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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 Feb 1969

Vol. 238 No. 5

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Deliveries of Beet to Tuam Factory.

20.

asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries what quantity of sugar beet from east of the Shannon was delivered to Tuam sugar factory last year.

The quantity for the 1968 season was 27,950 tons.

Arising out of the Minister's reply does the Minister realise that the Tuam factory was established primarily for the people of the west of Ireland? There are many people in the west of Ireland seeking beet contracts. The Minister says 27,950 tons of beet came from outside Connacht into the Tuam factory. Would it not be a much more suitable arrangement to give contracts to those people in the province who seek them?

The Sugar Company does not come under my wing at all. Neither does the Sugar Beet Growers' Association. I would reckon that these people on both sides are the people to determine the matter. It would be far from me to comment on this situation as the Deputy has commented on it here.

Is it not a notorious fact that the Minister and all his predecessors know that the Tuam factory was built there in the full knowledge that its geographical location was not dictated primarily by economic considerations? It was built in the province of Connacht and successive Ministers for Agriculture of various Parties have striven to promote it. Is it not a public scandal that, at a time when you have at last succeeded in persuading the farmers in the west of Ireland to undertake the beet crop, they should be refused licences or contracts when they see 27,900 tons being carried over the roads of Ireland from areas which have traditionally engaged in beet growing?

Whether that is my view or not is not at issue. The facts are as given here. I do not dispute the intentions or the reasons for the establishment of the Tuam factory. Neither do I deny that successive Fianna Fáil Governments have done everything possible to foster beet growing in the west of Ireland. I am sure that the discrepancy mentioned by Deputy Donnellan is one for solution between the Sugar Company and the Beet Growers' Association who are the representatives of the growers throughout the country.

Is the Minister aware that General Costello, the General Manager, had repeated conferences with me when I was Minister for Agriculture as to how we could expand beet growing in the west of Ireland which would reduce the uneconomic position of beet from these areas and that the Department and the Sugar Company combined their efforts in a powerful publicity drive in the west of Ireland to get farmers west of the Shannon to grow beet? Surely, if the General Manager of the Sugar Company could come to me as Minister for Agriculture, it is now possible for Deputy Blaney as Minister for Agriculture to go to the Board of the Sugar Company and say "You were asking to get beet grown in the west of Ireland; we have now succeeded in getting it grown and now you will not give them contracts". Unless we are gone daft——

We cannot have a debate on this.

The suggestion is it was not part of the Minister's job. The Sugar Company came to me. I assume the Minister and his predecessors carried on the work I started. Surely the Minister can say to the Sugar Company, "Now that we have succeeded in getting them to grow beet why do you refuse them contracts"?

Would the Deputy make some suggestion as distinctly as he has made others up to the moment as to what part of the country and what other growers are to be cut off? It is a matter for the Beet Growers' Association. Do not take me into this.

We cannot have a debate on this.

The Government told me to collaborate with General Costello in getting beet grown west of the Shannon. Surely the Minister for Agriculture is entitled to say to Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann or to the Beet Growers' Association that it is the policy of the Government to get beet for the Tuam factory grown in Connacht, west of the Shannon?

We cannot have a further debate on this.

It seems to me we have gone crazy.

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