Deputy McQuillan has given notice that he wishes to raise the subject matter of Question No. 16 on the Order Paper of Tuesday, 7th May.
Adjournment Debate. - Grants to Bacon Factories.
The question I propose to deal with now was originally put down to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, whose presence here now I am very glad to see, but for some reason unknown to me, the question ended up with the Department of Agriculture and was answered on Tuesday by the Minister for Finance, acting for the Minister for Agriculture.
The question was:
To ask the Minister for Agriculture what schemes there are for payment of grants to bacon factories and if he will give details of such schemes and of the grants which have been approved and made in each of the past three years.
The reply given by the Minister for Agriculture and read by the Minister for Finance was:
My Department operates a scheme of grants for certain works of modernisation in layout and plant at bacon factories. The grants are now at the rate of 50 per cent of the approved cost of the works covered by the scheme.
The grants paid in each of the past three years were as follows:—
Year ended 31st March, 1961: None.
Year ended 31st March, 1962: 14 grants totalling £26,383.2.7.
Year ended 31st March, 1963: 9 grants totalling £22,812.0.2.
When I asked what schemes there were for payment of grants to bacon factories, I innocently presumed such a question would disclose what the position was in regard to payment of grants to bacon factories. I regret to say that the full facts of the grants payable and given and approved to bacon factories have not been disclosed either in that reply or in the current Budget Tables on which the question was based. Table VI of the current Budget Tables is headed "Table Showing State Aid to Agriculture." In that Table, there is a sum of £37 million which, it is alleged, is being given for the improvement of agriculture and there is a list of items with which I shall not bore the House and the sources of the various grants to Agriculture are marked.
The Department of Industry and Commerce, the Board of Works, the Land Commission and the Department of Local Government are involved. One of the items mentioned in that list is bacon factory grants. The Tables purport to give a true picture to the House and the public of what the grants to the bacon factories are and these grants as disclosed in the current Budget Tables are exactly as I was informed in the reply to the Dáil Question. I want the Minister to explain how an important document of that nature, the current Budget Tables, did not disclose the full facts when in the year ending 31st March, 1962, it is revealed in the statutory report and accounts of Bord Foras Tionscal that a certain bacon factory in Dublin city was approved for a grant to the extent of £200,000 for pre-packaged pig products. In that year, a sum of £17,500 was paid out of the £200,000 approved. If we are to have accuracy, the tables of grants to agriculture should disclose for 1961-62 that not a sum of £26,000 but of £26,000, plus £17,500, totalling £43,500, was paid in that year to bacon factories.
Why was there this failure? The public are entitled to ask that because the most important thing here is accuracy in the figures given to the House, especially when we have a Budget which is a blister on the backs of the public, and when the public are told that this money must be raised and that there is no question of squandermania, that the money which the Budget imposition is designed to produce is essential for the development of the State.
I must admit that if a Deputy wished to get the information I have got, he could go down to the Library and find on page 10 of the Report of Foras Tionscal for 1962 a statement that Donnellys (Dublin) Limited were approved for a grant of £200,000 for their bacon factory. But why should it be necessary to go down to the Library to get information of that nature which should have been disclosed in the current Budget Tables? Why did the current Budget Tables give figures for bacon factory grants for certain bacon factories? Why was that information not disclosed, as far as Foras Tionscal were concerned, for Donnelly's bacon factory here in Dublin?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce should also tell the House why he or his Department refused to accept this Dáil Question of mine, because either the Minister personally or his Departmental advisers said it was not their responsibility. The question was shelved by the Department of Industry and Commerce and it went to Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture answered me and it was disclosed in his reply that a number of grants were given. When I asked him what the total position was, I presumed the information given in the reply to that question was accurate. I asked a supplementary question as follows:
Would the Minister clarify the position further? Do those figures he has given take into account the grants given by An Foras Tionscal under the Industrial Grants Acts for bacon factories?
Dr. Ryan: I do not think so. I am doubtful if there would be grants from Foras Tionscal, though I cannot say definitely.
