Possibly, if it is wrong, no, if it were correct. I spoke to the county committees of agriculture in November and told them I would like to see, and I am more convinced of it today than I was then, that in each county or, perhaps, where suitable regional committees might be formed, in each region, there would be a full supervisory service and not just that but the whole range of agricultural aids and assistance that would come not only from the county committees of agriculture but also from the other interested agencies, particularly from the Department, so that we would have in these counties or regions many departments, each with county or regional headquarters. The aim would be to have all the services under the one roof. In that way the central Government would be able to delegate administrative operations from Dublin. This would eliminate the passing to and fro, throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, of files and other documents.
This, of course, would envisage the attaching also of the advisory services to this mini-Department, but it would unfortunately impinge to some degree on the autonomy that the advisory services believe they enjoy—although personally I do not think they do enjoy such autonomy. Apart from what would go to the farmer, the staff would have the benefit that they could aim at the very highest post in the State service, even aspire to the position of a Departmental Secretary. Perhaps, also, there would be outlets at county level for those who came in by the Civil Service method of recruitment as well as for those who came in through the Local Appointments Commission. This is broadly what I have advocated for years and the more I see of the operation, from an administrative and efficiency point of view as well as from the point of view of local advisory staff the more I am satisfied that something on those lines can be worked out and that the committees of agriculture, whether on a regional or county basis, must be retained; that they must continue to have a very important place in the new order of things if we are to have such an order because I do not wish to see centralisation and power, even if delegated from the top, being put into the hands of servants of the State or local authorities as the case may be without the invaluable knowledge and experience of the members who make up the committees of agriculture continuing to be available.
I know there are people who will point to members who they say should not be on committees of agriculture. These people quietly and conveniently ignore the fact that if there is one person who should not be on a county committee, there are likely to be 16 or 18 persons on that committee who have a great deal to contribute and who have continued to contribute a great deal during the years.
If such changes were being made I would wish to retain the advantage of the local committees. This answers to a degree, the complaint of Senator Malone to the effect that staff are being attracted away from the advisory services. It is not money alone that is responsible for this. While money is important it may well be that this situation has been created by a sense of frustration on the part of staff. If they come in as instructors they reach the end of the line after just two steps upwards and only few reach that stage.
Senator Fitzgerald spoke about competing. I did not take a sufficient note to enable me to remember what he said but I may remember later. Senator Crinion gave his views about the recent wage round. It is not for me to say what I think about it. I have had recent discussions with the staffs on this matter among many other related matters and it is likely that further talks and negotiations will arise from those discussions. I hope that some of the dissatisfaction prevailing in the service will be allayed or removed.
Mention was made of a delay by the Local Appointments Commission with regard to a request from a local committee for the filling of a permanent post. Many Members of the House will appreciate that this is a matter about which I can do nothing. I cannot even explain why there should be a delay in any particular case but these delays are frequent and prolonged. However, we should not take it that the delays are avoidable. I do not know whether or not they are avoidable. The Local Appointments Commission are doing a service for us in filling these vacancies and I assume that they fill them as quickly as they can consider the various requests they receive. If there are delays perhaps there are very good reasons for them. One aspect about which we certainly cannot do very much and which applies not only to the Local Appointments Commission but to the Civil Service Commission is that very often the availability of suitable applicants with the minimum qualifications is not evident. This may account for some of the delay in appointments.
A request has been made for closer contact between the Department's officers and county committees. Of course, it would not be possible to have too close a contact between the Department of Agriculture, their operators, administrators, professional and technical people and the county committee staffs but, on the other hand, I would say that we have fairly close contact between the Department and the people employed by the committees in the various counties. On the administrative side we have the advantage of the General Council of the Committees of Agriculture. This council has become quite active in the few years of its existence. They are likely to become more actively associated with my Department in discussing problems that arise at various levels throughout the country. We are at a developing stage in that regard at the moment but there is hope for continued and increasing communication, particularly through the committees of the general council and the sub-committees, with the Department and discussion on a wider scale of the various problems arising in agriculture as a whole.
Senator Sheehy-Skeffington suggested that the number of counties that had not reached various levels of expenditure, expressed in pence in the £, might be the poorer counties and he posed the question, if this were so was it an indication that we are not providing enough moneys from the Central Fund —in other words, that we are not making it attractive enough. I think the converse is true, not necessarily all the way but certainly in so far as it is not the poorer counties but the better off counties that are concerned. This does not imply what it seems to imply. It implies that these advisory services are not being provided but, generally speaking, many of the better off counties are very highly valued to begin with. They contain a larger proportion of the larger holdings than the poorer counties. Therefore, the number of farms to be served is less, proportionately speaking. In addition to that there is the situation of less to be served, where there is greater valuation and therefore a lesser number of pence in the £ producing more money to employ more instructors.
This is really the situation rather than an indication that the poorer counties are not spending. The poorer counties are spending the money and it is to these poorer counties that we have given the higher contribution. The contribution is 75 per cent in their case rather than 50 per cent for the rest of the country so that they in fact are extending more quickly than the better off counties in the east. Subject to the odd exception, of course, this is the overall average of the situation as things stand.
I knew that Senator Farrell would raise the home management situation before ever she did, but I do not think that this idea is correct that because they do not get degrees that immediately relegates them to a kind of second-class citizenship. If this is regarded as being so, to my mind it is more a state of mind than of actual fact. I do think that those people are very highly thought of and are regarded as an excellent staff doing an excellent job, and if that is the case, I fail to see where second-class citizenship comes in here.