asked the Taoiseach if he will state, in respect of the period up to 1st June, 1955, (a) the quantity, in barrels, of millable wheat received by mills and other buyers' premises, and the average price per barrel, paid to growers for such wheat, and (b) the number of barrels of unmillable wheat purchased from growers, and the average price, per barrel, paid for such wheat.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wheat Statistics.
The only information available in the Central Statistics Office concerning purchases of home-grown wheat relates to the total deliveries (net of sales) of wheat to flour mills, wheaten meal mills and permit mills. The total of such deliveries to all these mills in the period 1st September, 1954 to 28th May, 1955 was 3,331,000 barrels. This aggregate includes both millable and unmillable wheat but it is not possible to distinguish the respective totals.
The average price paid for native green millable wheat of the 1954 harvest has been estimated at 74/- per barrel.
If it is a fact that millable wheat secured 74/- per barrel, would it not be possible then to estimate what the amount of unmillable wheat delivered to the mills was?
No, the Central Statistics Office has no records from which it would be possible to arrive at any figure in that respect. That has been fully gone into and it would be impossible for the Central Statistics Office to ascertain that.
Is it possible that we have a Central Statistics Office that is not aware of what unmillable wheat was sold at fixed prices of 30/- or £2 per barrel last October or November?
A Deputy
47/6 a barrel.
Whatever it was, is it possible that the Central Statistics Office are incapable of estimating that amount of unmillable wheat, or is it a fact that that information is being withheld deliberately from this House?
That is not a fact and there is no information held by the Central Statistics Office which is now being withheld or ever was withheld from this House. But it is a fact that complete records are not available in the Central Statistics Office to enable the information required by the Deputy to be provided.