andMr. T. O'Donnell asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will make representations to the British Government to continue permanently the extra import allocation for Irish creamery butter, in view of the fact that the three-year period on which the quota was based included 1959, a year in which very little butter was exported from here to Britain, contrary to our long record as a traditional supplier.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Export of Creamery Butter.
6.
We have on more than one occasion made our view known to the British Government on the annual butter quota allotted to us. It is scarcely necessary to say that we will take every opportunity of stressing this claim that our quota is inequitable and should be increased.
7.
andMr. T. O'Donnell asked the Minister for Agriculture what effect the recent extension of the quota for import of butter to Britain will have on the expected losses of An Bord Báinne, in view of the fact that British import prices are the highest obtaining at this time.
The export of the additional 5,000 tons of butter to Britain this year will have the effect of reducing our stocks at the end of the season and will, therefore, involve additional losses in the current year instead of at some future date. These losses will, however, be largely offset by savings arising from the recent improvement in prices of butter in Britain which will reduce the loss on the other exports. The final outcome will, of course, depend on whether the current prices will be maintained.
If the Minister will address himself to the question he will find I did not ask him for the losses in this one year but for the effect of the new allocation in reducing the losses, and whether the farmers would not benefit as a result.
I told the Deputy that the final outcome will depend on whether the current prices will be maintained.
Is it not so that the levy is related to one-third of the cost of the export subsidy on butter? If this extra quota of butter to Great Britain reduces our obligation to ship butter to other destinations where the subsidy required is substantially greater, will this not reduce the total subsidy burden with a probable reduction in the total of the levy to be made?
All the law requires is that the producer will provide one-third of the losses.
Right. The levy has been struck on the assumption that this additional quota was not available. It has since become available, and am I right in believing that that will reduce the total of the subsidy to be made, with a corresponding reduction in the one-third due by the farmers?
There is no advantage to be derived, either from the point of view of the House or the producers, in making any forecast, but I do not think the arrangement which has been recently effected as to the additional allocation will have the effect of relieving the producers of the commitment for which they are legally responsible now. As I said in reply to Deputies Donegan and O'Donnell, it is not possible to say just what the final position will be because of our inability to prophesy what the market for butter will be like.
No, but we do know surely that, in effect, it costs us about 6d. a gallon less on milk to export butter to a British destination than to a European or Near Eastern region, and that ought to result in a substantial saving on the total butter subsidy required to finance butter exports from here? Will the contribution of the producers' one-third be correspondingly reduced, or can the Minister give an estimate of what the likely reduction will be?
The responsibility of the producers in regard to their contribution towards the export of dairy produce is not determined from day to day or from month to month——
But from year to year.
Yes, but it need not necessarily be so. The broad general principle is that the producers will be responsible for one-third of the loss on exports and simply to ask me at this stage to make a forecast as to the ultimate effect of this year's trading by the arrangement recently made with the British is looking for the impossible. I cannot do it with any degree of accuracy, and I shall not attempt it.
That is another story. If the Minister is not able to do it, he just is not able to do it.
But does it improve the situation?
That was a wonderful flash of thought.
And Deputy Dillon's shilling a gallon——
Now the Minister for External Affairs is joining the fray. We have only to wait for the Minister for Health to leap in to gain complete enlightenment. You are the most rattled, cantankerous lot.
Deputies on the other side will not induce me to boast unnecessarily, as has often been the practice in this House, about achievements and advantages. Neither will they dragoon me into making forecasts, unless I am reasonably well equipped to do so with accuracy.
Then we will wait until the crack of doom.