Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Mar 1955

Vol. 148 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Labbadish Starch Factory.

Mr. Cunningham

Yesterday I tabled a question seeking information regarding the prohibition on the growing of Dutch potatoes in certain areas of East Donegal. Before I proceed I want to say that it is only an hour ago that I got a copy of the supplementary questions from the General Office and that was the first time I was aware that the Minister, in the cross-talk that took place, asked me to come to his office where I would get further information about the matter. I was not aware of that yesterday.

The position is that a decision was taken last year to convert the alcohol factory at Labbadish into a factory for the manufacture of starch. In experiments which were carried out it was discovered that Dutch varieties of potatoes have the highest percentage of starch and, for that reason, it is desirable to grow Dutch potatoes in and around the factory area. Due to action taken by the Minister, farmers within a radius of about 20 miles from the factory are prohibited from growing Dutch varieties of potatoes this year whereas farmers in the Inishowen area are allowed to grow such potatoes.

There are several problems arising out of that situation and it is no harm to have them cleared up. On the face of it, the Minister's statement as to why he banned the growing of Dutch potatoes in the areas referred to seems reasonable but, when we consider it, difficulties arise. First of all, the Minister stated that he was not prepared to allow these potatoes to be grown this year in the areas specified for the reason that there was the danger that disease might be brought into an area which is known throughout Ireland and parts of Europe as one of the best seed-producing areas. That seems to be fair enough. If there is any danger whatsoever that a disease might be brought in by the importation of Dutch varieties of potatoes of high starch content, it is very wise to prohibit them. But, Holland is a bigger producer of seed potatoes than we are.

I think the potato marketing companies' representatives who have gone to the Continent in the past number of years have found very keen competition in Spain and elsewhere from Dutch seed potato growers. If that is so, do not think there is any danger to the seed potato trade in Donegal. The Minister has allowed the potatoes to be grown in Inishowen. Inishowen is a very fine seed potato producing area. In Inishowen there are four registered seed potato exporters. If there is the danger that the Minister anticipates, why allow the small farmers of Inishowen who grow seed and ware potatoes for export to be exposed to the danger of disease?

The Minister knows the Lagan Valley, the banned area. He knows that the farmers there have big holdings. He knows that if a disease occurs in their seed potato crop they will not starve, they can turn to a number of other agricultural operations, whereas, if the small farmers of Inishowen suffer loss by reason of their potato crop being infected by imported disease they have not as many resources to fall back on or have not as many alternatives as the Lagan seed potato producers have.

There is another point in connection with the country of origin. I have said that the Dutch are our keenest competitors in the seed potato trade. I expect that the potatoes would be inspected both before exportation and after importation. That is a double safeguard.

If there is this danger to our seed export trade, will it mean that farmers in Inishowen who will be growing these potatoes which are a doubtful commodity will be prevented from exporting seed potatoes to the Continent this coming season? It would be a bad job, of course, if any seed potatoes from Inishowen, when exported to the Continent, were found to be infected by some disease. In view of the fact that Dutch varieties of potatoes will be grown in Inishowen this year will there be a ban on the export of the ordinary seed potatoes that has been carried on there? Will home varieties of potatoes be allowed into the starch factory at Labbadish? It is important. There may not be a great surplus of potatoes this year but there may be next year.

Therefore, I am anxious to know if farmers in the neighbourhood of Labbadish, who are not being allowed to grow Dutch potatoes, will be given an opportunity of sending their surplus of the ordinary crop to the factory for manufacture into starch and will the price which will be available for the Dutch varieties be available for the home-grown varieties?

The Donegal Committee of Agriculture has over the past few years experimented with Dutch varieties around the Labbadish factory. Several plots of Danish varieties of potatoes were grown last year in the same Lagan valley, the same area where they are now banned. I know a number of farmers who grew these varieties —I forget the varieties at the moment— but I know that they were grown under the auspices of the Donegal Committee of Agriculture, some of them in the neighbourhood of the factory and others scattered throughout the Lagan area. I understand that they did very well, having a high starch content and giving a high yield. The experiments which went on last year and the year before were very successful and I think it a pity that at this stage, in view of those experiments, the farmers who were banking this year on producing a crop of these potatoes are debarred from doing so. These points have been worrying me for quite a while. I would like to see a more attractive price being paid for potatoes, especially if the status quo remains, in view of the long transport involved from Inishowen.

An Ceann Comhairle

This seems to be a new matter.

