Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 16 Jun 1964

Vol. 211 No. 1

Committee on Finance. - Vote 40—Agriculture (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Donegan.)

Mr. Crotty

There are a few other points to which I should like to refer on this Estimate one of which concerns my constituency very much and it is the question of wheat. The Minister in his opening remarks stated that, basically, the price of wheat in 1964 would be the same as in 1963. If the Minister said that, basically, the price of wheat for 1964 would be the same as for 1957-58, I do not think he would be making any mistake.

Apparently, in the Minister's and in the Government's mind, there is to be no seventh, eighth, or ninth round of increases for the growers of wheat. We have just been discussing a Bill here on which these rounds were discussed, and the various people who got them and who did not get them. The growers of wheat have not got any of these increases. No wonder the acreage in 1963 has dropped to 132,700 acres, as against 480,000 in 1958. That is, a little more than half the acreage of wheat grown in 1958 was grown last year. What is the reason? I feel the main reason is price. The people are not getting the price. They can be stopped producing any crop by reducing the price. The amount of money is the same as in 1958 but we must look at the value of money, which has depreciated in the meantime. Therefore, the farmers are not getting nearly the same amount of money per barrel for wheat in 1963-64 as they got in 1958.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Crotty

They have also, in the meantime, had to bear, through the levy, the cost of the disposal of the surplus millable wheat. Owing to emigration, the estimated requirements now are 765,000 tons, as against, I think, 320,000 tons in 1958. They have to bear the cost of disposal, so the Government have relieved themselves of that. But they have also had to bear something much heavier. When there is a bad harvest, or an extra amount of wheat grown, or where any surplus at all exists, the millers crack down on the amount of wheat taken into the mill. In the past year 91 per cent of the wheat sent to the mill was rated as millable and was purchased on that basis. That was easy when there was a reduced acreage of wheat and also a substantially reduced yield. It is very easy when the quantity is in scarce supply to have a price, and have conditions of sale made easier. But where there is a surplus of wheat, as in 1960-61 and at the same time a bad harvest, we all know the treatment the farmers got at the hands of the millers and we know the unsympathetic Government we had towards the growers.

We expected that the Minister for Agriculture would be the one man who would see that the farmers of that time got their wheat disposed of. We know how little sympathy these people got. It is no wonder there is a reduction in the quantity of wheat grown in the past year. I suppose they said they would have to take so many men off the land so that the people remaining could get a higher income. Therefore, the policy of the Government as regards wheat has been to reduce the quantity.

The Minister stated on Thursday evening last, when I raised the matter of the price of barley, that farmers were getting a 5 per cent increase in price. The Minister said that was an agreed price with joint committees of agriculture. I wonder is the price of wheat also an agreed price with joint committees of agriculture. I doubt it very much. I would appeal to the Minister, and to the Government, to review the price of wheat, in view of the increased costs to the growers.

This week we have seen a substantial jump of 12 points in the cost of living over the past 12 months, and, to make allowance for that, I would appeal to the Minister, and the Government, to give a reasonable increase to those people who must at the present time grow this crop. It is the only practical cash crop they can grow. They grow feeding barley even at the reduced price because, whatever happens, they will be able to sell the barley and will not have to go through the various tests, such as maltose and all the final tests, which have to be undergone in the case of wheat. On any of these tests wheat can be turned down. People have turned to barley growing, not because they get a return from growing barley, but because of the hardship they have suffered at the hands of the millers over the past number of years, and they want to be sure they will be able to get the price available, and not left as they were with the wheat.

I would appeal to the Minister to review the price of wheat and the price of barley. Barley has been increased by 5 per cent. Ten years ago the price of barley was 48/- as against 40/now. Still, farmers have to meet increased costs of machinery, and so on. Therefore, I would appeal to the Minister to give this matter serious thought.

As I said last year, I disapprove of the assistance given by the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the rationalisation scheme evolved by the Irish Flour Millers Association. That rationalisation scheme meant a closure of six mills in the first instance and two later. Two have been closed in my constituency. The owners of these mills have always given good service and have had good relations with the local farming community. These relations meant a lot, especially when the harvests were not as good as they might be. I regret the Minister's approval of this. After all, without his approval I doubt whether that rationalisation scheme could have been carried out.

It would appear to me that the Irish Flour Millers Association is only an association in name. Two combines have taken complete control and dictated to the whole industry. The millers have been allowed by the Government to create a fund over the years which is now been used under the guise of compensation to close down the mills in the country. This fund is being used by the larger mills. If we cannot beat them we will buy them, and buying them they are. I understand that fund is still being very substantially contributed to. I believe any miller exceeding his quota in the year has to pay 10 per cent per sack for each sack of flour milled over and above his quota. Their accounts are subject to examination by the accountants of the Association.

I would ask the Minister and through the Minister, the Government, to have an investigation carried out into the activities of the Flour Millers Association. As I have said, the two big boys dictate and the other millers have no say at the meetings.

Another point to which I should like to refer is in relation to the old days when wheat was imported and no Irish wheat was grown until we got the newer types. All flour milled in this country was milled from imported wheat and it was necessary to differentiate between the imported price and the home price. Now, when 75 per cent of the wheat is being produced next to the very country miller's door, these people still insist that the differential should be maintained. They insist that the people down the country should have to pay 2/- per sack more for their flour than the people in the big cities where the ports are. The day for that should be gone.

On the subject of land reclamation, we all regard the Dillon Land Project as one of the finest schemes ever introduced in this country. The Minister mentioned that it is going ahead at an active pace and that, during the past year, 90,000 acres were reclaimed. I am glad of that but I think much more could be done. It is the general feeling that farming is under-capitalised. A lot of our farmers who can pay their way are afraid to raise debts fearing, as they have good reason to fear, bad harvests and other losses. Those people like to keep themselves out of debt. They will not avail even of the credit facilities that are available. If they would do so, there would be increased production in general on their farms.

The Government have dropped Section B of the Land Project. Under Section A, the farmer contributes his share and the Government contribute their subsidy. Under Section B, the Government paid the farmer's share but put it on his annuity. That provided capital so that the farmer had not to finance the reclamation of his land and he was put into a better position to pay back the annuity over the years.

Some farmers, even smaller farmers, would have to provide from £100 to £300 in cash and we all know that only well-off farmers could do that. By cutting out Section B of the Land Rehabilitation Scheme, the Government have refused that credit to the farmers. The Minister may think I am using this argument because I speak from the Opposition benches but it is a very important matter. I have here a copy of the Kilkenny People of Friday, 12th June, 1964. In a news item headed Waste And Wet Land A Shame, we read what a supporter of the Minister's Party, Mr. J. Ryan, urged at a meeting of the Kilkenny County Committee of Agriculture on the previous Monday. The report is as follows:

Mr. J. Ryan, at Kilkenny County Committee of Agriculture meeting on Monday urged the reintroduction of Section B of the Land Rehabilitation Scheme. Dairying, he said, was a most vital part of the agricultural economy, and a year ago he moved a resolution asking that Section B of the Land Rehabilitation Scheme be reintroduced.

He would also like to see a review of the grant per acre for reclamation, since pipes were going up every day, and wages had been doubled since the scheme was first implemented. Having regard to the plan for economic expansion, he thought it a shame to have waste and wet land in the country today.

Such land might not be suitable for tillage but it would be suitable for the cow, and for the dairy farmer, and he felt the section heretofore providing for grants for the drainage of such land should be reintroduced.

Mr. Ryan said small farmers could not afford to carry waste land. It was impossible, and it was vital that his income should be maintained at a reasonable level.

Apparently there was general agreement about the matter at that meeting of the committee. I add my voice to the plea of Mr. J. Ryan that Section B of the Land Project be brought back for the reasons I have stated.

Mr. O'Connor

I should at the outset like to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the simple and efficient way the Estimate was presented to the House. If I sound any note against it, it is because I think two very important items have been overlooked. There is the very important item of extensive drainage in addition to the Land Project. I refer to the drainage of small streams and rivers which do not come within the ambit of arterial drainage or rural improvement schemes. There is a great necessity for action to deal with these matters which are causing so much trouble particularly to some of our best land. If this should be the duty of the Land Commission then the Minister and his Department should press to have a scheme devised to bring about the desired improvement.

We have a total of 15½ million acres of which over 10½ million are arable. Our land is a very valuable asset. At the moment, the production figure is so ridiculously low as to be practically non-existent. There is an over-all figure of £11 per acre for our arable land, whereas it has been shown that up-to-date farmers can get as much as £50 or £60 per acre. A plan should be devised to achieve the maximum output from our land or to bring it to a reasonable standard so that those engaged on the land may get a reasonable living out of it and more people can get back to the land.

A total of 383,415 males are engaged in agriculture. Of these 294,367 are family labour and 89,048 are otherwise. The average over-all wage is £7 per week for these people. If we could get the type of output from the land which we should get, it should be quite easy to bring that wage up to £10, £12, or even £14 per week.

Consider the different Provinces. In Leinster, there are 109,324 people on the land; in Munster, 127,257; in Connacht, 99,478 and in Ulster, 47,356. The output in Leinster, which has very little more people on the land than Connacht, is £67½ million, while Connacht has only £33½ million. Ulster has £16½ million but there are only 47,000 people on the land. If it were possible to increase the overall output by a further £10 an acre, it would give an increase of about 50 per cent in wages and, in addition, employ a further 50,000 on the land.

