle prices and he expressed the hope that the drop would prove to be a temporary one. When cattle prices fell during the inter-Party Government's term of office, Fianna Fáil Deputies lost no opportunity of creating the impression outside the House that the Minister for Agriculture at the time and his Department were responsible for the fall. Everybody knows that that fall was due to circumstances completely outside our control. If the Fine Gael Party wished to play the same low, mean politics, they could go out now and advance the same argument in explanation of the present drop in cattle prices. But the Fine Gael Deputies will not descend to that low level. They could go out and say: "The cattle trade is the backbone of the country. Millions have been brought in as a result of the 1948 Agreement. Fianna Fáil are now wrecking the cattle trade. Prices are dropping. That is the fault of Fianna Fáil. It is their responsibility" But we do not do that sort of thing. Even though it was a deliberate tactic on the part of Fianna Fáil in similar circumstances, it is not the policy of this Party to make the same kind of cheap, low, political capital as the Fianna Fáil Party made when cattle prices dropped a few years ago. We all hope the price will be restored. It would be a sad day when cattle prices could not be maintained.
The time is now opportune for a redrafting and recasting of a suitable trade agreement with Great Britain, with special reference to agriculture. The British market is our best market. It is a market we should cherish. It is a market which has put millions into the pockets of our Irish farmers. However, those of us who have always believed that and who still believe it are glad to see many converts in the Fianna Fáil Party today who now believe in the British market and are now grateful to the British market for the measure of prosperity that has prevailed in this country, as a result, in particular, of the amounts brought into the country by the cattle trade. We are glad that they are no longer boasting, as they did in the past, that the British market was gone for ever. Without the British market, this country would be a very poor spectacle as would the Irish farmer who raises stock for export.
It is the duty of this Government, and it should be the duty of every Government, to ensure that there is the closest possible co-operation between the Irish Government and the British Government, having regard to our geographical position and also to the fact that the population of England calls for certain imports from this country. It is not our job to provide the British with cheap meat or anything else. We should make them pay for it. It is the duty of an Irish Minister for Agriculture to make the British pay for what they get from this country. When we are prepared to compete with our products with the best in the world, it is only right to expect the best price. Irish farmers are fully capable of competing with the best from any country in the world.
Perhaps the Minister will be good enough, when concluding the debate, to tell the House what happened about the horse flesh industry. Some time ago there was an uproar here with regard to the export of horses. Some time after the last General Election, the policy of the Department was changed and it was agreed that licences would be granted for the slaughter of horses. Facilities were made available by the Department. I do not know if any licence was issued. I do not think so. I can say that there was not even one horse skinned. It is very interesting that there should be some comments from the people who were asking at that time to have horses slaughtered in this country.
I am rather surprised to hear that there is lack of co-operation between the Cork County Committee of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture. Not being a Cork Deputy, I do not propose to trespass on the ground which Cork Deputies of all Parties travel. It is disgraceful if any county committee of agriculture has received such a degree of discourtesy as Deputy Corry has described, that they have decided to go on strike and meet no more until they get a letter from the Department. Is that a spirit of co-operation or friendliness towards the elected representatives of the people? I cannot understand a Department of Agriculture that would act in that manner.
If there has been any neglect on the part of the Department in dealing with the requests of any county committee of agriculture, I hope the Minister will take serious note of it. The Minister, being a public representative and, possibly, a member of a county committee of agriculture at one time, knows the importance that county councils attach to their own committees. They do not like to be snubbed by the Department. I feel that the officers of the Department would be the last people deliberately to snub a county committee of Agriculture if there were not some serious reason.
The same applies to the N.F.A. It has been stated in this House that the N.F.A. would not be allowed to dictate agricultural policy to the Government or to do this, that or the other. Personally, I believe the N.F.A. have done a good day's work for the country and deserve to have in their hands the knob of the Minister's office door. They deserve a greater degree of co-operation, on an even more friendly basis. The Minister should send for the N.F.A, and consult with them as the principal farmers' organisation. That should be done as a matter of courtesy and no time should be lost in establishing a friendly basis for discussion and exchange of views on matters relating to agricultural policy between the N.F.A. and the Department.
When the Report of the Commission on Emigration was made available, one of the big problems referred to was the provision of farms for young credit-worthy farmers on a rented or other basis. The inter-Party Government were in office at the time and considered the question as to how, having regard to the amount of land that was set in conacre, that recommendation could be put into effect.
That is not a function of the Department of Agriculture.
It most certainly is.
Would it not be more appropriate to the Department of Lands?
I do not think so, a Cheann Comhairle. Probably the Minister for Lands would be consulted in the matter, but I think the prime move was made by the then Minister for Agriculture.
