He did not wait to eliminate the fish. But he learned, and he is passing that on now to Deputy Moran, who is beginning to learn that fish are not as plentiful as he had thought they were. We are not advantageously placed for the production of fish for export. We may be as well off as other countries, but we have not got the apparent advantage that many ignorant members of the Fianna Fáil Party at one time thought we had. We are, however, peculiarly well placed for the production of milk and meat.
I venture to say there is no country in the world which has the natural advantages we have for the production of meat and milk. Fifty years ago there would have been insuperable difficulty in transferring meat and milk from Ireland to equatorial regions in Africaner to the countries of the Far East where chronic deficiencies of protein food exist. Many people forget that there are large areas in Africa where it is impossible to keep a cow because cattle cannot live in these areas. These people must either do without milk or bring it in in another guise. The present situation is that the wealthy white population in these areas bring in milk in the form of spray dried milk and reconvert it into liquid milk as required. The relatively poor people in these areas do without, and suffer from many shocking deficiency diseases for want of it.
In regard to meat, in these areas the relatively well-to-do, who heretofore were very largely the representatives of colonial Powers, bring in their meat in preserved states of one kind or another, usually canned, though, in the absence of cattle in these areas, alternative sources of meat are available. For the bulk supply of meat there must be an almost insatiable demand for the foreseeable future. There is no country in the world better equipped to supply it than we are. That almost unlimited horizon of demand awaits exploitation. In the meantime we have 55,000,000 people in these two islands, including our own population, to feed while we are branching out into that unlimited area of demand. An essential preliminary to the maintenance of our position in the markets that we have, never mind the exploitation of those yet to come, is the creation of an adequate supply of the commodities we have to sell.
We are introducing a Dairy Produce Marketing Bill at this moment. I wonder do Deputies realise that we have not had anything to sell for some years, that there were two or three years during which we had no butter to export at all—none—and that this year we are getting back only to about the output we achieved in 1957? If we are to make any real progress of consequence, that output would at least want to be doubled, trebled and quadrupled. It is well within our ability to do so if we exploit the potential of the land we have.
I notice in this regard that it is proposed under this Bill to transfer to the Milk Board the export of certain commodities which I deliberately exclude from the province of the Butter Marketing Committee, notably cream. Before I come to that, I want to mention one detail. The Minister has chosen to call this Board An Bord Bainne which, in the English version, is the Milk Board. Why the Minister chose that particular phrase I do not know. It is well calculated to give rise to confusion. There are two Milk Boards in existence, the Dublin Milk Board and the Cork Milk Board, whose specialised function it is to control and supply the demand for liquid milk in the Dublin milk area and the Cork milk area. Why the Minister could not have called this the "Dairy Produce Board", which would at once distinguish its function from that of the existing Milk Boards, I do not know. I think the Minister would be well advised to turn that over in his mind. He may find it more difficult to get someone in the Translation Section to translate "Dairy Produce" than he finds it to get someone who will put Irish on "Milk Board" but I do not think it should be as difficult as all that. I think the Minister will create problems by calling this Body the "Milk Board" in the light of the two existing milk boards and their specialist functions.
We shall transfer the export of fresh cream now. There is a distinction between fresh and tinned cream. I want to tell the House my experience in the Department. The export of fresh cream before the 1939 war was a fiercely competitive business. It became so fiercely competitive and cut-throat because the purveyors of fresh cream in England discovered that by prudent manipulation they could set one creamery society here against another. By that form of competition they managed to whittle down the price they paid for fresh cream derived from Ireland. With the advent of the war, the sale of fresh cream disappeared because its consumption in Great Britain was prohibited. After the war the creameries, in their own defence, came together and organised a joint creamery exporting venture. I think that was done during the administration of my predecessor, the late Deputy Thomas Walsh, the Lord have mercy on him.
When I came back into office in 1954 I raised the question as to why we were restricting permission to export fresh cream to this cream exporting body. Ought it not to be available to any creamery that wanted to engage in it? I was advised of the circumstances that obtained. I said: "I cannot understand it. It seems to me that if an enterprising creamery manager wants to get into this fresh cream export business he ought not to be excluded from it." I further said: "We ought to notify these cream exporters that we propose to let any creamery, that wishes to, export cream." We did that, and the body exporting cream asked to see me to put their case before me. I saw them, accompanied by my technical advisers. They explained that the combination they had formed to export cream was solely for the protection of the producer here, to prevent his being exploited by the successful operations of distributors in Great Britain setting one creamery against the other, and gradually whittling the price down. They said: "Our position is that any creamery in Ireland can join us, whether they actually physically contribute cream or not and any profits"—this is my recollection of the scheme—"we make on the operations we will distribute to the contributing creameries on the basis of their total milk intake." On reflection, I came to the conclusion that they were right and that, so long as the cream exporting organisation was open to any creamery that wanted to join it, that was the right way to go about it. I withdrew the opposition to their activities and I think I was right. I wonder is the Minister right in breaking up that organisation and substituting An Bord Bainne as the cream exporting body? I see that he has given special representations to the cream exporting creameries but I wonder if he is right in interfering with the existing machinery which, so far as I know, worked very well and operated on an equitable basis.