Mr. Blaney

I unfortunately missed the opening portion of Deputy Cunningham's statement, but, having listened to what he said, there is not very much I can add. The first thing I should like to ask is: was it really necessary that these potatoes should have been brought in at all, and, secondly, if it was and if it has been decided to be necessary, as I take it it has, is there a risk of infection of other varieties or of infection of the soil in any area in which these potatoes are grown? Judging from the Minister's reply to the question asked of him yesterday, it would appear that some risk does exist. While I must agree with the Minister wholeheartedly in his and the Department's efforts to isolate that risk, I think, at the same time, that, from the point of view of the wellbeing of the small seed producer of Inishowen and other areas far removed from the Lagan valley, any risk that might arise should not have been made their responsibility, because seed growing in the districts of small farmers is a very much more serious business from the point of view of the small farmer's economy than it is in the case of the large farmer in the Lagan.

Mr. Dillon

Now where are we? Deputy Cunningham wants it and Deputy Blaney does not want it.

Mr. Blaney

Will the Minister let me finish? We are possibly on the same track, but I am coming on a different line. I am putting to the Minister for his due and weighty observations that if the risk is there, and I assume it is because of the action of the Department, why place the risk on the small farmers of Inishowen, because if the risk develops and something arises due to these imported potatoes, the Inishowen area may well go by the board as a seed producing area in the future. If that should happen, it would be a much greater calamity for the small farmers of Inishowen than it would be in the case of the larger farmers of the Lagan. On the other hand, I do see that from a national point of view and from the point of view of the seed potato industry as a whole, the loss would be greater should the Lagan valley, where a bigger area is grown, become infected; but, from the point of view of the economics of the respective types of farmers in the two areas, the greater loss would be that of the Inishowen small farmer to whom an acre, an acre and a half or two acres of seed potatoes may well be the mainstay of his income in any particular year. On the other hand, as has been asserted by Deputy Cunningham, Dutch varieties have been grown already in the Lagan valley which the Minister is now trying to protect by not allowing these same potatoes to be grown there and the question that arises in my mind is whether or not there is a difference in the varieties grown last year as against this year, and, if that is so, whether the varieties of last year did not carry the same risk. That may well be the case, but I rather doubt it.

Again, a very important point for the coming year in Inishowen or any of the areas in which these potatoes will be grown is: will this interfere with the export next season of our ordinary home produced certified seeds? Will it have any ill-effect on the sending of these potatoes out of the country as heretofore? That is something which is well worth pondering on. The other question which I asked at the beginning, as to whether or not this is at all necessary, is one on which I should like the Minister, in the limited time at his disposal, to give us some information, because my information is that some of the varieties grown here at home, and grown for a long number of years, have been known to produce a starch content of over 16 per cent. and as high as 16.3 per cent., and I have the feeling that if these same varieties were treated with a view to producing starch, to giving a high starch content, we could even exceed the high percentage we have already got from some of our own potatoes.

These items are items of great importance to the farmers of Donegal. It may well be that, from the national point of view, they are not of very world-shaking consequence, but to the small farmers of Inishowen and other parts of the country where the growing of seed potatoes has been carried on of recent years as a cash crop, it is a matter of great consequence, and it is definitely for that reason, so far as I am concerned, and, I am sure, so far as Deputy Cunningham is concerned that we bring this matter to the notice of the Minister in the way in which it has been brought to-night. It is not in any sense to be taken as a mere political manoeuvre—it is raised purely in the interests of the small farmers and the large farmers of the area.

Mr. Dillon

First, it is right for the House to bear in mind that our total seed potato exports now amount to 27,591 tons per annum and constitute a very important and valuable export trade, which depends for its maintenance and growth on the certainty enjoyed by those to whom we send the seed potatoes that our system of supervision is as water-tight as it is humanly possible to make it so that purchasers of Irish seed potatoes are guaranteed, with the highest standard of security, that they will bring into their country no potato disease from seed purchased in Ireland. The danger which we are resolved to take every precaution against is the possibility of introducing the virus of leaf roll into the seed growing areas of County Donegal.

I am going to answer, if I may, Deputy Cunningham's specific inquiries seriatim. I hope Deputy Blaney will not misunderstand me. You cannot come in prepared to answer on the Adjournment Deputy Cunningham's inquiry only to discover that Deputy Blaney is going to raise quite another question for which you have not prepared yourself to speak in detail.

Mr. Blaney

I understand.

Mr. Dillon

I came prepared to deal with the particular inquiry by Deputy Cunningham. He asks if the factory will take any ordinary variety of potatoes in addition to the high starch variety. They will, but I do not think the price is such as to make it economic for farmers to grow a variety of potatoes that has not got this exceptionally high starch content and heavy yield.

Mr. Cunningham

Will it be the same scale?

Mr. Dillon

If a farmer has a surplus of potatoes that he wants to get rid of at the price paid per ton, the factory will take them, although I do not think it will be profitable for a farmer to grow eating type potatoes for sale to the factory at a price fixed in anticipation of high starch content heavy yield Dutch varieties being grown.

