I am not trying to bring civil servants into the discussion. I am simply pointing out that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. The position is that the conditions of employment of this type of worker are regulated by the same peculiar mind. If these people attempt to work the full year for the purpose of their ordinary wages and holidays and if they are unfortunate enough to fall ill, it does not matter whether they have been working one year, two years or even more with the Forestry Division, if they lose 30 days, they are deemed to have broken their service, even though there may be a doctor's certificate to prove they were ill. It does not mean very much to the Forestry Division but it means a lot to the people I am talking about. A peculiar system was adopted many years ago—why I do not know—and because of that, these people may not get any holidays at all for the year in which they were ill.
The fact that the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands have no sick pay scheme makes this matter even worse. If there were a sick pay scheme, and those people were being paid for the period they were out sick, as practically all other workers in this State are being paid, there might be some justification for the system which the Department adopts, that is, that those people do not even get credit for the period they were ill and for which they produce a doctor's certificate. This is the sort of thing which should not be allowed to continue and which qualifies the State for the description of the meanest employer in the country.
In many other ways the employees of the Forestry Division are treated as if they were some type of second-class citizen, and in fact not even second-class but fourth- or fifth-class. For instance, if people working in particular forests are put to do work which requires the wearing of special boots, such as wellingtons or waders, the provision by which these people can be supplied with the boots they require is regulated in an extraordinary way. The people in charge will ensure that they must get wet and muddy before they are supplied with such boots. This is a matter in respect of which the people concerned in the Department of Lands—the Minister, if the Ceann Comhairle likes to put it that way—operate this regulation in such an extraordinary way. The matter has been taken up with the officials again and again. While we always get a reply that this matter is receiving attention, these people continue to work in those bad conditions without the boots they are supposed to have until somebody eventually supplies the boots to them.
Another point I should like to mention is that when these people finish work in the evening, irrespective of where they are working, what the conditions are like or what the weather is like, they must report to the box in which the boots are kept. They must take off the boots they have been wearing during the day and put them into that box. They then put on whatever boots they wore in the morning when coming to work. They come back again the next day and put on the wet boots they had on the previous day. Those boots are damp but they have to wear them during the day. This is 1967, and surely this should not happen?
There is another matter for which perhaps the Minister for Lands may not carry responsibility but about which he might do something, that is, income tax deductions. We know that State employees are not under PAYE so therefore there is a rule of thumb operated by the Department of Lands whereby they deduct income tax in whatever way it suits them, or the income tax authorities, in conjunction with the Department of Lands. We have the situation in which many employees of the Department of Lands who are receiving the princely sum of £9 per week and who being single, may have a mother, an invalid sister or somebody else to support, are taxed on anything they earn over £6 10s. No deduction is made until just before Christmas. There is plenty of evidence to show that this happens year after year. The position is that practically their whole week's wages for two or three weeks in succession are deducted for income tax purposes. This always seems to fall due a week or so before Christmas.
When individual cases are brought to the notice of the Department of Lands, the officials will go out of their way to see if there is anything that can be done. Despite this, the same thing happens the following year. Some system should be devised whereby a certain amount will be deducted from the men who are liable for tax from 5th April, the same as anybody else, until the amount is paid. I have in my possession a letter written by the income tax people to a Deputy, who is not of my Party, who made representations on behalf of one of those people. The letter says that the Department were very sorry that they were deducting it in this way but that arrangements had now been made whereby that person would have taken from his wages only the deductions which should be made. That was about six weeks ago, shortly after 1st April. Believe it or not, they are still deducting 28/- a week, which everybody knows is too much. Apparently it has not trickled through from the Finance Department to the Department of Lands that this is not correct. Perhaps Deputy Crinion would take back this letter to those people and he might do a little bit better the next time. His intention was good but he has achieved absolutely nothing.
We have also the question of direct negotiations by the trade unions and the State, who are the employers. Is there any reason in the world why the State should not do the same as any other good employer, that is, if they receive a letter from a trade union, acknowledge it? If the matter cannot be settled by correspondence, why will the people concerned not discuss it? Why must a week, a fortnight or even longer elapse before a final decision is made? Is there any good reason why, first of all, it should be nearly impossible on any occasion to get even an acknowledgment and why particularly with the Forestry Division, is it almost impossible to get talks going? The new word "dialogue" for these things does not seem to have helped. We cannot even get dialogue between the trade unions and the Department.
When one gets them on the phone, they are very polite and will do anything they can, but—the "but" is always there and it still is not possible to have a discussion on genuine demands by a trade union. Why this should be so and why Ministers go all through the country shouting about the necessity for workers to work harder and the need for good labour relations, I do not know. How can you have good labour relations when this sort of thing goes on? The only reason why the Land Commission and Forestry Division are behaving in this way is that they feel a strike will not take place. If they thought it would, they would move pretty smartly. We hear the Minister for Labour talking about why efforts should be made to avoid strikes. A bad example is being set by the State. It is almost impossible to persuade workers that they will get a fair deal if they do not use whatever powers they have.
