This motion proposes a levy on milk received from a herd for processing and a levy of £3 for any bovine animal which is slaughtered and any bovine animal exported from the State. This is an unfair and iniquitous form of taxation. This form of taxation does not take into account the ability of the farmer to pay it, especially the small farmer. In that regard I consider it to be most unfair and unjust. This tax could be imposed on a small farmer with ten or 12 acres of land, a man with eight or ten children, a man with only four or five cattle for sale. A small farmer in the west entitled to the dole could find himself with very little money after paying this tax. I have heard Deputy Killilea raving and ranting about the small farmer being the backbone of the country. Does the Deputy think it right that the Minister should impose this type of taxation on the small farmer? He knows that cattle paid badly because of the harsh winter and that £3 could be 50 per cent of the profit of a small farmer.
Bovine Diseases (Levies) Bill, 1979: Financial Resolution (Resumed).
How would he raise eight or ten children?
The Deputy should tell us what he thinks of this motion.
The Deputy should tell us how a man with eight or ten children could manage to keep them on such a small sum of money.
The Deputy knows that last winter was very harsh and that farmers had to feed cattle for the whole year. If the Deputy knows anything about farming he knows as well as I do that £3 could be 50 per cent of the profit of a small farmer.
Order.
This tax could also be unjust as far as the consumer is concerned. I believe in one broadly based tax, such as income tax, which takes into consideration the ability of the farmer to pay. That tax cannot be argued against. We would have to admit that it was a fair and just tax and the farmers are prepared to pay their fair part of taxation. When, under Deputy Clinton as Minister for Agriculture, we increased farmers' income from £250 million to £790 million in six years we had no hesitation in imposing tax on farmers over £75 valuation; we imposed a national figure of £60. Members of the party now in power went around before the last general election and told people that if elected they would scrap the income tax for farmers, that they were the farmers' friends. Many farmers fell for those false promises. Now instead of paying one tax as they were then paying they are being called upon to pay five or six taxes altogether. The subsidy has been removed from rates; farmers down as low as £40 valuation are being brought into the tax net. The notional figure has been increased to £125; the subsidy has been taken off artificial manure; we have the 2 per cent levy and the Government are talking about a £15 per acre resource tax.
A Fianna Fáil county councillor and member of the Westmeath County Committee of Agriculture proposed a resolution two months ago condemning this and blaming some of the new Dublin-based economists who had come into the Fianna Fáil party for imposing it on the Cabinet. The Minister may smile but those were the words used at a meeting of the Westmeath County Committee of Agriculture.
Certain Lord Mayors in this city.
I do not know what the Minister means; I am talking about some of the newly-found city economists who claim to know all about agriculture and who introduced this type of taxation and forced it on the Cabinet. I do not know if the Minister supported it but we are surprised that he did not object to it. He does not seem to have done that. The 2 per cent tax and the £3 per head on cattle, especially if demand exceeds supply on the home market, may very well have to be paid by the consumers. That is unfair and unjust. I should like the Minister to tell us if the consumers will not have to pay this tax as they seem to be paying the 2 per cent levy in many cases at present. There is no use in the Minister telling us the consumer has not to pay the levy; it is the Minister's duty to tell us how he will ensure that it will be collected from the farmers and not passed on to the consumers who are being fleeced every day by rising prices imposed by a Government that promised to reduce the cost of living. The chickens are now coming home to roost.
Another very objectionable feature of the implication of this levy of .5p per gallon on milk and £3 in the case of an animal is that when taxation is once imposed it can be increased by any Government by order without further legislation. There is nothing to stop the Minister or any future Government from increasing the milk levy which now stands at .5p to 2p, 3p or even 5p. There is nothing to stop the Minister without coming to the House from increasing the £3 per head envisaged in this motion to £5 or £10 at the whim of the Government. I should not be surprised if the Government who jailed the dairy farmers a few years ago when they dared to march outside the gates of Leinster House to demand their rights, and who left them for three weeks outside in Merrion Square when the Minister refused even to meet them, would double or even treble those levies if there was a shortage of money.
A most alarming feature of the levy of £3 per beast is that the £3 has to be paid whether the farmer has ten or 100 cattle, ten acres or 100 acres, whether he has a £10 valuation of a £1,000 valuation. The most unjust part of all is it must be paid whether he makes a profit or not. The cattle feeding and exporting industry is important to our stability and future prosperity. The Minister knows well that cattle feeders are going through a hard period. Their profits are small enough without the imposition of £3 per head on their animals.