I do not understand why the Minister is excluding from the scope of the Milk Board's powers the marketing of milk powder. I should have said that if there is one commodity which requires exploitation at a national level it is milk powder. It is a market of limitless potential but one into which it is extremely difficult to get. It has a variety of ramifications because in some cases it is sprayed milk and in some cases it is roller milk and one would have thought that it was something which would need to have a centralised marketing organisation.
I can see that the Minister may ask me why I did not centralise it when I was Minister for Agriculture and the answer is that I did not because I could not. I could not because there was a fight in which 40 could have joined when I started the sprayed milk plant in Tipperary. At that time I was presented with a certain agreement entered into by Dr. Ryan, when he was Minister for Agriculture, by which two creameries in Ireland were presented with a practical monopoly of the manufacture of dry milk. That presented me with considerable difficulty because Dr. Ryan had been the Minister for Agriculture and had the right to speak with the full authority of the Government. It appeared to me that no man had a right to give a practical monopoly of the manufacture of such a product and I said that that was to be stopped.
The monopoly was expressed in terms of roller dried milk and I said that it did not extend to spray dried milk and I directed the Dairy Disposals Company to manufacture that milk in county Tipperary. Neither of the monopolists wanted to enter that market at all. They were content to produce roller dried milk and to sell it to people manufacturing baby food and to others of that type. As scon as we got the sprayed dried milk working other creameries applied for leave to engage in that work.
In 1957, notice which I had given to the monopolists was still in the process of running out and I do not know if the situation now is that the two creameries concerned wish to maintain their monopoly. They claim to have got that monopoly from Dr. Ryan but if that is the Minister's difficulty, I think he ought to solve it firmly and seriously consider charging this Marketing Board with the marketing of dried milk.
I can understand his leaving the marketing of chocolate crumb to the existing industrialists who do it because, despite all the hullabaloo about the marketing of it in Canada, I always thought that our best market for this product is Great Britain. There always was a good market for our chocolate crumb in Britain because we had good contacts with the sweet manufacturers there. It would be desirable to develop a market for chocolate crumb in Canada and America but the impression I got was that both of those countries were determined that we were not to get a foot into either market and that they were well able to supply themselves.
A large proportion of the end product, chocolate crumb, is imported cocoa and it is easy to see why countries like Canada and the United States were limited in their output of this product solely by the availability of milk. It is that which limits the British potential for the production of chocolate crumb. They have not got the milk from their own resources, although there was a period when milk supplies in Britain began to expand and when there was a danger that milk would become available in Britain for the manufacture of chocolate crumb and that we would be forced out of the market. It was our contacts in Britain that prevented that from happening and I do not think there is much danger of its happening now. However, unless there is some quite extensive potential expansion of the chocolate crumb trade to continental or American markets, of which I know nothing, I think the Minister is well advised to leave our chocolate crumb trade outside the general duties of the new Milk Board to be established under this Bill.
The Minister stated that he hoped for an expansion in the consumption of cheese in this country. I always hoped for that. I think there are two things that fail to be said about it. One is that I do not think we have got sufficient support from the public health authorities or the medical profession in recommending cheese as a desirable element in the diet of children. I believe it is a perfectly true and desirable recommendation that the diet of children should contain a substantial proportion of cheese. I do not think that has been given the publicity it ought to be given. The Department of Health would be better employed in urging that upon nursing mothers and others responsible for the raising of the young up to adolescence than in urging upon us the vital necessity of fluorine and molybdenum and other chemicals in our water. If mothers, before the birth of their children, made themselves consume more calcium in the form of cheese and if children could be taught to consume more cheese, it would probably have a much more significant effect on dental caries and dental defects than any therapeutic process such as treating the general water supply could ever hope to have.
That is one aspect of the expansion of the demand for cheese which I do not think we should over-estimate because, for a reason I have never been fully able to understand, unlike the British people we do not seem to be a cheese-eating people. I can understand our not being an ardent fish-eating people because we have to eat fish on days of fast and abstinence and this produces a natural aversion. I do not mind some of my eccentric colleagues who prefer fish to meat; that is merely a foible and not a normal reaction. I think every Minister for Agriculture will find himself confronted with a strange reluctance on the part of our people to consume cheese. It would help greatly if our public health authorities would promote the consumption of cheese amongst the young.
There is a second problem; confession is good for the soul and I may say it is a problem I could never resolve. When I was Minister for Agriculture the Danes were introducing Danish blue cheese to the world shortly after the war, about 1948. I remember time and time again saying to the officers of the Department of Agriculture and to creamery managers: "How is it that the Danes can flood the world with blue cheese, that it is pressed upon you in New York and London and that we cannot produce any distinctive type of cheese at all?" Of course, one alibi at that time was that there was not enough milk wherewith to do it. However, later when there was enough milk wherewith to do it and when we were actually exporting milk, I could never get the cheese industry to produce a distinctive Irish cheese. They contented themselves with producing Cheddar, processed cheese or copying Continental cheeses mainly for the purpose of forcing me to put a duty on these cheeses to prevent their importation.
