Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 May 1956

Vol. 156 No. 10

Supplementary Estimate. - Vote 27—Agriculture.

Mr. Dillon

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £50,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.

This is for the Exchequer contribution to the scheme under which we propose to guarantee a minimum price of 235/- per cwt. for grade A pigs. The scheme, on a permanent basis, is designed to ensure that whatever subsidy may fall to be paid in order to maintain this level of prices will be provided as to 50 per cent. by the Exchequer, and as to 50 per cent. by levies under the Pigs and Bacon Act.

It is a new service and the amount of the subsidy will be largely dependent on the success which attends our efforts to evoke increased production.

The position at present is that the subsidy, I think, operates at the rate of 4/- per pig—I think that has been in operation since the 1st April—and we reckon that will continue to operate until the 1st July next, and will then be reviewed. As at present advised, I think it will then operate in the order of 4/7. It may go up. We are feeling our way, because we do not know what way the market will go in England. We do not know if we will have exports, and when we do have exports, we will have to feel our way in the market in England. The purpose of the scheme is to ensure that the curers are guaranteed a certain price, that exports of grade A pigs to Great Britain will realise a certain price level.

Mr. Walsh

What price level?

Mr. Dillon

The price level guaranteed to them is 287/-. The general scheme is that the actual prices realised by top-grade Irish bacon on the British market will be ascertained at monthly intervals and that the difference between the average of these prices and 287/- will be paid to the curer. That means that, if a curer, by special zeal in the curing, trimming and preparation of bacon, succeeds in realising a higher price on the British market than the average, he will have the difference as his own reward. Thus we retain an inducement to the curers to try to put their stuff on the British market in the best possible condition, and the more people we can get to earn a premium over the average, the higher the average price will be and the less material will be the burden of the differential which will have to be paid to the curer out of the subsidy fund.

It is not easy to explain this concisely and I do not know if I am making myself clear. But suppose the average realised for grade 1 Irish bacon on the English market was 274/-, then the subsidy in respect of that would be 10/-.

Mr. Walsh

13/-.

Mr. Dillon

13/-. Suppose some fellow by superior diligence actually realised 280/-.

Mr. Corry

I am asking for a count.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. O'Donovan)

The Deputy is not long in the place himself.

Mr. Dillon

I spoke for nearly two hours to-day and the Deputy was not in the House for one second. Now the Deputy might have the common courtesy not to require me to talk any longer than I have to.

Mr. Corry

I want some of the Minister's disciples in to hear him.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy demanding a count?

Mr. Corry

Yes.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Dillon

We are feeling our way at this stage and I can only give the House estimates. I believe that, with the Exchequer contribution made here, plus the proceeds of the levy at its present rate of 4/-, plus the retention of the trading account which closed on the 1st May, when the pigs and bacon agreement with the British Government ended, it will be sufficient to maintain this scheme up to and including 31st March next.

When the count was called, I was explaining to the House that, if the average realised was 274/-, the bonus payable would be 13/-. If an exceptional curer by his superior deligence presented his bacon so as to secure 280/- for his particular parcel of bacon, he would still get the 13/- and would thus in fact realise 293/-. The maintenance of that system is particularly desirable, because it involves no additional charge, but it presents a continued inducement to every curer to put his bacon on the market in the best possible condition; and the more people get high prices, the higher the average will be and the less the burden on the subsidy fund.

I should like to believe that a measure of success will attend our efforts which would tax the resources of the fund available in this financial year, but I am not at all sure that that will come to pass. We are, I need hardly remind the House, entirely dependent in the future on the vagaries of the British market and of the various suppliers to that market, and we have to meet competition and beat it on the terms available on that market; but it is noteworthy and important to remember that, under the 1938 and 1948 Trade Agreements, we enjoy a 10 per cent. preferential duty in the British market. All bacon from the Continent entering the British market is subject to a duty of 10 per cent. Our bacon going there is not liable to that duty and, at present price levels, that represents an advantage to us of something in the order of from 20/- to 28/- per cwt.

I do not know that, beyond what I have already said at the opening and closing of my Estimate debate, I can use any further argument to commend this scheme to the House, but I do think it provides a degree of stability at an unexpectedly satisfactory level of prices. I think in our special circumstances that 235/- guaranteed for grade A pigs is a very satisfactory level, in view of the prices which we may anticipate will rule on the British market in the foreseeable future. It has to be borne in mind, of course, that this price of 235/- is a minimum price and at the present time, while there is a supply of pigs substantially less than the home market would be in a position to consume, the price frequently goes above that; but the great merit of this arrangement is that it is a guarantee against the apprehension to which Deputy Sheldon and other Deputies referred. That was that farmers feared, if they increased production, the consequence would be a collapse in prices. Now it does not matter to what extent production is increased; the price cannot fall below 235/- per cwt. for grade A bacon.

Deputies will expect me to comment on the liberation of the export of live pigs which operates as from 1st May. I do not know what the effect of that is likely to be. On the figures, it does not look as if there is much prospect of any export of live pigs to Great Britain at the present time, but I cannot doubt that it will be a stabilising influence. I am not in a position to offer an opinion of substantial value to the House as to whether the export of live pigs to Northern Ireland may not increase. I have made the best inquiries that I can, from those in the trade and from others upon whose judgment one might reasonably depend, and I cannot get any estimate of a sufficiently firm character to justify me offering it to the House as being of value.

I am satisfied this is a move in the right direction. I believe it should evoke a substantial increase in the quantity of pigs, but I want to add this word: I hope and believe that we can base this expansion in pig production on home-grown barley and skim milk, but I feel that the man who breeds and rears the pig does all the work and is entitled to all the profit. It is only those pig producers, who grow upon their own holding the barley they use for the production of these pigs, who will derive the maximum benefit to which they are clearly entitled under the scheme outlined here.

I cannot hope at this stage to realise the ideal that every man producing pigs will grow his own coarse grain, certainly as to 100 per cent. of his requirements, because we are faced with a long tradition here, typified by the situation in Cork County where West Cork produces pigs and East Cork produces barley. I should like to see West Cork producing barley and East Cork producing pigs so that the grain might be married to the live stock on the farm upon which both pigs and grain are produced. That is the ideal at which we should aim and it is only through the realisation of that ideal that the maximum benefit can be derived by the farmer out of this plan. But, ad interim, while that is coming to pass, we hope to see, in greater and greater degree, the pig producer using as his coarse grain feed home-grown barley. It is right to say at this point that that stage operates under the limitation that the price level for barley must be related to the price which the pig producer can hope to secure; because, if there are no pigs, there will be no market for barley and it is in the interests of the barley producer to see that there will be a growing and expanding market for the barley he has, for the remainder of this year in any case, and also in respect of the crop now sown. Any farmer who wishes to dispose of surplus barley is guaranteed a price of no less than 40/- per barrel.

Mr. Corry

I thought the Minister said 48/-

Mr. Hilliard

It sounded like 48/- over here.

Mr. Dillon

40/- per barrel for the surplus. I want to emphasise again that the ideal is that the farmer should grow his own barley. I want to make it as clear as crystal to this House that, unless and until that comes to pass, the full benefits of this scheme will not be enjoyed by those for whom it is primarily designed, namely, the pig producers of this country.

