Deputy Corry has given notice of his intention to raise the subject matter of two questions on the adjournment.
Adjournment Debate. - Sugar Exports: Duties and Levies.
I am raising this matter for the sake of those whom we must consider, after all, the backbone of the community, the ordinary small tillage farmers who, year by year are being gradually wiped out. On the one hand we have appeals for increased production and, on the other hand, if we produce more we are either fined as in wheat or told that it is not wanted. Last week I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce: "If he will state (1) the total number of tons of sugar exported either as sugar chocolate crumb or other sweet products to Britain in 1959, (2) the total duty charged and the total levy paid to British customs in respect of such exports." The Minister's reply to parts (1) and (2) was that the information was not available. I cannot view a reply of that description with anything but amazement and sympathy, sympathy for a Department of State and a Minister who cannot find that much information— information that was available to me in ten minutes in the Sugar Company's office as a member of the Beet Growers' Association.
The reply for the Minister's information to the two questions is as follows: "the total number of tons exported was 34,000 tons; the levy and duty paid to Britain for the privilege of sending that in was £855,000. Part (3) of the Question was "how the position in this regard compares with that relative to similar exports from Australia, South Africa, Jamaica and other countries to Britain" and (4) "whether these countries receive any special treatment which places them in a better position in regard to exports of sugar or sugar goods than this country." The Minister's reply was: "As regards parts (3) and (4), Irish-manufactured sugar and goods containing sugar receive the same treatment on entering Britain as similar goods manufactured in countries of the British Commonwealth; but I understand that similar goods from the British Colonies receive somewhat more favourable treatment." Again, I can only view with alarm the ignorance displayed in the Minister's Department in that respect.
The Deputy can attribute the ignorance to me; I am quite happy to accept it.
The position is that Commonwealth countries, Australia, for example, have special treatment with regard to a guaranteed market and price under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. The Australians, I am sure, would be very annoyed to be called a colony. They are receiving £54 a ton for their sugar as compared with our £40. As I pointed out, between duty and levy we pay 22/6 on a 40/- article, that is over 52 or 53 per cent.
Today I endeavoured to find out the position regarding the imports of biscuits, which contain large quantities of sugar, bakery products, syrup, molasses, glucose, sugar syrups and sugar preparations from Britain, and I asked the Minister if he intended to take any steps to place those two imports in the same position as exports of sugar and chocolate crumb have been placed by the British, which is a fair question. In reply the Minister explained that Irish-manufactured sugar and goods containing sugar receive the same treatment on entering Britain as similar goods manufactured in countries of the British Commonwealth. The only sugar more favourably treated on entering Britain was that produced in the British Colonies. In the circumstances the question of taking action did not arise. I also asked the Minister for Finance the position regarding the import——
That Question does not arise on the adjournment.
No, but I wish to use it in view of the Minister's statement here, in regard to our sugar getting the same treatment as similar goods manufactured in the British Commonwealth, that no occasion arises for any special duty on those. If you take even one article, molasses, for example, it is imported into this country free of duty. We pay over 50 per cent. on the molasses imported into Britain. That is one example. It is a joke that we import molasses here for an Irish industry and at the same time have to export to Britain and pay over 50 per cent. on what we export. The same applies to glucose which has only a 25 per cent. duty as compared with 52 per cent. on our exports of sugar and chocolate crumb.
The whole of this can be met in one way. The Minister in reply to me last week said that the import of sugar is engaged in only when Irish producers are not in a position to supply the beet. That is at Column 25 of the Official Report of 10th February, 1960. Today he told us something different. He told us that our price was too high for sugar and that cane sugar produced by the Cubans is cheaper than ours. Naturally it is considering that the Jamaicans get £14 a ton more for their imports into Britain of sugar than what we get.
It boils down to this. You had for the past 12 months an import of some 64,000 tons of foreign sugar cane costing the people of this country £2,000,000 to import it. You had an offer from old satisfactory growers of beet this year of 96,000 acres of which 66,000 acres was taken leaving 30,000 acres of beet which the small farmer was prepared to produce but had to be refused a market for.
