andMr. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture the reason staff costs have risen from 12.9 to 20.8 per cent of the total expenditure of his Department since 1977.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Department of Agriculture Staff Costs.
40.
The main reasons for the increase referred to are the increased level of activity on existing schemes, the introduction of new schemes in the period since 1977, together with the recruitment of additional staff to service those schemes. Improved salary scales and increases under successive national wage agreements were also a contributory factor.
It should also be borne in mind that the expenditure shown in the departmental Estimates does not reflect the full extent of the work handled by the staff of the Department. In addition, account must be taken of the payment of EEC export refunds, MCAs, other aids and praemia and the large-scale purchases and sales of intervention products. When this non-voted expenditure is taken into account, the position is that since 1977 costs have risen from 3.62 per cent to 5.76 per cent of the total expenditure of my Department.
Will the Minister agree that taking whatever basis of comparison he likes the figures he has given here indicate that the proportion represented by staff costs has almost doubled and that means that the Department of Agriculture are absorbing proportionately more money and that farmers are getting proportionately less? This indicates that value for money is not being obtained in the Department.
I do not accept that because the numbers of additional staff, since 1977, amounts to 4.89 per cent of an increase in staff members.
Yes, but the cost has increased whereas farmers incomes have fallen.
I have given the reasons for the cost in my reply.
Will the Minister agree that it is highly misleading to present the expenditure of the Department of Agriculture as being as it is often presented, a handout to the farming community when proportionately it seems that the amount going to staff in the department is increasing whereas the incomes of farmers over the same period have fallen?
Nobody has ever suggested that the expenditure for the Department of Agriculture is a handout to farmers. The only one suggesting that is the Deputy. I said that the amount of money being spent by the Department of Agriculture towards the agricultural sector, whether that includes wages costs, EEC funds, grants or remission of rates, are expenditures for the agricultural sector and they are not handouts.
The remaining questions will appear on next Tuesday's Order Paper.