Mr. Hilliard

Will the Minister clarify the position in regard to the average price? Will it be an average price on each individual shipment?

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Hilliard

Will it be an average price taken over a period?

Mr. Dillon

The method will be to take probably a calendar month and, by a study of the market returns for that month, determine what is the average price realised for Irish, grade 1 bacon on the British market.

Mr. Hilliard

All over?

Mr. Dillon

All over. Now it is the differential between that and the guarantee of 287/- that will constitute the subsidy.

Mr. Walsh

I am very pleased that the Minister has thought well to continue the policy Fianna Fáil has been urging for years, namely, the giving of guaranteed prices to the farmers. We did not have a guaranteed price for pigs while we were in office on the last occasion, but we were able to adjust prices of feeding stuffs in order to enable the pig producer to get a profit out of his pig.

Now, this may be a better way of doing it, namely, guaranteeing a price. There may not be the same fluctuation and the farmer may be in a better position to know the price he will get over a period. What I think wrong about this is that, at the moment, it would appear to me that a price of 235/- is not sufficient to induce our pig producers to produce pigs—I do not say grade A; I say of any quality— because of the high cost of feeding stuffs. In 1953 the price of pigs ranged from 245/- to 250/-. The price of feeding stuffs was £27 per ton for the admixture and £20 per ton for pollard. It was because of these low prices for feeding stuffs that we were able to get a sufficient quantity of bacon and pork for export.

When the change came and when the price of both pork and bacon was reduced in Britain, we were then able to adjust our prices here to correspond with the reduction that had taken place in the price of pork and bacon. From August, 1953, to April, 1954, there was a reduction during that period of, I think, 24/- per cwt. in bacon. There was a corresponding reduction in the price of feeding stuffs of 23/- per cwt. on what produced 1 cwt. of bacon, so that there was no differential there. The pig producer was still getting almost the same profit as he got in August, 1953.

As a result of that we were able to get more pigs to the factories. There is every evidence of that. The pig population was increasing. We were exporting more pork. We were exporting more bacon for the simple reason that the farmer was earning a decent profit. I do not think the Minister will get the desired result by guaranteeing a price of 235/- per cwt. and keeping the price of feeding stuffs at the present level. The price of feeding stuffs to-day is too high to enable the farmer, the pig producer, to make a profit at 235/-. I do not say for grade A; I say for any grade. It costs as much to produce a grade C pig as a grade A pig—sometimes more. We will not have the necessary and the desired development in pig production here unless there is some adjustment in the price of feeding stuffs. It is far more important to adjust the price of feeding stuffs than it is to guarantee a price for the pig.

The sum of £50,000 for which the Minister is looking at the present time represents 200,000 grade A pigs for export which you put down at 4/- per pig. Are we going to get them? You are going to charge—I may be wrong—4/7.

Mr. Dillon

I am wrong there. I understand the levy will remain at 4/-.

Mr. Walsh

4/- per carcase?

Mr. Dillon

Per pig, unless market experience indicates that a change is necessary.

Mr. Walsh

That 4/- per pig represents 250,000 pigs that you will have to get, equivalent to £50,000 that you are now taking from the Exchequer to set up the fund. It is a fund payable to the curer. The Minister has stated that the curer is to be compensated. For what?

Mr. Dillon

Not compensated.

Mr. Walsh

For placing them in good condition?

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Walsh

If, as a result of a curer putting high quality bacon on the British market, it goes over the average in a monthly period—if, for instance, the price is 287/- and the average for the month is 277/-, the individual curer gets 283/-. He gets 10/- per cwt. Why? What has the curer done to warrant the payment of that subsidy to him?

Mr. Dillon

He has raised the average.

Mr. Walsh

It has gone over the average.

Mr. Dillon

And he has helped to raise the average.

Mr. Walsh

Is it not the farmer who produces it who is entitled to that subsidy, and not the curer? The curer has done nothing with the bacon. It is the farmer who has produced it, bred it properly first of all, fed it properly, sent it to the factory, and the only thing that the curer has been responsible for was to kill, cure and pack it and put it on the market. The farmer may have gone to far greater trouble than his neighbour. The neighbour may qualify for grade A pig. It may not be as high in quality. A, for instance, may have very high quality, and B may not have as high, but both are in the grade A class. B goes over the average price and A does not, but the curer who buys the pigs from both gets the subsidy on B's pig and none on A's. Why is that? What has he done with B's pig more than he has done with A's? In other words, this subsidy now being given over and above the average price is a curer's subsidy and not a producer's subsidy. It is the farmer who has produced that pig, and has enabled the curer to get a higher price than the average price payable on the British market for it, who is entitled, in my opinion, to any concessions that may be given.

The Minister must expect a very big increase in the number of pigs going to the factories if this £50,000, plus the equivalent in levies from the producers, is to be expended on grade A pigs. Say that 50 per cent. of them are grade A. That means that a huge increase is visualised by the Minister in the number of pigs going into the factories. The home market has not been diminished. As a matter of fact, the consumption has been increasing here, I take it, and even to-day the pigs going to the factories are almost all consumed on the home market and there is very little left for export. Am I not right in saying that?

Mr. Dillon

I think that that is substantially true.

Mr. Walsh

There is very little for export, so that the £50,000, plus its equivalent in levies, represents a sum that warrants the production of a far greater number of pigs than we are likely to get in the next few months. I have no objection whatsoever—as I say, I am very pleased that the Minister has guaranteed a price for pigs. My objection is to the price that has been guaranteed. A price of 235/- is too low. The inducement is not great enough to get the pigs we want. We are not paying enough for them, based on the present prices of feeding stuffs. The Minister can do it in one or two ways—by reducing the price of feeding stuffs or by increasing that guaranteed price. Then we will get an increasing population of pigs here, but as it is I cannot see any hope, I regret to say, at that price.

There is also the point I have already raised regarding this subsidy, when the price goes over the average, going to the curer and not to the producer. I believe it is the producer who is entitled to that subsidy and not the curer. For years past it has been claimed that the curers have killed the bacon industry in this country. Fluctuations in prices, fluctuations in retail bacon prices and so on, pigs up to-day and down to-morrow, have continued to such an extent that the farmers got sick and tired of producing pigs.

There was no guarantee, no stability, no security in it, with the result that the pig population dropped and we were faced with the situation that we hardly had enough pigs to meet the requirements of the home market. There was a development, and that development came about, as I have already explained to the Minister, by leaving the producer sufficient to enable him to make not a very big profit but a sufficient profit to encourage him to produce more pigs.

I take it that for the next year or two it will be necessary for us to import barley. We will not have sufficient barley produced here at home. I do not know what the estimates are for this year, or what tonnage or acreage we are likely to get, but having regard to the consumption of coarse grains I cannot see sufficient barley being produced in this country for the next couple of years to meet our requirements. As we know, at present, barley can be bought at much lower prices in some markets than it can be bought in others. The Minister has suggested now the scheme that we had in operation before we left office in 1954, an admixture scheme for maize and barley. The Minister has gone back to it now, believing that it is the best that pigs can get—I am sure that that is what influenced him —a 40 per cent. ration of barley and maize and wheat offals and so forth. We did that in 1954.

