When the Dáil adjourned on Friday evening we were discussing agricultural produce subsidies and milk prices and to-day at Question Time——
Committee on Finance. - Vote 30—Agricultural Produce Subsidies (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration (Deputy Smith).
If the Deputy would be good enough to give way for a moment, I should like to know what is the position. When the two Votes for Agriculture and Agricultural Subsidies were first mentioned, I understood, perhaps mistakenly, that the Opposition intended to debate both together, reserving their right to ask specific questions and their right to have a division. When the Agriculture Vote and the motion to refer back had been disposed of, I think I understood the deputy Leader of the Opposition to say that he wished fully to debate the second Vote. I should be glad to know at this stage whether the Opposition desire to initiate a debate on the Agricultural Produce Subsidies Estimate or whether they desire to confine themselves to specific questions. I am entirely in the hands of the Opposition. If they deem it expedient to have a debate, I do not wish to challenge that.
I have some specific questions to put to the Minister and I think I should be permitted to follow my own style in putting these questions.
I intended the Deputy no discourtesy at all. I merely want guidance from the Chair for the House at large so that all Deputies may understand the procedure to be followed.
When the Votes for Agriculture came before the House, the House was asked whether it desired to follow the usual custom in debating Votes 29 and 30 together. It was stated that that was the desire of the House, subject to the right to ask some questions on Vote No. 30 but not to debate policy again. The question of policy does not arise but specific questions on this Vote do arise. The position is that we cannot have a duplication of the debate we had on Vote 29.
I have not the report of the proceedings before me but, when that point was put to me by you, Sir, and you asked me how I wanted these Votes to be taken, I indicated that at least I required a division on this particular Vote, indicating that in certain circumstances I might desire a discussion.
I have the report before me. It reads:—
"An Ceann Comhairle: I should like to know whether the House desires that Votes Nos. 29 and 30 should be discussed together. In the case of No. 30, of course, an opportunity could be afforded for a division, if it were desired, on the question to refer back, by putting that formally. Votes Nos. 29 and 30 are usually discussed together.
Mr. Lemass: In so far as the question of policy arises, but there may be some specific information required.
An Ceann Comhairle: There may be some specific point.
Mr. Smith: I should like at least to have a separate Vote.
An Ceann Comhairle: That is what I have said. An opportunity can be-given for that by formally moving to refer back Vote No. 30.
Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon): It is entirely a matter for the Opposition. They can have whatever they like.
Mr. Lemass: So far as policy is concerned."
A general discussion, therefore, could not arise on Vote No. 30, but an opportunity for a Vote on the motion to refer back will certainly be given.
I feel at a loss to know exactly what my position is. I have some questions to ask the Minister.
You are perfectly entitled to ask them.
May I say, subject to your direction, that if the Opposition desire to reconsider what they said when the Agriculture Vote was submitted, I have not the slightest desire to limit their full freedom to discuss Vote No. 30 in any way they consider proper—that is, of course, entirely subject to your direction?
Which will prevent the reopening of a discussion on agricultural policy but not any question which Deputies may wish to put.
I want, for example, some indication from the Minister in reference to two questions which were on the Order Paper to-day. I want the Minister and the Government, when claims are advanced in this House on behalf of the dairying industry and the dairy farmers, to show the House and the country how they can justify just putting these demands on one side with the bald statement that the dairying business is a profitable business. I want the Minister to defend that course of action towards the dairying industry.
I invite your special attention, Sir, to the lines now being followed by the Deputy.
I am waiting for the Deputy to develop his point.
I want the Minister to defend that course of action towards the dairying industry while, at the same time, other classes in the community, who have from time to time made demands upon the Administration, can succeed in securing tribunals of one kind or another, tribunals which are supposed to be impartial, with a view to the determination of whether or not these claims are fair and reasonable.
I should like the Deputy to look at Page 160 of the Book of Estimates and see what exactly this Estimate is for: "Provision for payment of subsidies on production and exports of dairy produce."
But in the provision of this sum of money, surely we are providing something which affects the price which is to be paid to farmers. My contention now is that while other sections of the community can succeed in having special tribunals established to show whether or not they are being fairly treated by the rest of the community——
That was discussed for hours on the other Vote, and if it was it may not be reopened.
I do not know whether the question of the establishment of a tribunal to see whether or not the prices now being paid to dairy farmers are adequate was dealt with. I can say that I did not make such a point in the course of that discussion.
There were other speakers.
As far as I am concerned, it is purely a matter for the Opposition subject to the direction of the Ceann Comhairle.
Since I am not permitted to proceed along that line, I want to ask the Minister for some information in connection with the proposals which he claims he has in mind for the improvement of the dairying industry. In putting this question to him, I have in the back of my own mind the plans which we were considering in the Department during my period of office for the improvement of the dairying business. In my time, as in the present, of course, it was in some cases customary to tell the farmer that he was foolish in keeping what was described by some people as "the robber cow". When he made a claim that he should get more for his milk he was told that he should practise proper winter feeding or go in for cow-testing. He was advised that he should study breeding with greater energy.
The Deputy is far away now from subsidies, when he is on the type of cows that are to be kept.
These are points I want to make, and we have not yet secured from the Minister what his policy is regarding them.
The Deputy is giving himself away. He wants the agricultural policy of the Minister. That was discussed for hours on Vote 29.
To the extent that the Minister has failed to give the House an idea in his general statement of the policy of the Department towards the dairying business, surely I am now free to put specific questions.
The Deputy is not free to reopen the debate on agricultural policy.
Am I not entitled to ask the Minister—he has been talking about artificial insemination stations——
In this debate?
Not in this debate, outside this House in fact. He has promised the milk producers and the country that an organisation for the promotion of cow-testing would be established.
On a point of order. If, perhaps, the Deputy's memory momentarily fails him, may I direct your attention to columns 1119, 1120, 1121 and 1122 all of which Deputy Smith filled on the subject of dairying?
That is not a point of order.
I thought you were ruling on what had been debated already.
A reference to artificial insemination stations is not to be found in any part of the speech I made on the general Estimate.
I beg the Deputy's pardon. On column 1121:—
"If he had 20 insemination stations built with proven bulls——"
I do not know how you could build a station with proven bulls.
There is no analysis of the wisdom of the proposal to spread artificial insemination stations all over the country——
Nor is there under subsidies.
What other specific question can I ask?
It is not for me to decide what the Deputy may ask but what he may not.
Am I entitled to ask the Minister, in view of the fears he has expressed in connection with the position that will arise should we have a surplus of butter and with the difficulties he will experience in marketing that butter except by subsidising its sale in Great Britain, how can he show the House and the country that that position will tally with his claim made not so long ago that he had secured for us on the British market remunerative prices for all we could produce— which, I take it, would include butter? We have heard the claim, not only in this House when the agreement was being discussed but all over the country, that a farmer could now go ahead on the understanding that an unlimited market was there for all his agricultural produce at remunerative prices. Now, however, at the very first sight of a surplus of butter, the Minister asks the House and the country: "What am I to do with it without subsidising butter for the British market?" How does the Minister propose to fit in that position, which he admits himself exists, with the elaborate claims for concessions obtained by the Government in the agreement to which I have referred? I cannot understand either why, if the farmers' costs of production are going down as the Minister's attitude would seem to suggest, the cost of living of all other sections of the community appears to be going up.