That would more than cover the £2 million that we pay for foreign sugar and it would be £2 million in the pockets of our farmers. My reason for raising the matter in this manner is to appeal to the Minister to take this question in hands. Surely we are in a position to negotiate. There is some £3 million or £4 million worth of agricultural machinery imported into this country. There we have a bargaining factor—something that we farmers are buying plus the duty in order to keep our Irish industries going here. I object to no duty that is going to keep our Irish industries going but I object to differentiation as between one industry and another. The Minister is very fond of making this statement: "The Government is actively seeking access to foreign markets——"
It is not usual to give quotations——
"——where the entry of our produce is at present curtailed or limited or handicapped severely."
It is not in order to give quotations on the Adjournment debate.
This is not exactly a quotation. It is a Government statement. I suggest this is a case of that description. This is a case where we have an opportunity. The opportunity is there for us to put £2 million into the pockets of our handicapped farmers who provide the only outlet there is for agricultural labour today, namely, beet. The opportunity is there and if I know the Minister he is a man who is prepared to take advantage of it. The chance is there and if we get to work on it it will take very little effort.
I am informed by the general manager of the Sugar Company—I questioned him on this—that expanding both in Thurles and Mallow would mean that he could take in an extra 500 tons of beet a day. That would meet the whole question undoubtedly. What we are asking the Minister to do is to get rid of that £14 a ton differential which exists between Irish sugar and Irish sugar products going into Britain and the products of the Commonwealth countries. I suggest that we have bargaining power enough to get that. If he does, it will mean a big chance in so far as the agricultural community is concerned.
It was only in 1958 that I tramped every parish in the counties of Cork and Kerry at the request and with the help and assistance of the Irish Sugar Company endeavouring to induce farmers to increase their acreage of beet. Apparently, we were too successful. If this is not done, let me hear nobody in this House again from any Party of politicians talk about looking for more production from the farmers. The opportunity is there—it stares us in the face—to get rid of the import of sugar cane.
I remember the Minister stating today that the reason for the import of sugar cane was that it would be more economic than the Irish sugar. I remember only a few years ago—I think it would be about 1955—that we imported 75,000 tons of foreign sugar at £12 a ton higher than the best Irish sugar leaving the Irish factories. That could happen again in twelve months. If God spares the Russian to start trouble it will be the only thing that will be any good for the farmers today. It is a hard thing to say that we have to depend upon war or rumours of war to get a market for our produce.
I want to be reasonable. I think I made an honest case to the Minister on this matter—a case that can give him an opportunity of working. In this matter I can guarantee him both the co-operation of the Beet Growers' Association and of the Irish Sugar Company because, thank God, there is one place where you can have co-operation.
Statements were made here today in connection with the beet acreage given to the big growers. I had a list of 85 beet growers in my district. Every case was enquired into and each one of them got an average normal acreage for the past three years. They were not 20 acre growers or even ten acre growers but one and half acre and two acre growers. I am prepared to hand the list to Deputy Corish if he wants it. Let me hear no more talk about the big fellow being well looked after and that the small fellow is being let down.
Your small fellow was not let down.
No.
Our small fellows were let down.
There are representatives of the Wexford beet growers on the Thurles board. I know the Chairman of the Thurles board. He is not a man who would see anybody left out.
Was the Deputy not let down?
There were men coming to my house who made the case that they had 4, 5, or 6 acres and when I tested their statements I found that they had only 3, 2 or 1 acres.
Would the Deputy read this letter?
I am not speaking about the fellows who grow 3 tons of beet to the acre and who kick up a row because they do not get more acreage.
The Minister is entitled to 10 minutes in which to reply.
This is the only crop produced by farmers in this country on which they are guaranteed the cost of production plus a fair profit, and I am very proud to have been one of the men who worked towards the achievement of that. It is up to the Minister to make a good job of it, and I hope he will be allowed to do that.
I do not know whether the Deputy is trying to criticise me or compliment me.
No Minister has ever discovered that yet, as far as Deputy Corry is concerned.
I can only say, with regard to the case Deputy Corry made, that it is very easy to make such a good case if one only uses the facts which suit it but, when he is replying to such a case, a Minister has to have regard to all the facts. In the first instance, he accused me and my Department of ignorance because we did not go to the immense trouble involved in answering, not the question which he seems to have answered today about the export of sugar, but the question he put down regarding the total number of tons of sugar, chocolate crumb and other products exported to Britain in 1959. That information was not readily available to the Department and I did not consider it worthwhile to send officials looking for these figures which would occupy several hours of their time at considerable public expense. However, Deputy Corry has done it for me. He had gone to his friends in Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann and got these figures.
