Can we take it from what the Minister said that he is reluctant to make grants available for silage units on the banks of rivers from now on? Are there precautions to that effect? Obviously a silage unit situated on the banks of a river or near it is a hazard.

Of course it is. There are now provisions to take care of effluent arising from silage making where grants are provided. This was not so in the past.

Is the Minister aware that frequently while we have been discussing this matter in the House it has been apparent that in regard to most of these farm buildings the only safeguard we have is the Minister and the giving of his particular grant? Most of the other controls do not really apply to farm buildings. Can we be assured that the Minister will exercise a very high degree of caution?

I am sure the Deputy is probably aware that any man can build a silage layout for himself without planning permission or anybody else's permission. All the control, as Deputy Haughey says, is that if we are giving a grant we can set out conditions in relation to the grant. We have been doing that in recent years. It is only in very recent years because it is only then that there has been such an awareness of the danger of pollution.

The Minister mentioned that officials of the Fisheries Department were checking it. Has anybody from the Department of Agriculture checked this silage layout? Is the Minister aware that there is another silage layout going up quite near it? I understand that the drainage will be piped from it into this particular river.

I have no power to compel a man with an existing silage layout to make the necessary improvements at this stage.

I am astonished to hear the Minister say there was no worry about pollution in relation to the giving of grants since 1972. I advocated that a man should erect sheds a quarter of a mile up a field because he was a very near a rainbow trout lake and the officers of the Department who were concerned about pollution told him he would not get a grant unless he went that distance from the lake, put in a slurry tank and a liquid tank to prevent pollution.

The Deputy is not quoting me correctly when says that I said there was no worry about pollution at that time. I said there was not the same awareness of the damage pollution could do. I was trying to excuse the people who gave the grant at that time.

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