I do not know if the Minister for Agriculture has any responsibility in the matter.
I have not, but I do not mind how much they give me.
Has the Minister any responsibility in respect of what the Deputy is referring to?
I have not but I do not mind how much responsibility they give me.
The Minister has indicated that he has no responsibility in this matter.
He has also indicated that he does not mind how much responsibility we give him.
I do. I do not want anything discussed on this Estimate except what is relevant to this Department.
I entirely agree, a Cheann Comhairle. I just want to direct the Minister's attention to the fact that on the files in the Department of Agriculture there are certain observations in this regard. Perhaps, if the Minister could find them, he would revive them and see if anything can be done with a view to having these problems investigated.
It is the wish and hope of all of us, of all Parties, in the House that the farmer should be the most prosperous man in the State. We all realise that agriculture is the mother of the nation's wealth. The importance of the Department of Agriculture can never be sufficiently stressed in this House. While we may agree to differ on many things, we all certainly agree that the farmer should be the best paid man and should receive a profit on everything he produces, that he should be assisted by having suitable markets made available for him so that his livelihood may be guaranteed. Towards that end, we look forward to the inactivity of the Department of Agriculture over the past two and a half years being shaken off.
We hope that the Minister for Agriculture may in future realise his responsibility as the person in charge of the principal Department, and that some steps will be taken to give the farmer a ray of hope for the future. In the past two and a half years the position has not been encouraging. The only hope that the farmers can have is that there will be a change of Government and a return to the policy which brought great financial benefits to them and which was fully operated by the inter-Party Government. If the farmers had the opportunity in the morning, they would reject the present Government's agricultural policy, reject the inactivity of the present Minister for Agriculture and, with an overwhelming vote, would return to this House a Government pledged to the continuance of the agricultural policy outlined by the inter-Party Government.
Through the maze of maize, wheat, beet, barley, cattle and milk, I should like to say a few words on behalf of some of those engaged in the agricultural industry, in particular those for whom the Minister is primarily responsible, the people who are employed in the State farms. I confine myself to this because I appreciate that agriculture is such a wide field that the Minister will find it impossible to reply to all the questions that have been asked and to refute all the charges which he believes are unfounded.
I am particularly interested in and conversant with the staff in the Agricultural College at Johnstown Castle, Wexford. I have always wondered why in one case, say, 37 laboratory assistants and 11 laboratory attendants are still regarded as unestablished officers. I should like to plead with the Minister to have these officers or some of them—the numbers fluctuate—established on some permanent and pensionable basis. I do not know the reason for their non-establishment. It may be that they are recruited more or less exclusively from around Wexford town and Wexford county, that there has not been all-Ireland competition, so to speak, but they had to have certain qualifications in chemistry and science generally and did, I believe, have to go before an interview board and qualify.
It is regrettable that these young laboratory assistants who have the Leaving Certificate, many of them with good marks, many of them with honours and well-qualified in chemistry, should be in what can be described only as a blind-alley job. They do not know their prospects. They have no guarantee that they will be there for the next two, three, four, five, six or seven years. The soil analysis in Johnstown Castle has been so successful that we must assume that that type of work will be carried on by the Minister and his successors for many years to come.
The reason I make this plea is that I know that many of these young fellows, who did not see themselves advancing very much, were forced to take up some other job and in the majority of cases, were forced to emigrate. I do not say there has been widespread, emigration amongst these laboratory assistants and laboratory attendants but many of them, who had an idea of getting married, believed there was no future in this type of occupation and sought jobs in British industries and factories.
I notice from the Book of Estimates that the laboratory assistant who is under 18 years receives 70/- per week and goes to a maximum, over a very long period, of £6 7 6 per week. There may be some bonus on that. However, it must generally be admitted that the wage or salary is not very attractive to a young fellow reasonably well qualified to do that important job. Similarly with the laboratory attendants who may not be required to have qualifications in science or, in particular, in chemistry. They also should be given some increase. I notice they can rise only to five guineas per week.
Another important aspect of the matter is that I do not think they come within the Civil Service scheme of conciliation and arbitration. There is some grave difficulty about their joining any of the Associations which are parties to the scheme of conciliation and arbitration. Perhaps the Minister would consider seeing what can be done (1) to establish them and make them permanent and pensionable—not all of them but the main bulk of them who would be required over the years —and (2) to see what can be done in respect of their salaries.
