Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 26 May 1948

Vol. 110 No. 16

Adjournment Debate—Cork Milk Prices.

Mr. Corry

I had a question down to the Minister for Agriculture on this matter and he told me he had fixed the price to allow a reasonable margin of profit to those producers who employ efficient methods of milk production. I do not consider that the Minister could state that the milk producers supplying Cork City area are inefficient. This is a pretty long-drawnout trouble with us and, in view of statements made by previous Ministers, we went to the trouble of endeavouring to get accurate costings. Apparently, the present Minister is following the previous Minister's lead and refusing to get costings of milk production on the land.

We handed over a bunch of our farmers' records to Professor Murphy, of University College, Cork, and I have here—and the Minister's Department has had since January last— possession of those costings. They were carried out jointly by the Milk Producers' Association of Cork and the Cork University. When I state here that the price allowed for home-grown feeding stuffs on those costings was £5 per ton for hay and £1 1s. 0d. for mangolds and turnips, I think the House will agree with me that the costings basis was taken as low as possible. I do not believe that any farmer here listening to me could produce either hay, mangolds or turnips at that price, or ensilage at £2 a ton. Those are the bases on which these costings were made up. The costings were very carefully gone into and anyone who knows Professor Murphy's standing as a costings expert will have to agree that he is more than careful in his work. We had to do that because, unlike other industrialists, we have no costings board or prices commission to go before. I know the Minister's opinion of a prices commission and I will not quote it to-night for him, though I have it here.

In reply to Deputy Cogan on the Adjournment Debate on the same day as I had these questions down, 13th May, the Minister told us that he wanted to see the farmers getting a good profit and wanted something more. He said:

"I want to make of agriculture an industry in which those engaged in it who employ labour will be able to pay their workers a fair wage. It is a source of humiliation to me that the agricultural worker in this country who, in my judgement, is the most highly skilled worker we have, should have the figure of 55/- a week associated with his name as a minimum wage."

I entirely agree with the Minister in that. How does the Minister go about getting a good wage for the worker? The cost of production of milk for the winter months, as found by Professor Murphy, is 26.70 pence.

Mr. Dillon

Net cost?

Mr. Corry

Net cost as shown.

Mr. Dillon

Surely it is 22.70 pence?

Mr. Corry

Plus management costs, interest on capital involved and insurance against disease. Surely the Minister does not expect the farmer to exist without those three items?

Mr. Dillon

I took Professor Murphy's figures, 22.7 pence.

Mr. Corry

It is 22.70, not allowing for farm management, interest on capital and insurance against disease.

Mr. Dillon

Then we are proceeding on Deputy Corry's costings and not Professor Murphy's.

Mr. Corry

That is not so. The three figures I am quoting were added on by agreement with Professor Murphy and they are as I have given them. He could not put those into the costings. Does the Minister state that he is not prepared to allow the farmers anything for farm management?

Mr. Dillon

I state that Professor Murphy's costings are 22.7 pence net for milk.

Mr. Corry

Yes, without allowing for the three items, which he said do not appear in the English reports on costings and for which, therefore, we had to take agreed sums. If the Minister holds that the farmer should get nothing for management, nothing for interest on the capital involved and nothing for insurance against disease in cattle, he is going to bring in a new law for the farmer as against every other industry. The figures I have quoted are 26.70 pence— 2s. 4.70d. How does the Minister provide for the increased wages that he says the agricultural labourer should get and how does he provide for the farmers' profit and all the rest of it? I am not concerned with the grass months.

Mr. Dillon

Now, why?

Mr. Corry

I will give the Minister the reason. The farmer making his contracts in Cork makes them for a five or six months' period.

Mr. O'Leary

What do you get in institutions for milk?

Mr. Corry

When will the genius on my right get a little more sense? Against the farmers' costs of 2s. 4.70 pence, the Minister allows for October, November and December 2s. 1d.

The farmer can, therefore, fatten at 3d. per gallon of a dead loss if he is fool enough to produce milk for liquid consumption in the city during those months. For January, February and March he receives 2/3. He is at a loss of only 1¾d. during that time. He receives 2/- during the month of April which leaves him at a mere loss of 4¾d. I am not finding any fault with the Minister's summer prices. I consider that they are fair and that they allow a fair margin of profit to the producer.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy did not come down in yesterday's shower, did he?

Mr. Corry

I can assure any farmer here that if he sends his milk to the city for those five months of the year and places his contract at 40 gallons a day he will have roughly about £100 profit at the end of the five summer months. However, let him stop there and sit down and live on the £100 for the next seven months because if he sends milk to the city at the rate of 40 gallons a day for the 12 months of the year he will find himself at the end of the 12 months at a dead loss of £13.

Mr. O'Leary

He would not stick that long.