What has happened to our pig production over the past two years? We went back to maize, and we were not producing a quality bacon during that time, with the result that we were unable to get the grade A pigs we are now trying to get. We lost it because of our own neglect in feeding. It was not anybody else's neglect. The Minister did not give out what he was advised to give out in order to produce a good quality bacon. He put maize back on a free market, with the result that we got an inferior quality bacon that we are now unable to sell, and we have to revert to the scheme that was there in 1952 and 1953 when we were building up a good export trade in pork and bacon. As I have said, we shall still have to continue to import barley. We shall not have sufficient produced here at all. I can see no reason why the Minister should not be able to reduce the cost of feeding. Barley can be bought at a very low price from many countries, much cheaper from some countries than from others, and better barley can be got from some of the cheaper countries than from some of the dearer ones. I suggest to the Minister that the price be adjusted and that pollard be reduced to the figure at which it stood in 1953-54.

Mr. Rooney

Who paid the difference?

Mr. Walsh

Who paid them from 1952 to 1953?

Mr. Rooney

The consumers.

Mr. Walsh

The taxpayers of this country paid the difference. The pig feeders are now paying the subsidy on flour. It has been proved in this House that over £600,000 has been paid towards the subsidy. Who paid it? The people who have been producing your pigs and poultry—they are the people. Put that fund back and I will guarantee that you can reduce the price of feeding stuffs and produce sufficient bacon for export. That is what has been responsible: a big man in Kildare Street has taken it over.

We are pleased that a guaranteed price is being given. The quarrel I have with the Minister is that the price for bacon is not high enough or, alternatively, that the price of feeding stuffs is too high—one or the other. The Minister should make an adjustment. He should either increase the price of pigs to 240/- or reduce the price of feeding stuffs.

Mr. Rooney

I was surprised to hear Deputy Walsh in his last remarks suggest that the people who eat bread ought to pay for the cost of the food that is fed to pigs.

Mr. Walsh

On a point of order. I said no such thing.

Mr. Rooney

That is the suggestion.

Mr. Walsh

I said that the people who are feeding pigs are now paying a subsidy on flour.

Mr. Rooney

I will leave that with Deputy Walsh, but it seems to me that that is what his statement means. Anybody who wishes to think it out will see that that is really the meaning of his statement.

Mr. Allen

The Deputy would love to have a twist on something.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. O'Donovan)

It is a bit fantastic, anyway.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Rooney should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

Mr. Rooney

I will argue with that side of the House but I would not suggest that it should be argued that way. Several times in the course of his speech Deputy Walsh suggested that the price of feeding-stuffs should be reduced. On one occasion he made this very point I have referred to—a reduction in the price of pollard at the expense of the people who pay for bread. In addition to that, barley is used as a feeding-stuff. If I heard Deputy Walsh properly, he suggested a reduction in the price of feeding-stuffs and, this being one of the main feeding-stuffs, he suggested also that the price of barley should be reduced. We ought to get it straight from Deputy Walsh whether or not he speaks for the Fianna Fáil Party when he says he wants these two things. He wants the ordinary consumers of domestic bread to subscribe and he also wants the farmers to take a smaller price for barley in order that pigs can be fed cheaply.

Looking back over the past few years, we notice fluctuations in the pig population. The number dropped when trade fell and then it increased when prospects improved. The reason was that the producers had no uniformity as far as marketing was concerned. The new agreement with Great Britain will give that marketing stability. It will expand production.

Mr. Allen

There is no agreement.

Mr. Rooney

The new arrangement, if you prefer to call it that.

Mr. Walsh

At home.

Mr. Rooney

The guaranteed price of 235/- per cwt. for grade A pigs will give farmers the stability they did not have previously. It will probably put an end to the fluctuation in pig production. With the reasonably good price of 235/-, it is probable that pig production will expand considerably, especially when we have a preference in the British market. The preference we have there is £2 per pig compared with the continental countries who desire to sell bacon in England. That is a very valuable preference. That preference should give our farmers an opportunity of making a profit from pig production.

In the course of his speech, Deputy Walsh criticised the contribution of 4/- per pig which is to be paid now, and in respect of which this discussion is taking place, to the bacon curers.

Many people will agree that it is not very much to pay for the good marketing service which will be provided by the curers in presenting the bacon in a marketable way. Farmers must depend on the curers to put bacon into good condition for marketing. In return for that, the bacon curers will get approximately 4/- per pig. In the normal sale of pigs between farmers and dealers, it very often happens that 4/- per head is passed between them in the form of a luck penny. Therefore, it is foolish to exaggerate this allowance per head which will be given to the curers in order that they will do their part in helping to market the pigs.

A Deputy

The four feathers.

Mr. Rooney

Deputy Walsh referred to the real value of barley for feeding pigs. The present Minister for Agriculture was responsible for the introduction of Ymer and Herta barley. They are high yielding varieties of barley with good feeding qualities. That high yielding barley will make it economic for small farmers to grow the barley which can be fed to the pigs on their own farms. This arrangement and the guaranteed price for pigs is a great opportunity for thousands of small farmers, particularly in the western areas of the country because there those people can engage intensively in the rearing and marketing of pigs.

The growing of these two types of barley on their very small farms, in addition to the concentrated rations which are now available for pigs, should enable the small farmers to make a good profit from the production of pigs. Most of these small farmers cannot afford to lose when they go into the production of pigs. That explains the reason why they went into production and then went out of the production of pigs so frequently: they could not take the risk of losses. This guaranteed price will assure the small farmers of a profit margin in relation to production costs. Certainly, if they are going to follow the concentrated rations which are now available for the feeding of pigs, in addition to their home-grown barley for feeding stuffs, they will have that assured market and that certain profit. This arrangement will immediately bring about the very desirable and necessary increase in pig production which we wish to see.

We must agree that on the smaller farms, so far as the production of live stock is concerned, pig production is the only opportunity they can get by which they can have the produce of their land absorbed, in addition, of course, to poultry. But pigs and poultry are the mainstay of the small farmsteads. This stabilised price certainly is going to give those small farmers a chance of producing pigs for profit and this will be of great value to the country. In years past, we produced pigs mainly for home consumption. When we produce pigs mainly for home consumption, the rise and fall of the market affects the producers more quickly. That is why this arrangement will give us an opportunity of exporting our pigs and getting a market outside the country, because in the long run our pig producers particularly cannot depend merely on home consumption. Now with the opportunity of exporting the surplus pigs, I am certain that they will get a good living from it.

At this stage, I should like to suggest to the Department that a vigorous campaign should take place, especially in the areas where there are so many small farmers who would be prepared to go into this business of pig production, and make available to them good credit facilities for breeding sows under the scheme in the normal way which is operated by the Pigs and Bacon Commission. I feel they should be encouraged to take these pigs, now that they have this assured price and this certain market.