That is a matter to which the Minister might profitably turn his mind, the reason why we have never been able to produce a distinctive cheese suitable for export. I do not know whether he has ever inquired into that question but, if he has, some of the explanations vouchsafed to him might cause him some astonishment and concern. I can only hope that in recent years the general standard of quality of milk delivered to Irish creameries is such that these supplies could be readily used for conversion into cheese. It has been sometimes suggested to me that one of the difficulties of expanding that market related to the standard of milk, as it was delivered to the creameries. I do not believe that is an insuperable difficulty. There ought to be an expanding output of cheese and it ought to be possible for us to secure an expanding market for it abroad. However, I believe that if we are to do it with any hope of profit it will largely depend on whether we are able to produce a cheese that has as outstanding a character as Danish blue. It is true to say that twenty years ago the name of Danish blue was unknown, yet today it is one of the most commonly consumed cheeses, after Cheddar, in the world. It has probably outstripped many of the well-known old varieties of English, and even most of the established varieties of French cheese in their appeal.
It is a highly technical problem but it does not seem to me credible, when I think of the multitude of varieties of cheese manufactured not only in France but in Italy and Switzerland as well as in Germany and Holland, that it is not possible in Ireland to produce at least one cheese of distinctive character on which a marketing board of this kind could rely to get an alternative outlet for milk supplies. It is only in that way that it can hope to get an enduring market which will be of consequence to the dairy produce industry.
We are going to have a levy. We are also going to have this Board constituted by representatives of the creameries, the Dairy Disposal Board and the manufacturers of cheese, milk powder and chocolate crumb. I do not understand why these interests are to be represented on the Board if we specifically exclude their products from the discretion of the Board. I quote from column 761, Volume 185 of the Official Report of the 6th December, 1960, where the Minister says:
At the outset it is proposed to leave to the individual manufacturers the export of all chocolate crumb to Britain and the Six Counties;
There is no qualification in regard to milk powder, non-creamery butter and some special lines of cheese.
The Board would be the sole exporter of creamery butter, fresh cream, canned cream, condensed milk and cheese other than some special lines, and would also handle the export of chocolate crumb to destinations other than Britain and the Six Counties.
This is what I am puzzled about: why does the Minister exclude milk powder altogether? I can understand his attempting to segregate exports of these things to the British market on the ground that channels of trade already exist but he seems to exclude milk powder for all parts from the discretion of the Board. I would be interested to hear from him at some future date his reason for that decision.
I should like to ask this question: if there is to be a board charged with marketing which is to have representatives of the creameries on it, representatives of the Dairy Disposal Board, and representatives of the manufacturers of cheese, milk powder and chocolate crumb and this extra member that the Minister announced as a representative of the creameries participating in the production of fresh cream, has he considered whether it would not be desirable to give the Irish Creamery Managers' Association representation on this Board? I suppose it is true that these creameries could themselves elect a manager to represent them on the Board if they wanted to do so. But if we are to bear in mind, as I think we must bear in mind, that marketing is not exclusively a question of selling—it also has aspects relating to production, handling, packing and processing—it occurs to me that among the Irish creamery managers are to be found a number of men with very highly specialised knowledge.
If the creamery societies themselves do not choose to appoint managers— and I could well imagine that they would not and would prefer to appoint representative members of their committees—would it not be a desirable thing that responsibility should be thrown upon the creamery managers themselves to choose somebody to represent their common knowledge, wisdom and experience in the deliberations of a marketing board of this kind? I think that is a matter worthy of consideration and I would be glad to hear from the Minister whether he has considered this and, if so, what are his reasons for deciding against including them.
There are certain matters of detail which we can discuss more exhaustively on the Committee Stage of this Bill. I do not think this Bill is going to make any serious difference at all. I think the Butter Marketing Committee, under the general supervision. of the Minister for Agriculture, did many of the things this new Board is now charged to do. I believe the principal reason the Minister has been so spry in introducing legislation to conform with the recommendations of the board he set up to advise on the marketing of agricultural produce is that he sees an incomparable opportunity of passing the buck again. I hope the dairy farmers will not have as painful an experience in regard to the potentialities of a levy as the wheat farmers have had in their dealings with An Bord Gráin.
I want to say quite definitely that no matter how many boards stand between the Minister for Agriculture and the ultimate welfare of the industry he is supposed to represent in this House and in the Government, the responsibility ultimately rests on. him; and no amount of public hand washing, no amount of boards, however well remunerated and however large in personnel, can substitute for the duty he has to answer to the people for the fundamental industry of this country and for the wise administration of the £1,000,000,000 of our national wealth that is invested in the land.