We are not told how long the levies will remain. We all hope that brucellosis and TB will be eliminated in the next four or five years but it may take longer—I hope not. If that happens will the levy still remain? We are entitled to know this from a Minister and a Government who shed crocodile tears for the farmers when we imposed what I still believe to be a fair system of taxation in 1974. I am surprised that the Minister, who is a farmer, should allow the farmers to be fleeced and persecuted as they will be by those levies. Did the Minister oppose them in the Cabinet? Is he in favour of those increased taxes that I have mentioned? He seems to be. I am surprised. A few months ago the Minister suddenly discovered that he had a conscience and he threatened to resign over a particular Bill then going through the House. Another man suddenly found that overnight he was able to give him absolution. He did that and the Minister got out of his difficulty.
That is not relevant to the motion.
It is relevant in that the Minister is Minister for Agriculture. His first allegiance should be to the farmers of Ireland. I am surprised that he did not threaten to resign when those taxes were being imposed. I am surprised that his conscience is not pricking him. We would like to know if he is in favour of this tax, or was it forced through the Cabinet by urban-minded Ministers who have no regard for agriculture and especially for the small farmers? We are entitled to know that, because his first allegiance should be to the farmers of Ireland. I should like to see his conscience pricking him again in this regard, and I should like to see him threatening to resign and do something for the small farmers.
This motion proposes to authorise the collection of a levy in respect of milk received from a herd for processing and so on. Everybody agrees we must try to eradicate animal disease. In 1957, 22 years ago, we started to try to get our herds free of TB and brucellosis. We have expended a great deal of State money since then, well over £100 million of the taxpayers' money, I understand, with a view to achieving that objective. Unfortunately, our efforts have not been too successful, and a sizeable number of herds scattered throughout the country are affected by both TB and brucellosis. We all agree that efforts should be continued with a view to achieving our ultimate objective of TB and brucellosis free herds. We all appreciate that in the light of our commitment to the EEC it is mandatory on us to do so.
This motion proposes for the first time that farmers should pay a levy on milk, animals slaughtered, and animals exported, to bring in an initial figure of £10 million over a 12 month period. That may seem quite all right, but it was not set down in the Fianna Fáil policy before the 1977 General Election. In the manifesto, which is the gospel of the Minister's party, there is no suggestion that it was proposed to extract a levy from milk producers to meet the cost of eliminating animal disease and a charge per head on animals slaughtered or exported. On that basis I am opposed to the motion, even though I am well aware of the burden which has been placed on the taxpaying community by eradication measures over the years.
Why do I oppose a levy which would seem small and not very significant to large producers but which would seem significant to small farmers such as those mentioned by Deputy L'Estrange, small farmers with relatively small incomes particularly on the western and south western seaboard? I do so because of the overall policy of the Government. In 1977, to gain public favour and to buy votes, Fianna Fáil promised to dismantle a tax which is payable in almost every country and which has been payable here since the foundation of the State, I understand. They promised to remove car tax, a very popular measure, to buy votes in the 1977 election. I mention that because it has a bearing on what a particular section of the community are being asked to bear in this motion.
During my time in this House I never heard any Deputy from any party proposing the abolition of that tax. It was purely a gimmick thought up by the planning department of the Fianna Fáil Party, known as the think-tank, in order to buy votes. We all know the chaotic conditions which obtain at present and have obtained during the past months. Those conditions arise directly from Government policy subsequent to the 1977 election. People were told then that another traditional payment by the public at large, rates on domestic dwellings, would be wiped out. That was another item which found favour with the general public. I can appreciate that a person living in Dublin city or county in a sizeable house with a valuation of more than £100 would save £1,200 or £1,300 rates, on that house. Such people were not clamouring for the abolition of rates, but Fianna Fáil, in furtherance of their endeavours to get back into office, offered them that abolition if they voted for Fianna Fáil. A second means of getting money was wiped out to secure the return to office of Fianna Fáil.
Then we had the abolition of the wealth tax, which was supposed to hinder development, not only to buy votes but to get the necessary financial support from the people who would benefit to enable Fianna Fáil to conduct the 1977 election campaign and to provide the present Taoiseach with his helicopter and other trimmings to travel around the State and put forward the policy in the manifesto. Then we had the rumpus about the co-op tax which many people felt was a fair and justifiable measure. The co-operative groups engaged in ordinary activities and covered a wide sales system. They had an advantage in competition with private enterprise. Fianna Fáil wiped out all those things with a consequent loss to the State of a great deal of money.
