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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Feb 1969

Vol. 238 No. 3

Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Cheese Exports to Britain.

9.

asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will comment on the present position regarding the export of cheese to Great Britain and on the prospects of exporting greater quantities of cream to that market.

10.

asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will make a statement on the present position regarding Irish cheese exports to Great Britain.

With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 10 together.

Efforts are being made by the British authorities to secure voluntary restraint of supplies of cheddar and cheddartype cheese to the British market from all sources but no final arrangements have yet been agreed upon.

Application has been made to the British Board of Trade by British farming interests for the imposition of anti-dumping and/or countervailing duties on imports of cheddar and cheddar-type cheese into Britain from a number of countries, including Ireland. We have been asked for our comments on the allegations made against us and the Deputies can be assured that our position will be made quite clear to the British authorities.

As regards cream our exports to Britain have increased by over 60 per cent since 1960. I am informed by An Bord Bainne that they are exploring the possibilities of bringing about a further expansion in exports.

Does the Minister not consider that the position is so serious that it warrants his personal intervention? Has he not tried to make an arrangement to see his counterpart in England about this, up to the present? This matter has been going on for some time.

It should not be taken from anything I have said that I have not been personally intervening in the matter. In so far as the suggestion that I should personally meet the Minister on this matter is concerned, it has already been indicated by the Taoiseach as late as yesterday, and subsequent to his visit to Mr. Wilson some time ago, that he requested that meetings should be arranged between Ministers from both sides of the Channel and a date is being set for these meetings. I would rather expect that that meeting will be a meeting at which this and many other matters of concern to us, agriculturally speaking, as well as other matters, will be discussed with my counterpart at any rate.

Are the meetings to which the Taoiseach referred not the meetings concerned with the normally due review of the whole Trade Agreement? Surely in order to emphasise the view which the Minister, as Minister for Agriculture, takes it would be better if the Minister sought a special meeting?

There is no doubt, either in the mind of the British Minister of Agriculture, or the minds of the British Government, or indeed, through our publicity in Britain, of the British people, I would hope, about the serious view we do take on this matter and the lack of real foundation for the allegations that have been made against us regarding our dumping cheese on the British market and we will continue to make sure of this.

I know that the case has been strongly put by our representative in London but the Minister should put it himself.

This may well come, but this does not mean that I have not been pushing this along for months past.

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