Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, to the House. This motion seeks that the Minister for Education and Science insists on the retention of the UCD research farm at Lyons Estate, Straffan, County Kildare.

I ask this because the Lyons Estate has provided extensive research and development for agriculture since it was first purchased in 1962 by the agriculture department of UCD. The 1,300 acres of the estate were used for agricultural research and development. Unfortunately, some years ago over 800 acres of the farm were sold, resulting in a downgrading of research and development on the estate.

This has occurred at a time when agriculture needs are changing rapidly. The greatest need we have in the agriculture area now is for research and development of new techniques and production and new crops, etc. The very opposite is happening in the agriculture department in UCD. The great fear is that the department will move from the Lyons estate to an urban area. As the Minister of State represents a Dublin constituency, he should be aware there is not much opportunity for agricultural research in the Dublin urban area. In fact, the UCD agriculture department was in Glasnevin for a while, but it moved from there because of the inability to conduct worthwhile research there.

I will give an example of what happened previously in the agriculture research department of UCD. It made a great advance in the production of maize animal feed and pioneered a development in this area. Due to our shorter growing season for maize as animal feed the agriculture department pioneered the idea of sowing it under plastic. Many countries, particularly countries of northern Europe, have come here to study and copy what was developed here through the inventiveness and research of the UCD agriculture department.

If we allow agricultural research decline at UCD, we will no longer have a college providing a pure agriculture degree. UCD is the only university here providing such a degree. If we allow the UCD agriculture degree to become purely academic with no research or practical on-the-ground element, we will have nothing more than a science degree in the agriculture area. That would be a failure.

The need has never been so great for the development of agricultural products such as biofuels. The beet industry has been eliminated here and growers have been told they must develop new crops. We cannot develop new crops here unless we have research and development within the faculty of agriculture. It is tragic that Teagasc has failed in this area also. It has sold out. Many of the Teagasc research farms throughout the country have been sold off, even properties where tuition took place. The Department of Agriculture and Food has also sold out. In Athenry, County Galway, it sold 80 acres of its prime research and development agricultural land.

There is a great fear among the staff of UCD, particularly in the agriculture department, that we are downgrading agriculture. This is happening at a time when we should be spearheading the development of new crops, feeding stuffs and husbandry techniques.

The Higher Education Authority is now the organisation that will decide on these issues. If it decides on the sale of the Lyons Estate, we will see the demise of agriculture within UCD. That is not good enough. It will affect the personnel in the agriculture department and destroy the rapport between them. Other elements within UCD feel it is right to sell the property now to get resources for other projects in the college. That would be a travesty.

We should consider what was put into the Lyons Estate over the years. It was a Galway man, the late Professor Ruane, who had the initiative and foresight to purchase the Lyons Estate. He developed it against the odds at a time when resources were scarce in the university sector. He reclaimed the land and installed buildings for all areas of animal husbandry research. The research that has been done there by people like Dr. Crosby, who is involved in the sheep sector, has stood the test of time in terms of its importance to agriculture. Perhaps we should not pay much attention to rumours, but this rumour is based on practices which have been noted previously. When the Minister directs those who will make the final decision, it is important for her to make a real and determined indication that practical agriculture needs to be retained within the current structure. The research farm in question was never needed more than it is now because we are competing with cheap food products from other areas. We have been told we have to offer a greater quality of produce, such as organic produce or other food developments. My final plea to the Minister of State is to ensure that we preserve the farm so that agriculture does not become an academic science subject without any practical input.