Deputy Corry has given notice that on the motion for the Adjournment he would raise the subject matter of Question No. 65 on yesterday's Order Paper.
Adjournment Debate. - Subsidy on Pig Prices.
We are dealing here with the Minister who is responsible for the welfare and prosperity of the agricultural community in this country. Early this harvest—and I think both the Minister and every Deputy in the House will have to admit that it was the most disastrous harvest we have seen in our time, at least it was the most disastrous I have seen in my time and that covers a fairly long period—several deputations of farmers called on the Minister in connection with the price obtainable for feeding barley. The Minister's replies are on record. The Minister, when appealed to on this matter, referred us to the small farmer who was feeding pigs. He said: "You want me to increase the price of barley on the small farmer to help on the gentleman with the 200 acres and the two motor cars". He went further and told us about the small farmer in the West with ten acres and a wife and six children, and he wanted to know whether we wished to increase the price of feeding stuffs for him. When one member of a deputation appealed to the Minister to fix a floor price even of 45/- per barrel for Irish barley, the Minister replied: "45/- a barrel would mean an impost of £1 per pig because it would take seven cwt. of barley to fatten a pig. Do you want me to put an impost of £1 a pig on the small farmer?" These were the Minister's words. I stated here yesterday that the price of Irish feeding barley had been artificially depressed.
It is foreign barley that is being discussed on this question.
I shall come to that very quickly. Facing that position, the farmers of this country got from 36/- to 41/- per barrel for their barley. That was the price of feeding barley in this country this year. Having then cleared the Irish farmer's barley at a maximum of 41/-per barrel——
I thought the Deputy said a moment ago that the price was 36/- to 41/-.
36/- to 41/-. It is rather extraordinary that the Minister, who washes his hands like Pontius Pilate and says:"I was not responsible for the price"; it is rather extraordinary after the Minister's statement as to the seven cwt. of barley necessary to fatten a pig and the £1 per pig impost on the small farmer with the ten acres and the six children, if 45/- per barrel were paid for Irish barley, should agree to a price for foreign barley which works out somewhere at——
The Deputy is now discussing the subject matter of Question No. 64. I have already informed him that the question to be debated is the subject matter of Question No. 65, that is, how the price of imported barley reacts on the production of bacon.
Having cleared off Irish barley at the lower prices which I quoted, one would expect a reduction in the price of feeding stuffs, seeing that barley up to then was sold at 48/- per barrel. Seeing that in the early harvest of this year barley was purchased from our farmers at 40/- to 41/- as the maximum, one would expect that there would be a reduction in the price of feeding stuffs. What has happened? Foreign barley is now being imported at from £27 to £30 per ton. Evidently as far as I can see, the use that is being made of the Irish farmer's barley is to cheapen the price paid to the Turk or the Iraqian for his barley. The Minister says Iraq is not 100 miles from Turkey, so we know where we are. The Irish farmer is now to be used to subsidise the Iraqian.
That is the new use that is to be found for him in the production of feeding stuffs. If paying a price to the Irish farmer of 45/- per barrel for barley would mean an impost of £1 a pig on the small farmer, I ask the Minister what should the price of bacon be now, seeing that the pig for the rest of the year is to be fed on the sweepings of Iraqian barley, with a 3 per cent. dirt clause, Iraqian barley that is just muck as I proved in this House in 1948 when I brought in samples for the Minister to look at. That barley is now to be fed to the pigs of this country to fatten them. The Minister, evidently, is quite satisfied with that position for he has formally announced now, having abolished the wheat, that he will pay 40/- a barrel again next year for feeding barley. As accurately as I can work it out, if it takes seven cwt. of barley to fatten a pig and if 45/- a barrel would put an impost of £1 a pig on the small farmer, the price now being paid for the Iraqian barley would mean that the farmer would have to get an increase of 66/- a cwt. on that pig in order to be in as good a position as he would be with Irish barley at 45/-. That is the position. What will be the position of that farmer who has to fatten the pig now with the £30 a ton barley? When the Minister stated that is was coming in at £27, he was very careful of his statement.
I have here, Sir, the statement issued by Grain Importers, Limited, dated 11th November, in which they said, first, that the Minister had agreed that licences for the importation of foreign barleys would be issued to Grain Importers, Limited. They say here, Canadian barley, £30 a ton; North African, £27 10s.; Iraqian, £27 7s. 6d.; delivered in six-ton lots at the nearest railway station. So that is the price at which the manufacturer of feeding stuffs will get it.