We are now trying to find money elsewhere. Hence this as a part measure to obtain £10 million. I understood from the Minister's contributions during the time of the Coalition that farmers should be allowed time to develop, that they had only got on their feet in the seventies and to impose additional burdens on them would stifle incentive.
Statements made by a number of Government Deputies during the general election on farm taxation implied that if the Government were changed and the Coalition removed from office farm taxation would cease to exist. That promise has not been honoured. Accounts must be kept by farmers with valuations of more than £40 to satisfy the Revenue Commissioners in regard to their earnings. That would have been all right if it had been included in the manifesto. Many people feel that no group or person should be immune from having their income examined by the Revenue Commissioners. There is an obligation on everyone to pay funds by way of taxation to the central authority. That fact was cloaked in discussions we had when farm taxation was introduced. I recollect public pronouncements made outside the House by the Minister, in an effort to curry favour with farmers, that Fianna Fáil did not believe in such a system of raising funds. We have had much unrest during the past six months. We have had no post or telephones. Yesterday we had a situation where electricity was cut off in many homes—
This is not relevant to the financial motion.
The motion may be rather narrow in the way it is set down.
However narrow, we must keep to the terms of it.
It has broad implications.
The Chair is satisfied it has nothing to do with the ESB.
We must address ourselves to national questions. What has happened in the recent past as far as industrial disputes—
It has nothing to do with industrial disputes. The Deputy may not continue in that vein.
I am opposing this measure because it was not set down in the manifesto. It is an undercover method of obtaining £10 million for the first 12 months. When turnover tax was introduced it was at 2½ per cent. Its name was changed to value-added tax and it is now ranging from 10 to 40 per cent. The £3 per animal and 0.5p per gallon of milk can be increased in the same way as other taxes were.
The necessity for this measure indicates that the Government may by trying to placate urban dwellers by imposing four types of taxation on farmers. We have the 2 per cent levy for approval, the taxation embodied in item No. 10 for approval, the taxation system on farmers with valuations of more than £40, where it is mandatory to have factual accounts because the notional system is to be abolished, and we have the £3.50 per £ land valuation for farmers in the £70 valuation upwards range. It is no harm to let farmers know—farmers who were indignant at the way the National Coalition brought farmers in excess of £70 valuation upwards the tax net and who supported Fianna Fáil—where they now stand with their saviours.
In the recent EEC election, which was the first time people had an opportunity of showing whether they were satisfied or dissatisfied with the Government, they gave only 33 per cent of membership of the European Assembly to the Government. It is evident that the Government's policy to abolish the traditional contributions towards the Exchequer helped Fianna Fáil on the road to victory. However, alternative methods and some difficult injections will have to be made to extract the money required for public administration. Money does not come from heaven; we must get it from the people. If we do not, we must borrow it. Our borrowing has reached a limit which is frightening. That is evident to the Minister, who regards himself as the champion of farmers, big and small, when he has to bring in a motion asking for a fourth levy to be imposed on the farming community whether the farmer resides on the Berehaven Peninsula and has four cows or resides in County Kilkenny and has 100 cows.
Irrespective of what section of the community we come from, and whether we represent city constituencies or rural constituencies, we are all agreed that agriculture plays a major role in our economy. Having accepted that and being conscious of it we must make sure that no disincentive is brought in to impede the progress of this industry. The present levies will create a disincentive. There is a still greater danger that the present levies may be increased each year and create a greater disincentive.
The farming community in general and the ratepayers have, in the past two years, been the victims of the present Government's legislation. The question of domestic rates may not be relevant to this debate but it is relevant to what I am going to say. When domestic rates were abolished we were informed by the Minister for the Environment that the ceiling on the rates was introduced so as to make sure that the people who did not derive the benefits of the abolition of domestic rates would not be the victims of increased rates. And what happened? The agricultural sector here at the moment are subsidising domestic dwellings. I agree entirely with having the domestic rates abolished because it was something which people found very hard to meet, particularly people with limited incomes. We had introduced the same scheme starting off with a 25 per cent reduction but that was to be met by revenue and not taken in from other sections of the community. It is only fair to say that the agricultural sector is the victim today.