Mr. Corry

That is what has left the agricultural community who supply milk to the cities in the position they are in. That is why the city people are getting what I consider a very unsatisfactory milk supply. The farmer cuts his losses as well as he can. If I am a farmer supplying 40 gallons of milk a day to Cork City I am going to supply as little as I can during the winter months and cut my losses. I am pretty well aware of the situation and the people on whose behalf I speak are well aware of it too.

Mr. Desmond

The Deputy is speaking for a monopoly.

Mr. Corry

As far as that is concerned I know what the Deputy is alluding to.

Mr. Desmond

The Deputy is objecting to other farmers getting a right to the market.

Mr. Corry

The Deputy is saying that we sent a man to the Department of Agriculture 12 months ago asking for an increase in the area but it has not yet been granted.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not interrupt.

Mr. Corry

I am concerned about this particular matter. The Minister should get the cost of production for the grand cows he talks about in Glasnevin; bring it up here and quote it against the figure given by Professor Murphy, if he dares. There are sufficient stocks of milch cows being kept by State institutions or semiState institutions in this country to enable us very easily and quickly to obtain the cost of production of milk. The man I am concerned about is the man whose duty it should be to supply the city with 40 gallons of milk on Christmas Eve as well as 40 gallons in the month of June.

Mr. O'Leary

For ice cream.

Mr. Corry

Anybody who has to face that state of affairs has to face great difficulties and a very tough job. He has to face a very large amount of overtime both for his men and for himself.

Mr. Desmond

And not pay them.

Mr. Corry

He pays them a damn sight better than Deputy Desmond does. Deputy Desmond should endeavour to conduct himself if be knows how.

Mr. McAuliffe

It is strange to hear Deputy Corry trying to teach manners to anybody.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is strange to find all the Cork Deputies interrupting each other.

Mr. Corry

We are facing that condition of affairs. We expect from any Minister for Agriculture in this House at least the cost of production plus a fair margin of profit just the same as any other industry is getting. The Minister's figures are not giving that for several winter months.

Mr. O'Leary

Did Fianna Fáil do it?

Mr. Corry

I want from the Minister a change of heart in this matter. I want him to go into these figures; to consider them carefully, and to state in this House the incentive there is to the farmer to supply milk to Cork City or even to Dublin City from the month of October until the 1st May on the figures that he has given here. The more the farmer supplies during these months the greater his losses will be. These figures, I might say, were compiled before the recent increase in agricultural rates and wages.

Mr. O'Leary

Did that happen before the new Government took office?

Mr. Corry

For the Minister's information I would inform him that an extra 5/- per week in wages represents ½d. per gallon in winter-production milk. I hope that the Minister will be reasonable in this matter. I expect it from a Minister holding power in this House by the support of those who claim to represent the farmers and who claim to hold the balance of power in this House to-day. I expect that they at least will see that the Minister is reasonable and that he will give justice to the farmer who earns it hard. There is no job at the present day more difficult or tougher than farming. The farmer who has to keep a herd of cows and who has to keep a herd of cows and who has to supply winter milk for fluid consumption in the city has a tougher job than most men. I am looking for justice for that man.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must give the Minister a chance of replying.

Mr. Corry

I am impatient to hear the Minister's reply.

Mr. Dillon

I met the Cork Milk Board.

Mr. Corry

I know. I was there.

Mr. Dillon

No member of that board, who were kind enough to wait upon me for my information, saw fit to mention this new procedure of a five-months' contract in the City of Cork.

Mr. Corry

Ask the Minister for Local Government.

Mr. Dillon

I did not ask the Minister for Local Government. I asked the Cork Milk Board, the board who were kind enough to say that they would come to see me. I spent the whole morning with them and, during the whole of the discussion, they never once mentioned that in Cork there was this strange practice that you made one contract for the winter months and another contract for the summer months. Of course, you could pour the milk down the sewer, too. Why do not the Cork milk suppliers make 12months' contracts? It is on that basis that the prices are fixed.

Mr. Corry

It was never done.

Mr. Dillon

It is done in Dublin. It has always been done in Dublin. In the whole of the forenoon's discussion that I had with the Cork Milk Board we discussed little else than the prices for summer and winter supplies, the man who supplied for all the 12 months and the man who came in in the summer when there was a surplus and got out in the winter—all this was canvassed. I think Deputy Corry will agree that there was no question of limiting the discussion. There was no indication to the board that they were unwelcome or that they were looked upon as trespassers. On the countrary, they were made welcome and invited to say whatever they had in their minds. Yet nobody mentioned this remarkable practice of a winter and summer contract.

