asked the Minister for Agriculture if he is aware that notwithstanding the prohibitive tariff on imported oats millers and dealers hold large stocks of oats they cannot sell and that they are in consequence unable to purchase the stocks which still remain with the farmers; further, whether as the demand for maize meal mixed with Irish-grown oats has seriously declined and as there is no prospect of a demand for milling purposes for oats, he will, in these circumstances, consider the advisability of providing an export bounty.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Question of Export Bounty for Oats.
I am aware that millers and dealers in some parts of the country hold large stocks of oats for which there is at the moment comparatively little demand, owing principally to the abundant harvest of cereals and potatoes, and also to the fact that the milling industry, in anticipation of the coming into force of the Maize-plus-home-grown grain Mixing Scheme on the 12th October last turned out for distribution to retailers abnormally large quantities of ordinary maize meal during the preceding ten days. I am in hopes that when those abnormal supplies become exhausted, which must happen shortly, the demand for meal will revive. Moreover, when the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Bill, now before the Oireachtas, becomes law, it will be practicable, should circumstances render this course desirable, to require millers to use such increased percentage of home-grown grain in the meal mixture during the remainder of the cereal year as will go far towards absorbing such stocks of oats as may reasonably be regarded as surplus to the national requirements for other purposes.
Meanwhile I do not consider it desirable that the export of oats should be encouraged by the payment of a bounty as proposed in the question.
Is the Minister aware that the people will not buy the new mixture of 10 per cent. oats and 90 per cent. maize?
I am not aware of that.
Well, I am aware of it.
Can the Minister give any figure as to what the probable quantity of surplus oats on the market will be?
Not yet.