On Monday week last, with the Kerry County Committee of Agriculture, I visited a farm run by the Institute in Herbertstown, County Limerick. The land there is devoted entirely to grass, some of it old lea and some of it, about a quarter, is new. It was ploughed up about two years ago. The experts there found that the old grass, heavily manured, is giving a much greater return. They have, on 64 acres, 35 cows, 35 yearlings, 35 calves, and that acreage is providing their entire feeding in grass and silage. Some extraordinary facts were revealed to us. We learned that the price of grass per ton fed to the animals off the land, was £6, while in the case of silage, it went up to £15 and the cost of purchasing feeding stuffs as against that was £30 a ton. Those figures certainly point to the great necessity for increasing our grass output——

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Connor

——by the best and cheapest method possible and on the most modern lines. This holding is laid out in small paddocks. The calves are first put to grass for two days; the cows follow for three days; and the yearlings are put in to clean up for a further three days. They are rotated from paddock to paddock and they get plenty of feeding from the 64 acres. Incidentally, this is ordinary land, not top-class land and not poor land but with a heavy type of soil off which the animals must be taken after the end of October as otherwise they would cut the grass to pieces. No extra quality material has been put into the farm. The cows were ordinary cows purchased at the fair and the methods that every farmer is following up and down the country are followed there. It is a pity that we have not got any more of these places. We could do with one or two in each county and they would set a great headline for our farmers and show them modern methods for getting the best out of grass and the best methods of managing their farms.

The gross value of our agricultural output amounts to £193 million from a total of ten million arable acres. Of that, only some £110 millions is directly off the land, the larger part of the balance being made up by bacon production raised from imported material and material we grow ourselves. I have heard many references in this House to the decline in the population and these references point particularly to the west. In Kerry, Clare and Galway, the actual reduction is approximately four per cent. Against that, Wexford, Tipperary and Laois have the same, whilst the balance of the midlands, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wicklow and the others, have 3½ per cent. The only county which has retained much of its population is Offaly where the figure is 0.8 per cent. Some of the northern and north-western counties have a figure of six or seven per cent. It is quite obvious that the drain from the land has come from the better farms, the better plains, if you like, and this will create a very serious problem in regard to the increased production we will get from good land.

I am convinced that we will have to get 40,000 or 50,000 people back in the central plains if we are to get any large increase in agricultural output. We cannot do it without labour and I do not know what means we can adopt to get labour back on the land. To my mind, the two reductions we gave in regard to rates were not a good step because that reduction certainly will not bring about an increase in production. It may have been an easement for the people concerned but I wonder if the millions involved would not have been better employed by using them as a form of wage relief; in other words, in the form of reliefs granted to farmers who employed extra labour.

An Foras Talúntais are doing an exceptionally good job, and as I stated on a previous occasion, I should like to see many more of their pilot schemes in operation. I do not think any extra cost to the Exchequer would be involved. The Minister should seriously consider an increase in this type of scheme. People by and large are anxious to obtain the maximum knowledge and there is no greater education for a farmer than to be able to see what is being done. This is certainly true of the growing of grass. He would learn very quickly from the methods being employed.

In Kerry, we are making fair progress and the Abbeydorney co-operative have made premises available, under committee instructors, for classes for young farmers between the ages of 17 and 21. They are doing a great job of work and even in the short while this has been in operation the advantages gained can already be seen in the parish of Abbeydorney. We are looking forward to extending that type of service to other parts of Kerry. It is worth extending to other parts of the country. The pilot schemes which have been undertaken in our county by the Government to get smallholders organised into co-operative groups to improve their position out of the meagre means at their disposal should set a headline for the western seaboard. We are looking forward to big things and hoping this will develop into something useful.

The previous speaker referred to the price of wheat. In my county we believe the price paid for grain, particularly barley, which we are compelled to buy for the feeding of our stock, is much too high. The price is higher than that at which it can be imported. The economy of Kerry and the entire western seaboard was maintained many years ago by the importation of yellow meal. The smallholders were able to feed their stock on that very cheap feeding material. If the smallholder in Kerry is to be maintained at all, so that he will be able to hold on to his bit of land, that cheap feeding material must be made available to him. I would prefer to use the material that is grown in our own country but what is channelled to the western seaboard should be subsidised.

We believe that the grain can be imported at as much as £2 or £3 a ton less than we are paying at the moment. That £2 or £3 would make all the difference to the smallholder and allow him to go in for a limited number of pigs. If the bigger people turn out 400 or 500 pigs and make £1 a pig, they are doing all right, but if the smallholder who can keep only six to ten pigs makes a £1 a pig, there is not much of a living in it for him. Therefore, if home grown material is to be used, it must be made available cheaply to the people on the western seaboard or, alternatively, let them have the cheapest materials they can get to enable them to produce economically and to sell the produce in the world market at competitive prices.

I wish to refer to a position which is regarded with some anxiety in County Kerry. As regards our insemination centres, it would appear that as soon as the very good animals we have down there, are approved, they are removed from the insemination centre. This has been reported to me by some farmers and if this is the case, it is a very serious position. In some cases recently animals were removed to Dundalk and other parts of the country. The very best animals, the very best strains, should be left with us because it will have a very big effect on our stock in the future. These animals should not be removed into other areas where people do not hold the offspring to the same extent as we do in the west. I would ask the Minister, if the information I give him is correct, to try to have that position corrected.

Regarding the Herbertstown farm, one statement that impressed us was that 3 cwt. of phosphate, 2 cwt. of potash, and 1 cwt. of sulphate was used in January-February last and that this was followed up in the month of April with 5 cwt. of nitrogen, totalling 11 cwt. to the acre to get a very large output of grass. This would seem an extraordinary amount of material but it certainly got results at a very low cost and it is an item that should get plenty of publicity for the benefit of our farmers throughout the country. In view of the fact that the Minister is satisfied that nitrogen is important as it would appear to be from the Herbertstown scheme, and if it will be used to a large extent a case could be made for a subsidy.

I would impress upon the Minister the necessity, particularly in the mountainous counties, for an intermediate drainage scheme. There are thousands of acres of land in Kerry completely under water. There is an urgent necessity for the cleaning of the small rivers. There is no scheme available at the moment and we would have to wait 40 or 50 years for arterial drainage to take effect. I would ask the Minister to have a scheme inaugurated at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Minister's statement is very well presented and is a most informative and helpful document. I do hope that all of us have given information to the Minister and to his staff which will help to bring about better conditions for our farmers and for the people generally. They need a lot of technical assistance and advice at the moment. If we can get them to channel their efforts together, I think we can make a better rural Ireland for the benefit of all engaged on the land and in agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

It is remarkable to hear a Fianna Fáil Deputy getting so enthusiastic about grass. I remember when if you mentioned grass to a Fianna Fáil Deputy, he would swoon away in horror. I suppose it is never too late for them to learn and so I listened with emotion to Deputy O'Connor expressing his admiration of the grass he saw in County Limerick on the Foras Tionscal farm. It is late in the day that he has wakened up to the value of grass to our farmers, but better late than never.

This Estimate has been discussed with some acrimony and some scurrility by certain Fianna Fáil Deputies: that does not surprise me. I was amused that some of the protagonists of wheat, notably Deputy Gibbons, were commenting adversely on the record of the Government of which I was Minister for Agriculture in connection with wheat, but facts speak more eloquently than theories. In 1957, which is the last year in which I had responsibility for the Department of Agriculture during the sowing season, there were 406,300 acres of wheat grown in this country and incidentally every barrel of that wheat was bought and paid for by the millers and milled into flour. In 1963, after seven years of Fianna Fáil enthusiasm, the acreage of wheat is 232,700 acres and a very considerable percentage of the crop for the past few years has been rejected by the millers, sold for feed and a levy imposed upon the growers in order to finance the sale as feed of the wheat rejected by the millers.

Another thing Fianna Fáil Deputies might remember with emotion is that in 1957, 406,300 acres of wheat were grown here and there were no inspectors surrounding the ditches of the farmers——

Mr. Moher

There was no war either.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know what the Deputy means by that. There were no inspectors, guards or bulldozers to break down farmers' gates. More interesting was the fact that every barrel of wheat produced was bought and paid for by the millers and milled into flour, and there was no levy on the farmers who grew it to pay for what the millers chose to reject. Even more interesting still, the price which was described as so grossly inadequate in 1957 is the price payable in 1963, although over that period the value of money has very materially declined, so that in fact the present price is substantially less from the farmers' point of view than what it was in 1957. Such inconsistencies do not bother Fianna Fáil. I often wonder how long they can persuade their supporters to believe the falsehoods on which they seek to feed them.

In considering this Estimate, one of the most important facts to bear in mind, and a fact which is too often forgotten, is that with all the talk we hear about industrial exports, with all the money we pour into industrial exports, in the past 12 months our agricultural exports amount to £124 million while the total of industrial exports was no more than £43 million. I quote these figures for the purpose of recalling what is too often forgotten, that agriculture is our greatest industry. It employs more people; it earns more money; and it generates more exports than any other industry in Ireland and all its output is based on the raw materials of our own land.