Now we come to farm taxation. Two years ago our policy on farm taxation was being criticised. The farmers were told that taxation would be not only modified but abolished completely. What has happened? Valuations have been brought down and as a result the multiplier has increased and so more farmers are now in the tax net than ever before. This, no doubt, is going to have an adverse effect on agriculture. I remember a time when people speaking of agriculture thought in terms of farmers. That day is over. The recent elections, and particularly the European election contest, proved that the interest in agriculture is not confined to the farmers, their wives and their families. The spin off from agriculture is recognised. There is an awareness by the workers here of the importance of such spin off industries from agriculture. That makes me very fearful that such levies will result in unemployment and more people will be on the dole.
I know it is often argued, particularly by urban people, that great wealth and great incomes are received by the agricultural sector. But at present, when everything is taken into consideration, the farmers' income is not up to what it should be. I cannot understand why a rural Minister would place his Deputies—the people who went around preaching and telling the farmers two years ago that taxation was introduced because of the social element that was then in Government—in the position of having to go out to canvas and ask the people to forget what they told them at that time. I know what they told the people this time when they went to the doors. They told them that it was not their fault. They told them that the policy of taxation was introduced by the Minister, Professor Martin O'Donoghue, and they promised the people at that stage that he would go. It is no consolation to the people of rural Ireland to be told that Deputy O'Donoghue will go after taxation has come in. That is no use to the people.
The Government are not popular and the Minister is not popular and I sincerely ask him to think seriously before he introduces such levies.
First it must be stated that we are here this morning passing this motion because of the failure of the Government to come up with an equitable and fair tax for farmers. It should be said, and it has been said and will be said again, that at the 1977 general election Fianna Fáil raised the hopes of farmers beyond all expectations. They said that if they got into office again there would be a road of milk and honey for the farmers. But what a disappointment it was. Could anyone believe, after the propaganda of that election campaign and the deceit and the dishonesty that took place at that time, that we would find ourselves two years later nearing a crisis in agriculture? The Minister may try to persuade us here that he is just bringing in these measures to pay for certain services to the agricultural community, but that is not the case. This is an attempt to extract revenue from farmers to represent the taxes which they claim should be paid.
The entire levy system must be described as a wrong system of extracting money from agriculture because it bears no relation whatsoever to the income of the farmer concerned. The Minister must be reminded that there are still farmers who possess land in many parts of the country but do not pay their fair share of tax. While that situation exists the Minister imposes four levies, with the prospect of a further two, on the farming community and lets people with big farms get away scot free. Many of those people do not make use of their land except as a tax dodge. The Departments of Agriculture and Finance, and the great financial brain, Deputy O'Donoghue, have failed to put forward any type of equitable system of taxation for farmers.
In spite of the conditions that now prevail in agriculture the Minister introduces this levy and starts the elimination process of farmers with small holdings. The Minister is aware that as many as 50 per cent of our farmers have holdings of less than 50 acres. What is their income? How can they justify the borrowing of money to farm intensively? We are all aware that farmers cannot make any sort of a reasonable income unless they farm intensively. They must carry out land reclamation, and the present cost of reseeding an acre is £100 approximately. Money costs in the region of 17 per cent and, for those who are not credit worthy, it can amount to 22 to 23 per cent. Therefore, for those people to make a reasonable standard of living they must farm intensively but when they go to the creamery with their milk they are faced with the 2 per cent levy, a Bord Bainne levy, an EEC levy and the new .5 per cent levy being imposed by the Minister now. They will face further levies in the not too distant future. I was surprised that the Minister, in fact, did not return from the EEC talks and announce a further levy. However, he did not manage to obtain an increase in prices for farmers. He told our farmers that they were living in cloud cuckoo land. I wonder if it is the Minister who is living in cloud cuckoo land. Does he realise that small farmers, as a result of the Minister's levy system, a backdoor method of collecting tax from farmers, have a big amount of their creamery cheques stopped?
The worst levy ever imposed on Irish farmers was the 2 per cent levy. I cannot understand where the Minister's power, as the protector of our farmers, has gone when he allows Ministers Colley and O'Donoghue to impose such a levy. There was a simple solution to the problem, the introduction of 1 per cent VAT. That levy has cracked the confidence of the farming community. Since the introduction of the levy farmers have received only one creamery cheque and that has made them aware of how much that position will cost them. I do not know whether Ministers Colley and O'Donoghue are aware that 50 per cent of our population are involved, directly or indirectly, in agriculture. Any attempt to damage the confidence of those involved in that sector will have serious effects on our economy. The protection which we all expected the Minister to give to agriculture is not forthcoming. The proof of that is the fact that the Minister for Finance forced through, over the head of the Minister for Agriculture, a 2 per cent levy on farmers.