Deliver me from this position.
Yes. It is a lovely position.
It is not? Are not you proud of it?
For a Minister for Agriculture in this country——
To find himself without oats and barley at this day of the year—not an oat or a grain of barley in this country at this time of the year.
There had to be more maize and more barley imported by Deputy Thomas Walsh from 1951, when he took over from the Minister for the 12 months following than you have to import this year.
I do not import any barley.
Then the present Minister for Agriculture has to import this year—far more. The Minister says he has no oats.
Not an oat.
The Minister tried oats before. Deputy Davin can tell him about the statement in the Official Report of November, 1948, that the man that the Minister told to grow oats had to sell it at from £11 to £12 a ton.
We had too much oats.
In 1948 you asked them to grow it and, rather than give the price for it you went to America.
We have no oats.
I told the Deputy that he should confine himself to the question.
I cannot help it owing to the rude interruptions of the Minister.
The Deputy can very well avoid it. The Deputy must now keep strictly to Question 65 and the question of the price of imported barley in connection with the production of bacon and pork in this country.
Yes. What I want to do, if possible, is to try to induce the Minister to take the long view. He has spent a long part of the day in the House and I must congratulate him on the manner in which he is meeting the difficulties of the farmer.
We cannot have that debate all over again.
I want the Minister to take the long view. He has complained now that he has not oats or barley. I want him to make certain that he will have barley after next harvest and that the farmer who grows that feeding barley will at least get as much for it as he is now paying the Iraqian. That is not asking too much. The Minister has frequently said here that he would not fix a minimum price for feeding barley.
That what?
That he would not fix a minimum price for feeding barley. He has changed that tune now. He has thrown in the 40/- sop to make up for the abolition of the growing of wheat in this country.
The abolition?
The abolition of the growing of wheat.
Go bhfoiridh Dia orainn.
Yes. If the Minister had his way we would be back to the description of the farmers which he gave very aptly one day, the farmer who would farm with a jennet with a bush tied to his tail.
It is quite irrelevant to this question.
I want the Minister to say to the farmer and the small man in the West with a wife and six children, for whom the Minister wept salt tears when he was telling us about them a few months ago when we went to look for a price for barley—the poor small farmer with ten acres who fattens a pig and who is now almost in despair because the only thing he has to fatten the pig is the Iraqian barley at £30 a ton, that he will give him some outlook so that he can expect that after next harvest he will be able to fatten pigs at a reasonable price. Will the Minister go half way? If the Minister is prepared to pay from £27 to £30 a ton to the Iraqian for foreign barley surely he should be prepared to pay £25 a ton to the Irish farmer. That is not asking too much. Give us £5 a ton less than you are giving to the foreigner. Even that. If the Minister does that, the small farmer in the West, after next harvest, will be able to start fattening pigs and the Minister need not worry what price the Iraqian wants.
The Minister is entitled to get ten minutes.
Deputy Corry is as cute as a Christian, but I doubt if any Deputy in the House knows what he has been talking about for the last 20 minutes. The reason he has been so incomprehensible to-night is that he got talking on the wrong question. The Deputy knows perfectly well that the situation is that, as a result of the policy operated by the Government which Deputy Corry supported, we find ourselves to-day, in the month of December, with no oats and no barley in this country.
Is that what you told us two months ago?
We are obliged to buy oats and to buy barley wherever we can get it and at whatever price the foreigner chooses to charge us for it.
And offer £20 a ton to the Irish farmer.
I laid before the country a policy designed to ensure that next year we will have at this time a sufficiency of oats and a sufficiency of barley produced by our own farmers at a price that the feeders, for whom Deputy Corry has so much contempt——
Sympathy.
——will be able to pay.
Sympathy.
I absolutely refuse to be a party to a policy designed to pay 48/- a barrel to men who are growing acres and acres of feeding barley, and thus raising the existing price of feeding barley to the small man who is trying to raise a couple of pigs in West Cork, Mayo, Galway or Donegal. And anybody who does not like that can lump it. On that policy I would take my stand at any cross-roads in Ireland and I would go down to Cork North, East, South or West and would be prepared to argue that point. I have provided not a fixed price but we are going to provide a minimum price and I say to the House here that in trying to fix a minimum price for barley next September we are not taking any substantial risk. It is the intention of the Government that if the world price of feeding stuffs to which our competitors have access is higher than the price paid for Irish barley, green, steps will be taken to pay 40/- per barrel, green, to the producer in Ireland. Deputy Corry would have us believe that the price of pigs is uneconomic. He says that in the opening paragraph of his question.
