If the Minister really expressed his intention of implementing sub-section (2) at some time it could be regarded as a statutory instrument. In this connection, it would be possible for the Minister to drive a coach and four through the whole Act by making such widespread exemptions that every hatchery would be exempt from the law.
Now, that seems to me to be an extreme example of what is known in English history as the exercise of the suspending and dispensing power. I would remind the Minister that, on a famous occasion, James II claimed to exercise that power, and that, in consequence of that claim, he went on his travels and lost his job. I would ask the Minister, is he not afraid of something similar happening to himself? I think it ought to be possible, on the Report Stage, to draft an amendment which will give effect to the licensing provision in the more restricted manner which I recommend, and to deprive the Minister of that wide degree of autocratic power which he is claiming for himself under the terms of this and other sections.
This whole matter of developing large-scale poultry production is one that requires co-operation between the Minister's Department and the people generally. Behind such co-operation there must, of necessity, be the mailed first of some of the principles of enacted legislation. I think there should also be the velvet glove of the tactful handling of the people concerned. I think, in general, though we must legislate piecemeal in these matters, that the emphasis should be on education and co-operation rather than on coercive restrictions and bureaucratic regulations. In fact, the committee to which I have referred laid very considerable emphasis on the importance of friendly co-operation. That co-operation exists, and I hope will long continue, between the Minister's expert officials, the county committees of agriculture and the people who are engaged in poultry production and in other forms of agricultural activity. I would dislike any form of legislation which, even in its very wording, seemed to suggest a different or unsympathetic attitude as between the Minister's Department and the people on whose exertions so much depends.
The principal disease which this measure is designed to avoid being spread by large-scale commercial hatcheries, which in other respects are highly desirable, seems to be the one known by the initials B.W.D. The essence of the control of that disease is the regular blood testing of breeding hens and of male birds, I suppose. Now, having blood tests is a very technical operation which requires the existence of a laboratory somewhere or another. I understand that the veterinary college in Dublin is the only place where the necessary laboratory tests can be made.