Lastly—again in connection with staff—it is high time the Minister for Agriculture did something about the agricultural labourers in all these colleges. There is one at Ballyhaise, another at Clonakilty and there is the Munster Institute in Cork. The Minister may argue: "These fellows have the agricultural labourer's rate plus a differential of 5/- per week." That is so. It may seem attractive to many people that they have 5/- per week over and above what is ordinarily paid to agricultural workers. It is too often forgotten that what is boasted of as the agricultural labourer's rate is the very minimum prescribed by the Agricultural Wages Board. If anybody goes below that minimum he is liable to be prosecuted.
It is not very creditable for the Government, and particularly for the Department of Agriculture, to be able to say they are giving these agricultural workers the minimum agricultural rate. There is a special case for a special rate for them, apart from the differential. Without casting any reflection on agricultural workers generally, it must be admitted that inasmuch as these agricultural workers are attached to experimental stations, they are not engaged in ordinary routine work every day of the year. They must bend and apply themselves to doing experimental work in respect of stock, grass or cereals that may be produced on the farm.
It may also be said that it would be difficult to have a big differential between agricultural workers on the State farms and those on ordinary farms. I do not think that argument holds good. We have civil servants who have relatively good jobs and relatively good wages as against clerks, say, in solicitors' offices or in industry or factories who are getting substantially less for doing in many cases somewhat the same work. I would ask the Minister to consider the two points I have raised—the position of laboratory assistants and attendants in Johnstown Castle Agricultural College and the improvement of wages in respect of agricultural workers on all our State farms.
The one bright feature I see about agriculture for the future is the great interest our newly-elected Taoiseach is taking in it. Speaking in County Meath last Sunday, he placed great emphasis on the importance of agriculture and of our cattle trade. I want to point out to the Taoiseach, the Minister and the people of Meath that the cattle industry will never survive without its parent, the dairying industry. Unless our dairy industry is placed on a sound and solid footing, the farmers of Meath, Kildare and the other fattening areas will not have their store and their fat cattle. The whole economy of the country is based on the dairy cow.
Much as we should like to see the farmers of Meath rearing their beef cattle by the single-suckling system, I do not think they would ever produce the numbers of cattle essential for our economy. What we must do is to export very large numbers of cattle. That can only be done by producing the calves and store cattle in dairying areas. The emphasis is altogether on the cattle industry and for that reason I want to switch to what I consider an even more important industry to the small farmer, that is, the pig and poultry industry. Without the pig, the land of Ireland would not be fertile to produce the beef and mutton which is so valuable for our export trade.
It is a great pity that our pig numbers and our sow population should be diminishing at a time when there is an outlet for double and treble the amount of bacon we are producing. There is labour to produce it and there is housing accommodation, but for some reason or another, some doubt in the minds of the small farmers, they have lost interest to a great degree in that one-time very profitable industry. The pig was regarded as the poor man's bank and it was certainly an industry on which the small farmer built up his economy and put a few pounds aside for the rainy day. I should like to impress upon the Minister the great importance of that industry going hand in hand with the dairying industry and the rearing of store cattle. I would ask him also to pay heed to the recommendation of the Marketing Committee that he should guarantee a price for Grade B pigs as well as for Grade A pigs.
There seems to be too much fluctuation in relation to pig prices. We thought those days were gone when the price was fixed for Grade A pigs. Nevertheless, time and again farmers get back very small cheques. Indeed I receive letters from farmers all over the country asking me what I am doing about it and what will be done about it when they receive only £12 10 or £13 for a Grade B. or a Grade C pig. It is hard for a farmer having paid £6 or £7 for a bonham and having fed it for three or four months to receive only £12 10s. or £13 for a pig.
I would ask the Minister to give a guarantee to farmers in that respect. It is not their fault if the pig is a Grade pig and unless the Minister protects the farmer, that downward trend in our pig population will continue and the country will be all the poorer for it. There could be a great future for our pig industry if developed along the right lines. It is absolutely essential that the Minister should take action strong enough to protect the producer. Those engaged in that industry are for the greater part the poorer people who cannot afford to gamble with large sums of money as can be done in other walks of life. The amount of money involved in giving that protection to the farmers who are engaged in that line of business is not great. This year, it is only £550,000. Last year, it was £650,000. Instead of the allocation being increased, it is being reduced, which is penny wise and pound foolish.
I do not like subsidising the British consumer to any great extent. On the other hand, we are doing good business. If we send our goods to Britain and get a grip on that market, we shall be assured of that market for the future. It is all wrong for this country to go into a business, let it be the dairy industry or the pig or poultry industry, without staying in that line of business. We had the experience last year and the year before of butter being very cheap in England. At that time, we sent in our surplus butter to the British market and paid the English to eat it. We could not foresee what would happen, that the price of butter to-day would go up considerably.