I say to Deputy Corry and to this House that as a result of the Pig and Bacon Agreement that I made on behalf of the inter-Party Government in June, 1951, the Irish farmer is getting for his pork to-day a higher price than any other exporting country in the known world. Does anybody, does Deputy Corry, deny it or challenge it— a higher price for his pork than any other exporting nation in the known world? Will Deputy Corry explain how I could do better for the farmer of this country than that, and will he explain what his Government did from June, 1951, down to to-day to improve the position of the pig producers of this country over and above what was done? On the 17th April, 1954, Fianna Fáil had been three years in office in this country. Is not that so? On that day the price of pork delivered to the factories in Ireland was 234/-a cwt. On the 11th December, 1954, the price of the same product delivered to the same factory was 246/- per cwt. To-day the price of pork is on the average 6/- to 12/- per cwt. higher than it was two months before Fianna Fáil left office.
But what is the difference in the price of barley?
As I said on another occasion, the Deputy is as cute as a Christian. He is trying to relate the price of green barley to the price of dried barley. We know perfectly well that Iraqian barley has from 11 per cent. to 14 per cent. moisture content and that Irish barley has from 20 per cent. to 23 per cent. If you want to work out the price of Irish and Iraqian barley you will find that 40/- on the farm to the Irish farmer is somewhat more than the price paid for Iraqian barley delivered to the railway station. Remember that when Deputy Corry says we are paying to the Iraqian farmer £5 a ton more for barley than our own farmer, the true fact is that the Iraqian farmer is getting about £5 a ton less for barley than the Irish farmer is getting and he is damned glad to get it. I do not want to see any Deputy in this House accepting as a suitable standard of living for our people the standard of living obtaining for the farmer of the Iraqian desert. I do not want to make any comparison of that kind. I would be ashamed of myself if we were doing for our farmer no more than the resources of Iraq made it possible to do for their farmers. I want to remind the House that what Deputy Corry says is for the purpose of deceiving the farmer and I must say I saw a rather sour expression mantle the countenance of Deputy Moher as he listened. Deputy Corry began by saying barley fetched from 36/- to 40/-; then he said 40/-to 41/-; then from 40/- to 43/- a ton. The fact is that when the market for barley opened this year a notice appeared in the Cork Examiner from two barley dealers that they would not buy any Irish barley and—the Deputy knows this blooming well—it was for the purpose of beating down the price. Within 48 hours, every mill in the province of Minister got a notice from me: “You will buy Irish barley or you will shut your mill and there will be no soft talk about it, no persuasion, no bribing. You will buy Irish barley or you will shut your mill.”
What happened last year? The Minister for Agriculture last year pleaded with the millers to buy the barley. They told him to go to blazes. He told them that if they bought the barley for 48/- he would see them right in January. They bought it at 48/- and sold it back at 61/-. They then insisted that he would sell it back to them at £27 a ton and they insisted that, until they bought it, the Minister would pay these "buckos" 2d. a barrel per week for storing it for them and he paid it. He lost £200,000 on the transaction. The millers got it and the pig feeders paid it.
I am only Minister for Agriculture since last June. They tried that trick on me and in 48 hours I told them to go out and buy the barley and they paid from 40/- to 45/- for all the barley that was offered in this country.
That is a lie.
The Deputy will withdraw that.
I do, sir. I say it is an untruth.
Play fair. They paid from 40/- to 45/-. They came to me for a licence to import barley and I told them they must demonstrate to me that they had advertised adequately in all the provincial papers offering to buy domestic barley before I licensed them to purchase barley. They did that and it was not until I was satisfied that all the barley that the Irish farmers had available had been bought that I licensed the import of barley.
Whose fault is it that we had no barley and no oats? Go and make your speech about Iraqian barley to those who left me in the position that I had no where to get barley. If I have no barley this time 12 months let the Iraqian barley come in and I will hang my head for shame. In the meantime I would suggest to the Deputy that he would retire with his agricultural colleagues into some secret chamber and weep together by the waters of Jerusalem that their own ineptitude put them where they are.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 9th February, 1955.