If there is to be, as there must be, an expansion of exports, we must ignore no source of exports, however small. We must stimulate every industry that will contribute to the total of our exports but it seems to me as plain as a pikestaff that the great potential for increased exports is in the land and in agriculture, and if we can expand our agricultural output, as I have often pointed out here before, we come face to face with the equation that inasmuch as the total output of our land heretofore has been divided from the point of view of ultimate disposal as to one-third consumed on the farm, one-third consumed in the towns and cities and one-third exported, if we increase the total of our exports, since our people are one of the best fed people in the world, the prospect of consumption rising on our farms and in our towns and cities is relatively remote and the entire increase in our production will find its way into export channels. If you could increase the total output of the land by 100 per cent, you would increase the total of agricultural exports by about 400 per cent, and if you increased agricultural output by only 50 per cent, you would increase total agricultural exports by about 100 per cent or more. That is a factor we should bear constantly in mind in preparing our plans for increased exports in future.

What then do we need for increased output from the land? I suggest we have available all the resources requisite to procure that increased output, if we would but employ them. We provided the new agricultural research institutes which was a very necessary basis for increased agricultural output. But research is of no avail if the fruits of that research are not communicated to the farmers on the land. I want to direct the attention of the House to a very significant fact, that is, the gross inadequacy of the agricultural advisory services. Sooner or later this will be remedied. I was in the process of remedying it when I was Minister for Agriculture. The work I was doing in that direction the Minister is now in process of dismantling. My purpose was to supplement the existing advisory services supplied by the county committees of agriculture by additional advisory services based on parish agents under the direction of the Department of Agriculture itself. I am sure I was right in that. I know that the results achieved in the areas where parish agents functioned dramatically demonstrated what could be done if effective advisory services were allowed to function.

I want to direct the attention of the House to the comparison between the inadequacy of our advisory services and those obtaining in other European countries. In Belgium they have one advisory officer for every 5,400 hectares of land. In Denmark they have one advisory officer for every 1,200 hectares of land. In the Federal Republic of Germany, they have one advisory officer for every 6,500 hectares. In Ireland there is one adviser for every 11,200 hectares. In the Netherlands there is one agricultural adviser for every 1,900 hectares. The only countries in Europe where they have fewer advisory services than we have here are France and the United Kingdom, but in the United Kingdom they had only 312 holdings per advisory officer, which shows that the average size of the holding in Great Britain is very much greater than it is in the other countries to which I have referred, including Ireland.

In Ireland, we have one advisory officer to every 575 holdings. In Denmark, there is one for every 255 holdings; in Belgium, one for 760 holdings; and, in the Netherlands, one for every 191 holdings. It is quite obvious that one of the great obstacles to achieving the output potential of our land is the want of technical knowhow. Anyone who has any knowledge of rural Ireland sees that staring him in the face every day. My experience was that those who most vigorously opposed the extension of advisory services in rural Ireland were those who stood most urgently in need of advice themselves or else were people who knew nothing about the land at all. When one tried to provide technical assistance for farmers, large and small, one always came up against a certain element who were inclined to denigrate and speak contemptuously of technical men or agricultural advisers and, almost invariably, you will find that those who speak most contemptuously of such personnel are themselves the least efficient farmers in the area in which they live.

I take the view very strongly that, even if we had adequate advisory services, giving advice, particularly to small farmers unless they can afford to take it, merely creates exasperation and I have not the slightest doubt that there is no more fruitful way in which we could use our resources at the present time than to say to the farmers that those of them who are prepared to plan for expanded production in consultation with the advisory services would have made available to them credit free of interest up to £1,000 per holding. I think the cost of that to the State would be relatively trivial. I think it would be the certain means of persuading farmers who urgently need technical advice to avail of it and the Department of Agriculture could rest satisfied that they were not wasting their time offering advice to people not financially circumstanced to avail of it. I hope some day to have the opportunity of making these services available to our people and, when we do, they will of course ultimately be adopted in due course by Fianna Fáil who will blandly forget the long, weary struggle involved in educating them into a realisation of the necessity for such services and the necessity for such credit and the valuable contribution that such credit and services can make to the total output of the land.

I often wonder if people fully realise what farm building still requires to be done if we are to expand our livestock industry as we ought to expand it. I do not deride the Minister for his failure to realise the target that he set himself in 1958, the target of raising the cow population of the country by, I think, 1,500,000. I think that was the figure. That figure was missed by 150,000 but, as I say, I do not deride the Minister for that. I think, however, that he underestimated entirely the building that required to be done in the way of cowhouses and shelters if a target of that kind was to be reached.

Deputy Gibbons apparently misunderstood what I said because at column 1205 of volume 210 of the Official Report of 11th June last he said:

One of the first things I have ever heard in this House was Deputy Dillon saying that he had left the country in the position that there were more cows, more sheep, more cattle generally than at any time since the famine.

That is not what I said. I said the point of departure which I had to start with, when I became Minister for Agriculture, was that there were in this country fewer cows, fewer pigs, fewer sheep than at any time since the famine but, when I left office, there were more cows, more pigs, and more sheep than there ever had been in the country in its previous history.

Mr. O'Connor

They had gone up.

Mr. Dillon

I rejoice that the day has come when the Fianna Fáil Party do not think it high treason to own a bullock. I can remember a time when Fianna Fáil were going around this country cutting the calves' throats.

Mr. Moher

The Deputy goes back a long time. It is a long shadow.

Mr. Dillon

I can remember when owning calves was a matter of derision and it was a quasi crime to confess any of your land was under grass. I was described in derision as the "Minister for Grass", a title of which I was, indeed, very proud. Of course, Fianna Fáil are now trotting after me.

Mr. Smith

We paid a subsidy on phosphates in those years all the same.

Mr. Dillon

And you never did a better thing.

Mr. Smith

In 1934 and 1935 we paid a subsidy on phosphates.

Mr. T. Lynch

And nobody could afford to buy it.

Mr. Dillon

What was the point of paying a subsidy on phosphates when our three-year-old cattle were sold at £4 10s. per head? Let us not go back to 1934. That was away back in history. However, if Deputies want to go back to 1934, any more exasperating occupation than exhorting people to maximise their output of cattle when they were required to sell at £4 10s. for a three-year-old, I cannot imagine. We now have a subsidy on phosphates.

Mr. Smith

We had it then too.

Mr. Dillon

It was silly then. It was simply calculated to exasperate the people to whom it was offered.

Mr. Connor

What about the years before 1934? What about prices?

Mr. Dillon

It is not to the advantage of anyone to discuss the circumstances of the agricultural industry 30 years ago, because no one knows, and no one gives a damn, except the historians, what the circumstances were. What matters is what they are now, and what they will be in the years that lie ahead.

I want to point out that the policy of one more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough, is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago. We are all agreed on that now. We saw many acrimonious scenes in the House when that philosophy was preached from this or the other side of the House. We saw Fianna Fáil Deputies burst blood vessels all over the House, and declare that such a proposition was high treason, that it meant the bullock for the land and the man for the road. The fact that we are all agreed on this fundamental policy gives the agricultural industry a far better prospect than it had when Fianna Fáil, in their salad days, described it as being as daft as a halfpenny watch.

We should maximise our livestock population to the limit of the capacity of the land to carry it. We must have regard to the fact that this will involve an immense investment in farm building. I put it most strenuously to the Minister that unless the farmers, and particularly the small farmers, are in a position to get credit on terms which they believe they can afford to pay, there is no prospect of getting farm buildings put up. There is no use in sending in agricultural advisers to point out what Deputy O'Connor learned only recently during his trip to Limerick, that if a farm of 50 or 60 acres is suitably treated and properly fenced, it would be possible to double the cow population. There is no use in doubling the cow population if the farmer has no place to put them. The farmer may say: "I have tying for only ten cows and what is the use of telling me to keep 20 or 25 cows if I have no place suitable to house them and no facilities for milking them?" It is possible for a small farmer to milk ten cows by hand, and if we induce him to increase his herd to 25 cows, it is impossible for him to milk them unless he has milking machines. He must equip himself with milking machines and milking parlours and that will involve a substantial capital cost. He cannot increase the carrying capacity of his land without considerable capital cost and investment in fencing and fertilisers. We must tell him that we are prepared to undertake—in consultation with the advisory service so that there will not be any wastage—that money will be made available to him, that it will not be a millstone around his neck, that he can pay it over 20 or 25 years, with no interest, because we want to get agriculture moving in the right direction, and keep it moving in the right direction, without the detestable prospect of another 70,000 people being swept off the land.

The aim of agricultural policy should be to keep people on the land. I am convinced that can be done. I believe all this cod of sweeping people off the land, of consolidating holdings, and altering the whole social pattern of rural life, is insanity. It is being sold by the theorists who have no fundamental understanding of the way in which we live. I heard the Secretary General of OECD recently make a very profound remark. In the course of a discussion, someone asked him if such and such a course in economic policy were theoretically possible. After some moments' delay, he looked at his questioner and said: "Many things theoretically impossible, in practice, can be done." I turned to my neighbour and said: "No dry-as-dust economist had the commonsense to know that", and my neighbour said: "He is not that." He was for six years Minister for Finance in Denmark, and he had learned in politics what the theorists never understood, that frequently what is theoretically impossible, in practice is relatively easy to do.