Finally, we ought to explore the possibility also of marketing our pigs on the hoof. Beef, for example, finds a readier export market on the hoof than as carcase meat. The reason is that it is cheaper to walk a side of beef to London than to carry it there, and similarly——

Mr. Hilliard

Is the Deputy certain of that?

Mr. Blaney

Has the Deputy got the figures? You put a lead on the pig and take it over.

Mr. Rooney

Those people who are engaged in the trade know the facts and that is their complaint.

Mr. Blaney

That is not one of them.

Mr. Rooney

They complain that it is transport costs that affect their export trade in the matter of the dead meat trade. I feel for that reason there possibly will be a ready market for the export of live pigs from this country. It will all depend on the feeding costs and the margin of profit available to producers. If the margin of profit available to the producers is going to be as good as 235/- for grade A bacon, the farmers should be given an opportunity to export live pigs. It is obvious that if the small farmers are compelled to pay high retail prices for feeding stuffs, they will get little or no profit from the production of pigs, but if they concentrate upon the growing of their own food for the pigs, there will be a good margin of profit between the cost of production, the cost of feeding these pigs and the guaranteed price of 235/- per cwt.

Mr. Corry

The activities of the gentlemen opposite during the past year and a half have resulted in the disappearance from this country of 20 per cent. of our sows and 150,000 odd pigs. Now we are going to bring the trade back.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Corry

The activities of the gentlemen opposite resulted in the disappearance of the pig trade. Twenty per cent. of our sows are gone and 150,000 odd pigs have gone the same road. We are going to bring the trade back now. How? By guaranteeing a price and extracting, in a Supplementary Estimate, £50,000 from the State and £50,000 more from the old farmer to be given to the curer. That is the means by which we are going to bring back the pig trade to this country.

Deputy Walsh hit the nail on the head when he said that it depended on the profit. There is no profit in the price which is to be guaranteed by the Minister now. The price guaranteed by the Minister now is not an economic price, considering that the farmer and the pig feeder have been taxed to the extent of from £4 to £6 per ton on wheat offals in order to pay the flour subsidy. In September, 1954, the price of wheat offals was £20 per ton. The farmer was then getting 48/- per barrel for his barley. Then the Minister for Agriculture came in and said: "I am going to reduce the price of feeding barley by £4 a ton, down to £40." When a deputation from farmers' associations in this country waited on the Minister on that occasion, he said: "The small farmer in the West with a small acreage of land who has a wife and six children feeds pigs. That is his way of living. Am I to give a big price to a big farmer with two motor-cars at the expense of the pig feeder? I am not." Then he cut the price of feeding barley down to £20 a ton.

Later, the Minister for Industry and Commerce came along and said: "You are getting your barley £4 a ton cheaper. I can extract that £4 a ton at the other end. I will increase the price of bran and pollard so that the mixture instead of going down will have to go up." That was done on the public admission of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in this House on 27th March last, when he told us that the price of wheat offals in September, 1954, was £20 a ton, that he had increased it to £24 10s. in December, 1954, and to £26 in January, 1955. In that manner he had extracted from the pig feeders, from September, 1954, to January, 1955, £170,000 and devoted it to the flour subsidy.

When I asked a question here on that matter, I was assured that from September, 1954, to the end of August, 1955, they had collected £433,000 and from the 1st September, 1955 to February, 1956, they had collected £168,000 more. Therefore, the pig feeders have been taxed to that extent by that Government who now say: "We have a new plan to increase the number of pigs in the country." I could say on behalf of the pig feeders: "Take your hands out of our pockets. Stop robbing us." How can 235/- a cwt. be an economic price, with a tax of £6 a ton on the feeding stuff? Deputy Rooney said here that we were going to tax the consumers of bread in order to cheapen the offals. The economic price of bran and pollard in September, 1954, was £20 a ton.

Mr. O'Donovan

How does the Deputy know that?

Mr. Corry

By learning something in the school of experience to which the Deputy never went. If the Parliamentary Secretary spent less time at the books and a little more in gaining experience, he would learn something and he would not be still at the sucking bottle stage. If £20 a ton was an economic price when wheat was 82/- a barrel, what is the economic price of the skin of the wheat when wheat was reduced to 70/- for the last 12 months? Perhaps the financial wizard of the Fine Gael Party would turn his attention to that and give us the answer.

Mr. O'Donovan

I am trying to work it out.

Mr. Corry

Why should the price of offals be increased instead of reduced when the price of wheat was reduced by 12/6 a barrel? Where is the use in talking about increasing the pig population and improving the pig industry under such circumstances? There is no need to bring in this Supplementary Estimate. Give the farmers back the £617,000 you are robbing from them and you will remove the difficulty in one stroke. You will then be able to reduce the price of feeding stuffs by that £6 a ton and the farmer will then have a profit on his pigs, and he will produce them. Why use the unfortunate pig feeders in order to reduce the flour subsidy and to find the money for it? Yesterday pollard went up by 30/- a ton. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would explain to us the reason for that.

Mr. O'Donovan

I do not know.

Mr. Corry

And why?

Mr. O'Donovan

I just do not know. It is a good enough answer.

Mr. Corry

If we intend to carry on the pig industry, surely the pig feeders should not be taxed in this way any more than the farmers who were taxed to the extent of £5 a ton on their wheat and who gave their answer in the polling booths the day before yesterday? The pig feeder is being taxed to the extent of £6 a ton on the raw materials of his industry. If that industry is to survive, that tax must come off. Is there any denial or any repudiation over there of the statement made by their Minister for Industry and Commerce on 27th March, 1955? Can we find any repudiation of the statement made to us by the Minister for Social Welfare, answering on behalf of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when he informed this House that they had extracted £433,000 plus £168,000, from those unfortunate pig feeders in a period of 15 months?

The Minister talks about the man growing barley in East Cork and feeding it in West Cork. It is an extraordinary thing that if wheat can be imported into this country, as we are informed, at less than £28 a ton, which is the price guaranteed to the Irish farmer, the price of the skin of that wheat imported here is costing £24 10s. These are the facts and they cannot be contradicted.

The Minister for Agriculture wept salt tears when he was speaking to us about the poor little farmer in the West, with the ten acres and the wife and six children. The sympathy that he has now for that man is to tax the price of pig feeding to the extent of £6 a ton. The Minister had salt tears for us when he was cutting our price by £4 a ton of feeding barley, in order that the Minister for Industry and Commerce might take it back in the pollard and bran by a tax. What he has done cannot be described in any other way. One would think that if wheat was bought here at a cheap price, the offals would be given back to the farmer at an economic price. If the wheat itself was purchased at 70/- a barrel, which is roughly £28 a ton, why should the farmer be asked to pay up to £26 a ton for the skin of that wheat? Is the farmer to be mulcted at both ends? After skinning him at both ends, do we expect to get more production, which all those gentlemen with collars and ties and fine soft hands are looking for from the old farmer? They say: "Produce more. The more pigs you produce, the more we can skin you."

I should like the Minister to tell us what inducement there is to the farmer to produce this grade A pig about which there is all the talk. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, who seems to know the industry fairly well, would explain to us now what becomes of the pig that is not grade A and that is purchased from the farmer at a greatly reduced price? Do the rashers from that pig ever see a shop window and, if they do what is the price of the rashers? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, as a professor of economics, could tell us that?

