Well, look who warned farmers about the risks of a ‘dole mentality’

By Ryle Dwyer

Joe Walsh was careful not to make the same mistake this week, but the farmers savaged him anyway. One of the spokesmen for the current crop of protesting farmers was Ruaidhri Deasy, whose late father, Rickard, led the 1966 protest, as president of the NFA. Unlike the lines of tractors this week, however, Rickard Deasy and his colleagues walked the 210 miles from Bantry to Dublin, where they were joined on October 19, 1966, for a protest rally outside Leinster House by as many as 30,000 farmers who had walked from other centres around the country.

The Government derided the protesters as well-heeled, affluent ranchers the kind of people who normally supported Fine Gael. As now, many people then were worried about a downturn in the economy in the midst of a massive boom.

Jack Lynch, the Minister of Finance, had made a monumental bloomer by getting his sums wrong in his first budget the previous year. He only asked for authorisation to spend £95.5m on items announced in the budget, whereas those actually totalled £103.75m. This meant that the Finance Act implementing the budget was out by over 8.6% from the start.

If Charlie McCreevy made that mistake, imagine the furore that the opposition and media would kick up. But with that nice fellow Jack Lynch in charge, the civil servants got all the blame. Rather than rectify the mistake with a mini-budget, Lynch pulled a fast one by introducing the 1966 budget two months early.

He used the forthcoming celebrations to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rebellion as his excuse, even though the budget was not due until some weeks after the commemorations.

The real reason for the early budget was the June Presidential election in which 83-year-old Eamon de Valera was running for re-election. The Government was not about to bring in an unpopular budget on the eve of that election. There was considerable uneasiness at this time because of a significant downturn in the economy. The British had introduced a surcharge on all imports, and Irish farmers were particularly hard hit. Under the leadership of John Feely, the ICMSA began picketing Leinster House on April 27, 1966. The Government responded by arresting and jailing 28 picketers under the Offences Against the State Act.

Next day 78 farmers were arrested while picketing, and a further 80 the following day, as the dispute escalated. Haughey refused to talk while the protesters were acting illegally, so the ICMSA removed its picket to make way for talks, but no progress was made initially. Haughey argued that demands for a rise in the price of milk could lead to socialised agriculture. "There is a danger that agitation directed only to getting higher prices may develop a kind of dole mentality which would eventually make agriculture subservient to the State," Haughey contended. "What I want to achieve is a self-reliant, independent and progressive agriculture, fully backed by, but not utterly dependent on, the State."

Before the end of the month, however, Haughey backed down and conceded the ICMSA's main demands. Political opponents contended that this was done to influence the Presidential election, as de Valera's campaign was in trouble and Haughey was his national director of elections. Following the ICMSA's victory, the NFA began protesting over falling cattle prices. The EEC had virtually closed its doors to Irish cattle in April and exports to Britain were then cut off by a dockers' strike. Once the strike ended, the backlog of Irish cattle was dumped on the British market and prices fell precipitately.

Haughey advised farmers to withhold their cattle until prices rose, but Rickard Deasy told them to sell, as the prices were liable to drop further.

The NFA dramatised its plight with the famous protest march on Dublin in October. When Haughey rather churlishly refused to meet the leaders, Deasy announced a novel protest. They would camp on the steps of the Department of Agriculture until the Minister met them. The courts had already ruled that the arrest of the ICMSA protesters a few months earlier had been unconstitutional, so Haughey had to endure the spectacle of Deasy, TJ Maher, and other colleagues, sleeping rough outside his office for the next three weeks.

Lemass accused the farmers of challenging the elementary principles of democracy. With typical hyperbole, Brian Lenihan puffed up the rhetoric by declaring that Fianna Fáil was going to save the country from anarchy and mob rule.

Lemass realised that the whole thing could destabilise his minority government, especially with two by-elections in the offing. He had already indicated that he intended to retire the following year anyway, but he now seized the initiative by announcing his resignation.

On the eve of the FF parliamentary party meeting to elect his successor, Lemass and Haughey met Deasy and other NFA leaders. The farmers had clearly won the round, because their protest outside the Department of Agriculture was merely to compel Haughey to meet them. Figuratively, they had shot the Short Fellow out of the saddle of his high horse.

The opposition rejoiced that Haughey's ambitions of becoming Taoiseach had been scuppered. "Haughey is down the sink," James Dillon of Fine Gael gloated that night. "Remember," Dillon told the Dáil the following week, "when he failed to land his fish last Wednesday night, he will never land it. He is finished. He stinks, politically, of course." It was not be the last time that opponents would write off Haughey prematurely.

The NFA had apparently taken two of the biggest scalps in Irish politics, and the new Taoiseach, the mild-mannered Jack Lynch, looked like pushover in comparison. He had been a reluctant candidate, and those who were eyeing his job considered him a mere interim leader.

The NFA escalated its protests in the following weeks by blockading roads and railways. Some 80 farmers were imprisoned, as they overplayed their hand.

Deasy harboured political ambitions, but those were never realised. With his English education and Oxford accent, he had little electoral appeal. He fared dismally as a Labour Party candidate in Tipperary North in the general election of 1969, getting only 511 first preference votes. But when he died 30 years later, he was celebrated as the man who had launched the campaign that revolutionised farm earnings.

From a pathetic income in 1966, full-time farmers now earn an average of 31,000 annually, according to the Government. Some 40% of that is from EU subsidies for doing nothing. Is this the "dole mentality" that Haughey warned about in 1966? Of course, he should talk! Some farmers earn only a fraction of the 31,000, but they weren't on the roads this week. Judging by the expensive tractors that were being used, those 'poor farmers' who were demonstrating were the most well-wheeled protesters in Irish history. It was a unique exhibition with the air of jamboree, as they protested their poverty by displaying their affluence!