That was a wrong approach on our part. When we sent our butter to England and when we saw the price there was falling, we should not have depressed the price to be given to the Irish farmers and encouraged them to go out of production as we certainly did. We have not the butter to send now when the price is good. The Government must be prepared to protect the farmer in fair and stormy weather because the Irish farmer cannot do it himself. Unfortunately they are not a wealthy class. Why, I do not know. They are the most hardworking people in the country, working oftentimes 12 to 14 hours a day. If the farmer and his family labour were paid the wages applicable to the agricultural worker, he would have a very good living.
On £5 a week?
There are many farmers' sons working on their father's holdings who cannot get £5 at the end of the week and were it not for the cheap family labour which is so freely available, this country could not carry on at all. We have been working on cheap family labour and we have gained as a result of it. If that family labour had to be paid for in the ordinary fashion, the price of everything would be much higher. We heard Deputy Dillon speak last night of the great Dane who came over to Limerick to teach the Irish farmers how to work their land. He was not a worker himself nor was any of his family, and in a short space of time that Dane went into debt to the extent of £40,000. That will not happen to the Irish farmers because they could not afford it.
It is important that if we are to hold our place in the English market or in any other market, we must have a continuity of supply. It is the all-important factor in regard to milk, butter, bacon and poultry. When I come to the milk question, there are many other commodities which milk can be converted into—cheese, chocolate crumb, dried milk—for all of which there is a good market. Those markets should be developed as much as possible. It would help to relieve the Exchequer very much, indeed, if the marketing of those products were developed to the fullest extent.
I was surprised last week when I read in the paper that Australia subsidised their butter to the English market to the extent of £13½ million. I would not expect this country to subsidise its butter to the extent of £13½ million, but I should like to see the day when the farmers of this country could produce so much milk, so much butter and so many store cattle and pigs and poultry, all springing from the land of Ireland, with the backing of the Government behind it and the assurance that they were not going to go down as a result of their activity. I know that the farmers could do it if they bad confidence in the Minister and his Department that they were not going to lose as a result of their increased production.
If we want increased production— and I think it is the only thing for this country—we must be prepared to guarantee the farmer that he will not suffer as a result of that increase. He suffered in the past because he increased the supply of milk; he suffered because he increased the supply of eggs: and he suffered when he increased the supply of barley and wheat and practically every commodity. I want the Minister now to say firmly and boldly on this occasion that, no matter how much milk the farmers will produce and no matter how many pigs he will produce, he will stand firmly behind them and see that they will not suffer any loss as a result of their activity.
I do not blame Deputy Corish for looking for a reasonable wage for his workers on the State farms. Every man is entitled to a living wage in the country if it can be got, but the first people who should be put in a reasonably stable condition in this country are the men who produce the wealth of the country, the farmers. I want to ask nothing more for the farmers than what I consider to be their fair and honest due. I want the Minister to give them that and promise it to them forthwith.
Deputy Corry spoke at length on the bovine T.B. eradication scheme. It is a very big and serious problem confronting not alone the farmers but the country as a whole. Nevertheless, I am reasonably satisfied with the progress made through the country. I know that we started at the wrong end. The first step we should have taken in the eradication of bovine T.B. was to start with the pasteurisation of skim milk and with the young cattle. Now, however, that has been done. The pasteurisation of skim milk was made compulsory with the result that the young cattle throughout the country are pracically all free from T.B. That is my information from veterinary surgeons.
It is only the cows—and very often the best of the cows—that are the reactors. I have no objection to a good cow, even though she be a reactor. She gives a good yield of milk in her lactation period. As we are not exporting our dairy cows to any great extent, I think there is no need to get over-excited or over-worried. I believe we are making good progress with out store cattle and that in a very short time our maiden heifers and the most of our young cows will be T.B. free also. So long as we have our store cattle free, that is the important factor.
I think the important thing in the eradication of T.B. is to get rid of the clinical reactors. We all know that they are the demons in the herd, so to speak, responsible for spreading the germs and the disease. The ordinary reactor in a herd is not the same danger at all and I think the Minister and his staff should pay far more attention to the eradication of those clinical reactors. It would not be such a big scheme as the one he has embarked upon at the present time and it would not cost so much money. As they are the demons in the whole set up, the Minister would be very wise to take action immediately on those. In a suspected case, I know even the veterinary sugeons themselves cannot often decide as to whether a cow is a clinical reactor or not.
I think that is the big trouble at the present time. I have put the question several times to "vets" and they cannot give a decided answer. I think that where a doubt of that kind exists, the Government should come to the rescue immediately and take responsibility for all those doubtful cases of clinical reactors. They can bide their time as regards the masses of our reactors which farmers are very slow to get rid of. If a farmer has a few good cows which, to all appearances, are healthy and sound, he is very hesitant to get rid of them unless he is to be compensated very well indeed. If he has a doubt in his mind about a clinical reactor, I think the Department should take strong action, compensate him and remove that clinical reactor from the herd.