What has that got to do with subsidies?
I think it has a lot to do with the means of living available to farmers, and to dairy farmers in particular.
Quite, but what has it to do with subsidies?
If the amount of the subsidy were increased——
That prompt does not put it in order.
Would this prompt put it in order? Last year the Minister saw fit to withdraw the subsidy on farmers' butter, and surely in that way he has reduced the income and the way of living of those engaged in producing butter. At Question Time here we had the sort of reply which is usually given when matters of this sort are raised in this House with the present Minister. We had advice as to what the farmers in these areas should do: they should co-operate with one another; they should get in touch with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society; they should endeavour to establish creameries with a view to handling their surplus milk. With regard to this advice, which is tendered to the farmers by the Minister, and to the criticism which he has seen fit to offer to the scheme introduced by me of paying a subsidy on farmers' butter, it is not good enough for the Minister to come in here and say that the scheme which I introduced, and which was operated for a year and a half, was not a satisfactory scheme. I am not saying that the scheme was an entirely satisfactory one, but there is no reason why the Minister, on coming into office, should use that as a justification for its complete abandonment. I think it is the duty of a Minister, on coming into office and on finding in existence a scheme designed to help a considerable section of the dairy farmers——
On a point of order. I submit that this speech of Deputy Smith's goes entirely contrary to the undertaking given here earlier, that specific questions in question and answer form would be permissible, but not speeches.
The Deputy is asking why a certain subsidy was withdrawn. That is in order.
The question has not been asked.
The Deputy has asked why the subsidy has been withdrawn on farmers' butter.
No less than five hours were devoted to that question in the previous debates.
I am trying to show that it is not a proper attitude for a Minister to take up——
You are proving something, not asking a question.
——when he comes into office and finds a scheme in existence designed by his predecessor for the purpose of assisting a very large number of farmers who produce milk and have no creameries to which their surplus milk can be sent. That scheme, as I say, was designed by me and a State subsidy was paid upon that butter. While I admit that that scheme may not be everything that would be desirable, I maintain that it at least bears on its face positive proof of the desire of the then occupant of that post to help a considerable number of our people who were engaged in that form of production.
I am charging here that, in so far as there is no provision under Agricultural Subsidies for the continuation of that scheme, the Minister is neglecting his duty and allowing that very considerable section of the community engaged in the difficult task of milk production to be robbed by the Government, who have withdrawn that subsidy from them, while at the same time other sections seem to be in a position to secure considerable advantages. It should not be the desire of any Minister, on coming into office, to destroy a scheme that he found there, simply by saying:—
"I discovered on coming in here that there were 2,000 cwts. of this butter in such poor condition that no one could approach it without a gas mask."
If such were the case, there is no reason why he should not apply himself to tightening up the scheme, looking for whatever difficulties were there, improving on it, but all the time, in the Government of which he is a member, seeing to it that those for whose benefit that scheme was designed would not be the losers as a result of his inactivity.
I was anxious to deal with another matter on which the Minister made a very abrupt decision on coming into his Department, which affects this particular type of farmer, too. I was showing some interest in the breeding side.
If we are going to discuss breeding policy, I will discuss it.
It has nothing to do with subsidies.
Surely, if I am able to establish that the amount of milk that a cow produces has a good deal to do with subsidies, I should be permitted to deal with that?
The Deputy would not be in order, as it was discussed at length on the main Vote.
With all due respect, it was not discussed at length by me.
The Deputy imagines he was the only participator in the debate.
I want to find out, if I can, from the Minister why he took a decision reversing a policy on which I had decided, in the knowledge that that policy was decided with a view to increasing the income of those who were engaged in dairying? Am I not entitled to ask the Minister——
No, the Deputy is not.
Then, apparently, the only thing left to me to do is——
To deal with subsidies.
Am I entitled to discuss, and to ask the Minister to explain, why it is that there is no item under this head providing for a subsidy on flax?
I wish the Deputy would.
The question of flax does not arise here.
The question of subsidies arises.
The Deputy may not get away with every item produced by the farmer on the plea that he can say: "I want a subsidy for eggs, a subsidy for straw, a subsidy for hay", and discuss the lot of them.
Surely if I can show that the Government of the Six Counties is this year providing a subsidy on flax, and if I can show that there is need here that we should adopt a similar policy, am I not entitled to discuss that?
May I direct your attention, Sir, to the words of the subsidy: "Subsidies and Allowances, etc., for Dairy Produce"? Flax does not grow in dairies.
The Vote is headed: "Agricultural Subsidies." Surely the production of flax would come under that heading? Am I not, then, free to discuss the desirability of a subsidy on the growing of flax?
And paying the Belfast spinners for the purchase of flax.
If the Minister would leave it to the Chair——
If the Minister would conduct himself.
A device is being employed——
Deputies
Chair!
——by raising specific topics in a disorderly manner, to present to the House and the public the picture that the Deputy wished to raise certain matters, that I apprehended discussion of them and invoked your intervention to prevent such a discussion.
Quite.
I would gladly discuss any topic, but only under your direction.
The way in which the Minister behaved in this whole problem of flax on the conclusion of the debate——
Flax is not to be discussed.
Is it not clear that this is for the Irish Press to-morrow?
It is preventing the Dáil from getting on with its business and it is wasting time.
Keenness for order is most gratifying and touching in certain quarters. Flax may not be discussed in any form.
I would like to ask the Minister what provision he is making, and what action he contemplates, in connection with cow testing? I do not believe——
This, I take it, relates to subsidies?
I do not think so.
Is it not in order to relate the amount of milk given by a cow to the provision of subsidies on milk and butter?
No, having discussed the policy of milk production on the main Vote, the Deputy may not by any subterfuge reopen the general discussion. That is a plain statement.
Well, I want the Minister, then, to say if he has closed his mind entirely in regard to the price to be paid for milk.
The Deputy will now resume his seat, as he is obviously defying the Chair.
I want to ask a few questions with regard to dairy produce subsidies. I want to ask the Minister if it is a fact that there is a big increase in the output of butter this year and if, as he says himself, he is expecting a surplus, whether he has provided for that in this Estimate? If there is an increase in the production of butter, does it not mean that, in order to keep the price paid to suppliers of milk to creameries at its present level of 1/2 and 1/4—which price, I may remark, was described as inadequate, insufficient and mean when it was announced first—will it not be necessary to provide more money than is being voted in the present Vote, that is, if the Minister's forecast is correct and if there is to be such a surplus of butter production in the creameries? I would ask the Minister, also, what happened last Christmas, when this deputation from the dairying counties —which was accompanied by Government members of the Oireachtas—met the Minister? Why was it that the newspapers announced afterwards that the Minister was convinced by the case put forward by the deputation and that he was satisfied that the Government would consider his representations favourably?
