Deputies will remember that on the discussion of the estimates for the Department of Agriculture I indicated the supplementary estimates which it was proposed to move afterwards. I gave all the items set out in the paper now being circulated, except sub-head O (2), Dairy Produce Act, £1,750. That is a rather important supplementary estimate. It is to provide for what we call one-man auxiliaries. In some districts, such as Clare, and areas in the Midlands, there is an insufficiency of cows to support a central creamery economically. The only way of introducing dairying to those districts would be to have one. central creamery and a number of auxiliaries. An auxiliary costs from £1,200 to £1,500, and the capital expenses are too high for the very small milk supply you are likely to have in places like Clare, where the number of cows in a given area is much more, say, than in a place like Galway, but much less than in a county such as Limerick. If we could arrange an auxiliary, which would come within the terms of the Dairy Produce Act, and have all the plant and equipment required in accordance with that Act, but which would be run by one man, and cost, say, £600, that would be economic. Deputies will see the enormous possibilities in that, if it could be done. It would mean that instead of home-butter-making in Clare and other districts, where the people lose because they must sell at low prices, we could introduce creameries into these districts, which at present go in for home butter-making to a greater extent than for the raising of young stock. It is not meant to introduce creameries into places in the West, like Mayo, Galway, and so-forth, but into places such as Cavan, Leitrim, and portions of Kerry, where there is a large amount of home buttermaking, and where butter is more important than store stock. This vote is to provide a subsidy to one, two, or three experimental one-man creameries.
We could not ask anybody to set up an auxiliary creamery and take all the risks of making an entirely new experiment without guaranteeing him in some way. Moreover, if we do arrange, either with a society or an individual, to build an auxiliary creamery, according to their own or our specification— in any event, it will have to be approved by us—we must ask them afterwards to keep accounts, and to let us have the costings of every single item in connection with the running of that institution. Under these circumstances we will probably have to supply the equipment for two or three of these institutions. If the experiment succeeds, we can always sell the equipment to the society or individual who makes the experiment for us. One of these institutions has practically been arranged.