Last year, the farmers no doubt suffered a great set-back because of weather conditions. We cannot blame the Minister for that. Deputy Flanagan spoke about all the farmers in Kilkenny having withdrawn their bank accounts because they were in such poor circumstances. The unfortunate thing about the farmers in my area is that they have not bank accounts. They practically live from day to day because they rarely build up bank accounts.
I welcome the subsidisation of superphosphate during the year. I advocated that ten years ago. We in a farmers' organisation in County Cork sent up resolutions ten years ago to the Department of Agriculture advocating the subsidisation of superphosphate. I believe that it is a good thing to subsidise superphosphate. I believe it would be a better thing if the Minister would subsidise potash also. Superphosphate and potash go hand in hand. Potash is as important for the land, especially for the development of clovers, as superphosphate and it would be money well spent if the Minister could see his way to subsidising superphosphate in the coming year.
If we are to produce the most from the land we must manure it and manure it intelligently. It is not much use putting on superphosphate without putting on potash and lime with it. Having produced so much grass, the all important factor then will be to have the cattle to eat it. There will be no use having an abundance of grass if we have not got the cattle to eat it. The all important factor then is to build up our whole economy from the ground and have dairy cows with an abundance of store cattle and pigs, all springing from well-nourished land. Pre-seeding is a very important factor also which can give great results when it is done in a proper manner.
Our aim should be to increase our exports of all those agricultural products which are so essential for our economy. Again we should strive to develop industries from the raw materials which we must import. Because we will always have a surplus population in rural Ireland—the holding can only go to one—it certainly would be a good thing if some members of the farmer's family could be employed in local industries.
The milk costing report was a very contentious matter for a number of years. The controversy has died down considerably but it is really a pity, or it would be a great pity, if the results of that commission were never to be finalised. The commission cost something in the region of £40,000. I had the pleasure, or I should say the displeasure of reading the report. It was a very big volume of figures indeed and it would be a great pity if such a volume of figures and such a report were to be scrapped and never studied again. Surely there must be some valuable information in that report. The strange thing I saw in it was that one farmer was able to produce whole new milk at a lesser figure than was allowed to other farmers for separated milk. That was the greatest riddle which I saw in the whole report and it is a thing which I should like explained to me by somebody—how one farmer was able to produce whole milk at a lesser figure than was allowed for separated milk. The whole matter should be thoroughly investigated and referred to an independent arbitration board which would issue its findings. We then would have a yardstick for future generations of what it costs to produce a gallon of milk, if it is possible to get that information from the piles of figures contained in that report.
There is another matter which is agitating the minds of some farmers in my area. There are not many cases, just isolated cases here and there. It is the matter of drainage and roads. The Minister has some responsibility in that regard and if he has not he should use his good offices to try to get something done for the farmers in that regard.
If the Minister has no responsibility, the matter may not be discussed.
I think he has. Farmers must have roads into their houses and at times the Department of Agriculture give grants for those roads. They are private roads but when a grant is received for the improvement of a road into two, three, four or five farmers' houses, and when the road is brought up to a certain standard, there should be sufficient co-operation between the various Departments to ensure that the road becomes a public road. Something prevents that at present and it is a matter which is annoying farmers very much. After all, the small farmers in rural Ireland are the back-bone of the country and they are entitled to just as much consideration and fair play as the man driving in a motor car. They should get more consideration in that regard.
The drainage of the land is another very important matter. In regard to land reclamation we have heard a lot about the A scheme and the B scheme. In regard to the B scheme I am more in favour of the work being carried out by the farmers themselves if it can be done by them. The other scheme was never carried out in my area so I am not in a position to speak about it but I have seen excellent work carried out under the Land Project by farmers themselves. I strongly recommend the Minister to go ahead with all the power he can command with the land reclamation scheme and bring more land into productivity. The more land brought into productivity the more stock we can carry on the land.
The poultry industry is one that has been on the decline for a number of years. Nevertheless I think it a bad thing to let it die out completely and if the Minister, even at this stage, could guarantee a minimum price for eggs—let it be 2/- a dozen or 2/6d. a dozen—it would be very welcome to housewives and farmers. I know that at certain times of the year eggs will fetch 4/- and 5/- a dozen but the housewife who sells a dozen eggs for 2/6d. will not make much profit. I do not think that the burden on the Exchequer, in making that guarantee, would upset the Minister very much and I believe it would be a good gesture on his part. It would be highly appreciated and it would be very important for the housewives and farmers. The cost would be very small and the satisfaction to the housewife would be very, very great indeed.