I feel sorry for our small farmers because our Minister is not prepared to protect them and has left them in the hands of the financial brain of the Government, Deputy O'Donoghue, who, in common with the Minister for Finance, does not have any knowledge of agriculture and cares little for its development. Those involved in agriculture must sit up sharply and take note of what is happening. We have already witnessed the removal of the rates subsidy, another attempt to raise revenue. I never claimed that farmers should not pay their fair share in taxation, but surely it is possible to devise a fair and equitable system so that the small farmers are allowed a reasonable standard of living. We must remember that some of the farmers in the west can avail of the dole, but what about small farmers in Kilkenny, Wexford and Meath? Is the Minister aware that in County Wexford 36 per cent of the farmers have holdings of less than 50 acres? If the levy system remains there is little hope of those farmers having a reasonable standard of living. The levy system does not bear any relation to the increase of farmers, is objectionable in principle and is damaging the confidence of our farming community.
It is customary to thank Deputies who subscribe to such debates, a debate which was unexpectedly long, and I do so now. I was anxious to see if any useful suggestion or any useful scrap of information could be extracted from the contributions of Opposition Deputies, but not the slightest piece of useful criticism was made. One of the most remarkable things about the contributions of the Opposition was the total unconcern for the really serious disease problem of our cattle herd. If anything subscribed to doubling that problem in the space of two years it was the abandonment by the National Coalition of disease eradication for two years. There remains now, as real as ever, the survival of the export cattle trade through the means of derogations which are becoming more difficult to get every year. In that respect if disease eradication did not merit the expenditure of some of the money of the herd owners in order to finance the operation properly the constraints of the market or our capacity to sell abroad should be the decisive factor. In all the contributions there was not the slightest recognition of this.
Many of the contributions were totally irrelevant. Deputies spoke about the ESB, State-sponsored bodies and every thing else but had very little to say about the exaction of this 1 per cent levy for disease eradication or if other means might be found to raise a similar sum. There seemed to be a consensus in saying that farmers should pay their fair share of tax but they did not say how the money for this accelerated disease eradication programme was to be found. The sum of what they said was tantamount to saying that they believed that the taxpayers in general should pay for this rather specialised service.
The poor performance in regard to disease eradication in the period since we began to try to eradicate disease has many sources but one of them has undeniably been the happy-go-lucky approach of herd owners generally to the question of disease eradication and the wide-spread abuse of the eradication scheme on the part of various people, who had no compunction in doing the most serious damage to their neighbours or to the public at large by trading in cattle they know to be diseased. All of those things are coming to an end. The very fact that the herd owners around the country will be subscribing their own money as well as the Government's public money to this vital campaign will make everybody more vigilant and more anxious to see that the campaign is successful. Deputies seemed to be in doubt as to where the blow would fall most heavily. Pretty well every opinion was expressed. The small farmers, who for some obscure reason are not generally in the meat production business at all and, therefore, will not be paying a levy on the export of cattle, will pay the piper according to some.
They will on milk.
The butchers and the factories will suffer as well as the consumers according to some Deputies. That is an immense amount of suffering caused by the imposition of a levy of 1 per cent in a price context that never has been better than it has been in the last six months. I am not sure that is a good thing but that is the way it has been. One of the most serious sources of the troubles of the meat industry at the moment is the failure to increase the size of the cattle herd. The origin of that goes back to the cattle crash in 1974, when calves could not be given away during the halcyon days of marvellous times. Following that year we had the fatal decision made by the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Clinton, to admit——
The voters showed what they thought about it.
Deputies should be permitted to speak without interruptions. That applies to all sides of the House.
That fatal mistake made by Deputy Clinton, the former Minister, to admit breeding cows into the intervention market resulted in 1975 in the slaughter of between 650,000 and 700,000 cows. Practically the whole beef breeding herd was eliminated. At least three times the normal number of cows were killed and consequently those cows could not produce any more calves. The cattle numbers failed to rise. This is telling now and will continue to tell in the meat factories. There is a shortage of supply in these meat factories at the moment. There is possibly an overactive demand for the available supply, competition between the factories and the export trade. As some Deputies pointed out, some meat factories are undoubtedly in difficulty. I do not believe that this situation could have been avoided because its origins are several years back.
