asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state, in detail, the basis on which the Prices Advisory Body calculates, in respect of bacon, the retail prices recommended by them.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Bacon Retail Prices.
I am not in a position to add anything to the reply which I gave to the Deputy on the 25th May, when I explained that the maximum retail bacon prices recommended by the Prices Advisory Body and specified in the different columns of the schedule to the Bacon (Maximum Prices) Order were related to the ex-factory bacon prices.
Perhaps I have not made my question clear to the Minister. I asked him last week what it costs to cure and sell one cwt. of bacon and he said he had not got the figures. I thought by putting down this question I might get some information as to how these prices are arrived at.
While the activities of the Department of Industry and Commerce are widespread, my functions do not make me responsible for looking after the methods of killing pigs or the cost of killing them or the manner in which they are killed and that information is not compiled in the Department of Industry and Commerce.
Could the Minister say where I would get that information?
I cannot. If the Deputy would try the Department of Agriculture she might succeed, but I cannot give a guarantee of success.
Does the Minister know that I asked the same question of the Minister for Agriculture and that the Minister for Agriculture said that the information was not available in his Department?
Might I ask if the Minister is responsible for fixing the prices of bacon?
The function of the Prices Advisory Body is to fix the profit margins on bacon after the bacon has been killed and cured, but inquiries as to how pigs are killed, when killed and how the bacon is cured or what is the cost of the killing and curing— these are not functions of the Department of Industry and Commerce.
How can the prices of bacon be determined unless the cost of killing and curing is assessed?
That is cutting back further, and these are activities for which the Prices Advisory Body has no responsibility. What the Prices Advisory Body does is to ascertain what is the ex-factory price of bacon; in other words, what price does the wholesaler pay for the bacon after it has been killed and cured. When they ascertain what the ex-factory price of bacon is, in other words, at the point when it is delivered from the factory to the wholesaler, it is on that calculation that the Prices Advisory Body fixes the prices. Deputy Mrs. O'Carroll's question was what did it cost to kill pigs and what did it cost to cure the pigs. These are activities outside the functions of the Department and I cannot answer the question.
Is there any method whereby the profits and costs of the pig-curing companies can be checked?
That is not an activity of the Department of Industry and Commerce.
Is it part of the activities of the Department of Agriculture?
It is not part of mine.