I was very concerned last year when the acreage for planting was reduced from 25,000 to 20,000 and when we were told it could not have very much effect on the employment content. It is quite evident it did have a fairly substantial effect. Worse still, in the Forestry Division or the Land Commission which, with the exception of gangers, employ far more temporary workers, have men employed from 20 to 30 years, I find that when men are being laid off, somebody looks around and does what a bad employer is accused of. He does not pick out the last man on the job but the fellow that can most easily be got rid of, the man not giving, perhaps, as much production as everybody else. The result is that we have men of between 60 and 70—the Forestry Division consider a man old when he reaches 70; they do not want him after that—being laid off even though there is no hope of their finding work elsewhere.
Recently, I got some letters, and I have some of them here, concerning people employed in forestry work for a long number of years. One man had been employed with a group of nine. The man with the longest service had 18 years; there were two with 18 years, one with 16 and one with 14, and then it ranged down to eight years. The man with 14 years service was laid off and when I tried to find out why. I was told there was no more work for him. Yet, he had travelled to work in his own time over a distance of 20 miles in the past 14 years when it suited the Forestry Division to send him where they wanted him to go. One man out of nine was laid off and the others apparently may stay on for another while. That man is not likely to get a job but he was a good worker. We had another case where nine men were laid off and they had service ranging from 20 years to 11 years. We say they were laid off because of the reduction in the planting programme. The Government will say that did not have any effect on it. Perhaps the Minister would say what did have effect and why the long service men were laid off. If the Forestry Division were giving a pension, we could understand it but they are not giving a pension. Not only that, but the Treasury warrants to which Deputy Dunne referred last Thursday and which have been handed on from the time of the British Government do not apply to men laid off like that. If a man is retained until he is 70 and laid off for that reason, he would qualify, but if he is 69 and laid off because there is no further work for him, that is too bad. He is looking for another job. That sort of thing does not help labour relations.
We applied through the unions for pensions for forestry workers and Land Commission gangers because these gangers were retained from one job to another and may have very long service. The matter was considered— do I have to repeat the date—on 11th January, 1965, when the trade union discussed it with the Department and the matter is still under active consideration. That is just a little too rich for anybody to accept. Perhaps that is why the Department are not too anxious to meet the unions again: they might hear what they think about the way they were treated by the Forestry Division on the last occasion.
The question of a sick pay scheme was also discussed. Sick pay and pensions are operated in most good employments. Even local authorities are paying sick pay for the past few years to the extent of the difference between the social welfare benefit and the wages for four weeks, with half the difference for a further six weeks. It is not over-generous but it is something. Apparently, the State could not afford that. The Minister for Finance announced a few weeks ago that he proposed to introduce a sick pay scheme and that the matter would be brought to the unions either by the Department of Lands or his Department in the near future. That, apparently, has been forgotten because none of the trade unions that I know anything about has heard anything further about it and it seems it will drag on for another two or three years before it is resurrected.
If my information is correct, the Land Commission and the Forestry Division did recommend a sick pay scheme to the Department of Finance over a year ago. I wonder if it takes the Department of Finance as long to deal with all recommendations of this kind as it took them to deal with this one. I see no reason why the scheme passed here in 1948 and amended in 1956 to deal with local authority employees should not be applied to Forestry Section employees and Land Commission gangers. It is a simple scheme; it does not give wonderful benefits, but at least it guarantees those who give faithful service something at the end of their days. I cannot understand why people who are themselves insured against old age by way of gratuity and pension should find it so hard to give a little to the people who are very much lower down the ladder.
When Deputy Lemass was Taoiseach, in the last few weeks before the change took place, we had a discussion in this House with him on the question of labour relations in the Department of Lands and he agreed with me, and it is on record in the Official Report, that the time had come when some type of appeal court should be set up to deal with complaints from these employees. I was under the impression that even though he was leaving, an attempt would be made to operate it in a reasonable time. This, again, seems to have been forgotten.
I should like to point out that the incentive bonus scheme was introduced about six years ago for forestry workers. It was agreed that as soon as the scheme was being operated, one forest at a time, when all the forests were covered by the scheme, some type of tribunal would be set up which would in future regulate matters arising from complaints made. Since then every effort made by the trade unions to put this into operation has been rejected and has been, should I say, avoided or evaded. We, therefore, find that six years later we are still as far away from getting any type of conciliation or arbitration. It appears a bit odd that while people probably in every other type of employment have a builtin arbitration and conciliation system, or can go to the Labour Court or to a joint labour committee, employees of the State are refused any of those facilities. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to try to impress on the Minister the necessity for having something done about this. It is a matter which has dragged on too long and it should now be dealt with without further delay.