The public health aspect of the disease eradication programme was referred to by Deputy Bruton and others. As he pointed out, a great many people involved in the cattle trade suffer from brucellosis. This is a disagreeable complaint. This is a supplementary reason for the one point which escaped Deputies—the urgency of the matter. The speeches seemed to be aimed at an audience outside the House. They were not calculated to assist. If Deputies will forgive me for saying so, they were propaganda speeches.
We had good teachers in the past.
They were based on the assumption that the farmers were some kind of nit wits who cannot see through prate when they hear it. I have never heard such prate as I have listened to this morning and last night. I call it cant, prate and nothing else. Deputy Hegarty, for instance, wanted this deferred. He said: "Give it the long summer, consider it deeply, consider the disruption the 1 per cent levy will cause in County Cork." Did he consider what disruption would be caused by the failure to eliminate disease in County Cork, which has the worst record in TB and brucellosis in the country and probably the worst in Europe. Deputy Hegarty thinks we should not do something about it, the same as many of his colleagues on the Opposition benches. I disagree and I am sure our farmers also disagree. A campaign like this cannot be run on soft talk and plamás. That is what they were being offered. The former Minister, Deputy Clinton, was worrying about factory redundancies and farmer confidence. He arrived up with the synthesis that the future of agriculture depended on cattle. It was hard neck on the part of Deputy Clinton to start talking about the shortcomings of herd numbers and about farmer confidence when during his reign of office young cattle could not be given away. Every year during that period we saw cattle being sold for £5 a cwt and less and we saw calves being sold for less than the price of an oven-ready chicken. Is this farmer confidence?
What were they in 1977?
The process of the devaluation of the green £——
Who fought for it? Who brought it in? Mark brought home the bacon.
The Minister should be allowed speak without interruptions. Deputy L'Estrange should be giving good example.
During the reign of the Coalition there were MCA's and exports to Europe of 30 per cent. Too late and bit by bit the Coalition Government begrudgingly devalued the green £. Now there are no MCAs on exports.
No man did more for the farmers than Deputy Clinton. His vote proved that.
The Deputy spoke in the debate.
Deputy Bermingham was more constructive than other speakers. There seemed to be a dichotomy in his mind as to whether he was for or against the levy. He recognised it was necessary but allowed that he disliked the idea. He mentioned that there was no reference to ability to pay. He made the unusual statement that a man owning two cows will pay as much money as the man owning 200 cows. Possibly he did not mean that, because it does not sound sensible in that form. The Deputy said that the consumer will be the person who will pay.
I have no wish to filibuster this debate, which has been unusually long for a financial resolution. I reiterate my gratitude to the speakers for their contributions.
Tá
- Ahern, Bertie.
- Ahern, Kit.
- Andrews, Niall.
- Aylward, Liam.
- Barrett, Sylvester.
- Brady, Gerard.
- Brady, Vincent.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Browne, Seán.
- Callanan, John.
- Cogan, Barry.
- Conaghan, Hugh.
- Cowen, Bernard.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Daly, Brendan.
- Davern, Noel.
- Doherty, Seán.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Farrell, Joe.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin South-Central).
- Fitzsimons, James N.
- Flynn, Pádraig.
- Fox, Christopher.
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, Dennis.
- Gibbons, Jim.
- Haughey, Charles J.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Keegan, Seán.
- Killeen, Tim.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lawlor, Liam.
- Lemass, Eileen.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Leonard, Tom.
- Leyden, Terry.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacSharry, Ray.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Morley, P.J.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy C.
- O'Leary, John.
- Reynolds, Albert.
- Smith, Michael.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Walsh, Joe.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Woods, Michael J.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Níl
- Barry, Richard.
- Begley, Michael.
- Belton, Luke.
- Bermingham, Joseph.
- Bruton, John.
- Bruke, Joan.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Collins, Edward.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hegarty, Paddy.
- Horgan, John.
- Keating, Michael.
- Kenny, Enda.
- L'Estrange, Gerry.
- Lipper, Mick.
- McMahon, Larry.
- Conlan, John F.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Cosgrave, Michael J.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- D'Arcy, Michael J.
- Deasy, Martin A.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Donnellan, John F.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Cavan-Monaghan).
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Brien, William.
- O'Keeffe, Jim.
- O'Toole, Paddy.
- Taylor, Frank.
- Treacy, Seán.
- Tully, James.
- White, James.
Before we move to the next business might I ask your permission to raise on today's Adjournment the threat to employment caused by the projected closure of Donnelly's factory in Dublin?
I will communicate with the Deputy.