From what is the Deputy quoting?
From my own memory.
A very unreliable instrument.
I quoted it last week from the Irish Independent and the Ceann Comhairle ruled that anything quoted last week could not be repeated now. I quoted for the Minister last week the extract from the Irish Independent of Christmas Eve, 1948. All during last week's debate on these Estimates the Minister was like a jack-in-the-box, jumping up and interrupting every minute, or interrupting while sitting down. Nobody could complete a sentence without an interruption from him. If he will allow me to put the question I want to put, without interruption, he will get through this Estimate more quickly. I submit that speakers on any of the Votes of the Minister are entitled to some protection from the ignorant interruptions of that man. Deputy Madden went down to Limerick and announced to his friends that there was to be an increase of 2d. per gallon in the price of milk, that he had secured it, and he asked that the news be spread.
Will the Deputy say whether he is discussing the price of milk or subsidies?
I am discussing subsidies, which are provided to deal with the price of milk, and for no other purpose. I am dealing with the question of the subsidy which is provided for creameries to which dairy farmers supply milk to be manufactured into butter, and with nothing else. If you, Sir, will allow me to proceed, I shall be very brief. I want to know about this deception which was practised on the dairy farmers by a Fine Gael Deputy, Deputy Madden, last Christmas.
On a point of order——
What has the speech of a fellow-Deputy down the country to do with this?
It certainly has something to do with it.
Is the Minister responsible for it?
That is what I want to find out.
In so far as Deputy Ó Briain contributed to the discussion on the Estimate for Agriculture, which was to be dealt with in toto——
Unfortunately I was not here and I have not read all the debate.
I will finish in a few minutes.
I refer you, Sir, to columns 1619 and 1620.
If the Deputy does not give way, the Minister may not speak.
On a point of order. You have ruled that no topic exhaustively debated on the main Estimate may be repeated now. I direct your attention to Volume 115 (12), columns 1619, 1620 and 1621, in which Deputy Ó Briain talked for 22 minutes on Deputy Madden——
I did not.
—— and his particular falsification of an Irish Independent report which never existed, and which he is now trying to repeat.
That is a rather lengthy and argumentative point of order.
Are you going to allow the matter to be debated again?
This is merely the usual type of interruption by the Minister.
I can submit a copy of the report to you, Sir.
I am not going to read it now.
I have it here, just as well as the Minister.
Quite, and the Deputy has said it before.
I am not quoting it. I would have finished long ago but for these interruptions.
And would get saying what you want to say.
I want to know if the Minister really approached the Government as a result of the representations made by the deputation which waited on him, and, if so, if he was turned down? Did the Minister for Finance tell him to take a running jump for himself, as he is so fond of saying to people who come to see him, or did some other member of the Government, such as the Minister for External Affairs or the Tánaiste, who are against increases in the cost of living, tell him to take a running jump for himself? What happened with regard to the increase in the price which we were all expecting as a result of the deputation at Christmas last year, and why has it not come about?
I represent a constituency where the majority of the farmers have no creameries within a reasonable distance to which they can send their milk and I want to ask the Minister if he would consider restoring the subsidy on farmers' butter. I hope that, when replying, he will state specifically whether it is his intention to restore it. These farmers live, in the main, in the poorer parts of the country. They are taxed and rated equally with the people in the rich lands and equity would demand that they get the same treatment. I submit that it is unfair to give a subsidy to one section of farmers and not to give a similar privilege to their less fortunately situated brothers. They have no creameries within miles of them.
In Clare?
Certainly.
What about Ennistymon and Scariff?
And Kilrush, the biggest of them all, which you seem to forget. Outside of these districts there are large areas in which no creameries are available.
Are there not travelling creameries?
And I cannot see them being provided in the near future. If the Minister is right in his argument that only a small portion of the country is without creameries, the cost to the Exchequer of providing this additional subsidy for which I am pleading for these poorer farmers would be very small. That is why I appeal to the Minister that he should, in all justice, restore that subsidy to these farmers.
I want to deal with two matters, one of which is the question whether the milk subsidy should be applied, seeing that this Government have decided apparently that the cost of milk to the consumer is not to go up——
The cost of milk does not arise. The subsidy in respect of butter does arise.
Since I am to deal only with the subsidy on butter——
The Deputy is to deal with what is in the Estimate.
I want to emphasise the point made here by Deputy Smith and Deputy O'Grady in that connection. In a large portion of my constituency and in other parts of County Cork, particularly in the area in which the Minister will be the chief flute player to-morrow or the day after, the farmers have no creameries. They are dependent practically entirely on home butter, and I can see no justification for giving a subsidy to one section of farmers namely, those who have the advantage of having creameries to supply, while cutting out a very large section who have no creameries to which to send their milk, and who, as I say, are almost totally dependent on home butter making. He has no justification for it. If the creameries are of advantage to farmers, the creamery supplier is in a better position financially to keep cows and is in a better position to carry on and to work out his costs economically than the farmer who is deprived of a creamery in the district and has to make butter of his milk. I can see no justification for that. I know that there is no use in appealing to this Minister.
Why do so, then?
There is not a bit of use in appealing to this Minister, but I consider that a large section of my constituents and a considerable section of the farmers of Cork County are being unfairly treated by the State and that what the Minister is doing in this matter is contrary or repugnant to the Constitution.
We are not dealing with constitutional matters and this is not the place to test it.
I am suggesting to this House and to you that what the Minister is doing in giving a subsidy to one section of the community for the production of butter and refusing a subsidy to another section of the community——
The Deputy is getting into high constitutional matters, according to himself, and they do not arise.
It is about time that it was brought into this House, which is governed by the Constitution.
The Deputy is not in order.
Very well. I consider that what is being done is unfair and unjust and is leaning too hard on the weaker section of our community.
Did it ever happen before?
The Deputy will get one for tomatoes, if he waits. That is the position as I view it. These are the grounds on which previously we appealed to Deputy Smith and got a subsidy for butter, and I see no justification whatever for this wiping out of the dairy cow on the small farms in East Cork, West Cork or North Cork. That is what the Minister is doing.
May I ask who eats this farmers' butter that has been mentioned here to-day? Who eats it? Is the suggestion that the people who eat it are not paying enough for it and that the Minister should subsidise the producer or that that butter should be increased in price for the people who eat it? All I want to know is, is that the suggestion?
I think I can explain.
