asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries whether an increase in the price of milk will be granted to creamery milk suppliers; and, if so, whether the increase will be retrospective.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Price of Milk.
37.
I would refer the Deputy to my announcement of yesterday on this subject.
Is the Minister aware that the one penny per gallon on the first 7,000 gallons which was announced yesterday and which would amount to about £29 per dairy farmer is totally inadequate and bears no relation to the severe reduction in dairy farmers' incomes? The Minister's announcement of this increase is a joke.
Then why do you not laugh, Deputy?
Is the Minister aware that as a result of yesterday's announcement he will go down in history as the penny Minister for Agriculture?
It is better to go down in history for a penny now than for the shilling a gallon. That is what you offered.
(Interruptions.)
Now they are getting 2/- a gallon and you are not satisfied.
Is the Minister trying to pretend to the House that one penny per gallon on the first 7,000 gallons is going to compensate the farmers for the loss of income due to increased processing costs, increased levy and increased costs of production generally?
That seems to be a separate question.
It is the same question.
The question deals with the increase in the price of milk.
I shall ask it in a different way.
It is not a question; it is a statement.
(Interruptions.)
He should ask in relation to the shilling a gallon.
Worth 4/- today.
Is it a fact that the Minister is penalising the farmers for trying to reach targets set by the Government in the Second Programme and that we are still 100,000 cows short of the target and 200,000 cattle short of the target?
If the Deputy has finished making unsupported statements I should like to say something about this. The first thing is that creamery milk suppliers'- income this year, as projected and forecast and as now being realised, will show and is showing an increase of between £6 million and £7 million on what it was last year and that——
They got this without any——
If the Deputy does not want to hear the facts he knows what to do.
"Facts" are right.
The Irish people did not listen to your facts a fortnight ago.
Shut up, you fool.
The straight facts were crooked.
The Deputy sold out anyway.
The beetgrowers finished the Deputy.
Order. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.
As I said, £6 million to £7 million more will go into the creamery cheques collected by the milk suppliers this year and against that only 26,000 additional cows have come into milk production during the past year. No matter how you compute that on the national average related to about 500 gallons per cow in milk yield, for this additional number of cows producing additional milk, well over £4 million will still fall to the credit of the people who were in milk last year over and above what they got last year. Even if we make allowance for——
Increased costs— £6 million.
Would the Deputy just listen? The increased costs as they will affect the dairying industry this year as now computed in respect of wages and creameries and so forth will account for not more than a halfpenny per gallon on the milk supplied during this year——
The Minister is only giving it on the first 7,000 gallons.
Surely these people have to live also?
(Interruptions.)
Skim milk prices are down.
These account for a halfpenny on the cost. Another farthing is allowed for rates and fertiliser costs making up three-farthings per gallon and, if you work that out you will find that there is a net increase of over £2 million—probably £2.5 million— already gone to milk suppliers and the one penny per gallon that I have given yesterday represents another £1.7 million that will go to them. Taking the two things together, you find that creamery milk suppliers, far from being badly treated in this matter— particularly the small people who represent about 80 per cent of the total—will be getting a higher percentage increase in real incomes than are the other sectors who have made claims through unions and so on and have got seven per cent, nine per cent or eleven per cent increases. Take that home with you, put it in your pipe and smoke it.
Could the Minister say whether he gave the penny yesterday or proposes to give it on the 1st December and what this increase will cost the Government in 1968?
The Deputy does not seem to have cottoned on to the fact that the penny per gallon starts from last September. It is retrospective to the 1st September of this year. It is not a question of saying: "Live horse until you get grass." This is a case, in fact, of going back and saying: "There it is and this is what it means"—£1.7 million, of which——
In 1968?
——a weighted proportion is going to those producing under 7,000 gallons, who represent 80 per cent of the creamery milk suppliers. Eighty per cent of the creamery milk suppliers are in that category. They are the people on whose livelihood costs are impinging, the people who need our help. If we are providing help from this House, it is to those people we should give it and not necessarily at the same time to those who because of bigger production and great efficiency do not feel the impact of these costs in the same way.
Más maith é, is mithid.
Is the Minister telling the House that it amounts to £1.8 million in 1968?
What I am telling the House is that it amounts to £1.7 million approximately for a 12-month period.
I am talking about 1968.
Do not mind what you are talking about. Listen to what I am talking about, for a change.
Does the Minister not agree that the figures given by him in relation to any increased income that he is talking about for the farmers in prices per gallon relate to all milk, whereas he is talking in his increase of a penny a gallon only for the first 7,000 gallons?
That is right.
In other words, you are not describing like and like. You are as good as your counterpart, the Minister for Transport and Power, in producing statistics. I will not use the other two words that go before that.
What I am saying is that the money has gone to where it should go, to the people who need it most and, if we are going to provide money, surely it is right that it should be directed to those who need it most and not to those who do not need it at all?
What I am saying is that your statistics are untrue, not comparing like with like but comparing price per gallon for all milk with the price for the first 7,000 gallons.
Is the Minister aware that his facts are as crooked as the straight vote?
I am aware that this penny is a penny, no matter what you say about it; it is going to the right people in the right way; and twelve of these pennies make a shilling, which is all you people would give if you had your way, which is what you gave them before.
Untruths, damn untruths and statistics. I cannot use the other word.
Fine Gael cannot take it.
(Interruptions.)
This matter is developing into an argument. The Deputy will get a more relevant opportunity of debating this matter. Question No. 38.
On a point of order. May I ask the Chair, in view of the fact that he has heard the numerous interruptions today by Deputy MacEntee, if he will say whether the Taoiseach has already appointed Deputy MacEntee as Minister for mischief in this House?
That is not a point of order.