One thing we should make up our minds to do without regard to the theorists is to keep our people on the land, and to enable them to earn a good living on the land. I say deliberately "a good living on the land". I do not say that it is within the range of practical politics, while full employment obtains in Great Britain, to secure for our small farmer an income equal to what he can earn if he chooses to become a salaried worker in an industrial enterprise in Birmingham, Coventry, Bolton or Glasgow, but we can secure for him on the land of Ireland a much better life, which I believe a sufficiency of our people will elect to prefer. Of course, we cannot compel them, but I am convinced we can enable them to secure a much better life on the land of Ireland, and that a great many of our people will make that election, provided they get the help we are in a position to give them to use their land to the best advantage. In that way we will be benefiting not only the farmers. The export figures alone, without going into calculations about gross national product, gross national income, and so forth, demonstrate most eloquently that the nation will be greatly enriched by an adequate exploitation of the land.

I am delighted the Government are subsidising fertilisers. We inaugurated the limestone scheme which was the most urgent fertiliser problem we had, and remains today a most urgent fertiliser problem, because without limestone no fertiliser can be used to full advantage. We initiated the limestone fertiliser scheme which secured for our people all over the country limestone at, I believe, the lowest price available in any country in the world. That scheme set a headline. The Government are right to subsidise phosphates and potash. I am not quite so sure about the wisdom of attempting to subsidise nitrogen.

Mr. Smith

We are not.

Mr. Dillon

I thought you were. Then we are agreed. The subsidising of potash and phosphates is prudent. I think it would be a disaster if the establishment of a nitrogen monopoly resulted in an increase in prices. It would be a mistake to absorb the available money in the subsidisation of nitrogen when so much remains to be done in maximising the use of lime, potash and phosphates.

There is one very urgent matter in regard to the phosphate situation. I have the uncomfortable feeling that the entire output of phosphates in this country is falling into the hands of one monopoly. If that is the case, a very dangerous situation exists. We are subsidising the production of phosphatic fertilisers and the purpose of the subsidy is to reduce its basic price to the farmers. If the whole phosphatic industry is to become a monopoly protected by tariffs and that monopoly is itself to become a subsidiary of a foreign combine — Imperial Chemical Industries—I think this country ought to look to its precautions.

I shall be interested in hearing what the Minister has to say on that question, whether he agrees that the existence of a phosphatic monopoly is in itself inherently bad, that without competition, domestic or foreign, the production of phosphatic fertilisers cannot be allowed to pass into the hands of an industrial monopoly which is not controlled by the Government for the people, whether, if that course does not commend itself to the Government, then the domestic monopoly must be exposed to effective competition so as to ensure farmers will get phosphates at competitive and reasonable prices.

I put it to the House that in addition to the matters I have referred to by way of advisory services and credit, there is one other essential if we are to keep our people on the land. It is urgently important that we should seek to maximise output to keep the people on the land rather than seek to put the land on a quasi-industrial basis and we must make available to the land facilities through which will be available to the people on it adequate housing.

The plain fact is that here families have lived in houses for generations and have got accustomed to them and do not realise how far their accommodation is falling behind the accepted standards of the generation in which they live. There are thousands of farmers' houses in much the the same structural condition as they were 150 years ago. We all know by experience that they have been improved, but the general accommodation in these houses still bears no relation to the kind of accommodation universally available in the towns and cities today as compared with 150 years ago.

I doubt very much if patching and "foostering" with these houses will make an effective impression on the conditions in which the people on the land live, and I doubt very much if our young people will continue to marry into these old, antiquated houses. I am certain it is desirable that farmers —I have in mind the relatively small farmers—should be in a position to get grants from the Local Government Department and subsequently to go to the Land Commission to seek to build new houses and be allowed to pay for them through their annuities.

I suggest this is the ideal method because if there is to be any change in ownership, the house will still be there and it will be a proper charge on the annuity of the incoming tenant. I believe, bearing in mind the character of our people and their extreme conservatism, that we ought to consider as part of the general programme of agricultural expansion a system of collaboration between the Department of Local Government and the Land Commission, something approximating to the National Housing Agency, so that the category of farmer I have in mind would be free to go to such a body— call it, if you like, the Rural Housing Agency—and stipulate that he wants a house of a certain type and that the agency would build him the house.

I ask it for two reasons. One is that if you leave it to the small farmer to build his own house, he will not get an architect's advice, and furthermore, unless the farmer is so circumstanced that he can build it himself, possibly through boys studying in the vocational school or something of the kind, it will be much more expensive on the individual farmer to build his own house than if an agency of this character were charged with the responsibility of building hundreds of houses and were in a position to group them and let them to contract, avail of the best architectural advice and thus get the best value for money.

I think it was Deputy Crotty who referred to the closing down of Part B of the Land Project. I suggest that was a great mistake, because it withdrew credit facilities from farmers who urgently needed them. I know, as does everybody in the House, the conservatism of small farmers and how difficult it very often is to get them to make the kind of investment they ought to make to achieve expansion in their economy. One of the important features of Part B of the Land Project was that it enabled a farmer to say: "I know what is to be done; go and do it".

I do not believe there is a Deputy who does not realise a great number of small farmers appreciate that a great deal of credit facilities are denied them because of the withdrawal of this Part of the Land Project. I suggest to the Minister that if there has been a dispersal of the machinery under this Part of the Land Project, a great mistake has been made, since it will mean the complete withdrawal of these facilities.

I do not wish to transgress the general agreement as to the limitation of debate under the special procedure we are employing this year of allowing approximately half an hour to each contribution. I should like, however, to say in conclusion that it is a source of dismay to me to find the situation obtaining in which the Minister finds himself constrained to limit the export of pork pigs. I fully agree that once we have an agreement with Britain to accept a certain quantity of bacon, that must be of primary importance. We must fill that undertaking because otherwise it would seriously prejudice our future negotiating capacity with Britain. However, it is a source of amazement to me how a situation could have arisen in which the pig population does not prove adequate not only to meet whatever agreements we have abroad but to leave a certain surplus available to us to meet other demands.

Before the war, we had a very valuable pork export market. Now it appears it is not there. I should be interested to hear from the Minister what his explanation is for the remarkable fact that we have markets available but have not got the pigs with which to supply them. He represents Cavan; I Monaghan. If there were two individuals in the country who should be especially concerned for pigs, it ought to be the present Minister for Agriculture and his predecessor.

I should like to recall that in the days when I was there we substantially increased the pig population in this country. It rose from a relatively low figure to 900,000. It has since gone up to 1,100,000. It puzzles me as to why we find ourselves under an obligation at present to reject market openings offered to us for pork pigs. However, now that all sides of the House have gradually and reluctantly come around to the view that the policy summarised in the phrase "one more cow, one more sow, one more acre under the plough" is the best policy for this country, I am not without hope that the present inadequacies may be at an early stage repaired.

I confess I would not trust any Minister for Agriculture under the control of the Fianna Fáil Party to act sanely for any protracted period, but I have high hopes that we will be shortly delivered from the presence of Fianna Fáil. For that reason, I am glad to draw a pen picture for this House of what we would hope to do when we are delivered from Fianna Fáil and participate in a sane Government in which sane policies operate: the expansion of agriculture, the maintenance of the people on the land and further stimulation of exports from the greatest industry that exists in this country, the industry that earns more, employs more and exports more—the agricultural industry, which is the hope of Ireland and the only enduring foundation on which any satisfactory and expanding industrial development can ultimately be based.

Mr. Moher

Deputy Dillon always claims that he and the Fine Gael Party have a monopoly of agriculture and everything associated with it; but, if you start counting heads on the benches on either side, I think you will find more small farmers on the Fianna Fáil side than on the Fine Gael side. Deputy Dillon dealt at some length with the advisory services. He spoke about the parish agent. I am very sorry he did not give us his views on the county committees of agriculture. When he was Minister for Agriculture, he seemed to have lost faith in them. When he set up the parish agent, he completely ignored the county committees of agriculture, because these agents were outside their authority. I think that was a mistake.

It was ludicrous in the extreme to have an agricultural officer, an employee of the agricultural committee, with half his salary paid directly from the Department of Agriculture, and in the next townland to have an officer whose whole salary was paid directly by the Department. I do not know how you could operate that arrangement in areas side by side within the one county. That was the major defect in the parish agent idea. At least, the officers of the county committees of agriculture were under the jurisdiction of the members of that committee and their CAO, while the parish agent could snap his fingers at the members of the committee because he had no responsibility whatsoever to them. The only advisory body he had was the local Muintir na Tíre organisation or the local parish council.

I am not so much concerned about the number of agricultural science instructors as about the present functions of county committees of agriculture. With their functions at the moment, they contribute little or nothing to Irish agriculture for the amount of money expended on that service. Deputy Dillon speaks about increasing the number of agricultural, horticultural and poultry instructors. However, Deputy O'Sullivan is well aware that we increased substantially the number of these instructors in Cork county, but it did not alter the pattern. The same old pattern has still survived. We have more officers doing less work. There is no overall plan. If we could get in each county——

Mr. Dillon

Now the Deputy understands the need for a parish agent.

Mr. Moher

——some overall plan and could use the officers employed by the county committee of agriculture to carry out that plan, then we would be getting somewhere. But the same structure has remained down in Cork. In my early days, I was associated with the county committee of agriculture. I left it because I regarded it as a waste of time being a member. We had a cottage prize scheme. I do not think that contributed very much. We duplicated premium bulls in an area already covered by the AI service. We spread sea sand all over west Cork. In the early days, I moved a resolution abolishing the sea sand subsidy. It was carried, but, after a canvass, reversed. We had to wait until this year to see in a publication following a survey by An Foras Talúntais that west Cork is starved of lime. What I had been saying ten years ago has now been proved true. Yet we still pay a sea sand subsidy in Cork. Of course, there is a vested interest: the boat owners, who collect the sand, and the lorry owners, who distribute it to the farmers as something that will improve their soils. The taxpayers and ratepayers have been paying for this for generations. We had to wait until the scientists made an extensive survey in 1963 to find out that west Cork generally is starved of lime.