I want to say a word about the subsidy for milk and butter. We would like the Minister to tell the House what he proposes to do with farmers' butter this year. Is he going to provide any subsidy for it or is he going to provide a market for farmers' butter in the present year? The Minister will find that, whether he gets the funds by increased taxation or otherwise, it is absolutely necessary to do something at the present time in the matter of farmers' butter. It is on the farmers' hands. Many farmers are finding it difficult to get a merchant to take it off their hands. It is a serious problem for which the Minister must try immediately to get some solution. I see that he has cut the Estimate for export subsidies this year by £75,000 as compared with last year. I hope my figure is accurate on this occasion, as it was on the last occasion. Can the Minister justify that in view of present conditions? He told the House recently that he expected to have an exportable surplus in the present year. How will he solve the problem? How is he going to sell butter on some other market outside this country? That is the Minister's job. The Minister might explain to the House why it was necessary, in the current financial year, to reduce this Estimate by £75,000. If there is an increased supply of butter, which is agreed, there must be an increased amount of subsidy.
There must?
What is the purpose of the subsidy?
The purpose of this subsidy is to give to the people of this country who live in towns and who use creamery butter, butter at an uneconomic price, under the cost of production.
And you want to increase——
Deputy Allen.
The purpose of the subsidy was to give the consumer butter at an uneconomic price, at a price at which the farmers could not produce it. The farmers are not getting it. Up to now, the consumer was getting it when butter was in short supply.
Until we got a new Minister.
The new Minister has a problem in the matter of butter, especially farmers' butter. In the constituency that I have the honour to represent, a very serious crisis exists at the moment in regard to farmers' butter. We have one creamery in County Wexford and two separating stations.
You have two creameries, if you knew your own constituency, but you do not.
There are nearly 40,000 cows. At this time of the year a great deal of farmers' butter is made. The Minister may be interested to hear that the price offered for farmers' fresh butter is from 1/6 to 2/-. Two shillings is the top of the market.
Where would you get that?
If the Deputy ignores interruptions, it will be better for the debate and we will teach order to some of the interrupters.
I am trying to ignore them and I am trying at the same time to impress on the Minister——
Tell the people where you get butter for 2/-?
Deputy O'Leary, I am taking note of the number of your interruptions.
I again want to impress on the Minister the necessity for doing something about it, when the price of farmers' butter is 1/6 to 2/-, an absolutely uneconomic price, as I am sure the Minister will agree. People cannot remain in production unless they get an increased price. That could have been done under this Vote. It cannot be done on the figures in the Estimate. Will the Minister tell us, when he is replying, that he will bring in a Supplementary Estimate during the year to subsidise farmers' butter in whatever way it may be necessary to do so and to provide a market for it and to see that the people who produce that type of butter will get fair play? The Minister has no right to provide taxpayers' money for one section of producers while refusing to subsidise another section who are producing the same type of commodity. That is what is being done under this Vote. He is providing taxpayers' money to subsidise a certain section who are producing butter and milk. At the same time he is cutting that. How can the Minister expect to provide a subsidy that he is paying at the same rate as he is paying for an increased supply in the present year——
All this is in column 1573.
——by cutting the Estimate? He cannot possibly do it. I hope that when the Minister is replying he will admit the necessity for and the wisdom of taking immediate steps to look after a market at an economic price for farmers' butter in this country.
I wish to raise a point of order. I made reference in this House to certain quotations from the Irish Independent of the 24th December, 1948, with regard to milk prices. The Minister said the quotation did not exist. I now have the quotation here and I can read it for the Minister.
Read it away.
That is not a point of order.
The Minister tried to make a liar of me.
What the Deputy quoted is not in the Irish Independent of 24th December, 1948, 1848, 1748 or 1648.
It is here word for word.
In view of the remarks of Deputy Allen I, as a working man, wish to say that I would be very glad if the people in my constituency could get butter at 2/- a lb.
We are dealing with the question of subsidies.
Deputy O'Leary's observation, if I may respectfully submit, is very relevant.
On this question of subsidy for farmers' butter I want to put to the Minister the unfair position the producers in my constituency are in. We have no creameries in my constituency. I am thinking, in particular, of the smaller farmers who carry on a system of mixed farming—a system of farming of which the Minister approves so much, and which he recommends. Their sales of butter are a very important part of their economy. Under the previous Government the subsidy for farmers' butter was paid for a long period. The farmers had no reason to complain at that time because the butter merchants bought the butter and they got the same price as the milk suppliers in the creamery areas. Last year when the present Minister decided to remove the subsidy on farmers' butter during the scarce period—and with the butter ration as it was then—the situation was not quite so bad because there was a market at the time for all the butter at a fairly good price. They could sell it because the supply did not exceed the demand. The position was not quite so bad up to recently, although the butter producers were very perturbed by the increase in the milk and butter in the summer months. However, when the Minister decided to increase the butter ration a few weeks ago that decision completely knocked the bottom out of the market.
Does the Deputy think I should not have increased the ration of butter?
I am not saying that. I am talking of the effect the increase had.
Would the Deputy be in favour of it?
The Minister will have an opportunity of dealing with that when he is replying.
I am stating the effect of the increase in the butter ration.
He doesn't say yes and he doesn't say no.
Why should he? It is the Minister's responsibility.
It is the Minister's responsibility. It is not for me to suggest what the Minister should do. The increasing of the ration of butter has completely knocked the bottom out of the market for home-produced butter just at this particular time. Those producers are very perturbed about the position. They are very depressed and they cannot but remember what the conditions were in the past for people who kept cows, produced butter and carried on a system of mixed farming. The Minister should do something for these people now and they are entitled to it. They have to pay in taxation to subsidise the butter in the creamery areas. They have not creameries themselves. It is the duty of the Minister to pay attention to their case. The position of the home producers of butter is very much worse than the position of the milk producers in the creamery areas.
During the course of the debate the Minister denied that he made a promise to a deputation from the creamery areas. I went to the Library and I looked up the Irish Independent of the 24th December, 1948, in which I found the quotation. The heading is: “The Minister will reconsider milk prices”.
Hear, hear.
The Minister met a deputation at that time from the creamery areas. They asked for an increase in the price of their milk. First of all, the Minister told them he would not increase the price. Then, apparently, they made such a convincing case that he promised he would reconsider the matter.
Hear, hear.
I will read the quotation.
Do.
It is as follows:—
"Though he had stated he would not increase the present price for milk, added Mr. Dillon, he would now, having regard to the case made by the deputation, reopen the whole question. He was sure that any recommendation he made would be favourably considered by the Government."
What has that to do with an increase in the subsidy for farmers' butter?
It is a certificate that the Minister for Agriculture would do his job.
The subsidy affects farmers' butter. My point is that this deputation from the creamery area——
That was discussed on the main Vote, was it not?
I am referring to farmers' butter now. What I want to bring out is that the Minister was convinced by this deputation from the creamery areas that something should be done for the butter that was already subsidised—that he was convinced to that extent—although he did not carry out his undertaking.
What does the Deputy mean by saying that I did not carry out my undertaking?
The Socratic method may be admirable in teaching but not in debate in the Dáil.
The Minister did not reopen the case. The Minister practically indicated in that interview that he was convinced that the price of milk should be increased——
Practically my foot. I said I would re-examine the question.