Deputy Cunningham asks if there will be a ban on seed from Inishowen. No. The way the Department administers the seed potato scheme is that every crop of potatoes grown for the production of certified seed is kept under constant supervision during the whole period of its growth by peripatetic inspectors of the Department. Any crop, then that reaches maturity and is saved by the farmer free from disease is eligible to be exported as certified seed. But if disease turns up in a crop of potatoes, whereever grown, which is designed for the certified seed market, that crop is condemned and its produce cannot be exported as certified seed. The crop, field by field, is inspected. Am I clear on that?

Mr. Cunningham

No. Could that not be left to apply to the Lagan as well as to Inishowen?

Mr. Dillon

It applies everywhere. Let me explain. You ask: Why should you allow the growing of any Dutch potatoes in Inishowen if you are afraid they may carry the leaf roll virus disease? The answer is that this is one of the dilemmas with which the Minister for Agriculture perennially occupies himself. The natural inclination of the Minister for Agriculture is to allow no live stock, fowl or plant into the country from a foreign source because we are so exceptionally fortunately situated. Being an island, we have kept at bay a great number of veterinary and horticultural diseases which are endemic on the Continent of Europe. One of the reasons why we are such an excellent source of seed potatoes is because we are so free from disease. I do not want, for a moment, to suggest that certification or inspection by the Dutch Government authorities is inadequate or in any way defective.

I am the Irish Minister for Agriculture and it is no alibi for me to say that I hold a certificate from the Dutch Minister for Agriculture. A country that buys potatoes in Ireland depends on my certificate, as the Irish Minister for Agriculture, and it is no alibi for me to say that I depend on the Dutch Government's certificate. I must, through my officers, inspect the crop grown in Ireland. On the basis of what I have observed growing in Ireland, through the officers of my Department, I certify to purchasers in Spain, Israel, Portugal or anywhere else, as Minister for Agriculture of the Irish Republic, that the seed came from a healthy crop grown in Ireland under my supervision. Therefore, it is no use for me to say that I depend on the Dutch certificate. I depend on no certificate except the authority of the officers of my own Department who have themselves inspected the growing crop.

The reason I propose to allow these potatoes to be grown in Inishowen is that if the unexpected or a possible catastrophe eventuated and leaf roll virus was present in this Dutch seed that came in, Inishowen is, in its own way, a little island and I could easily cut it off and segregate the disease in Inishowen. Deputies can realise what might happen in such circumstances if I let it out. Suppose I planted it in the middle of the Lagan valley or in North Mayo and there were an outbreak of the leaf roll virus disease. I could not segregate it there but I can segregate it in Inishowen. I do not anticipate any disease but I have a duty, while hoping for the best, to prepare for the worst. Nobody will listen to alibis from me if I say I have the certificate of the Dutch Minister for Agriculture that these potatoes are disease free. If they are not, I must answer to Dáil Éireann and the Dutch Minister for Agriculture cannot be called to account. There is no reason to expect that there will be disease in these potatoes. I think it is perfectly possible that everyone who grows seed potatoes in Inishowen, even though his neighbour is growing this Dutch variety, will be able to export his seed without the slightest difficulty and that my peripatetic inspectors will walk the fields of Inishowen and certify every crop there as being perfectly healthy and sound and that no difficulty will ensue.

If we get over this year, it is my confident anticipation that there will be an abundant supply of this high starch yield variety seed available from what is going to be grown in Inishowen this year which can be grown anywhere. It is true that there have been experimental plantings of these high starch yield potatoes in the past, conducted under the supervision of the county committee of agriculture in collaboration with the officers of my Department, and the seed can be planted anywhere. Our restriction applies to the plantings of Dutch seed which we import. We confidently anticipate that the seed we get from Holland will be disease free but we will take no risk about it. We do not feel we have any alibi by pleading that we accepted the Dutch Minister's certificate. Therefore, we are going to confine it to Inishowen, confidently anticipating that there will be no trouble but keeping our powder dry and, if serious trouble should arise, being in a position to draw a line across the neck of Inishowen and securely segregating the rest of the seed-growing area of Donegal from any possibility of contamination. Is that not a perfectly rational procedure and is that not the best way of trying to safeguard every legitimate interest involved in this business? If Deputy Cunningham were himself the Minister for Agriculture, what else would he do?

In conclusion, may I say I am sorry Deputy Cunningham did not hear my invitation to him to discuss this matter with him? I should not have thought it necessary for me to issue a specific invitation to any Deputy of this House to come to me about any matter in which he is interested, in the assurance that every facility I can place at his disposal will be placed without reservation and without any infringement of his subsequent right to raise the matter in the House if he does not get satisfaction in the course of any private interview he may have had.

The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m, until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 8th March, 1955.