Mr. O'Donovan

Is the grade not stamped on the side of bacon?

Mr. Corry

I have asked what becomes of the pig that is purchased by the curer and that is grade B or grade C or some grade other than grade A. Does Deputy Lynch get a rasher in the morning that is branded "grade A"? Is Deputy Lynch absolutely certain that that was a grade A pig for which he paid a grade A price? That is a fair question.

Mr. T. Lynch

I will answer it.

Mr. Corry

I should like Deputy Lynch to answer it.

Mr. O'Donovan

We have had pigs with wings and imaginary prices for feeding stuffs so far but, when we come to imaginary rashers, it is a bit difficult.

Mr. Corry

The Minister, in this Supplementary Estimate, is dealing with the grade A pig. I want to know what will happen to the farmer with the other grades. Are all the other grades flown out of this country? I never heard of a grade B rasher being shown in a shop window. Do all the pigs become grade A when they are polished off and sent out from the curer's establishment? Does the fact that they pass through the curer's hands turn them into grade A pigs overnight? Nobody ever saw a grade B rasher on the market and, not 50 per cent., but 75 per cent. of the pigs produced, are grade B.

Mr. O'Donovan

The grading is supervised, as the Deputy well knows.

Mr. Corry

I am not talking about the supervision of the grading. I am seeking information as to what becomes of the pig that is not grade A.

Mr. O'Donovan

You are telling a fairy tale, are you not?

Mr. Corry

Where does he go?

Mr. O'Donovan

He becomes grade B or grade C.

Mr. Corry

The Doctor of Economics over there should go to the curers to-morrow and endeavour to find out what becomes of the pig that is not grade A. Is it sold in the markets of this country? If so, what brand is put on it? Is it branded A in the shop window?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has asked that question at least six times.

Mr. Corry

I am trying to get an answer and I am afraid I will not succeed. I am giving the financial wizard over there something to do to-morrow. It would pay him as well as going to the Show.

Now we come to another aspect. I maintain that there is no occasion whatever for this Supplementary Estimate. I am surprised at the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture that I knew during his last term of office was a man of courage, a man who did not give a hang. He got up and fought, anyway. There is not a kick back left in him now. There is not even a grunt. We cannot get a word out of him. He used to have words. Why should he allow himself to be used as a doormat for the Minister for Industry and Commerce? That is what he is—a doormat for the Minister for Industry and Commerce to wipe his boots on. The Minister is appointed to look after the agricultural interests of the country, including the interests of the pig feeders. Why should he allow the cold-blooded robbery of the pig feeders and allow an industry in which we all take a certain amount of pride, in the knowledge that we were producing not alone sufficient pigs for our own people but plenty for export as well, to be wiped out, in order that the Minister for Industry and Commerce might get his pound of flesh and extract £617,000 from the pig feeders? That is just too much. That is it in a nutshell. It is no wild statement of mine. I am giving the exact figures given from the the opposite benches.

Mr. O'Donovan

For the fifth and last time, I hope.

Mr. Corry

If I could get it into the head of that numskull over there——

Mr. Donegan

Is Deputy Corry entitled to refer to the Parliamentary Secretary as a numskull?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Corry should not refer to the Parliamentary Secretary, or to any member of the House, as a numskull.

Mr. Corry

I am very sorry; I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will accept my apology.

Mr. O'Donovan

I excuse the Deputy.

Mr. Corry

I will think up a nicer name for him to-morrow, if he is here. I do not wish to delay the House on this matter. I have given the facts as I see them. The treatment of the Minister for Industry and Commerce will abolish the pig feeding industry. Can farmers afford to pay a tax of £6 a ton on feeding-stuffs for pigs for which they get 235/- a cwt.? That is a question I should like the Minister for Agriculture to answer. Why does he allow the Minister for Industry and Commerce to put that tax on and why does he allow him to keep it on? That is a question the people of the country, as well as this House, want an answer to. That is what was in the heads of the farmers when they went into the polling booths in Laois-Offaly the day before yesterday. Let the Deputies opposite read the Official Reports and note the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce on this matter and they will have the answer to the question.

Mr. T. Lynch

We are all disillusioned when we come to Dáil Eireann and we keep on being more disillusioned——

Mr. Corry

The Deputy was disillusioned this morning.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Corry has just spoken.

Mr. T. Lynch

Deputy Corry always tries to be smart and to deprecate and mock the Parliamentary Secretary because he had a distinguished career in the university. I do not think we should make a mockery of our scholars in this country. Deputy Corry wants to know what the Minister is doing for the farmers. What did he do in his 16 or 17 years here?

Mr. Corry

29 of them.

Mr. T. Lynch

When the farmers were kicked about.

Mr. Corry

And I will be here 29 more.

Mr. T. Lynch

I am not saying how long you will be here. Deputy Corry has talked about the taxes put on the pig feeders. First of all, I should like to say that the grading of pigs was introduced by Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil appointed the men to do the grading, and, a fortnight ago, I mentioned the qualifications these men have for their jobs. I always give honour where honour is due and I express agreement with Deputy Corry on one point. When pigs are graded, they are stamped with the letter of the grade. The pigs of the most inferior quality are marked X. That letter is stamped at the bottom of the ham. The ham can be cut off and the middle portion sent to the grocer without a mark. That part becomes grade A, super super. Deputy Corry will rant and rave, but I should like him to take a leaf from Deputy Moran's book and make a suggestion instead. What I think should be done is that the whole side should be branded with the letter. The firm's name is branded right through the side; so also should the letter indicating the grade.

In connection with this matter of the restoration of the pig trade, I will be pardoned for saying that, for the first time in 24 years, pigs were walked out of this country yesterday without a licence. That was an event which occurred after a number of decent honourable men had weathered a long siege. I have said before, and I now repeat, that the only buyers you had for pigs in this country at one time were your own curers. Let us be charitable to the curers. There may have been a little bit of collusion between them sometimes, when there were big supplies on the market; but from the time they got the power into their hands, from the time Fianna Fáil gave them the power, they went to town. One pig curer alone was brought before the Prices Commission 18 months after Fianna Fáil passed the Pigs Bill and that firm was found to have made £800,000 in excess profits. That happened during a period when the Irish farmer could not afford to have anything filched from him, when he was licking his wounds after the economic war.

Why did Deputy Corry not want to know about that? Nobody spoke for the small pig feeder at that time, except the people who are on these benches now. It is my opinion that it is a bad thing to let the Irish curers be the dictators of price, and it is a good thing to have as many buyers as possible in competition with one another, let them be curers, shippers or butchers. When the only buyers of meat in this country were the meat factories in the year of the foot and mouth disease, cattle were bought at £12 each and sold for as much as £37 each after a few months. These are the facts and I know that a sound old hare like Deputy Corry knows them because he was through the mill himself, but he did not come up here and make his complaint at that time.

