I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £6,089,375 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31 March, 1948, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including certain Services administered by that Office and payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.
This Estimate is necessary to give effect to the new subsidies which were brought into force recently and which were fully debated in the Dáil at the time. The total amount required is as follows: For flour subsidy £3,965,000; for batch bread subsidy £100,000; for tea subsidy £730,000; and for sugar subsidy £440,000. That is a total of £5,325,000. There was a small saving of £5,000 on the wheat meal subsidy and, as I informed the Dáil recently, we are at present subsidising oatmeal, so as to keep the price unchanged, which it is estimated will cost about £40,000, so that the total expenditure under these headings will be £5,270,000. So far as wheat is concerned, the new subsidy which reduced the price of flour and bread only accounts for a small portion of the additional sum now being voted. Even if there had been no decision to reduce the price of bread and flour a further Vote of about £3,000,000 would have been required to maintain flour and bread at the previous prices. The Estimate for flour and bread subsidy introduced at the beginning of the year was £2,000,000 and that was in a sense only a token Estimate as it was then quite impossible to make even an approximate guess as to what the position during the year was likely to be.
As it turned out, there was a very substantial rise in the cost of imported wheat. We had to use in this financial year a substantial quantity of imported flour in substitution for wheat, which we could not obtain, and the imported flour cost relatively more than the imported wheat. There was also in this year a much higher proportion of imported wheat and flour in the grist because we were forced, towards the end of 1946, to use a very high proportion of native wheat due to the fact that imported supplies were not then available. The native wheat stocks became exhausted early in the year and the proportion of imported wheat and flour in the grist expanded much beyond normal. Of the total of £3,965,000 now required for flour and bread subsidy we estimate that £3,035,000 would have been required in any event to have kept the price of flour at 63/6 per sack and the price of bread in relation to that price of flour. The decision to reduce the price of flour by 19/3 per sack involves in this financial year further £930,000, which makes up the total sum. There is an additional vote of £100,000 required for batch bread subsidy. That is a liability which has accrued. Under the new system the batch bread subsidy is not payable. The price of flour has been reduced and the price of bread is related to that reduced price of flour. There is no special subsidy paid to bakers. The whole system has been changed; but during the course of the year there accrued this liability to bakers in respect of batch bread subsidy in excess of the amount provided in the Estimate mainly due to increasing costs in bakeries because of higher wages during the year. The other amounts required here are £730,000 for tea subsidy, which has now come into force and which reduces the retail price from 4/10 to 2/8 per lb., and that amount is what it will cost in this financial year.
The reduction in the retail price of sugar from 6d. to 4d. will cost in the financial year £440,000, which is also being asked for. The wheatenmeal subsidy will cost slightly less than anticipated. The new oatmeal subsidy will cost about £40,000. The price of oatmeal was based upon an average price of oats of 38/- per barrel. The price of oats has risen substantially above that this year. The Government considered whether the price of oatmeal should be increased or whether we should hold it at its old figure by a subsidy. We decided in favour of a policy of subsidy. It is difficult to say to what extent the problem of maintaining an adequate supply of oatmeal at that price will be increased or diminished by reason of the subsidy policy, but the decision to pay it is in accordance with the general line of policy announced by the Taoiseach last October.
There is also an additional Estimate in respect of the operations of Bord na Móna. Because of the complete exhaustion of our turf stocks last spring and a considerable drop in production on account of the unavoidable late start this season, it became evident early in the year that, even with the arrangements which had been made to acquire stocks of firewood, it would be necessary to supplement these fuels with coal in order to obviate a possible repetition of the extreme hardships experienced by householders last winter. It was arranged, therefore, early this summer to procure coal for household use in the United States, which was the only available source of supply of household coal, and as a result it has been possible to include an allowance of coal in the household ration as from 1st October. Chiefly because of the enormous transport costs in bringing coal from the United States, it would not be possible to retail it at a price less than about £8 15s. per ton. It was considered that that price would be too high to charge for domestic coal and the Government decided to subsidise it to the extent of bringing the price down to £7 per ton. The amount of the subsidy required during the present financial year is estimated at £130,000.
The provision of £1,500,000 already included as fuel subsidy in the Vote for the current year was based on the sales figures of turf and firewood in the previous years. The non-availability of the expected supplies of turf and the consequent reduction in the turf ration have resulted in a considerable saving on the Estimate and it is hoped that the saving will cover the greater part, if not the whole, of the losses on the sale of household coal. It is, however, necessary to introduce a special sub-head for coal in the Vote and in the circumstances it is proposed to make a token provision of £5.