Take a running jump at yourself.
All things to all men.
He led the milk suppliers from the creamery areas to believe that they had a good case and that when he would go to the Government to put that case before them he was sure he would convince them that an increase was due. Apparently the Minister was not able to convince the Government that an increase was due to the milk suppliers in the creamery areas. When such a case can be made for the milk suppliers in the creamery areas who were already subsidised, I believe there is a convincing case there to give a subsidy to the farm butter producers in the non-creamery areas.
Is there anything wrong, if a group of respectable men come into a Minister of State in this country and make their case to the best of their ability, in the Minister's saying frankly to them while they are in the room: "My mind was made up that there was no case for an increase in the price of milk. I have listened carefully to all you have had to say. You have made a very strong case, and certainly the strength of the case you have made imposes on me the obligation to reopen the whole of this question and to study it afresh to see if I overlooked any relevant consideration when I was making up my mind"? Is there anything underhand or mean or deceptive in that? As certain as I am standing in this House that is precisely what happened. When that deputation left me, a conference was held in my Department with all the officers connected with milk and butter production present; the whole ground of the costings of milk and butter production was traversed. The costings which I have here in my portfolio, which were lent to me by two different parties in the country, which were prepared by Dr. Murphy of Cork University at the instance, not of the Department, but of the milk producers, were carefully examined and, as a result of that careful re-examination ab initio, I recommended to the Government that there should be no increase in the price of milk.
You should have gone further and recommended a reduction.
Let there be no attempt made by any Deputy on the Opposition Benches to mislead our people into believing that any influence was brought to bear on this matter except the consideration of equity and justice to the producers of milk. Let no Deputy on the Opposition Benches seek to deceive the people down the country that the Government overrode the claim of the Minister for Agriculture. The fact is that my recommendation to the Government was that there should be no increase in the price of milk and, if there is any blame due for that decision, it should all fall on me. I consider that was the right decision. I consider any other decision would have been irresponsible and wrong, and anybody in this country, who conceives that decision to have been wrong should direct his censure against me as well as against the Government to which I have the honour to belong.
Could the Minister say what is the cost of production of a gallon of milk?
I know because——
Will the Chair say for the benefit of the House what we are discussing?
We are discussing subsidies and the price of a gallon of milk does not arise.
I thought it was only when we were trying to discuss milk prices that that was the situation.
Is that an implied charge against the Chair?
The Deputy will withdraw the implied charge against the Chair.
I withdraw it.
Unqualified.
Not so much of the unqualified business about it. I was trying to do what the Minister is doing and I was pulled up a thousand times.
The Deputy will leave the House.
The Deputy will leave the House because what I am stating is a fact.
Deputy Smith withdrew.
Deputy Harris says Kildare has no creamery and he then says that a great many of his constituents make farmers' butter, and asks what am I going to do about it. While Deputy Harris was speaking, I asked him to give me the benefit of his advice as to whether he, with his special local knowledge of Kildare, could offer me any suggestions calculated to help in the solution of the problem he knows to exist in that county. Deputy Harris's reply to me——
On a point of explanation. That is not the question.
I do not give way to Deputy Harris. I asked the Deputy for the benefit of his advice and he had none to give me. He did seem to find fault with the decision to release for consumption the creamery butter that is available. He seemed to tell the House that the special problem arising in Kildare was in no small measure due to the release for consumption by the people of Newbridge and Kildare and the other towns in that county of the creamery butter which is available.
The Minister is putting——
Is this a point of order? If it is, then I give way. If it is not, I will not give way. Is it a point of order?
I asked——
I will not give way to Deputy Harris if he does not raise a point of order.
You want to proceed with your misrepresentation.
I asked him then——
Is the Minister entitled to proceed with his misrepresentation?
The Deputy must be given an opportunity to raise something.
He is not raising a point of order.
I have no idea. Owing to the voices I could not possibly hear what the Deputy was saying. I will not be shouted down.
Is the Minister entitled to misrepresent and twist the statement I made?
I have no control over what interpretation the Minister applies to the Deputy's statement so long as he does not purport to quote it.
He did quote it.
The Minister to proceed.
Am I right in saying that Deputy Harris attributed in no small measure the difficulty in Kildare to the fact that I did increase the ration of creamery butter available to the people of the towns of Kildare and Newbridge from 6 to 8 ounces? I ask Deputy Harris to help by telling me would he recommend that I should cut down their ration. Would it help in Kildare if I direct that there should be a reduced ration of butter? Deputy Allen is telling him to get up and kick up a row. Stand up like a man and do not be snivelling behind your hands.
You need not tell us what a man is, at all.
You have a twisted nose like a cur.
The Deputy will withdraw that remark.
I withdraw that remark.
Will the Minister allow me to tell him?
No. You have had long enough. Deputy Harris will not tell me am I to remedy the position in County Kildare by cutting down the ration of butter there. When I asked him that, he said that "the remedy is that I cannot say yes and I cannot say no".
Restore the subsidy.
I welcome the intervention of any Deputy who will join his effort to mine to resolve the problems of Deputy Harris's neighbours. But I have nothing but contempt for a Deputy who uses the difficulties of his neighbours for the base and contemptible purpose of trying to gather together votes for himself.
Misrepresentation.
I am ready and willing to examine carefully and with goodwill any proposal from any Deputy in this House to relieve any difficulty into which his neighbours appear to have got and which he, in his special knowledge of his own district, could report to me; but I have nothing but contempt for those who trot in here waiting for whispered inspiration from mouths that fear to face the public, but whisper behind hands as to what they ought to say and ought not to say in order to make trouble and to make confusion worse confounded. Imagine the impudence of Deputy Allen——
You are up against it.
——trotting in here to tell me there is a problem in County Wexford. Who made the problem? Who shut down the Shelbourne Co-operative Creamery? Was it not the Deputy's own friends on the committee of that society who had a fine creamery in South Wexford and, because they wanted to turn it into a retail shop and butchery and 101 other trades except the one trade they were set up to do, who closed down the creamery?
Is it in order for a Miniister of State in this country to attack people who are not represented in this House—a co-operative society who——
That is not a point of order.
I want further to——
He cannot take his medicine.
Captain Cowan is not the universal adviser of the House.
I want to ask is it in order for a Minister of State in this House deliberately to make a charge that is absolutely false?
Is it a point of order?
The Deputy need not make a speech.
Is it in order for a Minister of State to charge a trading society in this country with something that is absolutely false?
Is that a point of order?
It is not a point of order. It is a question of fact which I cannot decide between the Minister and the Deputy.
Is it a fact that there is in South Wexford at this moment one of the wealthiest co-operative societies in——
On a point of order, what has this got to do with subsidies?
