I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Dairy Produce Act, 1924, prescribes that the word "creamery" may be applied only to butter manufactured in a registered creamery or in a registered manufacturing exporter's premises in respect of which a licence to use the word "creamery" has been granted. Such a licence was granted to only one society, which, in fact, was the only society registered in the register of manufacturing exporters, namely, the Macamore Co-operative Agricultural and Dairy Society, Limited, Bally-canew, County Wexford. This society's premises received, in addition to whole milk, "gathered cream", that is, cream separated at farms—a practice which is not allowed in a creamery proper.
The Macamore Society recently amalgamated with the Inch Co-operative Agricultural and Dairy Society, Limited, the proprietors of a central creamery at Inch, and the manufacturing exporter's premises have been converted into a separating station to serve the central creamery at Inch. Under existing legislation, it is not lawful to supply "gathered cream" from a registered cream-separating station to a registered creamery. It is not, however, possible in present circumstances to discontinue the system of collecting "gathered cream" at the former Macamore premises.
Power is, accordingly, being sought in the present Bill to grant a licence to the amalgamated society to enable it to continue the system of collecting "gathered" cream at these premises and to transmit it to the central creamery at Inch for manufacture into butter. The duration of the licence will be limited to a maximum of five years, to afford time to the amalgamated society to put into operation an alternative means of dealing with the milk supplies concerned, possibly by putting a travelling creamery into operation.