I cannot see why premium bulls should be distributed in areas where there is a complete AI service. It is duplication and waste of money. We have the same thing with boars. At the beginning of every meeting of the agricultural committee, we all got up and proposed votes of sympathy to our bereaved camp followers. That was item No. 1 on the agenda. The next thing was another kind of bereavement, the obituary list of boars from the last meeting. Often three or four boars would have passed away and we would have a proposal that the boars be replaced. There was never a post mortem. A certificate was issued giving some reason or other for the death of another boar and he was just replaced.

There was, of course, a scheme for the distribution of stag turkeycocks. I remember a couple of months after I was elected to that committee a woman came to me and asked me if I could get her an Emden gander. I told her: "I cannot but I can give you a turkey stag". They were being distributed by the county committee of agriculture. These were the functions of the committee and we sat down, debated and argued what person should get a boar in preference to someone else.

It was said in Cork, at one stage, that the local county council always gave us election agent boars. That was the accepted thing down in Cork. I think that the time has come when it is not so much the number of instructors we employ as a revision of the functions of these committees of agriculture which should be looked into. At least let us do something about their functions and alter them according to the farming pattern in each county. There should be a revision of the functions of these committees and the CAO should have some responsibility for providing the county with an overall plan. When we get that as a basis, then let us apply the graduates and the personnel to carry out the approved scheme which is prepared by the CAO over any period. That would be my conception of the functions of a county committee of agriculture.

There is no use duplicating scientific personnel in the kind of pattern of farming we have now. They have nothing to do. They have no plan to work to. They have to call here and call there and advise people and the instructor falls into a groove even working to a plan. He is being called here and called there to advise people on their problems but he has no overall plan. When we have a revision of the functions of the county committees of agriculture, then we will have in time, I hope, an increased number of agricultural science graduates and an increased number of horticultural graduates.

Last week the Minister for Agriculture brought in a Bill to reduce the number of elected members of the county committees of agriculture and to give a minimum of 50 per cent, I think, to non-elected or nominated members. I can see no point whatever in that. I can tell the Minister here and now that he has done something he may not realise he has done. He has established a novitiate, a training place for future politicians. If they are nominated to go into county committees of agriculture, they will go from there to the county council and finally we will have some of them in Dáil Éireann.

Speakers from the Fine Gael side of the House have been talking here for days about credit. Deputy Dillon spoke here about giving £1,000 to every farmer free of interest. I wonder do the members of Fine Gael realise what the farmer's attitude to going into debt is? The modern word for going into debt is getting credit. It is a much nicer word but the word "debt" to an Irish farmer is not a very pleasant one. The older people here can cast their minds back to the day when he was between the bank manager on one side, and the rackrenting landlord on the other. Tradition dies very hard with the farming community. I think the worst possible thing we could have in this country is a loose credit system. We have to be very careful of how we dole out money to any section of our community. This business of saying: "Here is £1,000 free of interest" is a very bad thing. "Free of interest" may sound very pleasant but surely the only incentive we can offer to a man who contracts a debt is an interest rate. When he knows he must pay interest, he will try to make some effort to reduce the bill.

I know, and members of the Fine Gael Party know as well as I do, that the average farmer works first of all on seasonal credit. He gets that seasonal credit from the hardware merchants, the seed merchants or even the co-operative society. Those people carry the overdraft for the farmer. When the harvest and the autumn come and the farmer sells his crops, he will pay off his debt. That is what I call short-term credit and I do not know any reputable or industrious farmer in any county in Ireland who would be refused seasonal credit by the shopkeeper or the co-operative society.

One would imagine from the speeches made by members of the Opposition Party that the farmers were starved for money. I know quite well from my experience in my area, and I know it to be a fact, that any industrious farmer can go to any bank manager now and get a loan of £500 without security. That is a well-known fact. Any farmer who has the reputation of being industrious will get that without the need to get people to act as security for him.

Mr. O'Reilly

I do not think that was the case in every constituency.

Mr. Moher

I am speaking of the area I know. I do not think the position in relation to credit is anything like the impression conveyed from the Fine Gael Benches. I would say this to the Minister. We hear a lot of talk here about the small farmer. Taking the Land Commission yardstick of two years ago, an economic farm was 30 acres. Today we are told by the Land Commission that it is 45 acres. That is an illusion. Nobody can say what an economic holding will be because the yardstick by which that holding will be measured is the cash return for man hours worked as compared with the industrial worker. That is the yardstick by which economics will be measured on a farm.

I want to ask the Minister to investigate a matter that has agitated my mind for quite a long time. As every Deputy knows, there is a considerable number of wealthy farmers in this country, people who are wealthy by any standards. They are a highly organised and vocal group of people. They use the small farmer as the beggar woman uses the borrowed child to beg at a fair. That is the attitude of a certain group of wealthy farmers. Everything that is done is done in the name of the poor farmer, the small man. These people, wealthy though they are, collect from every scheme that is introduced to help the small farmer a disproportionate amount because, no matter what scheme is introduced, no matter what grants are given, they are contingent on the expenditure of certain capital. If the small man has not got the capital, he must stand on the sideline and cannot utilise or avail of the schemes which are introduced.

Mr. O'Sullivan

With the exception of the Land Project.

Mr. Moher

A close examination of the manner in which these schemes are operated will reveal that the greatest proportion of the money allocated is disbursed to the people who want it least. The time has come when the small man cannot continue to be used as a front for these people or, as I have already said, as the beggar woman uses the borrowed child to beg at the fair. The time has come when there must be a differential, when the small man must be taken into consideration, when we will be forced to abandon the idea of putting the 30-acre or 40-acre farmer on the same plane in relation to grants or State subventions as the man with 100 or 150 acres. That time is long overdue.

In regard to subsidised agricultural crops, it will be found, again, that the wealthy farmers collect a disproportionate amount because they are equipped to grow the crops most profitable to them.

Deputy Dillon complained about farmhouses—the famine shacks. Many of them are famine shacks. Why? Because their renovation or replacement must inevitably entail the investment of certain capital. If a small man cannot produce the capital he cannot collect the grant. The time has come when some Minister or Government Department must closely examine this position. If the help is to be given where it is intended to be given a scaled system of grants must be introduced, whether on the basis of valuation or on the basis of the number of acres in the holding.

I listened to a number of Fine Gael speakers. I listened to Deputy T. O'Donnell. Deputy T. O'Donnell repeated and re-echoed a speech which he made last year in relation to the dairying industry. He is all against the introduction of anything like a rationalised system in dairying. He wants to have the Limerick pattern continued, with struggling co-operative societies. In Limerick co-operative creameries are seven miles apart, and 30 per cent are some few miles further apart. Deputy T. O'Donnell wants that pattern to continue in Limerick. If Deputy T. O'Donnell knew his constituency and the County Limerick and, indeed, certain areas of Cork County, he would know that, in the main, the creameries are now merely collection centres where the milk is brought, weighed, piped into tankers and then taken to the bigger creameries where there is manufacturing plant.

Certain recommendations were made by the Commission which investigated this matter, which would seem to favour federation of these creameries. I gather that certain moves are being made by some of the smaller creameries towards federation. The pattern that I have referred to cannot continue. In this competitive age we cannot have a creamery system based on the rotary churn and nothing else. These creameries must be combined into groups. Viable manufacturing centres must be set up for the manufacture of whichever milk product commands the best price at any particular time on the export market.

It is useless to expect that the existing system could continue. There may be opposition to the suggestion I have made. I know there will be opposition from creamery managers. We are all terribly jealous of our status. If there were a federation of creameries, I suppose the status of a number of these people would be affected and they would probably resist it. Commonsense must prevail. Something must be done about the chaotic position which exists in the dairying industry in relation to the structure of small, struggling co-operative societies and small creameries scattered all over Limerick and the adjoining county.

We were speaking a few minutes ago about the operations of county committees of agriculture. The county committees of agriculture are responsible for the distribution of boars in their functional area but I am and have always been very unhappy about the type of pig which is being distributed. There is nothing being done to help bring up progeny standards. As we all know, there is a certain small group of people who are recognised breeders. They are the people who produce the boars and distribute them. I am far from happy about the whole set-up in relation to the distribution of boars by the county committees of agriculture. I am convinced that form of distribution will not give us the improvement in pig breeding which we so urgently need.

Again, I have noticed in the figures published that the western counties, where one would think the pig breeding population should, from the nature of their farming structure there, be substantial, have the lowest pig population of any one of the three provinces for which figures are given. The report of the commission on this whole pig industry does not seem to be a very happy report. It would seem to point out that we had failed from every angle in relation to our pig production.

At the moment, there are developments in relation to the co-operative fattening of pigs. I think if we are to increase substantially our pig production, that increase must be based on the commercial fattening unit. The co-operative societies have an obligation. They are the people who are ideally suited to the job. The creameries and the creamery societies should have a pig fattening unit as one means by which we could show some substantial increase in the number of our bacon pigs. These pig fattening units should be based, of course, on the shareholders of the societies who could produce the store pigs for the fattening unit. The fattening units could also operate breeding schemes. Bacon curing should be a function of many of these fattening units.