This question of taxing feeding stuffs brings to my mind the matter of barley. The price of barley was fixed in conjunction with the Grain Growers' Association in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1947. The price arrived at was 35/- a barrel and that was all that Arthur Guinness was able to pay for it and that was all the farmers got for it. That was O.K. The only thing not O.K. was the fact that Arthur Guinness was giving 72/- a barrel for it in England.

The Minister for Agriculture is supposed to be a doormat for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. There were three right old doormats there before him. In the years that they were there agriculture was back in the everglades.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not discuss agriculture in general on this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. T. Lynch

I was only replying to what Deputy Corry said. He said that the Minister for Agriculture was only a doormat for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Under the present Minister, agriculture has taken its rightful place as the foremost industry in this nation.

Mr. Corry

So the farmers said yesterday.

Mr. T. Lynch

We will go back to the pigs.

Mr. Blaney

Will you go back to Leix-Offaly?

Mr. T. Lynch

We can take it and give it out when the time comes. I never backed out of anything in my life.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy very likely never went into anything to back out of it.

Mr. T. Lynch

Coming back to the pigs, it was a scourge to have to put up with Deputy Dr. Ryan as the pig dictator. We had a tradition in Waterford of pig breeding and baconcuring, pig producing and pig exporting, and I will back that tradition against any other centre in Ireland.

As I have mentioned, pigs walked out yesterday, and they were £12 15s. a cwt. in the Dublin market to-day. I think trading is going to drop for some time in this country. You had men from the West of Ireland in Carlow yesterday buying pigs. When pigs get that way, they all become grade A.

The Landrace pig has been spoken about a great deal. This is supposed to be a wonderful grade A pig and thousands of them are said to be smuggled into the country. That is one of the fairy tales of Ireland. I would say that the farmers are doing all right with the pigs they have. A young man I know of went to Denmark and spent three weeks there to learn something about the pig industry. He worked with the farmer and slept with the farmer, and when he came home he had all his neighbours "moidered" about the wonderful people the Danes were and all they were able to do. One night his father got tired of all this and asked him what time the pigs were fed in the morning. He said that they were fed at 6 o'clock. His father then asked him what time did the boss man get up at and he said 5 o'clock. His father asked him if he had gone to any football matches, or coursing matches, or dog races, and he said he had not. His father answered that the best thing that boss man could do was to tie himself up with the pigs and cows and stay there.

Whatever we may say about the Irish farmer, he has a nice standard of living here. If the farmer wants to go to a coursing match, good luck to him, and if he wants to come up to the Dublin Show, my blessing on him to be able to do so.

I advise the Minister that attention should again be given to the marking of the sides. If the farmer gets a fixed price for the bacon, let that bacon be sold at a fixed price over the counter. Every encouragement should be given to having the large pig shipped out of this country. I do not want to see our factories left without pigs. When the large pigs were being shipped out, I saw them going out in thousands, but it was the heavy pigs that were going out, the ones that were not taken by the curers in Waterford and the various other centres. That was a much better class of business.

I suggest to the Minister that grading should be done away with in Ireland now, so that the pigs can be walked out, and that the pigs be graded alive. There are people who are expert enough to put a finger on the back of a pig and tell whether that pig will fill out or not. That should be the way to do it and not have the farmer stuck with the price he will get. There should be live graders that would know their business. They would have to know their business because the boys using the brass rules would be no good there.

The pig curers in Waterford, where I come from, carried on through all the years and were prosperous and that was how they did their business, but we had to wait until the famous Pigs Bill came in to bring the new invention of grading into this country. Many people here are talking about the various balanced rations. I have read articles in the papers about balanced rations and I have been to meetings of farmers where they were lectured and talked to about pigs and the feeding of pigs, but I have discovered that the farmers know more about the balanced rations than half the scientists put together.

Deputy Colbert, Deputy Collins and Deputy Moher spoke about agriculture and they were constructive. I could admire them. They criticised the Minister in many ways and I could admire them for that. They did not indulge in this venomous type of speech that I have heard here and they did not mock a man because he had a university education. I trust that the remainder of the debate will be constructive as far as the other side of the House is concerned. I am sure there are many constructive suggestions over there, suggestions which could be a challenge to the Minister to put them into effect.

Mr. Blaney

I think the plea made for a fair hearing for the Minister and for fair speeches comes ill from the Deputy who has just finished speaking because apparently he agrees neither with what was done yesterday nor the day before. According to him there is no room in the bacon trade, or in agriculture for that matter, for the scientific approach, no place for the man with the brass rule. I think he said just now that we should go back to the stage where the price of an animal was decided by the feel of one's thumb——

Mr. T. Lynch

Not the price.

Mr. Blaney

The grade.

Mr. T. Lynch

Yes.

Mr. Blaney

And the price did not matter? But if you are going to grade an animal by the feel of your thumb, surely that must have some bearing on the ultimate price.

Mr. T. Lynch

I would be very sorry to be misunderstood. Would Deputy Blaney allow me to explain? There was only one price then; they either took the pigs or they did not.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Unless Deputy Blaney gives way the Deputy may not speak.

Mr. Blaney

Then I take it that Deputy Lynch did not mean what he said?

Mr. T. Lynch

Oh, I did mean it.

Mr. Blaney

But if the Deputy meant us to judge pigs by rule of thumb—which I take it is the same as by feel of thumb—in deciding their grade, it is on the grade that we decide the price. Having listened to all this from the Deputy, he then makes a plea at the end of his speech for constructive criticism from the opposite benches. Does his own criticism not boil down to saying that all that has been done by science or by the scientific approach for farming generally, is just a lot of poppycock and that we should go back to the old days when we did not know what was what and when we did not know what was going to happen? If that is to be the approach, I can understand why it was only pretty recently that Deputy Lynch made his entry to this House although he had tried it before.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing to with this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Blaney

I may have wandered somewhat as a result of listening to the raiméis on the opposite side deploring the entry of science into the development of our agricultural industry by a Deputy from the City of Waterford——

Mr. T. Lynch

I did not deplore anything about science.

Mr. Blaney

By deploring the fellow with the brass rule——

Mr. T. Lynch

For degrading our pigs.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy now has no place for the brass rule——

Mr. T. Lynch

I have not.

Mr. Blaney

——or for anyone who uses science in their approach to agriculture. Anything concerning agriculture should, according to the Deputy, be dealt with in the manner of two or three centuries ago, but anything in the way of modern approach should be ruled out and the brass rule along with it. The brass rule does not apply to this debate. What we are discussing at the moment is a Supplementary Estimate introduced by the Minister for Agriculture in order to balance out or make provision for the payment, if payment should fall due, of money to the curers in order that they may pay the farmers and pig producers a guaranteed minimum price of 235/- a cwt. for their pigs. As I see it, the matter boils down to this. As Deputy Corry asked to-night, would there be any necessity whatever to try to give the pig producers a fair crack of the whip if we were allowed a free market at the mills in this country? Would there be any need for this if we were allowed to purchase wheat offals coming from the mills at an economic price rather than being compelled to pay £6 —and I think to-day we are paying £7 —per ton more for those offals than is really necessary in so far as the millers' production costs are concerned?

