When I reported progress on Thursday last, the Minister had intervened to remind me that in Mayo we were in the act of setting up a pig fattening station at Balla. I want to assure the Minister that any development of that kind will receive every possible assistance from the Mayo County Committee of Agriculture. I shall go further and say that either the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary would be very welcome to come to a meeting of the Mayo County Committee of Agriculture to discuss our problems. The Minister is a busy man and I do not think he would come but perhaps his Parliamentary Secretary could. His main responsibility is to the western regions, and if at a later date he receives an invitation from that committee we would appreciate very much if he would come down and discuss our problems. As I have said on a number of occasions, it is not a political committee. We discuss the business of farming. The chairman of that body, who has been unanimously elected for a long number of years, is not a member of my Party but of the Minister's Party. However, he was not elected because of his political affiliations but because we regard him as a man of ability and a man who has done his work well.
Pig production in the western areas followed a certain pattern in years gone by. If we are to have pig fattening stations in different parts of the west the whole approach will have to be changed. This is not the only business in which people will be obliged to change their methods. The farming community are rather conservative and slow to change their methods. Many people in the West got out of pig rearing because they found it uneconomic along the lines they pursued. Whether the new method will be a success or not I cannot say at this stage, but I do believe it has certain advantages for the farming community. Many of my neighbours in the past were in the habit of producing two or three pigs every three or four months. The day of the two or three pig units is gone and the business can no longer be carried on successfully along those lines.
We do not seem to have made the progress in regard to our bacon products that I should like to see. I am inclined to blame the bacon factories. Many bacon factories in this country have had long experience of producing bacon, and one would think they would have done better at home as well as in the export field. Our marketing system is not what it should be. I was in England a few years ago, and as a matter of interest I went round the shops in London and in other cities to see if I could find any Irish bacon on sale but, in those years in any case, there did not appear to be any Irish bacon on sale. I did meet some people who said they would be glad to buy Irish bacon if they could be sure of regular supplies. It seems that due to the uncertainity of supply and, in many cases, due to the poor condition of the marketed product, we lost our connection and lost a lot of valuable business in that market.
It is up to the Minister to do something about marketing arrangements. The all-important things are the quality of the finished product, the proper display of the goods and, above all, continuity of supply. Over a long period we have had little but nuisance value in the British market. We were in today with large quantities of bacon and suddenly, when we had established a market for a short while, we had to tell our customers we had not sufficient quantities of bacon or perhaps none at all.
I have been specially requested to mention the question of creameries which is vitally tied up with the question of bacon. The Minister will appreciate there are good prospects for the dairying business in the West. In the past we did not engage in dairying in a big way. The southern counties were more famous than we for the production of dairy products. Now that something is being done about the development of the co-operative societies and new separating stations being established in the West, it is important that the Minister would sanction a plan submitted to his Department some three months ago. I know this is very involved and it takes time to look over it and reach a reasonable decision. I can tell the Minister that in the Killala and Ballina areas, which would include Crossmolina and other adjoining areas, Killala creamery separating station is overloaded. It has a capacity of 5,000 gallons and has to handle about 12,000. That figure will probably continue to increase. Many of the suppliers to that creamery are small suppliers trying their hand and it would be important that we should encourage and help them in every way possible. I would ask the Minister to look into the question of sanctioning the proposals submitted to his Department.