Many of the small proprietary bacon factories in existence at the moment are obsolete. It is a well-known fact that they started as small businesses and were not interested in exporting bacon in a competitive export market. If we are to develop our pig industry, if we are to develop our bacon exports, it should be remembered we can only retain a market by keeping our products for 52 weeks of the year on the counters of the retailers in Britain.

I remember a few years ago visiting a number of Danish selling centres in Britain and I was amazed at the huge organisation which they had developed there. They had scattered all over Britain something like 52 selling centres. Many of those centres employed over 100 people. Their job was to keep Danish produce—not alone bacon but butter and eggs—on the counters of the British retailer, available to the British housewife for 52 weeks in the year. They also had a function of receiving complaints in relation to any article of Danish produce and passing those complaints back to source for investigation. On that particular point, I think we had 22 or 23 agents who have sold— dropped a lot here and there—and there was no such thing as this continuity of supply. I think at one time we had four Danes employed selling Irish bacon. I am glad to say there has been a marked improvement since the Pig Marketing Board was reconstructed.

One of the things I noticed during this debate was that there was no mention of the much abused heifer scheme introduced by the Minister some time ago. At that time I tried to argue for this scheme and I was told from the opposite benches that the £15 would be distributed amongst the big cattle men, and that the little fellow would not get anything out of it. There is silence on this Estimate in relation to that scheme and it is the measure by which one can gauge the success of the scheme. Last Thursday week I sold four heifers, 15 months old. They were the culls of ten to 12 heifers and they were sold at £11 8s. 0d. a cwt, or £54 each. I think I collared, in getting £54 for a 15 months old heifer, a substantial part of the £15 payable. Hence the silence——

Mr. O'Reilly

You must have given back a good luck penny.

Mr. Moher

——of the Deputies opposite in relation to the success of this scheme. There is nothing else I wish to say as Deputy O'Reilly is rearing to go.

Mr. Medlar

It has been admitted by all Parties that farm income lags behind that of industry throughout the western world. I have often been inclined to ask myself why should that position obtain. I believe those in authority throughout the western world have fallen down on their job. I come from a grain growing area, where, 12 years ago, the price of barley and wheat was about £4 per barrel. About one-sixth of our wheat is growing in the area from which I come. Not alone was the price reduced by an average of £1 per barrel but about 20 per cent of it was rejected. Some years ago we had free sacks and free transport. Therefore, we have to sell a superior finished article for much less. My experience of the produce of industry is that while the price of the finished article has increased in some cases 500 per cent, the life span of the article, or machine, is reduced by about 50 per cent in terms of time. I wonder what the position would be in any of those industries if they were to get the same terms as the grain growers.

Naturally, Opposition speakers tried to criticise the Estimate. Deputy Crotty maintained that we were attacking the millers and the shopkeepers and saying nothing about the small farmers. Speaking as one of the latter, I fully appreciate that the Government have come to the aid of the small farmer. They are now giving up to £900 by way of grant for the erection of farm houses. They give a much higher percentage towards the relief of rates than they do to the larger farmers and there are very good concessions under the health services. Most important of all is the Land Bill which is being considered at present.

I come from an area where the uneconomic holders are compelled to live by conacre. Land owners in general have such confidence in the future of the industry that the purchase of even a 50 Irish acre farm is out of the question. The competition is with the very large farmers. There is no hope of the uneconomic holder extending his acreage and such people must look to the Land Commission for that purpose.

There are two sections in the Land Bill that will give the Land Commission more power to acquire land for the consolidation of the small farmer. The Fine Gael Party who profess so much sympathy for the small farmer are vigorously opposing these two sections.

General MacEoin

Tell us now what the two sections are.

Mr. Medlar

Turning to wheatgrowing, I regret that the millers will not, apparently, accept the Hagberg test. Until recently, I had every faith in the sincerity of the millers. However, if the future policy of this country is to have 75 per cent Irish wheat mixed in the grist, I cannot understand why the mills are being closed in the wheat belt and extended at the ports in areas where hardly any wheat is grown. I have heard it said that the time is not too far distant when the mills in Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Dublin will be able to cater for all the supplies of green wheat from the farms. If that is the ultimate objective, then I wonder what the outlook is. We know the treatment farmers got from millers based in those cities.

I know of wheat that was sent to Limerick from Kilkenny and was rejected and the farmers were treated with anything but courtesy. The officials might even be described as arrogant. The wheat was returned to Kilkenny and was accepted in Kilkenny mills but it took a week to come back by rail. If millers look for grants to extend their mills, I suggest they should not be given for the extension of mills in those cities.

Wheat is a perishable crop. Why not put the mills in the centre of the wheat belt rather than close them? With the objection to the Hagberg test and the tightening up and raising of the quality required by these millers, I believe the objective is to force the farmers out of wheat-growing and they are going out of it because of that situation.

I acted as an agent for one of the largest ground limestone producing plants in this country. I was paid to get in touch with the owners of farms with acid soil. We offered them lime, delivered, at 1/- per ton but we could not get sale because the farmers had not a machine to spread it. I know of farmers who availed of Land Project grants at the time. With the addition of £3 or £4, their land was drained by manual labour.

About 1948, when manures became available and there was a switch from horse power to mechanisation here, a survey was made of this country under the Marshall Aid Commission. The survey covered Europe. In Italy, millions of acres were reclaimed. A few brilliant men visited my part of the country and said that Marshall Aid would be a good investment and that the scheme would apply to Ireland. Another man said that agricultural limestone is a very good investment. One person with foresight invested in an agricultural lime grinding plant in 1943 or 1944. Under Marshall Aid, we were supplied with machines for spreading the lime and subsidy was given for its transport. From then on, the spreading of lime became more popular day by day.

We were the last in Europe to benefit from that scheme and there was not a country in Europe that was not thankful to the American taxpayer and the American Government for the grants. That scheme coincided here with the election of the Coalition Government who claim credit for it. I submit that no matter what Government might have been in office here at the time, that scheme would have come. There were two schemes, the A scheme and the B scheme, during the initial years and a great many farmers availed of both. When Fianna Fáil were returned to office, they did away with the B scheme. The Fine Gael Party stated at the time that if they were returned to office, they would re-introduce the B scheme, but I noticed that in their election manifesto during the last by-elections there was no mention of the B scheme at all.

I want to make a suggestion and it is that the grant for laying pipes for drainage be increased because the grants for the removal of scrub or bracken are altogether out of proportion to the grant for drainage and the result is that contractors all over the country are fighting shy of it principally because of the fact that labour is involved, plus the cost of pipes. I would ask the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to this suggestion. My second suggestion is that an extra £5 grant per acre be given to the farmer who ploughs and re-seeds his land within a given period of years. If that were done, it would yield very good dividends.

Last year when I was speaking on this Estimate I said that agricultural scientists should have a target. I suggested that a survey of the 26 Counties should be carried out. The areas could be grouped; you could take the various altitudes, mountain bog over 1,000 feet above sea level and so forth, marginal land and so on, and the results of the survey could be indexed. If we were in the position in which some European countries are, a farmer should be able to go into the local agricultural office and ask: "What should I sow in this field?" and the local instructor should be able to tell him right away. It would take years to do that because we are lagging so far behind but if we were able to do it, the farmer could be advised what manures he should use to bring his lands up to the recommended standards. If that were done, increased production would follow automatically and I venture to suggest that it would be doubled in one year.

When I made this suggestion last year, I was aware of the fact that a new Land Bill was being introduced and that it would give rights to the Land Commission in regard to lands that were not being worked. I suggest that before that is done, a survey should be carried out—this would take years to do—and the farmers should be advised what to put on their soil and then, after so many years if they did not co-operate, that land could be handed over to the Land Commission. Co-operation between the scientists and the Land Commission is necessary. Other speakers have referred to matters about which I had intended to speak and therefore I will not delay other than to repeat my request to the Minister to consider a grant for land drainage.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith)

It appears as if I am going to get a quiet hearing and that, of course, is how I would wish it to be. I am sure it is always a pleasure to every Minister to reach the end of the discussion on his annual Estimate. I certainly always feel like that and this was not a very prolonged discussion because of the arrangement that was made to finish the business of the House; otherwise, I suppose it would have gone on for perhaps a couple of days more.

I have introduced a number of Estimates here and I have made a number of Estimate speeches. I often found that these speeches were fairly dry and that sometimes it was difficult to find in them the substance that one would like to discover and hear in a speech. I thought that this year the Estimate speech was a good one. I was terribly disappointed that the first speaker from the Opposition side appeared to take a different view. I am not saying it was a good speech because I made it but it was a good speech because it recorded a number of very important facts which were clearly indicative of the course we are taking in agriculture and of the success we are gradually and steadfastly achieving. At one time when speaking on an Estimate, I made the remark that it is not an easy Department in which to do the spectacular. It is often difficult to see results because they are scattered over the countryside and as well as that, it sometimes takes two, three, four or five years to see the full effects of wise policies and decisions.

The disappointing thing about a debate on agriculture is that you often have to cover the same ground year after year. Perhaps it is that this repetition sounds more awkward in my ears than to many others but in any case even if I have to say the same thing, I like to say it in a different way from the way I said it before. The Leader of the Opposition is not like that. He makes the same speech, as of course he is entitled to do and it is also right and proper that I should admit that if a man feels he has a good idea, it is no harm to repeat it. While I am hesitant to cover this ground again, I do so in order that from my point of view also the records will be right.