If we consider that very large impost on the price of feeding stuffs and remember that those offals constitute quite a large percentage of the feeding ration being fed to our pigs at the moment, we realise that if those offals were allowed to be sold at their proper prices instead of being taxed in the underhand manner Deputy Corry has described, then there would be no question whatever but that our pigs could be produced economically and could give a fair return to the farmer. We find we have another situation to remedy on the Supplementary Estimate we are now discussing. What is to be the remedy? We tax the foodstuffs that the farmer must give to his pigs and then we come along and say to the farmers: "You cannot make money as the market is at the moment and so we must guarantee that the curers will pay not less than 235/- per cwt. for all grade A pigs exported." We first of all increase the cost to the farmer and put him in the position that he cannot produce pigs at an economic price or at prices at which that bacon would be bought elsewhere, and in order to remedy that situation we do not remove the cause but find some other way out of it. The other way out is that the Minister comes in here to ask the people, through this House, to give £50,000 to help to pay the guaranteed price to which he has committed the Government in respect of the export of bacon.

That is not all. In addition to this £50,000 of general taxation, we are also being asked, and the producers of pigs are being asked, to foot a bill of 4/7 per pig delivered to the factory irrespective of whether the production of that pig is going to be necessary or not. The levy of 4/7 is on all pigs. As one farmer remarked to me, I wonder is the 7d. for the squeal and the 4/- for the grunt, or vice versa? Whatever it may be, I feel we are feeding the dog with a bit of its own tail and we are not going to produce good pigs as a result. We are taking £50,000 from the taxpayers and we are also asking the producers to pay 4/7 per pig delivered to the factories. If the aggregate of these two sums is not sufficient to pay the deficit, if we produce a surplus of pigs here, who is going to pay the difference? Is it the consumers of bacon in this country who will have to recoup the curers by way of higher prices for bacon at home? Is the Irish housewife asked to pay more for the rashers she uses in order that the British housewife can buy Irish bacon? If that is the position, then we should be told about the attack that the Minister is making on the Irish housewife so that the British housewife will continue to benefit.

The Minister and some of his supporters may well smile at the suggestion that there may be greater production than will be met by this £50,000 and the 4/7d. levy, but if pigs can be produced at the moment and if the market exists to an extent that will encourage the production of bacon with the result that we get a surplus of pigs —if that situation arises, as it has arisen in the past, we may well find ourselves with a large surplus upon our hands and the market in Great Britain may not be as buoyant as it is now. We may be in the position that the bottom may fall out of the British bacon market while we would still have a large surplus of pigs and breeding sows here.

If that should happen, the £50,000 put forward here to-night and the 4/7 per pig levy would go a very little distance towards making up the guaranteed price that the Minister is flaunting around the House and around the country for some weeks past. There is no use in feeding the dog with a bit of its own tail. Apparently we are all going to be robbed in certain ways in order that this Government may cover up the situation they themselves have created of making feeding stuffs too dear to enable us have economic production of pigs in this country. Let us cut out all this tomfoolery. Let us do away with the necessity for this Bill by giving to the farmers and pig producers of this country the basic materials for feeding their pigs at the price which these materials could be given were it not for the row that is on between the two Departments—the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Here we have one Minister shoving up the price so that he may find more money to pay off the flour subsidy, and we find the Minister for Agriculture trying to keep the price of feeding stuffs down in order that the farmer may have something left when turning out his pigs. We could then do away with the 4/7 levy, do away with this £50,000 Estimate and do away with the danger that I can see of the consumer being asked to pay a higher price for bacon in order to subsidise the housewife's British counterpart to eat Irish bacon. All that could be done away with if a sensible, sane approach were made and if our pollards, bran and other wheat offals were made available to our farmers ex-mill at an economic price rather than the boosted price of £7 10s. more than is being charged for them to-day.

The Minister is as well aware of these facts as the other members of this House and it is to his shame and disgrace that this situation is being allowed to continue. I have heard the Minister on other occasions in this House talk on this matter of an increase in the price of what offals. He made the point that somebody else before him did the same. Surely that is no justification for his doing it again. Somebody may have done something in other circumstances—possibly not even the same circumstances—but whether he did it in similar circumstances or otherwise, if it is wrong, it is no excuse to come in here and say that, because his counterpart of some years ago did it, he should do it also. If it was found from experience of the happenings of a few years ago that it was not right to do it, then the Minister should learn from that experience and not repeat the mistake.

I have listened on a few occasions to the Minister endeavouring to extricate himself from this situation and from the allegations made that he was a party to the increase in the price of wheat offals. On every occasion, as I say, he blamed the man who went before him, because he did much the same thing at some other time and in some other year. He also suggested that the prices of wheat offals on the home market and in home production are tied to the price levels obtaining outside the country. I do not see why the wheat offals in this country should be increased in price at the whim and fancy of producers in some other country in the world. I should like if the Minister could bring himself back to the time some years ago when, talking of the price of maize in regard to the feeding of pigs and other stock, he said in no uncertain terms that the price of that commodity should not exceed 20/- per cwt.

I only wish that the Minister had not been perverted from the ideas he then held and that he would now believe in the idea that 20/- per cwt. would be a proper price for feeding stuffs for our pigs to-day. He had gone a long way from the idea he expressed at that time. He has swallowed, hook, line and sinker, what has been handed to him by his colleague in the Department of Industry and Commerce, because he calls the tune to which the Minister for Agriculture must now dance. No later than yesterday we had a further increase in the price of these wheat offals, which go towards the making up of rations for our pig producers. If there was a 30/- per ton increase yesterday in the price of wheat offals, which constitute a fairly large part of the pig ration now on sale in this country, surely the Minister should be announcing a new minimum price for bacon to be exported? If 235/- was regarded as a minimum economic price for our producers, and there is a 30/- per ton increase in feeding offals, surely we are entitled to expect that that 235/- minimum should now be increased by a proportionate amount?

I want this House to realise clearly that we, on this side of the House, believe that the 235/- per cwt. now being offered in a roundabout way— it is being guaranteed by the very people to whom the guarantee is being given—is not sufficient to make it worth while for the farmers of this country to go into pig production in a big way, despite all the frills and flounces surrounding the promises which have been given. I believe that that is the very kernel of this whole question. The guaranteed price is something that can be talked about, something about which much noise can be made and already has been made, but the reason why so much has been said is that it is too low to bring about a situation in which there will be a big surplus of bacon in this country. If that does not happen then the Minister will get away with the ramp he is on at the moment. If, however, for any reason there should be a large surplus of pigs in this country and if, concurrently, there should be a decrease in the British market price for bacon, then we are for it, and the Minister knows we are for it. The price he is offering is not sufficient inducement to create any such surplus, despite all the platitudes we have heard to-night. The wish is not that we should produce an unlimited quantity of bacon; it is that we should keep pig producers quite for another little while and continue to take out of their pockets £7 10s. on every ton of feeding-stuffs that they purchase for the feeding of their pigs. That, apparently, is the ramp the Minister is on at the moment and I think the farmers will definitely see through it.

