I move:
Go ndeontar suim bhreise ná raghaidh thar £35,014 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1932, chun tuarastail agus costaisí Oifig an Aire Talmhaíochta agus seirbhísí áirithe atá fé riara na hOifige sin, maraon le hIldeontaisí i gCabhair.
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £35,014 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1932, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture and of certain services administered by that Office, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.
There are two items on this Estimate. One is an item of £1,014 for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and the other is an item of £34,000 for the extension of the creamery industry. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons conducted examinations and collected fees in this country from the Irish members up to the establishment of the Free State. They have conducted these examinations for the convenience of members who wanted to get their degrees, but they have no legal power to collect fees, and as that became known the fees got less and less as the years went on. Up to 1927 the amount they had actually lost in conducting examinations was £714. That is to say, they were out of pocket £714 for conducting these examinations.
Under the agreement made between the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and ourselves they pointed out that the conducting of these examinations cost £250 a year up to 1927, and they were at a loss on this service, which was entirely for the benefit of the students who wished to become veterinary surgeons in Ireland and the members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. They were at a loss in this sum, and it was agreed that we would pay them £500, which does not quite cover their out-of-pocket expenses. We also agreed that the amount of the annual fees due for 1930 and 1931 would be paid in full. That was £514. These are the fees due by the veterinary surgeons who have not paid fees during the past few years. The total comes to £1,014. That is so far as the first item on the list is concerned.
With regard to the second item, this is a new departure. Up to the present we have been buying creameries and reselling their milk supplies to co-operative firms adjoining them. Here we propose to establish creameries in areas where creameries have not been up to the present. The justification for that is that there are certain areas in the country where there are considerable quantities of milk, where the milk is turned into home butter, which, taking one year with another, is sold at from 3d. to 4d. a lb. less than creamery butter. The price of creamery butter may be very low, but still that does not alter the fact that 3d. or 4d. a lb. less is a very considerable loss to the farmers of the area. One such typical area is West Clare. There there are big supplies of milk scattered over a wide area, and we have decided, as an experiment, to erect creameries there this year at a cost of £34,000. That would include the purchase of a central and auxiliary that have just been erected, the extension of the central and auxiliary, and the erection of from 6 to 9 auxiliary creameries, and also a certain amount for working capital to cover certain losses which are bound to occur during the years in which the creameries are being organised.
It also provides a certain amount for loans to farmers to purchase cows, which is quite usual in creamery areas. We propose to erect that creamery and to run it ourselves for the moment, and to recover the price later with 5 per cent. interest from the suppliers. We think we can do that. We have been led to that view by our experience of creameries which we actually hold at the moment. It might be reasonable to ask why should not these people erect these creameries themselves; that is a question I could possibly ask myself. The trouble is that people do not always do what they should do, and there are special reasons why creameries have not been quite a success in West Clare and similar areas. The main economic reason is that West Clare has not the same intensive milk supplies in a small area as you would have in County Limerick. On the other hand, you have very much bigger milk supplies than there would be in a purely non-creamery or non-dairying county. You have quite big milk supplies in West Clare, but in order to tap them economically you require a very big central, and four or five, and sometimes more auxiliaries. The fact that the central is big and that the auxiliaries are big does not necessarily mean that they should be expensive. You have got to have a central, and you have got to have a number of auxiliaries at various points. It takes much more money than the initiation of the creamery industry in other parts of the country.
In other parts of the country the creamery industry was run in two ways. Strange to say, as a rule in a new district the proprietary creameries were the first to come in. Where that did not occur, where there was a certain creamery tradition, the creamery movement extended by putting up a central or maybe a central and an auxiliary in an area where there were milk supplies within a reasonable distance of the central and the auxiliary sufficient to make the unit an economic one. You have not that condition of affairs here. If you are to have an economic unit you must have a central and seven or eight auxiliaries. If you have that you have a very big supply. It is much easier to find capital for one central and an auxiliary than for a bigger unit. That has been one of the great causes of the failure of the industry in Clare. Well-intentioned people conceived the idea of starting the industry, found the difficulties of getting adequate capital greater than they anticipated, and even went ahead with the enterprise without providing sufficient capital for it. You had failures there, and that again makes it still more difficult for the farmers of the districts to establish successful creameries themselves.
Anyway, I am of opinion that it will be very hard to get these creameries established in an area like Clare and saving the farmer the difference, whatever it may be, between the price of the home butter and the net price, that is, after the cost of production, of creamery butter, which is considerable, varying one year with another, sometimes threepence and sometimes four-pence. I think if you are to save that difference something like this must be tried. I propose to try it in this area, which is specially suitable for a number of reasons. First of all, the milk supply is extremely big. If I have a central and five auxiliaries I expect to get milk supplies of something like 18,000 gallons in the first year, and the central which we propose to build or to complete, will be able to handle 30,000 gallons, and there are 30,000 gallons in the area.
I do not propose to continue this experiment, unless and until it is a success or a failure or otherwise and the experiment has been tried out in West Clare. That is to say, there is no prospect of any continuance of this experiment. I believe myself that I can establish these creameries much more cheaply even than a good society could do it, because, through the Dairy Disposals Board, we are able to get, as a rule, better contracts than other people. We do business in a bigger way. Our goodwill is more important to the possible contractor, and I believe these creameries can be established more cheaply than if they had been established by co-operative societies. I believe myself, after giving the matter considerable examination and being very much alive to the dangers and difficulties, that I can make a success of this experiment and I hope I will be able to demonstrate that it is an experiment which can be extended to other parts of the country. In any event, the bald fact remains that in that district for a very long time farmers have taken less for milk sold as butter than they could get if creamery butter were being made. I see no other way of extending the creamery industry into these districts except the way I suggest.