I hope that the Minister, when replying, will be in a position to give the House some information on the discussions which he and the Minister for External Affairs had recently in London. I am not a farmer but I think I share the anxiety of the people as a whole, with regard to the future of this country vis-á-vis this new seven-nation treaty group. I am quite certain that the Taoiseach and his Ministers are conversant with the situation that may arise if there is any weakening of this country's very favourable trading position with Great Britain as a result of the negotiations now going on and to which we are not a party.
Recent Press report would suggest that the Danish negotiators have secured certain concessions on the British Market, and estimates of an improvement of £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 in the value of their imports into Great Britain have been mentioned recently in our own Press, as well as in the outside Press. I am quite certain that the Minister himself will be very concerned to preserve our position on the British market. I do hope he will take the House into his confidence at the earliest possible date, preferably when he is replying, and put at rest the very genuinely held fears, not only of the farmers but of the whole community in regard to our trade with Great Britain.
I should like, even at the risk of repeating what has been said by a number of Deputies who have spoken on this Estimate, to join with them in appealing to the Minister to reconsider his decision in regard to the butter levy. I recall that 12 months ago when this Estimate was being discussed I approached the subject in what I hoped was a reasonable frame of mind, having regard to the position of the country and the finances available to subsidise exports of butter. At that time I remember pointing out to the Minister that there was a price below which you could not force the price of milk, otherwise the present producers—in the main family, traditional producers—would be forced out of business altogether. There is no doubt that anybody familiar with the dairying areas would agree with me when I say that the people who carry on there would not be replaced by the younger generation in a very big number of instances.
I believe that the Minister's thinking at that stage was largely influenced by the immense sum which it appeared the Exchequer would be called upon to bear, not only during last season but also during the current season and in possibly future seasons. When one reads in the White Paper of a bill running to £10,000,000 or £12,000,000, based on export prices as of that date, there is no doubt that it is a frightening prospect to the taxpayers of this country. I am certain, however, that since this document was printed those who framed the Programme for Economic Expansion would perhaps be wise to have another look at their calculations. I am quite certain they would find, on the basis of present day figures for butter on the English market and having regard to the fact that there is unlikely to be any exports of butter this year, that the figures would have to be drastically revised.
One other point I should like to make in this connection is that this levy is being imposed on the lowest priced outlet for milk. I know a number of arguments can be put up to the contrary but it is a fact that, of all the products into which milk can go, butter is the lowest priced and it does seem unfair that it should have to carry a levy that no other part of the dairying and cattle trade, or products manufactured from milk, are called upon to bear. I would ask the Minister, when he is considering the question of a subsidy or levy of any sort, to bear in mind that an impost on the farmers should have regard to the industry as a whole. As a practical farmer, the Minister himself appreciates that the dairying industry is the basic industry of this country. On it depends not only the survival of the cattle industry but the pig and poultry industry and other sections of the agricultural industry as well, and it does seem to me to be pulling down the house to interfere with the foundations of the agricultural industry.
Therefore, I would impress upon the Minister that he should reconsider his very adamant attitude to the question of the butter levy, at least until such time as he and his Department, with the co-operation of the milk producers, have had an opportunity of reorganising the industry with a view to directing a higher proportion of milk into condensed milk, dried milk, and other higher-priced products. I notice that the Programme for Economic Expansion has laid great stress on the necessity for diverting milk into condensed milk, dried milk and similar products. Consideration has also to be given to the fact that there has been a catastrophic drop in the value of condensed milk and dried milk exported over the past ten years. In this regard it is dismally interesting to note that since 1950 the value of our exports of dried and powdered milk has gone down from approximately £1,500,000 to less than £500,000 last year. In some cases, exports of items like full cream and skimmed milk have disappeared altogether. These types of exports which were, by their very nature, higher priced and suited the economy of the country better, are now virtually nonexistent and I think it is very necessary that an all-out effort should be made to increase them.
It is all very well to talk about these things but something will have to be done. On this question of marketing, particularly marketing for export, the Minister might consider going outside the ambit of his own Department, and possibly even the co-operative societies, and give some inducements and encouragement to the export of agricultural products. There are a number of individuals and firms in every country, our own not excepted, who are experts in exporting products of various kinds all over the world. I feel that if these firms and individuals got concessions, similar to those now available to exporters of manufactured products, it might be a very good thing for the country.