They do not like this. I air charged with being indifferent to the interests of the milk producers in South Wexford. I am charged with that because the milk producers of South Wexford are under an obligation at present to convert their surplus milk into home-made butter. I am charged by the man who represents Wexford and who is as thick as thieves with every member of the committee. Why is it that the wealthiest co-operative in Ireland, in the middle of this area where Deputy Allen said there is a problem, closed their creamery and left the people of Wexford without a means of turning their surplus milk into creamery butter? If that co-operative wants to open its creamery to-morrow it need not wait. It has a licence now to do it and I will post it to them to-morrow morning. If that co-operative wants facilities from me to collect the milk of that county any help I can give them I will give them. But it is a bit thick that the representative of that co-operative society came into this House, stood idly by while the means of disposing of his neighbours' milk was done away with under his own nose because they could not get enough profit out of them, a society devoted to trading operations for which there was abundant accommodation elsewhere. I am then told that the people of Wexford are cruelly put upon.
Is that the only way you have to solve the problem?
Put to work to-morrow the creamery that the society was first set up to work. Put into the service of the people for whom that society was originally established the facilities that that society with its immense wealth could perfectly easily make available to them and every problem of every farmer to whom the Deputy has been referring will be resolved in 48 hours.
Absolute rot.
But it is too much for the patience of any man——
You do not know what you are talking about.
——to listen to Deputy Allen who is in a position to guide and direct the activities of that society, coming here and upbraiding me——
That is an absolute untruth.
——for the brutal indifference with which he and his like have stood by and watched their friends and political confederates wipe out of existence a creamery in that part of Wexford which could and should meet the problem of the vast majority of the people on behalf of whom he purports to speak. Some people have faces of brass but Deputy Allen's countenance must be molybdenum— indestructible molybdenum. Deputy O'Grady speaks for Clare. He speaks for a group of farmers. He has gone away now. I think he was wise to go away. In Clare he says they have no creamery and then he mentions three of the best creameries in Ireland —one, two and three in the County Clare. But he did not seem to know that his own constituents in North Clare bought 50 new milk cans within the last month. He does not seem to know that the Clare creameries are not only prepared to collect the milk in County Clare but are going up into South Galway.
I do not deny that on occasions I grow a little impatient. The Lord was not extravagant with the gift of patience when he fashioned my unworthy frame, but the burden of work and anxieties of the Department of Agriculture are heavy enough without having to face in this House vicious, malignant, irresponsible, aimless obstruction. All this day we have been trying to find a market for home-made butter. There is a mission going abroad to-morrow to seek another market, so that I shall now be faced with this when it appears in the Dublin papers that the boys here spent the whole day in Dáil Éireann trampling the farmers' butter around the floor of Dáil Éireann as unsaleable rubbish. I have got to go in now and meet the man who wants to buy it and try to persuade him that he ought to pay me a price for it that will enable me to pay the farmers 2/- a lb. or more at a time when he is fixed with notice that everyone in this House says the stuff is unsaleable. I have got to send a mission abroad to-morrow morning to try and fight for a price for this, but the man that I am going to meet, or that my officers are going to meet, is fixed with the notice that every opposition Deputy in the House rushed in here to blurt out that "the whole country is smothered with butter and that if you do not sell it you will be eaten alive." For irresponsible folly and mischief recommend me to the Deputies of Fianna Fáil. They are like a whole lot of juvenile delinquents.
Taking running jumps.
Upon my word, if there was a Marlboro' House in which one could put them on remand for a fortnight until the business of my Department was disposed of, it would be a blessing for the unfortunate men and women of this country whose interests they dare to treat as a plaything.
It is a pity you were not locked up.
The prince of slanderers.
Listen to Cardinal Puff.
Get the Blueshirts to suppress the Dáil.
I think the Lord must have given me a greater measure of patience than I thought I had. The picture of Deputy Brady preaching law and order makes me weep. I said that Deputy Ó Briain took a canter. The last time he took a canter he cantered back with material for Deputy Ryan and was told to take it back whence he had brought it.
I did not.
Now he canters out to get a bit of material for himself, and he was prepared to paraphrase it. He was prepared to give us the benefit of what his memory of a memory of it was, but the diffident creature would not read it. Poor, simple Deputy Harris darted out the other door, brought it in and read it and ruined poor Deputy Ó Briain.
Allow me?
No, I will not allow you.
Tell us about the creamery butter.
I have answered explicitly Deputy Harris's inquiry as to what transpired at the deputation. I think Deputy Ó Briain was cantering when I dealt with his quotation which was read by Deputy Harris—poor innocent boy. Deputy Ó Briain took the precaution of bracing himself with a note written in a clerkly hand for fear he would lose his head when he got up to speak here and would not ask the right question. I congratulate him on being the only coherent member of his Party who spoke on this matter, and the reason for that was that he retired into a corner and painfully wrote down the question——
I had no note in the world.
——so as not to ask me an irrelevant question as the rest of them have been doing in the last two hours. The question was this: "The appropriation in the Estimates for money to pay a subsidy on creamery butter appears to be related at present rates to a production of 575,000 cwts. If, as the Minister says, there is likely to be a production of 650,000 cwts., are we to infer, from the failure of the Minister for Finance to appropriate a larger sum, that if an increase of butter materialises the subsidy will dwindle with a consequent decline in the price of milk?" Now, I think Deputy Ó Briain made a most dreadful mistake, because, you see, when the Deputy put his head together with the rest of the boys, they formulated that question. They are old dogs for the hard road and they intended to ask that question sotto voce like Deputy Blaney's question on oats-all over the place—and like Deputy Davern's observations at the Fianna Fáil Cumann.
That is not in order on this.
In that case, Charles Stewart Parnell O'Donnell blew the gaff on them; in this case, Deputy Ó Briain blew the gaff on the boys by asking the question where it could be answered, and that is madness. If you want to start a rumour never start it where it can be answered; always give it a week's start and, if possible, under the rose, and then, whether it is true or false, there will always be a few fools to be found to believe it. Fortunately, I can answer Deputy Ó Briain. I know it will comfort his soul to hear that there will be no alteration in the price of milk, good, bad or indifferent——
This year?
——and that whatever measures are necessary to maintain the price at precisely the same level at which it stands now, and is scheduled to stand next winter, will be taken if and when the necessity arises. Does the dullest Deputy in Fianna Fáil detect any ambiguity in that statement?
Get a market for the farmers' butter.
If so, let him stand up, or they can all stand up together if there is no difference between them. Deputy Smith had something to contribute to this discussion. He said that his subsidy scheme for farmers' butter may not have been perfect but that it was clear evidence of his desire to help. I would like to comment on that by saying that his observation, that his scheme may not have been perfect, was, I understand, described by the Greeks as meiosis. Any scheme which, at the end of 12 months, leaves your successor with 2,000 cwts. of butter surrounded by a cordon sanitaire at the port of Dublin, and which requires almost the fire brigade in gas masks to get it on board ship for export to a processing factory, is scarcely one which can aptly be described as “perhaps not perfect,” and not assumed to have reached the stage where Deputy Smith would describe it as having failed. The butter would blow the roof off the cold store.