We know he is the old dog for the hard road. He covers himself at the end by saying: "I cannot say definitely." But he, as Minister for Finance, was doubtful that there would be grants from Foras Tionscal for bacon factories, seeing that grants were already made available by the Department of Agriculture. I questioned him further as follows:
I have asked the Minister for Agriculture to give full information. Is it a fact that the Minister is not in possession of the facts?
Dr. Ryan: I have given all the information the Minister for Agriculture gave me.
Mr. McQuillan: But the information the Minister for Agriculture has given does not show the full position with regard to the giving out of grants to bacon factories.
It does not. That is the reason I had to raise this matter on the Adjournment. It is not a question of a mistake of £1 or 2/6d. I do not know whether it is wrong presentation that is involved, but the sum involved—although it has not all been paid out yet—is of such a size as to make the public pause and think. It is something that should be made public on this basis: Is that the best possible use that can be made of a sum of money of that nature for the development of agriculture, which, according to the Government, is getting £37 million to £39 million this year? I do not accept at all that agriculture is going to reap the benefit of expenditure of this nature. I do not propose to pursue that line further, except to say that, to my mind, it is a disgraceful misuse of public funds to give a grant of £200,000 to a private firm in the city of Dublin on the grounds, moryah, that it is going to help agricultural production in Ireland.
If the Government were anxious to spend £200,000 to help the bacon industry, the place to spend it is down in rural Ireland, by helping to increase the grants for piggeries and by helping small farmers to set up co-operatives so that they could improve their position. Instead, this grant is given in the city of Dublin under the title of Foras Tionscal, under the Undeveloped Areas Act, to help a firm which, in my opinion, needs very little financial help.
Why are there two schemes of grants for bacon factories? Why should one scheme be administered by Foras Tionscal for one single factory, and why is there another scheme for other factories administered by the Department of Agriculture? Is there any significance in the fact that only one grant has been made available by Foras Tionscal and that grant is for £200,000 to a firm based here in Dublin? I want to give the Minister plenty of time for his reply. I want to ask him is it a coincidence that this unique grant of £200,000 of public money is being made to a private firm, the managing director of which is one of the strong backroom men of the the Fianna Fáil Party? He is one of their key men. He is such a key man, in fact, that they put him into Telefís Éireann as a key man as well. Is there more than a coincidence in the fact that this is the only firm which has got a grant of £200,000 in connection with pre-packaged bacon products?
We know that 10 years ago the Fianna Fáil Party set up a special agricultural committee, which made recommendations on how to expand pig production. They produced a report, which was made available to the national executive of the Fianna Fáil Party. I happen to have this document with me. I have kept it for 10 years. This is what they have to say about the bacon factories:
The bacon factories, especially Donnellys, dominate the situation and are able to manipulate prices and exploit the small producer. That firm was enjoying the protection of the Minister.
That is the statement made by the Fianna Fáil Party ten or 11 years ago when they were examining the position of the bacon factory. The wheel has turned a full circle and that very same factory to-day has been given a grant of £200,000 of public money. In part, the Budget was put on the public for the purpose of paying that grant. The Minister and the Government owe the country an explanation of why they expended their hardearned money in this fashion.
Nobody will object to Deputy McQuillan raising his storm in his teacup, but he could not avoid throwing up some mud at the tail end of his storm. There is nothing sinister whatever about the reply, the manner in which it was given and the Minister by whom it was given on this occasion. There are, as the Deputy well knows, industrial grants, apart altogether from whatever agricultural grants are available from the Department of Agriculture. Under the Undeveloped Areas Act and the Industrial Grants Acts, Foras Tionscal were set up to examine applications for grants for new industries or for extensions of existing industries. They are an autonomous body to decide when the grant, and what amount, may be given. There is a separate scheme in the Department of Agriculture whereby grants amounting to a certain percentage of the total amount expended are made available to bacon factories in order to modernise their plants.
