asked the Minister for Supplies if he will give approximately the amount of sugar he estimates will be manufactured for next season's requirements from sugar beet grown during the coming season.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Sugar Requirements.
It is not possible at this stage to estimate, even approximately, the amount of sugar which will be manufactured for next season's requirements from sugar beet grown during the coming season.
The Government, in fixing the price of beet recently at 70/-, surely adverted to the possibility of producing a certain quantity of sugar in the coming season. Can the Minister give us any information as to the estimated quantity?
No, it is not possible.
Are we looking for half our normal requirements, half the production we had last year, or can the Minister give any approximate figure at all?
I have already answered the Deputy's question.
In other words, you know nothing at all about it.
One guess is as good as another, except that my guess is likely to be more intelligent.
I am asking the Minister if any examination whatever has been made.
The Deputy is asking me to estimate what quantity of sugar will be made, in 1942, from beet which has yet to be grown. I tell him that I cannot make any such estimate. No intelligent person would ask for it.
In fixing the price, had the Minister regard to a production of sugar to meet our full requirements?
That is obviously a separate question.
Surely we are entitled to ask——,
On what basis was the 70/- given?
If the Deputy wants to ask that question he should put it down on the Order Paper.
Surely we are entitled to ask, if the Government have fixed 70/- for sugar beet, what quantity they had in mind to get out of the land this year. Did they want the total requirements of the State or the total requirements plus 50 per cent.? What was their expectation with regard to sugar output when they fixed this price? Do they want to export some of it for some other commodity, or is this figure based on what will meet our own requirements?
The Deputy is entitled to ask any question of which he gives notice. The question which the Deputy is now asking was not put on the Order Paper.
Surely that is the question that was put down.
There is no reference to price in the question.
The Minister was asked if he would give approximately the amount of sugar he estimates will be manufactured for next season's requirements from sugar beet grown during the coming season. Surely the Minister must have asked himself, before fixing the price at 70/——
The Deputy may not make a speech nor repeat a supplementary question which has already been twice asked and answered.
Why will not the Minister answer the question? I submit that the question of the estimated yield must have arisen in the Minister's mind when fixing the price.