One of the matters to which the Deputy referred was the question of advisory services, and, I think, much more gently and remotely than on previous occasions he coupled with the discussion of that matter the question of credit. He seems to have wonderful enthusiasm about what he calls parish agents. I am in the Department of Agriculture for almost eight years and some of these agents have been in being during all that time.

Shortly after I came into the Department of Agriculture, I knew it was my business and responsibility to make a clearcut decision on this whole matter. I think it was Deputy Moher who referred briefly to this subject but to the extent that he did he gave a fair picture of what my mind was in approaching that matter. I realised we could not have these two methods running side by side. I knew we could not have county committees of agriculture employing advisers and, on the other hand, the Department of Agriculture employing advisers who would be responsible directly to the officials of my Department. I saw how that was working in a few cases. I saw the turmoil that was arising here and there and I knew it was my duty to make a decision so as to clarify the position once and for all.

I was aware that county committees of agriculture were not perfect. I was aware that, perhaps in some cases, they were not getting the best out of the graduates and advisers they employed, and I said to myself: Even if there is some truth in these two weaknesses, would the Government be justified in centralising the advisory services under the Department? Was there any likelihood that if such a step were taken, the Department of Agriculture would achieve greater success in enabling these advisers, whatever you call them, to make contact with the farmers who apparently are difficult to contact and difficult to interest in the matter of how they should, to the extent needed, go about improving and fertilising their land?

I had no hesitation coming to the decision that, weak and all as the committees' structure might be, it was better by far to try to strengthen and improve what was there than to wreck what was there just for the sake of producing something new and that would look bright for a while. I, therefore, decided to pursue that course, bearing in mind always that the problem we, the Department, the committees of agriculture and the farmers organisations, have on our hands is to secure an interest in the work that is being done by the advisory services and a realisation of the tremendous advantages the advice, if taken, can be to so many of the farmers that every one of us knows.

I would say I know as much about rural Ireland as any other Deputy here. If I were asked a further question as to how these men would succeed to a greater extent than they have in the past in making these contacts with farmers, I could not give a clear answer to that. I could not give advice which I could be sure would be effective if followed. Is there any purpose in saying that an agricultural graduate controlled direct from Merrion Street would be more effective in finding a solution for that one problem—and it is a major one—than an adviser who is employed by a county committee? The odds are in favour of meeting with success by operating through the committee. This decision was not made by me on any other basis or for any other reason.

I have been told again something I believe already and have always believed. The farmers can increase production enormously if we can devise ways and means of reaching their ear and establishing confidence between them and the advisers. However, the problem is how it is to be done. It is all very well to talk about figures and to quote how the Danes are doing, what they are doing in the Netherlands, in Spain or France, or give the number of farms or give the number of hectares and compare that with our position here. Apart altogether from the accuracy of these comparisons—I hope to deal with that later—and even conceding as I do, the good work these men can do if their advice is sought and followed, we cannot take this step forward without tightening up and improving our organisation as we are attempting to do. I see no good purpose being served by appointing double the number of advisers, unless we have a way of getting to the ear of a much higher percentage of farmers than we have been able to reach so far. It is not a question of what this would cost. I should have no hesitation in seeking whatever moneys might be necessary to enable county committees to expand in this direction as we have recently demonstrated in the assistance we have given to these 12 western counties. It is a most demoralising thing for a public official to be loose on the countryside unless he has work to do and there is somebody to ensure that if there is any reluctance on his part to do it, he will be coaxed one way or another into discharging his responsibilities.

When we talk of advisory services, officers and staff, we must remember that in ten years we have doubled them. I do not contend that is enough but that this is a matter that cannot be accomplished overnight. Although one Deputy on my own side did not seem to agree that I was likely to achieve much through what we have been trying to do, as the passage of a Bill through the House last week indicates, in hoping to tighten up, first, on the constitution of committees and, secondly, on the planning of the work, responsibility for the annual planning by the CAO for his advisers and how we feel that in the larger counties if he is unable to find enough time to supervise the execution of these plans, that he could get a deputy or an assistant, whatever the title may be—that is largely my approach to advisory work. Nobody could truthfully say that as Minister I would be hesitant or have a conservative view on a matter of that importance: I have not, but there is an urge in me to try as best I can to get a solution for that problem.

In our discussions, because there is largely little disagreement on fundamental aspects of agricultural policy, I think agricultural Deputies should see that this is a problem and they should try to contribute towards its solution. I have all kinds of notions as to what I should do if I were an adviser. We may talk about improving the quality of the land and how production would rise and what that would mean in exports and how it would affect the earning capacity of our exports but let us face the fact that if you could hire a plane in every county and if you had a deposit of a huge quantity of limestone and most fertilisers that are in common use and if you did all the land of Cavan and Monaghan at the rate of three tons to the acre with lime and five or six cwt. per acre with phosphates and perhaps some potash, you would not be making any mistake.

When I hear people talking about the importance of research—and I am all in favour of research work of every type that will now or in the future, prove an aid to those working on the land—we must remember that there are those obvious matters. We do not have to be told by research workers the advantages that would accrue from doing this sort of work; we know it. The Government have come to the rescue from the point of view of making these fertilisers—I would say not reasonably cheap—very cheap. I want to get the advisory workers employed by county committees of agriculture to put that as No. 1 at the top of their programme. I do not mind what any man says about another plan. I maintain—and I shall part with the subject then—that is the problem. I believe my judgment to be as good as the next man's as to how it should be successfully approached and my bet would be that you are much more likely to be successful through the operation of the machinery of the county committees of agriculture than by making that effort directly through my Department, through these remote controls that we all know are full of danger and should be avoided, if possible.

On this question of credit, the Leader of the main Opposition gave us a glimpse of what he has in mind in regard to this interest-free money. If I interpret him correctly, not only in relation to what he said on this year's Estimate but also in relation to what he said on last year's Estimate, then I have only this comment to make: I thought that the £1,000 offered to farmers, when the offer was originally made, was quite fantastic. I do not believe that even the farmers took it seriously. When I pressed the matter home, especially last year, I was told that it did not mean what I thought it meant at all. It meant something else. It meant that the advisory officer would go to a number of farms. He would come to my place, for instance, and say he was going to draw up a scheme for me, if I would agree to operate it, and, if I did, I would be helped to finance the scheme with interest-free money. Suppose the advisory officer got half a dozen farmers out of 500, 600, 700 or 800 farmers prepared to do a very constructive job, what would be the attitude of the other 490, 590, 690 or 790? What would be their frame of mind towards that sort of venture? They would see these six, seven or eight pets——

Mr. Donegan

No. They would come in and get it too.

Mr. Smith

Pets. They would see these six, seven or eight pets——

Mr. Donegan

Not so.

Mr. Smith

——getting interest-free money.

Mr. Donegan

Not so.

Mr. Smith

Maybe I do not know the farmers—maybe that accusation can be made against me—but I think I do.

Mr. Donegan

No. The Minister is suggesting there would be six or seven pets. The scheme would be open to every farmer who would co-operate.

Mr. Smith

The Deputy knows very well that if everyone took advantage of it, the money just could not be provided to finance it.

Mr. Donegan

The Minister is being political.

Mr. Smith

I know what pets meant to our advisory services in the past. That was the weakest of the services. There was a poultry station, a turkey station, a premium bull, a premium boar. The advisory officer knew these places. He called at them. I am not blaming him entirely for doing that but I am certainly speaking the truth when I say it was that sort of thing that resulted in the build-up of hostility on the part of the majority of our farmers in any particular county. Secondly, when we talk about interest-free money, paying the interest on the money is another form of subsidising farmers.

Mr. Donegan

Or giving them a grant.

Mr. Smith

It is another form of paying them a subsidy.

Mr. Donegan

Or giving them a grant.

Mr. Smith

My point is that, if a Government have money to help farmers, then why not give that money through farm buildings? We have been trying, as we indicated recently, to inject more into that line of development by increasing the grants.

Mr. Donegan

An interest-free loan where industry is concerned can be converted into a grant, but one cannot do that in agriculture.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. The Minister.

Mr. Smith

If the Government, say at Budget time, found they could provide additional money for farmers, why go into the borrowing side and create all the confusion that interest-free money on certain conditions will create instead of giving that additional money, if one can afford it, by way of injection through housing grants, fertilisers, subsidisation of milk and milk products?

Mr. Donegan

Because one can do far more with an interest-free loan.

Mr. Smith

The Deputy talks nonsense.

Mr. Donegan

The industrialist can do it. He can convert a loan into a grant. The farmer cannot.

Mr. Smith

I am not too sensitive about interruption, but I do not want to be here all night. I shall try to answer intelligently. I am not a financier——

Mr. Donegan

Amen.

Mr. Smith

——but that proposal is all cod, to use an expression that has been made respectable by repetition in this House, though not by me.

I referred to the figures given with regard to the number of advisory officers in the Department as compared with other countries. I said these figures could be misleading. I said we had more than doubled the number here in ten years. I said I believe in advisory work but I do not believe in employing people for whose services there would not be an adequate demand. With regard to the figures for Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, these include non-graduates. Here only graduates are employed. The non-graduates in these other countries do certain work for which they can get a simple training. Picking out global figures makes the situation almost impossible unless an analysis is made of what exactly the situation is in each case.

