Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 26 Mar 1957

Vol. 161 No. 2

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Agriculture.

Aire Talmhaiochta (Proinsias Mac Aogáin)

Tairgim:—

Go ndeonfar suim fhorlíontach nach mó ná £490,000 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfas chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1957, chun Tuarastal agus Costas Oifig an Aire Thalmhaíochta, lena n-áirítear Seirbhísí áirithe atá faoi riaradh na hOifige sin, agus chun íoctha Chúnamh Airgid áirithe agus Ildeontas-i-gCabhair.

Deputies will have seen from the Supplementary Estimate circulated that there are two rather large sums required which were not anticipated at the beginning of the year and there are certain appropriations-in-aid that have not come in. The total extra amount required for this financial year is £1,130,440. There are savings in other subheads amounting to £640,440, leaving a net total to be voted by the Dáil of £490,000.

The various headings under which these extra payments and deficiencies accrue are set out. Under M.7, which deals with the Agricultural Production Council, another £345 is required. It was not in being at the beginning of the financial year and that is the amount required to cover its activities until the end of this financial year.

Then, £50,000 is required under M.9 for the subsidy on phosphate. Under N.1 £75,000 is required to cover the expenses in connection with the outbreak of swine fever which occurred recently. I am glad to say that there has not been a case now since the 1st of March. We trust that it is coming to an end.

The biggest amount required is £643,000 for subsidies for dairy produce. At the beginning of the year, it was anticipated that, for dairy produce subsidies, a sum of £2,100,000 would be required, but the estimate now is £2,743,000, leaving a sum to be voted by the Dáil of £643,000. That is a sum which is very largely due to the increase in the production of butter, leading to an estimated export of 4,000 to 5,000 tons. That will require a very heavy subsidy in order to enable it to be sold abroad for the best price we can get and at the same time pay the farmers their usual price for milk. At the present time the butter is costing the Butter Marketing Committee about 440/8 per cwt. to export, but they are compelled to sell it in competition with other exporters on the British market at 249/– per cwt. That involves a loss of 191/8 per cwt., or about 1/8½d. per lb. Deputies will see that this is a very large sum to pay, but there is no way out of it. If we want to sell the butter abroad, we cannot get any more at the present time than the 249/– and the total internal cost and export costs on that amounts to the 440/– I have outlined.

Mr. Dillon

I think it right the Minister should not overlook that for the butter we sell in Germany we get a little more, but that is a restricted market.

Mr. Aiken

Yes, it is largely sold in Britain and the Six Counties. What I am giving is the average figure of which I have been advised, the average figure for the cost and what we can get for it.

The only other big figure is in the Appropriations-in-Aid—the deficiencies in Appropriations-in-Aid. The recoupments from the American Grant Counterpart Fund were £345,000 less than was anticipated. That is because the expenditure on the distribution of lime and the expenditure on the bovine tuberculosis eradication is not as high as was anticipated at the beginning of the year. Consequently, the Department is now short of the £345,000 recoupment from the Grant Counterpart Fund which was anticipated.

There are no other sums which are any way comparable in size with those. I think that gives the Dáil a fair indication of what the money is required for and the net sum required, which as I pointed out, is £490,000.

Mr. McQuillan

The remarkable statement of the Minister on this Supplementary Estimate should bring home emphatically to the public the cockeyed policy which has been pursued in this country for the past 35 years in so far as agriculture is concerned. We have arrived now at the stage of which, in spite of the wonderful Ministers for Agriculture we had over the years, the new Minister, in his first act as a Minister, has to introduce a Supplementary Estimate which will pay the British to buy our butter. That is the first action he takes when he comes into this House—and that is after 35 years of native Government.

I believe the necessary preparations for the introduction of this Supplementary Estimate had been taken prior to the change of Government. That would lead me to believe that the former Minister, if time had allowed him, would have introduced exactly this Estimate and that, on the introduction of the Estimate, he would have had the complete and unanimous support of the Labour Party, who would be agreeable to pay the British people to buy our butter.

That fact deserves very serious consideration. We have people in Ireland here who never see butter from one end of the year to the other. Their economic circumstances are such that the taste of butter is something that they can only dream about. Yet, in spite of the fact that a large section of our community is deprived of butter, through economic circumstances, we come into this House to subsidise the British to buy the butter produced in our country. If that is not a cockeyed policy, I do not know what it is.

Not only do we do that, mark you, but we have a Supplementary Estimate here to-day under M.7, increasing the estimate from £5 to £350—an increase of £345—for the Agricultural Production Council. Now, I do not know, sir, and I am not familiar with the position, but I am just wondering whether this Agricultural Production Council was working on the policy that we should increase our exports of butter. Perhaps the fact that we have this increase in our export of butter can be tied in with the fact that we have an agricultural Production Council for which we need supplementary money at the moment. It all leads up to the fact that when an increase in production takes place—in butter, for instance—we ask the British if they will take money from the Irish Parliament in order to buy the butter from us.

I know that the present Minister who introduced this Estimate is not responsible for it under the circumstances and I hope that, when the new Minister who takes over that portfolio has had an opportunity to get down to the details in the Department of Agriculture, we will never see the day again when a Supplementary Estimate will have to be introduced into this House asking the British to buy our butter at a subsidised rate.

Mr. Aiken

I do not want to open a discussion on this point, but the fact of the matter is that, when we have surpluses which we cannot sell at home, we must sell them abroad at whatever price we can get for them. Many other countries besides ourselves are under that compulsion. We are getting a very disastrously low price for the butter which we export at the present time, but so are the people of New Zealand, Denmark and Holland, who are exporting at present.

For a long term policy, as far as I can see, to the extent that we can produce what we require here ourselves, we will be under less compulsion to sell abroad in order to get the money to buy imports. This particular subsidy on butter could not have been anticipated by anybody at the beginning of the year. There was a disastrous fall in recent months in the price of butter in England. I do not see how the exporting countries can keep it up because there were countries exporting butter to Britain in which it was a very much bigger percentage of their total production than butter is of our total production and also a fantastically higher percentage of their exports than butter is of ours. There are many things which are very difficult in the world, and the handling of this butter business is going to be a real headache.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear! Fortunately, we have a few cattle to send out, and some of the others have not.

Mr. T. Lynch

Has there not been a substantial increase in production in the past few months as well?

Mr. Aiken

There has been.

Vote put and agreed to.