The prices are fixed in respect of the Dublin milk supply area and the Cork milk supply area at a different level for different months, the object being to give, over the 12 months, to the man who makes a contract with a distributor to supply, say, ten gallons per day winter and summer, a certain level price. In varying the price from month to month, the aim is to bring the summer price rather lower than it might ordinarily be brought and the winter price rather higher, so that the man who goes to the trouble of maintaining a constant supply all through the year will receive a higher proporation of reward for his effort than the man who comes into Cork with grass-produced milk and never presents himself during the winter months when the production of milk is comparatively difficult. I do not know anything about third five-months' contract or seven-months' contract. I can assure the Deputy that I shall have the matter closely investigated at once.

Mr. Corry

Do it now.

Mr. Dillon

Without delay. I guarantee to the Deputy that I shall have that matter investigated closely and at once. When we come to the costings, the House will notice that Deputy Corry is uninterested in the costings for the production of summer milk. I understand that this distinguished economist—and he is a highly distinguished economist—Professor Murphy, produced the costings to which Deputy Corry referred for winter milk. I understand he has bent his mind to working out the costings of summer milk.

Mr. Corry

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

I wonder when these costings will be published.

Mr. Corry

When the Minister publishes the ones for Glasnevin for which we are paying.

Mr. Dillon

I shall be delighted to see them when they are published, and I shall be interested to discuss them with the Deputy here. The Deputy refers to Professor Murphy's costings and, subject to the reservation that I am not at all satisfied that any system of agricultural costings in this country can, of their nature, give a reliable picture, taking Professor Murphy's costings and the open and frank way in which Deputy Corry has put them before the House—no concealment, no deception, all the figures quoted—you will find he has overlooked one little trifle. Calves are credited in the account here at £1 apiece. Surely Deputy Corry is not selling his calves for £1 apiece now. Does he not realise that there has been a change of Government and that he does not have to cut their throats and throw them in a ditch any longer?

Deputy Corry asked, in that melodious voice of his, what was the Minister doing for the farmers, for whom he expressed such fearful solicitude. I will tell him. Increasing the price of their calves from 10/- apiece to £5 apiece. If you reckon that out on the lactation of a 500-gallon cow, if the Deputy will take a stump of pencil and figure it out, he will find that it is nearly 2d. per gallon.

Mr. Corry

You fixed the 500-gallon cow all right.

Mr. Dillon

He will find that the Minister in three months appears to have done more for Deputy Corry's colleagues in the Cork milk area than Deputy Corry's colleagues in Dáil Éireann did for him in 15 years, and I am not nearly finished helping Deputy Corry yet. I shall make quite a rich man of him if he works hard in the years that lie ahead. I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave Deputy Corry to the question he asked me on the first occasion. I do not think he has been entirely disingenuous in quoting Professor Murphy's costings. I direct the attention of the House to the fact that Professor Murphy's figure is 22.7d. net and Deputy Corry estimates certain elements of cost that Professor Murphy left out and adds them to that figure. But the result is not Professor Murphy's costings, but Deputy Corry's costings. I direct the attention of the House to the figure in Professor Murphy's costings of calves at £1. If Deputy Corry is selling his claves for £1, he is an awfully silly man. I am sure he is not.

When we come to the question of when my Department is going to put itself in a position to set costings before the House of a similar nature to those, the answer is that I doubt if we will ever set costings like those before this House, because, while not for a moment questioning the good faith of Professor Murphy who has given to this matter time and trouble, as have many distinguished statistical scientists in Great Britain, when all is said and done I know my neighbours in rural Ireland just as well as the statisticians in Cork University or Wye College in Great Britain know them, and when I contemplate sending out 50 inquirers to 500 of my neighbours in rural Ireland to ask them 100 questions about their daily avocations and when the answer is brought back to me, after correlation and calculation, does any Deputy think that I will get a result that any sane man will commend for the consideration of his colleagues?

Let me give the House this instance in conclusion. A distinguished and well-intentioned man recently waited on me in my Department with a deputation and told me that he regretted to inform me that he had discovered, with the assistance of a costs accountant of standing, that it costs 7d. to produce an egg. I said to him: "My friend, at the present moment the women of Ireland must be all going mad, because they are selling eggs for 3d. apiece and they seem to like it. He said: "Suppose I produce the costings and evidence to an officer of your Department and any costs accountant you care to employ and they tell you they cannot quarrel with these figures and that this contention that it costs 7d. to produce an egg is correct?" I stated: "I would send for my colleague, Dr. Browne, and ask him to certify the pair of them and remove them to Grangegorman." If costings produce that result, costings are a cod. I am not prepared to say that now, because I am examining the matter and I have an open mind. But I cannot yet see a system of costings over which I am prepared to stand. If I can find such a system, I will put it into operation. Until I do, I cannot make a case in this House on costings in which I myself do not believe.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 1st.