Another of the hardy annuals trotted out was Section B of the Land Project. I am delighted to see the way in which this scheme is expanding. I have some figures which are an indication of one of the items to which I referred in my introductory speech, from which I got a good deal of satisfaction. The amount represented by approvals in 1963-64 was £2,409,000; in 1954-55, the Section A figure was £1,417,000. I admit Section B was there also, but Deputies will see that under the new order the volume of work being done is very large. Again, in my opinion, it is being done on a far sounder basis.

Ministers for Agriculture are anxious to see work done and progress made and I like to see work done and progress made on a sound basis. My attitude was, and is, that there is no person we could employ who would supervise the execution of work by a contractor, or otherwise, as well as the farmer himself. I suppose in the political world it is not unexpected to find oneself being accused of political narrow-mindedness for arriving at some conclusion such as the one on the Land Project, and the one to which I referred earlier. No such thing ever entered my head. I watch things throughout the country. I travel a good deal, and I see a good deal. I am not an engineer but I know a job that is well done. I would see very quickly where weaknesses on the supervision side were all too apparent. I would see weaknesses in any scheme that was being administered, even through officials of my Department, and contractors, on behalf of the farmers.

When I am teased or taxed about making credit available to farmers who want land reclamation work done, I am sceptical about some of that, too, because I saw farmers putting in whole farms for reclamation, survey plans prepared, contracts entered into on their behalf signed on the dotted line, £12 per acre to be consolidated in their annuities and I saw quite a few problems arising out of that sort of approach in my Department for the past seven years. We have not settled them all yet. When the contractor had completed the work to the satisfaction of the representative of my Department and it had been certified, and when the contractor got his money, the question arose as to his willingness to allow this £12 per acre to be consolidated for the outstanding balance of the purchase price. This business of consolidating land reclamation work represents only one-third of the cost of the work, the other two-thirds being paid by the State, subject to a maximum cost of £42 per acre.

Any of the lending institutions worthy of their salt will lend the necessary money. Whether they be the commercial banks or the Credit Corporation they will give money to meet this £12 per acre if the maximum is reached in the estimate prepared. I would love to see every acre of the country drained, but I think it is good to put some onus on the farmers and the land owners in that way. If you talk in terms of consolidating the farmer's contribution in his land annuity, he then wants a house and you consolidate that, too. These surely are all problems which responsible people should analyse closely before making all sorts of statements as to what can be done. I still maintain that there is no reason why we should completely diversify the courses through which we are going to inject money into agriculture. We have enough already if we had more money.

Some Deputy talked about how cautious I was and how cautious my Department were. I think it was on this whole question of milk production and expansion. I had to laugh at that. A few months ago, the Second Programme for Economic Expansion was published and the target set for agriculture for the next two years. I am not one of those who believe in setting targets without trying to achieve them. I was reminded of the target set in 1958 and partially achieved in 1963. I admit it was not fully achieved, but anyway it was a target. Many of my critics during those five years were telling me in the House and outside that not only would that target not be achieved but that the cow population would decline as a result of our policy on bovine TB eradication and the removal and slaughter of cows under it.

They were not right, surely. I have the feeling that were it not for the enormous number of animals, particularly cows and particularly in the south, that had to be slaughtered in the past four years, we should not have been so far off the target, if we did not reach it. When we came to the Second Programme and the targets under it, the question of what we would try to do to implement it arose, particularly in reference to cattle numbers. The question was very vital and I refer to it because of the allegations that we in the Department, from the Minister down, were cautious and conservative. The heifer subsidy scheme was the first step.

Mr. Donegan

In 1963, five years late.

Mr. Smith

I am talking about the Second Programme. We discussed it at length. It was very cautiously examined, very carefully vetted from the point of view of all the schemes that could be introduced. Not only was it vetted in regard to all these matters but also from the point of view of the achievement of results, of increasing numbers. When the matter of the financing of these proposals arose, the Secretary of my Department spoke to me in my office. We discussed the details and I said to him: "Yes, that will make a contribution all right. The scheme will make some contribution but if I could secure from the Government an additional 2d per gallon on milk on top of that, I believe the two things combined would make a considerable impact on cattle numbers.

Afterwards, when I discussed this question with my colleagues, I was anxious that whatever I would get from the Exchequer for the milk producers I should ensure it would not have the effect of increasing the price of butter, mainly because our consumption of butter is very high, the highest in the world, I think. The export market for butter was and has been dull and poor. Except in recent times, not only was the price a consideration but the availability of a market at all was in doubt.

The Minister for Finance, while perhaps giving a concession, when money is hard to find might be inclined to say: "Why not put some of this on the price of butter?" I successfully resisted it. It was not a very difficult thing—the Minister for Finance having been in the Department of Agriculture longer than I have been and knowing the problems of agriculture very well. However, the Government in giving this increase, coupled with the heifer scheme, made a great contribution towards reaching the goal we have set ourselves for 1970.

Because of the talk about the non-availability of sufficient milk to enable us to manufacture produce to sell on some of the world markets, one would be inclined to get the impression that that could be done very simply and very inexpensively. I do not begrudge the expense in this matter. People must be realistic. Recently I replied to a Parliamentary Question showing the cost to the Exchequer of each of 12 or 13 countries per lb. of the sale and distribution of other milk products. I do not think people serve any purpose when they pretend to ignore these factors.

I had to consider getting the money and imposing the necessary taxation. When people talk about conservatism in so far as going out into the milk world is concerned, they never think of the strides we have made in the past four or five years in the west and in the midlands. On one occasion I spoke to the Secretary of my Department on the question of the establishment of this Committee on Small Farms in the West, and in the course of the conversation, I said to him: "There is one thing which, if we could do it, would make a wonderful contribution to some of the problems in the west. It is the introduction of a creamery system." I had that conversation a short time after coming out of London with a quota of 12,500 tons of butter.

Mr. Donegan

The Minister did not get it. That was fixed by GATT.

Mr. Smith

It was the best I could get. It was suggested. It remained for a while.

Mr. Donegan

Do not try to cod us.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

We were told there was an inexhaustible market and it flopped after a year.

Mr. Smith

I have come to the stage where I do my best to hold a temper that is not always the best in the world, but Deputy Donegan is usually effective in subjecting me to stresses and strains. I said I was giving consideration to the extension of the creamery system to the west at a time when the market prospects for butter and milk products were anything but bright. After hearing my plea, my colleagues gave me permission to set out on the development of creameries in the west and in the midlands. Quite a number of creameries have been established there and others are in course of erection or are planned. In Kildare recently I had the pleasure of opening a creamery in a district where one had closed in years gone by. Although this creamery opened only five months ago, they had completely under-estimated the amount of milk they would receive. When I hear people talk about the non-availability of milk, I look at the soaring figures for the last three or four years. Early this year the increase estimated for this year was 13 million gallons, but the most recent estimate will be nearer 25 million gallons. I am proud of that. These are not achievements of mine, but I have contributed substantially to them. I am merely speaking of them now because of the thoughtless allegation that we are not endeavouring to provide the raw material for those who have the responsibility of selling.

There are many other matters I should like to deal with, but I prefer to talk about agriculture in a general way without going into details. I never introduced the Estimate for Agriculture in this House with more pleasure than I did on this occasion, because I was able to show increased activity and increased expenditure in all the important agricultural services. I was able to give a list of items that will make an important contribution to agriculture in the future. I dealt with the items in which there were reductions. These reductions were victories. The reduction in my Estimate in the case of bovine tuberculosis, for example, was due to the fact that, because of the extent to which we have mastered this problem, the Estimate shows a welcome decrease.

These were the considerations that made me feel satisfied that we in the Department were well on to our job. These were the signs that make me feel in my bones, because of my understanding of the countryside, that agriculture is just in the mood to take tremendous strides forward over the next five or ten years. This work is not spectacular. You do not see a factory, where you can get a view of all those working in it. It is not like a vocational school. I see a growing confidence on the part of those actively making an effort to take the best out of their land and get the best living from it.

I am sorry time does not allow me to deal with this question of population movement and the allegation that it is our policy to move people off the land. Nothing could be greater nonsense. But it would also be nonsense if public men did not have regard to what was going on in every country and what were the results—whether we were likely to avoid it and whether policy decisions could stem it.

Government policy here since the establishment of this State, one way or another, has been directed to protect the small farmer and to consider him. The dice, as far as it could be loaded, has been loaded to achieve that. Those who talk about that forecast as a policy decision are not being honest. I should dearly love just to get one hour at that because I know my countryside. I know the problems of a man on ten, 12 or 15 acres of bad land. I know the difficulties in securing a living from such an area for himself and his family if he married and settled down there.

I am looking at it all my life and living in the very heart of it. I wonder do the people who talk about that and about agricultural policy take a look at the Six Counties, where they are getting British price supports, and see what is happening in many parts there. I think, with the exception of the industrial counties, the number emigrating from at least four counties is probably greater than from any part here.

When you refer to these things, some people will ask you why not try to produce a different result here. I believe in trying. I believe in trying to stem this tide from the land because I believe, with Deputies on the other side, there is no comparison between the sort of living a man will find here, if he can get a reasonable living, by comparison with what he will get bringing up his family in some town or city in England, Wales or Scotland. That is a subject for another day. There are a lot of people talking about it but they are not, in my opinion, talking honestly.

Question put, and a division being demanded, it was postponed in accordance with the order of the Dáil of 14th November, 1963, until 10.15 p.m. tonight.