Or would have walked up the quays.
It very nearly did, but we headed it off before we shipped it.
It was a pity they did not send you with it.
I want to make this clear to the House. The fundamental fault with the whole effort to subsidise butter is this. We estimate—but it is only a very rough guess—that there are produced every year 400,000 cwts. of butter. I want the House to understand this clearly, that in our experience in the Department, of the 400,000 cwts. we have reason to believe that 350,000 cwts. are first-class butter, excellent butter. But all the good butter is either consumed in the home of the woman who makes it or her neighbours know her reputation as a first-class butter maker and before she starts making the butter she will have three or four neighbours at the house asking her to keep it for them. Alternatively, in the market town where that woman goes she deals in a shop and she will be well known in that shop as a woman who makes lovely butter and the shopkeeper will buy it for his own house.
It is true that in the city you find a great many people who do not like farmers' butter. I venture to say that most of us who live in rural Ireland, if we get good farmers' butter, find it very much more attractive than creamery butter. Whenever I was told in Ballaghaderreen that there were two or three women coming into the town who made good butter, there would be an understanding between us that whenever they would have any to spare they would leave it to me. I like home-made butter, when it is good home-made butter. On the other hand, there are two or three very decent, respectable women, but when I would see them arriving with butter-muslin hanging out of their baskets I would fly for my life, because they are not good butter makers and they would be affronted if I did not buy the butter when they were polite enough to bring it to me. But I could not live in the house with that butter, never mind eating it.
I am trying to make this case to the House, that of all the farmers' butter made in this country, more than ninetenths would be excellent butter; but there is a small minority of women who do not know how to make butter of the highest quality. The operation of price deters them from making it and when there is a creamery at hand, when they find their butter does not command a ready sale, they send the milk to the creamery. If you come along and pay a subsidy on farmers' butter, all the good butter will remain as it was, selling to the people who ordinarily buy it, but the woman who brings in her few lb. of butter—butter which may not be of first-class quality—will dump it in at the guaranteed price and she has got to get it. Once you guarantee a price for farmers' butter, what happens in effect is that all the good farmers' butter will continue to go to the people who always bought it and all the bad farmers' butter will be brought in to benefit by the subsidy and the end of it is that you get, on the completion of the season, a residue of butter which deteriorates, because nobody will take it, to the condition in which I found the 2,000 cwts. at the cold store.
It would be a thousand times better if the women who do not make that quality of butter which commands a ready sale in their own neighbourhood, would send their milk to the creamery. Where there is a large surplus of milk and no available creamery, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society is over in Plunkett House for no other purpose than to put their services at the disposal of any responsible person in the neighbourhood to help in organising a co-operative society to make butter, cheese, dried milk or any product which would be readily saleable out of whatever milk may be available in the neighbourhood.
Clare, for instance, used to be a problem county. There was a lot of milk in Clare for which there was no outlet except home-made butter. What did we do? It amazes me that Deputy O'Grady should be under any misapprehension about this matter. Are there not three fine creameries in Clare with travelling creameries attached? Does Deputy O'Grady know of any area in County Clare where there are women anxious to sell milk but who can make no contact with the creamery? If he does, why not let me know?
I submitted a question about one area in Clare last week.
What was my reply?
The reply was evasive —you are not going to establish a creamery there.
The Dairy Disposals Company is organising creameries in County Clare, as far as I know. They have no other purpose than to serve any area where there is milk available in quantity sufficient to justify putting a travelling creamery on the road, which will go to the farmers and not ask the farmers to travel to them. Nor is the difficulty insurmountable if the quantity of milk in a given area would be an uneconomic proposition for a creamery, because we would be glad and happy to help in building up the milk supply of that area a little higher than it now is to a point that would justify the economic operation of a creamery. And we need not wait until the milk supply is there, if we think there is a sure prospect of delivery later.
Why does every Deputy on the opposite benches imagine that the Minister for Agriculture and the Dairy Disposals Company and all these charged with service to our people would wish to be in a kind of diabolical conspiracy to visit hardship and misfortune on the people we are paid to serve? Why should Deputies, unless the whole of these proceedings are fraudulent, imagine that I, working as the Minister for Agriculture, should deliberately ignore the interests of hardworking farmers, when it is just as handy for me to do that work as any other work I do? I do not spend much time sitting in the Department twiddling my thumbs and it is just as easy for me to bend my mind to covering an area where dairy farmers have not got facilities as it is for any other job that turns up. Where is the Deputy on the other side of the House who has ever approached the Dairy Disposals Company, or any officer of my Department, or myself with any legitimate representation on behalf of an area in his constituency, or outside it, who has not been courteously received? I do not think there is a Deputy in those benches, despite all the abuse that is poured out, who can say that he ever approached me personally, or any officer of my Department or any member of the Dairy Disposals Company with representations for relief or assistance required in any part of the country for which he was entitled to speak that he was not politely and civilly received and a genuine effort made to do whatever could be done to meet the problem he described. There is a problem. Why will not the Deputies on the Opposition Benches, instead of screaming imprecations at me across the floor of the House, peacefully come and, if they have any delicacy in coming to see me though I am at the disposal of everybody, see the officers of my Department and discuss with them their problems?
It is your problem.
What does Deputy Allen say? Deputy Allen is not backward in coming to see me himself. He has a duty. He is under no obligation to me. I am paid to serve.
To see that the people have a market for their butter. Your job is to solve the problem. That is what you are there for.
That does not help one bit. Deputy Allen knows perfectly well when there was a problem in some of the east coast districts relating to the farmers there he was not behindhand in coming to me himself. Subsequently he came with a deputation. Let me say at once, to Deputy Allen's credit on that occasion, that when he asked me to help to solve the problem, I asked his help as chairman of the county committee to do what he could do, and I did what I could do. It ill becomes Deputies, if they share my anxiety for these problems, to make them the subject of gravely injurious discussion in this House in an atmosphere of acrimony and futility, shouting across the floor of the House that it is my problem and that it is for me to solve it. They need not worry. What I can do will be done. It may well be, however, that they can help as well.
I see no reason why, if Deputy Harris has the kind of problem of which he speaks in County Kildare, he would not consult with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, to organise a co-operative marketing system for this season; because for the people who have butter now and who are producing butter the problem is a problem of the present and no long-term solution will relieve them of their difficulty. I think many Deputies who are familiar with conditions in the cities and the towns will tell you that they find it very hard to get good farmers' butter. They find it difficult to get good farmers' butter in Dublin. There is a demand. In Kildare there is a supply. Surely it should be possible to get in the centre of that area of supply some kind of co-operative to sell that butter. Surely it should be possible to hire a chap with a van who would go round and collect orders from hotels, boarding houses or suburban shops two or three times a week and who on Monday would collect the butter and deliver it in Dublin and collect the cash every Saturday, or make any other arrangement suitable. Does any rational Deputy on the far side of the House doubt that that would help to solve the circumscribed problem with which Deputy Harris is faced? That kind of activity, locally and by the people themselves, with the help of those who are able to call to their aid the assistance that is available, if it is only called upon, will solve the immediate problem of the kind which farmers' butter does constitute.