The £50,000 we are being asked to provide to-night is the farmers' money together with the money of the housewives in city and country. We are guaranteeing to the farmer that he will not get less than 235/- per cwt. for grade A bacon, if he has the luck to produce that grade of bacon. Who is going to foot the bill? Is it not the taxpayer, the housewife, the pig producer, the farmer, the farm worker and the labourer throughout the country? They are the people who are going to pay the piper for the tune now being called by the Minister for Agriculture. For every pig and every cwt. of bacon we send to England that does not reach 235/- per cwt. guaranteed to the producer, the housewives and taxpayers of this country will in taxes, direct or otherwise, make up the difference, so that the British people may eat Irish bacon. That is the situation and it is better that the country should know it.

I cannot see any great enticement in this arrangement at the moment. If, as was said here to-night, this 235/- has boosted the pig industry to such an extent that they are now getting £12 15s. for pigs on the market to-day, surely the Deputy who made that remark cannot be fully cognisant of the facts? A guarantee of a minimum of 235/- per cwt. for bacon does not immediately bring about an increase to £12 15s. for pigs. Surely the Deputy is not trying to point out that the 235/- per cwt. guaranteed price is responsible for the increase in the price of pigs. I hope the Deputy did not mean that. I took it the Deputy did.

Mr. T. Lynch

The Deputy did not say what the Deputy opposite is now twisting to suit himself.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy said what I have said just now.

Mr. T. Lynch

The Deputy referred to the export of pigs out of Waterford.

Mr. Blaney

The reason bacon and pigs are a good price there to-day is because they are scarce and they are scarce because the price has been bad in the past month. Is that not the pattern? Do our pig producers not know that is the pattern? If that is the case, and everybody who looks at the position fairly and squarely knows it is the case, the high price to-day is the result of the scarcity, a scarcity brought about because of the depressed price in the last few months. Surely, it is wrong for any Deputy then to come in here and say that the improvement in pig prices to-day is the result of the guarantee given by the Minister for Agriculture—negotiated, as another Deputy said, with Great Britain. We even had an agreement with Great Britain mentioned here to-night as the reason for the increased price for pigs. We have not got any agreement with Britain. Apparently that Deputy was talking to a brief he had got, a brief he obviously did not understand. He came in here to shower praise on the Minister and the Department and this non-existent agreement—irrespective of the merits, irrespective of the facts and irrespective of who will foot the bill or who will pay the piper.

We should not allow ourselves really to become involved in the type of thing the Minister is perpetrating. Unfortunately, as an Opposition we must be a party to it inasmuch as this Estimate must go through the House. At the same time, we want the farmers and the community generally to appreciate that we do not believe that, in this new guaranteed minimum price the Minister has mentioned, there is compensation for the pig producers or the farmers. There is not, and nobody knows that better than the Minister and his colleagues in the Government. Let us be honest about this. Let us look at it in as kindly a light as we can. We hope that, despite its faults, the pig producer who has taken many beatings in the past will get some recompense in the future.

Let us not, however, blind ourselves or lead our farmers blindly into the belief that this new guaranteed price is the end of all their worries and all their troubles. Let them realise that despite this new guaranteed price, this minimum guaranteed price of which the Minister speaks, there will still be no curb on the rising cost of feeding stuffs for these same pigs. Let us let them know here and now that, even though the cost of feeding stuffs may continue to rise, there is no provision whereby an increase will be made in the minimum price that the Minister is guaranteeing at the same time. We have got no assurance that this minimum guaranteed price will rise if the price of feeding stuffs rises. Yesterday we had an example of how these feeding stuffs can rise. Yet the Minister will not increase the minimum guaranteed price in that eventuality.

While I am on that, might I say that much has been said to-night and on other occasions about the curers. The last Deputy who spoke gave us to understand that the curers were a bunch of people who battened on the farmers, who deprived them of many pounds when they, the curers, had the ball at their own toes and that, in fact, the curers are downright racketeers, racketeering at the expense of the pig producers.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister himself said that several times.

Mr. Blaney

I do not mind so much what the Minister says in some of his explosions, and he is rather explosive. It is another thing to find a Deputy coming in here cold-bloodedly trying to throw dirt on the bacon curers. I think that is something no Deputy should ever try on here. Deputies should realise that it would be well worth their while and, indeed, the while of many other people here, to take time off to examine the statements of accounts and balance sheets published by many of our largest curers over the last five, six or ten years. If they do that, they will find that there are few industries working on a smaller percentage of profit on their turnover, running all sorts of risks and hazards, carrying such an enormous burden and doing so much work for so little return. All they have to do, and I recommend it to the Deputy opposite who cast these aspersions, is to examine these balance sheets. They will prove to be eye-openers to those who want to hold out our bacon curers as racketeers.

The Deputy also told us that if bacon was graded, then the lettering should be run all the way through the side so that that bacon, no matter how it turned out later, could be sold at the grade and price at which it was bought. Supposing there was a high-grade pig and that bacon was marked all the way down the side and it turned out to be not such a high-grade pig in the end, would the Deputy buy the bacon at the high-grade price or would he go to the next shop and look for the right grade at the right price?

Mr. T. Lynch

The Deputy knows nothing about it.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy opposite seems to know all about it. The Deputy had it on view. The Deputy wants us to have the pig marked and graded all the way down the whole length of the side so that, if there should be bacon in that side above the grade at which it was bought, nobody may charge more for it.

Mr. T. Lynch

The Deputy never saw a side of bacon graded.

Mr. Blaney

I probably saw more than the Deputy has seen, and that may shock him. The Deputy should be very careful. I want the Deputy to realise that if you have it one way, then you must give it to the curers the other way; and, if you give it to them the way I suggest, then nobody in their senses can expect it to work. If a pig is taken in and graded A and part of that pig turns out to be grade X, would the Deputy pay the grade A price for the grade X part of the pig?

Mr. T. Lynch

The pig is cut up and the three measurements are graded A.

Mr. Blaney

Then if it cannot happen in that case, how can it happen the other way round?

Mr. T. Lynch

I brought the bacon up here a fortnight ago.

Mr. Blaney

But the Deputy was not allowed to cook the bacon here. He brought it in.

Mr. T. Lynch

He asked for permission. He did not show it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should cease interrupting.

Mr. T. Lynch

And it was better than the stinking stuff that came out of Monaghan.

Mr. Blaney

Considering his antics here to-night, that bacon must still be in his pocket. If it is still in his pocket it cannot be so good and I advise him now to toddle out and get rid of it. The Deputy says that he never backed out of anything. I put it to him that he never did, because he never went into anything.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Blaney

I apologise. It has nothing to do with the Supplementary Estimate. I just want to point out now that the Deputy who spoke before me considers that the bacon curers, as a result of being given certain concessions or certain rights by an Act of this House some years ago, are a lot of racketeers who batten on the farmers, on the public and on the national economy of this country. He made no exceptions.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has already said that.

Mr. Dillon

And will say it many times more, if it is necessary to talk something out. Let him move to report progress.

Mr. Blaney

I think it is a scandalous thing for any Deputy to come in here and try to make out that a group of people, who have been doing a difficult job in difficult times, should be branded as racketeers.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 3rd May, 1956.