Departments of State, of their very nature, move very slowly though possibly surely, and there is no doubt that the individual entrepreneur, given the necessary encouragement, is far more likely to make a quick impact and get quick results than any Department of State. The Programme for Economic Expansion, if I read it aright, seems to throw up its hands in despair of any future for the export of eggs and poultry, apart from broilers. I think I am correct in saying that other small nations such as Denmark and Holland have made, and continue to make, a considerable success of the export of eggs and I do not think it is beyond the competence of our farmers, with the co-operation of the Department and with proper marketing arrangements, to make an equal success of it here. As Deputy Wycherley pointed out, egg production is one of the three things on which the small farmer, in particular, depends—pigs, poultry and eggs. I think all our thinking in this agricultural country should be conditioned by the fact that it is mainly a nation of small farmers.
I do not know what the impact of the new Common Market will be on our exports of agricultral produce. I notice that in 1958 we exported some £6,000,000 worth and presumably that market will now be lost to us. That again emphasises the necessity for opening up new markets and extending established ones very quickly indeed. I do not want to talk about the cattle industry. I quite agree with the Programme for Economic Expansion on the necessity for improving our grasslands but I think we should be cautious not to throw too much emphasis on using these grasslands for beef. At present England itself is developing beef, using its own grasslands for the production of high-grade beef cattle, and there is no doubt that in the years ahead the present high prices of cattle may not be maintained as they are now. That, I think, brings me back to where I started—the necessity for encouraging and continuing to encourage the production of milk, and I think it would be disastrous, particularly for the small farmers, if there were too great a swing to the production of cattle at the expense of the dairying industry.
Before I sit down, I should like to congratulate the Director and those concerned with the new Agricultural Institute. I think it is an encouragement to everybody, not alone to the farmers, to notice the quiet, efficient way in which Dr. Walsh and his colleagues have gone about their task of establishing this new Institute. I am aware that the Minister has no jurisdiction over the siting of the various research stations which have been set up around the country, but I think consideration might be given to establishing one or other of the research stations in the centre of the richest dairying area in the country, Limerick, and I hope that development is on its way.
The Minister, in his notes, and in the White Paper, lays emphasis on the question of increased exports of cheese. I suggest one obvious centre to undertake the manufacture of cheese is the Condensed Milk Company in Limerick. I feel that would be a far more desirable and profitable outlet than the experiment to which the Minister referred—the production of broilers there for export. I think cheese would be far more suitable and would give a quicker and better return to the dairy farmers in the area who supply that large factory.
I am somewhat surprised at being invited to conclude this debate so soon. I am certainly not disappointed because every Minister who comes in here with an Estimate naturally wishes to get through the task as quickly as possible. It is not customary for the Agriculture Estimate to get a very easy or quick passage. On the few occasions that I have been here, responsible for this Estimate, I always found it difficult to arrange in my mind some of the many important matters raised in the discussion and try to deal with them. It is rarely if ever possible—in fact, I think I could say it is never possible— to take a note of all the points that are made and give all the information that is requested in a discussion like this.
I have in my own mind a few matters that were raised here and with which I should like to deal. I think I should start with some remarks made by a few Deputies on what was termed the viciousness of the Government and of the Minister for Agriculture in making the decision to abandon Section B of the Land Project.
I am very well aware that in political life, from my own experience here over a great many years and I suppose from what I read and from what we know of what takes place in other countries, that there may be a tendency on the part of politicians and political Parties to reverse the decisions and disagree with the judgment of their predecessors. I suppose that if I give any assurance that there was no such thought in my mind or in the mind of the Government when this decision was made, no thought of viciousness in any sense, that assurance will not be accepted. I feel I should, however, put it on the records of the House.
I can draw attention at this stage to the records of the House in 1949 when, as a member of the Opposition, I spoke in the discussion on the Land Rehabilitation Bill as it then was. I spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill; I have read that speech, which is a thing I rarely do, twice or three times since and there is not a single line or word in it or a single criticism advanced against the proposals then before the House, that I do not now stand over. There is not an alternative recommendation which I made in the course of that speech but I would repeat now and stand over, having regard to the experience that I and the country have gained in the years since then.
At that time, we were talking about spending £40 million on land reclamation. Land reclamation was not anything new for many years before 1949; but land reclamation as we had known it up to then was undertaken by the farmer himself, assisted by grants from the Department. It was carried out in this way. The farmer applied to have two or more acres reclaimed. The Department supervisor was sent to inspect the work, he prepared an estimate, this was handed to the farmer and the farmer was made responsible for undertaking and completing the work. When the work was completed, he notified the Department, the supervisor went on the job and inspected it and, if it was done according to specification the grant was paid.