The Deputy's question asked what schemes there were for payment of grants to bacon factories. There is only the one scheme, and the Minister for Agriculture took the question. He was not available himself to answer it and the Minister for Finance answered it on his behalf.
It went to the Department of Industry and Commerce first.
I have no knowledge of its coming to the Department of Industry and Commerce, but the fact is that the Dáil Office, in the course of their business, examine the questions and decide what is the appropriate Department.
And in this case they sent it to the Department of Industry and Commerce.
I did not intervene when the Deputy was speaking. He has had 20 minutes and I have only ten minutes in which to reply. I shall give the Deputy the true answer, without blemish in any way and without exaggeration. The Department of Agriculture have this scheme in existence for the making available of grants for bacon factories to modernise plant. It was introduced following the 1958 Programme for Economic Expansion, and the scheme envisaged the making available of grants, up to one third the cost, for modernisation work carried out by bacon factories in the interests of agriculture generally.
The response from the bacon factories at that time was not a very good one and the Irish Bacon Curers Association made application to extend the scope of the scheme which had been limited to specific modernisation programmes. It was extended to cover extended modernisation plans but the percentage remained the same. Still the extent to which the scheme was availed of by the curers was not very significant, as the figures given to the Deputy disclose—£26,000 odd in the year ending 31st March, 1962, and £22,000 odd for the year ending 31st March, 1963. However, it was subsequently extended and an announcement in that respect was made in November, 1962, in which it was stated that the amount of the grants would now be extended to 50 per cent.
That is purely a Department of Agriculture scheme, available to traditional bacon factories. It is anticipated that as a result of the extension much greater use will be made of the scheme. Side by side with it, but completely separate, there is an industrial grant code under the Undeveloped Areas Act and the Industrial Grants Act. In 1960 a grant was made available to Donnelly's bacon factory of £200,000 by Foras Tionscal. The purpose of the grant was to enable Donnellys to embark on a new line altogether. Donnellys had earlier on carried out a market survey in Britain as a result of which they concluded that marketing trends there were changing from the traditional bacon to pre-packaged bacon.
Dressing up the pig in a new suit of clothes.
In order to enter that market, Donnellys had to embark on a new type of bacon curing altogether, which was a departure from the traditional. The cost exceeded £1 million. Of that, a grant was made available of £200,000 and of that Donnellys had to provide out of their own resources well in excess of £800,000 in order to meet these new market trends. Any other bacon factory or consortium of bacon factories who wanted to apply for a grant in similar circumstances would, of course, have received favourable consideration from Foras Tionscal.
The fact that this £200,000 did not appear in the financial accounts, as mentioned by Deputy McQuillan, again has no sinister aspect at all. As I have said, the £200,000 grant approved for Donnellys was approved under the Industrial Grants Act for a new industry. The £20,000 odd given as being the Government subvention to agriculture and which has appeared in the financial accounts was part of the Department of Agriculture scheme for modernisation of bacon factories. The amount available to Donnellys is to be found in a public document, the annual statutory report and accounts of the Board of Foras Tionscal which mentions the name of the firm, its location, the type of industry involved, the amount of the grant approved and the total amount paid out in respect of new works in the course of the financial year ended 31st March, 1962.
So there is nothing sinister at all about it, no attempt at non-disclosure, because it is there for everybody to see. The essential difference is that the Department of Agriculture scheme is one applicable to the modernisation of traditional bacon factories in order to improve their competitiveness, reduce their costs and, therefore, be of assistance to the agricultural industry generally and the pig industry in particular. The grant made available to Donnellys was an industrial grant in the strict use of the term and was given only after Donnellys carried out a market survey in Britain, established to the satisfaction of Foras Tionscal that it was a completely new type of industry, that it was meeting a new demand in the English market and that Donnellys themselves were dipping into their pockets to the extent of more than £800,000. These are all the facts and I do not think Deputy McQuillan's storm in his little teacup can dispute them.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 14th May, 1963.