I should like to conclude by again referring to the system of land division. Land division in this country was originally intended, I understand, for the purpose of resettling people on the land. It has developed from that to the moving of migrants, in many cases from congested areas, and putting them into larger farms in their own area or in farms in the midlands and the east. I come from a county where we have more migrants imported than any other county in Ireland. I say this: the people who come there have in the main fitted in pretty well with the local community. The people of my county, while they are usually a bit sore when a farm is divided and they do not get some and they think they are entitled to it, usually accept these people as neighbours and become good neighbours of theirs. But the extraordinary thing about it is that in the case of a migrant of three or four years' standing, the very same problem comes up as that which affects the local man who has been there all his life.
These migrants will tell us that they feel when land is being divided those in need of the land who live in the area should get first preference. It is extraordinary the way the attitude of a man changes. When people, who a few years earlier came in taking over a farm in a strange area, become local, as they call themselves, they feel that they are entitled in addition to their holding, if it is not big enough, to any other farm being divided in the area. I say they are right and I make no apology for the statement I have made again and again in this House; if we want to do any good for the economy, if we want to improve agriculture, the people who should get farms are the people who know how to work them. There is no use in anybody telling me that it is a better proposition to give a farmer who never saw a farm approximately 40 acres of land than to give a man who has been struggling on his farm of ten or 15 acres that which would bring it up to 40 acres.
I said on Thursday, and I repeat, that I believe politicians should keep out of this, in so far as dividing land is concerned. It is wrong that a man should get land because of his political influence, that he should get land because somebody with a strong pull was able to recommend him. It appears, despite the fact that the Land Commission are supposed to be above politics, that somebody has a finger in the pie and it also appears from some of the things we have seen happening that people who have a pull, by some strange coincidence, also appear to be those who get the best of the bargain when farms are being divided. It is wrong and it should not happen that way. Those who are entitled to land should be the first to get it. The Minister told me in reply to a question some time ago that a man who had built up a dairy herd from two cows when he was living in a council cottage, to 44 cows—and he had no land—was not a farmer, and the Minister felt that dairy farmers are not farmers. If they are not farmers, I should like to know what they are. Those who are able to prove that they can make a livelihood out of the use of land are the people who should get the land.
I complained last week about the fact that a farm which had been sold for £10 per Irish acre in County Meath by the Land Commission was subsequently valued and the annuity was £13 6s per statute acre for the same farm. I pose the question: how does the Minister think the people who get that will be able to subsist on it? Either there must have been an inflated price paid for the land or there must be something wrong with the way the annuity is fixed. The person selling a farm should be entitled to full value for it. I do not like to see things happening as in the case of a man, a German, who took over land which the Land Commission were asked to inspect. He took it over and got every Government grant he could get and put up buildings, but nobody could understand what he was going to do with it. When he had availed of all the grants and when he got the value of the farm pushed up as high as he could, he sold it. To whom? To the Land Commission. Is it any wonder that the people who got it are groaning under an annuity which, had it been taken over ten years ago, would have been one-third of what they are paying at the present time? This makes people dissatisfied.
Deputy Sheridan asked a question about a cow plot in Westmeath which apparently was not going the way he would like it to go. I think cow plots should be made available to cottiers who are unable to get land. If there are a number of cottiers in an area who have stock and are willing to buy that stock but have not the facilities, I believe the land should be made available to them. I do not think the argument the Land Commission used—that many of those cow plots that were given years ago were eventually handed back to the Land Commission—can be used as an argument against this proposal for two reasons. When those plots were originally handed over, the cost of a cow to a cottier was more than he could find. The second reason is that in many cases, for some reason which I cannot understand, cow plots were set up where there was no drinking water. They were absolutely useless, because the cottiers had to drive the cows maybe a mile up the road to where there was a drink for them, or carry the water down. This sort of thing meant that a number of them who were unable to do that eventually had to get rid of the cows. Therefore the system seemed to fall into disuse.
It has been the system over a number of years that people who have small pockets of land feel they are entitled to an enlargement when land is being divided in the area. The unfortunate thing about it is—for some reason which I cannot understand—the Land Commission feel that a man who has say, eight, ten or 12 acres, because he cannot live on that and has had to get a job to supplement it, should not be entitled to get a full farm. This is something we should have another look at because I believe it is ridiculous to expect a man to live and rear a family on a small acreage. If he is man enough to work it and at the same time, go out and earn a week's wages, then I think he is entitled to first consideration. The cottier himself should be entitled to an accommodation plot from the Land Commission.
There is no use in saying there is not enough land to go round. We know that if everybody entitled to it got land, there would not be enough to go round, but we also know that some people, who are lucky, get over 100 acres of land when a farm is being divided, for no apparent reason. If these 100 or 150 acre farms were not given, then a good many more people could get accommodation plots. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary—I am sorry the Minister is not here—to ask the Minister to have a whole new look at the system of land division because I believe it has got to be changed. We have got to go back to land resettlement; we have got to go back to the system whereby those who know how to work land are given it and, if we do that, we will have a far more prosperous agricultural community than we have at present.