I shall go down to the Library and get them for the Minister.
I was wondering what was the necessity for his raising the question with me when he could do that. Again, I would like him to bring this matter back to a basis of reality. The Irish Sugar Company produces sugar from home-grown beet and from raw sugar imported. The sugar they produce from home-grown beet costs a considerable amount more than the sugar they can produce from the imported raw commodity. The amount of beet they take is related to the amount of sugar required for the home market, and also to their existing capacity to produce sugar in their present factories.
The raw sugar they import is processed and can be sold at a much cheaper price. Sugar is consumed both by the ordinary public and by manufacturers of sugar products and if the manufacturers of sugar products had to pay a price based on the cost of beet they would not be able to compete in foreign markets. If more home-grown beet were produced here, and if the sugar product producers were totally dependent on it, it would mean they would not be able to compete in foreign markets and possibly hundreds of people would be put out of employment.
The Deputy referred to the levy imposed by the British Government on sugar imported into Britain. That levy is roughly 16/4d. a cwt. and it applies to all sugar produced by this country, by other foreign countries, by commonwealth countries, by colonies and by the British themselves, so the suggestion the Deputy has made that the 16/4d. a cwt. is an additional burden on the Irish producer is not correct. It is a burden imposed by the British on all producers of sugar whether home producers, commonwealth producers or colonial producers and is used, as the Deputy says, to help maintain the guaranteed price paid to commonwealth producers. That guaranteed price is the result of an agreement made between Britain and commonwealth countries and there is nothing we can do about it. We cannot tell the British to break their agreement with commonwealth countries as far as sugar prices are concerned.
There is also a rate of duty for sugar and sugar goods imported into England. That rate is 11/8d. full, and 5/8d. a cwt. preferential, and we have the advantage of the preferential rate whether for sugar as such or for the sugar contained in sugar products. There is also a duty on colonial products of 2.47d. per cwt. so it is not true for the Deputy to say that Irish sugar suffers a disadvantage which is not shared by sugar producers in other countries.
A guaranteed price of £54 a ton.
There is a guaranteed price for commonwealth sugar, up to a maximum amount of 525,000 tons. This arrangement was not a breach of our Trade Agreement with Britain. The Foreign Trade Committee, who are experts in this matter, advised one of my predecessors that it was not a breach of that Agreement so there was nothing he or I could do about it, and to suggest there is something I can do is not correct. That arrangement which the British made with commonwealth sugar producers is not a breach of our Trade Agreement with Britain.
The Irish sugar factories have a certain output capacity and that output capacity is taken up by the amount of beet which produces the required amount of sugar for home consumption. The fact that the acreage has had to be reduced over the years has been caused by the greater productivity of Irish soil in the matter of beet production. Figures supplied by the Irish Sugar Company show that 161,000 acres in 1946 produced the same quantity of sugar as 95,000 acres in 1947 and as 68,000 acres in 1959. It was for that reason that the Irish Sugar Company had to ration beet acreage and that ration was based on a normal acreage turn-over—on the average grown in 1956, 1957 and 1958, an average that was unanimously agreed to by the representatives of the beet growers, of whom Deputy Corry is a very prominent member. In fact, I think he is the chairman and in that context I repeat the word "unanimously". To the extent that there is any complaint that the acreage of beet has been reduced to individual farmers it is caused by the greater productivity from Irish soil and a result of the agreement made unanimously with the Sugar Company by the elected representatives of the beet growers themselves.
If we wanted to use more sugar in this country there is an obvious way of doing it—rather, I should say, if we wanted to grow more beet for conversion into sugar. Sugar beet growers get a guaranteed price for a certain acreage, an acreage sufficient to meet home demands for sugar but, if they wanted to produce more, then there would be an obligation on them to produce it at world prices so as to enable us to maintain our exports and to be competitive with those who export into Britain either sugar or sugar products.
We have no intention of asking my farmers to go into competition with the Jamaican niggers.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 18th February, 1960.