A new method was introduced in 1949, called Section B. Section A was the retention of the scheme largely as I have described it, except that the amount of the grant was increased. Under Section B, the farmer applied to have his land reclaimed, the scheme was prepared for him and a contract was made. The contract was made between the representative of the Department and the contractor, on behalf of the farmer. The work was undertaken and the farmer's land was charged, if he so decided, with £12 per acre, and the State or the taxpayer paid the balance.
I was suspicious of that proposal in 1949 here. In the course of the discussion then, I tried to induce the Minister at the time to stipulate some ceiling of cost per acre beyond which the Department could not go. I pressed that point very keenly. I was not doing that in any obstructive sense, but because I realised that much of the land where an attempt might be made at the reclamation would be land of fairly poor quality and that, no matter what money was expended on it, it would be hard to maintain it and keep it in that condition. I was anxious to ensure that there would be some limit per acre on the cost to the taxpayer. In the course of that discussion, when what sounded to me to be a fairly huge figure, £40 million, was being bandied about here, I made the further suggestion that, if we had all this money to spend on reclamation, some portion of it should be devoted to the subsidisation of fertilisers.
When an accusation is made here, that a scheme is scuttled through sheer viciousness, it is no harm that the attitude of those who make a decision to discontinue a scheme, after they have seen it in operation for ten years, should be repeated here in order to establish again what many of us foresaw in the very early stages. I was concerned then about the amount which might be expended on land reclamation. I have here in my hand now a list of holdings on which reclamation schemes under Section B were carried out, with the details of the cost per acre of those schemes. Not only have I these records in my hand, but although I do not know all the holdings concerned, I know quite a few of the holdings on which this money was spent. I have no hesitation in the wide earthly world in saying, here or elsewhere, and more so in the districts in which the money was spent, to the very neighbours of those who lands were treated under this Section, who saw this work being done, who knew the land from A to Z, that much of this expenditure was entirely unjustified.
To talk here in terms of reclamation, under this scheme, of one million acres is all complete "ballyhoo". One cannot spend £11 million or £13 million without doing some good. Quite a lot of good was done to some land under this scheme. I admit that. But to justify for propaganda purposes the expenditure of £263 per acre on 94 acres of land in Wexford and say it is a sound proposition is something I do not accept. Even that is not the highest figure. There was another scheme in the same county which actually cost £306 per acre. There is a list of schemes twice the length of your arm running from the figures I have mentioned down to £85 per acre.
There was no thought of viciousness in the decision made about this matter. That scheme was in operation from 1949 to 1951. As I have said, there was no ceiling. Between 1951 and 1954 the Government of which I was a member, though not in this Department, tried to bring Section B of the Land Reclamation Scheme under some form of control. We decided on a per acre ceiling beyond which work would not be undertaken. Commitments had been entered into on the original basis in a number of cases and these were honoured.
We went out of office in 1954 and between 1954 and 1957, although the ceiling was not completely abandoned a further change was made. As far as I remember, the ceiling we laid down was £42 per acre. When our predecessors came back in 1954 they decided, for some reason I do not know, to amend the scheme by an arrangment whereby if the estimated cost of the work was over £42 and not in excess of £60 per acre, the State would put up, £ for £, the difference between £42 and the estimated cost. I am going over all that to let the House know the attitude of this Party when the Bill was introduced and during the course of the Committee Stage, our efforts to introduce the ceiling and my endeavour to devote some of the moneys available for land reclamation to the subsidisation of superphosphates and to recall our attitude when we came back in 1951 and introduced the ceiling, while in 1954 our successors raised that ceiling to £60 on the basis I described.
When we came back in 1957, having seen the result over the ten year period, we decided that the wisest course in regard to land reclamation was to return to the long established practice of placing the onus on the owner of the land to apply to have it reclaimed, to get the specification from the representative of the Department of Agriculture and, if he was to employ a contractor to carry out the work, to place the onus on him to contact the contractor and make all the arrangements. When the work was done, either by the owner of the land or the contractor, our local representative would inspect it and, if it was carried out satisfactorily, the owner would get his money as promptly as possible.
I was in doubt, to tell the truth, about placing the onus on the farmer to carry out the work himself or making him responsible for negotiating the contract. The Civil Service, like every other big machine, is human. I did not like the idea of young supervisors having placed upon them the responsibility of dealing with contractors whose work they would later have to supervise. I felt, from my experience in life and my knowledge of public affairs, that there was great danger in taking such risks.
There was a further reason I was anxious to see that this reclamation work should be undertaken in the manner I described. I felt the farmer should be told in advance what he would get if he carried out certain work and that he would then be free to carry it out with his own labour, with hired labour supervised by himself or enter into a contract that would be as advantageous as possible from his point of view.