asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if, in view of the fact that a 20-stone barrel of wheat, when milled, only produces between 17 stones and 18 stones of flour, and that that will only provide less than three-quarters of a lb of flour per day for a year, he will revise his Order limiting the consumption of wheat flour in farmers' households to the produce of one barrel of wheat per head per year, so that those who are providing the country's wheat supply may at least be permitted to keep for their own use sufficient of their wheat crop to satisfy their normal bread requirements.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wheat Order.
I cannot accept the suggestion in the question as to the quantity of flour obtained from milling a 20-stone barrel of dried wheat under present regulations as to extraction. I am not at present prepared to consider the modification of the restriction or until the position concerning wheat supplies for the country as a whole during the coming year has been clarified.
Is it possible that those who have come to the assistance of the people by producing food will be penalised by having to sell their wheat at 2/6 a stone and to buy back flour at 3/10 a stone? Is that the compensation the Minister can give farmers who rightly came to the nation's assistance and produced the people's needs, many of them sowing wheat on land that did not suit the wheat crop? Surely the Minister is not going to treat the farmers in that way.
Each farmer is entitled to have milled on commission by a permit miller a quantity of wheat for use in his own household equivalent to one barrel in respect of each person comprising the household. I take it the Deputy's question relates to the possibility of increasing that allowance?
Yes.
I do not want to say definitely that there will be no increase, but I think it would be wrong to decide now on an increase until the wheat position for the whole country has been clarified. The quantity of flour which that means for the members of farmers' households is not less than the average quantity consumed per head in normal times.
Is the Minister serious that a farmer or able-bodied worker is satisfied with 11 ounces of meal in the day? Surely to goodness the Minister must know a little—I know he does not know a lot—about it.
The Deputy's supplementary is somewhat argumentative.
Circumstances alter cases.