Deputy Smith says that he feels it is the Government's duty to set up an independent tribunal to assess the cost of production. I think it is just to say that Professor Murphy was, in the main, such a tribunal. He was asked by the farmers producing milk for Mitchelstown creamery and by the farmers producing milk for the Cork milk supply area to go into these two areas and determine scientifically and with complete detachment the cost of production in both of them, and to report objectively to the farmers who employed him. Professor Murphy did that. I want to put it to those who requested Dr. Murphy to undertake these investigations: Will they publish his findings? I do not want their version of his findings. Will they publish verbatim the report he made to them? Unlike the Beet Growers' Association, who publish what they call accounts but which I do not call accounts——
Last week they published no accounts.
They do not arise on this Estimate.
You found out since there was a copy in your Department.
They are not accounts, Deputy. I propose to explain on another occasion what accounts are and what they are not.
You slandered them last week. You said they never published them.
If those reports are published I think Deputy Smith will discover that just such an independent tribunal as he considers necessary has already functioned and the facts are there. I did not pay for them. I did not commission them. I have no right to use them. The farmers of those two areas paid for them and they commissioned them and they have a right to use them. I refer Deputy Smith to the farmers who did appoint such a tribunal and I invite him to ask them to publish its findings. I know that there are people who make farmers' butter who will be disappointed and very naturally upset at failing to get a good price for what they produce. Probably it would be popular if I asked the House to appropriate a large sum of public money in order to bestow largesse upon these people. It would not cost me anything. But it would be wrong and I am not going to do it. The honest advice to people is the advice I have given. In those areas where there is an unanticipated surplus of this butter what co-operative marketing can do to relieve the problem should be done. Where there is an alternative for any farmer's wife making butter for sale of sending her milk to a co-operative creamery, I advise her to send her milk to the co-operative creamery. Now, mark the words: "For sale on the public market." If she has neighbours who habitually take it from her then, of course, she has no problem. If she can use it in her own house she has, of course, no problem, but if she wants to dispose of it for cash my advice is to sell it to the creamery, if one is available in that area. If there is an area where creamery facilities are not adequate, but which adjoins an area where they are, if any Deputy will inform me of it I shall gladly consult with him as to whether we could not extend the collection area of the creamery so as to cover the area which is at present not catered for.
Every confectioner in this country who uses farmers' butter as shortening for his industrial processes can help. I am at present discussing with two potential purchasers the sale of bulk quantities of this product, but the price, to my way of thinking, is not right. If I refuse to accept 1/8 per lb. for Irish farmers' butter I hope I shall not be told afterwards that I have acted petulantly, precipitately and irresponsibly—or will I? This set look dumb now, but will they start yelling their heads off later if I cannot get a price which will enable the woman who makes butter to receive 2/- a lb? —and I do not value that price; I think 2/- a lb. is a wretched reward for home-made butter. I would far sooner see it bought and consumed by our own people. I would far sooner see the poor of Dublin, Cork and Limerick buying it and feeding it to their own children than ship it out of the country to foreign purchasers and allow them to benefit by the advantages of so low a price. I know a popular thing would be to land it up and say that nobody in the world produces better butter, but it would be wrong to do that. Remember, first, that home-made butter for sale on the bulk market is no longer an economic proposition. It may be of excellent quality. Irish frieze for overcoating is everlasting and excellent but it has gone out of fashion. You cannot get people to buy it the way they used to buy it. Home-made yarn for knitting socks, brown and white, will make better socks than any other yarn but it has gone out of fashion.
And, of course, is not relevant to this debate.
I am drawing the analogy that the quality of the thing does not secure for it a just reward on the commercial market.
A general remark is relevant without going into particulars.
Just as these things, to which I have referred, are of superlative quality but have lost their market because people have gone out of the habit of using them, so farmers' butter, even with its fine quality, never mind its secondary quality, has just gone out of fashion. People have got so accustomed to the bland, imperceptible flavour of creamery butter that they will not readily take to the comparatively strong flavour of well-made farmers' butter. There is nothing I can do, nothing any Minister for Agriculture in the world can do, to bring back into ready marketability, farmers' butter because all the world has changed and it will not change back.
Therefore, I want to say to Deputies on the far side, if, instead of making mischief, instead of coming here to complicate an already complex situation, instead of readily, and to my mind, shamefully, misleading their own neighbours—a vicious, mean thing to do—into the belief that if only people wanted to try, a good market could be found for this produce, they would collaborate with me in explaining to their neighbours that the product they had to offer, excellent in quality though it may be, was no longer readily saleable in the commercial markets of the world, and that if butter is to be made for general sale, it must be of the bland, creamery type which the bulk of urban purchasers now demand, we would very quickly solve that problem. But if everybody is to do what Deputy Allen and his friends do—jettison their responsibilities, close down the creamery, glory in their profits and repudiate any obligation to discharge a public duty to those whom they are supposed to serve as Campile appears to have done——
On a point of order, is the Minister in order in viciously slandering a trading concern of this country in this House?
The Ceann Comhairle has already told the House that these are matters of fact which the Chair cannot decide as between the Deputy and the Minister.
I want to say it is a vicious slander.
I shall not give way. This society is wealthy and powerful with abundant resources and for many years operated a creamery and two subsidiaries in the very area where Deputy Allen proclaims an emergency now.
No.
Is it fair, is it just for a Deputy who is hand in glove with the management of that co-operative society to come in——
I do not know one of them.
To come in here—say that again, Deputy.
I say certainly that I do not know the management of that co-operative society.
Did you hear him stumble? "I do not know the management."
You are slandering a trading concern in this country. It is a cowardly slander.
To run away from one's duty and come here clamouring for other people to carry the burden one has undertaken to carry oneself—I say that if no one is prepared to give better co-operation than that we will have to get on without them; it will not be the first time we have got on without them and doubtless it will not be the last. But I cannot believe that every member of Fianna Fáil has sunk so low as to use his neighbour's embarrassment for his own electoral advantage and to those Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who want to help I say I am at their service if they care to see me. If they have the slightest compunction, then I urge them not to hesitate to approach the officers of my Department and with our combined efforts we may be able to help some who would otherwise be disappointed. But, taking the long view, for public sale I cannot commend the production of farmers' butter as a profitable occupation and, taking the long view, I urge on those who have not a sale for it in their own locality among their own neighbours, as so many people in Wexford used to have, that they should take steps to have it converted through a co-operative agency into dried milk of one kind or another, cheese or creamery butter in which event the kind of problem that troubles us to-day is unlikely to arise again.
Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 50; Níl, 67.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Carter, Thomas.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- McCann, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Níl
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheldon, William A. W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Kennedy and Ó Briain; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Kyne.
Motion declared lost.
Vote put and agreed to.