asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will consider establishing a potato marketing board on lines similar to that which operates in Northern Ireland.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Potato Marketing Board.
46.
I am satisfied that the Irish Potato Marketing Ltd. organisation here is arranging for the export marketing of seed and maincrop ware potatoes in a satisfactory manner and I see no need to reconstitute it. The Seed Potato Marketing Board in Northern Ireland makes arrangements, as its name implies, only in regard to the marketing of seed potatoes.
Would the Minister not agree that the board in Northern Ireland to which he refers is a potato marketing board which is responsible for the marketing of ware potatoes as well as seed potatoes and that the board here is responsible for and concerned only with the marketing of seed potatoes which is only a small amount of the total produced? Secondly, would the Minister not agree that the prices here this year, and in other years for that matter, and the prices paid to producers of ware potatoes in Northern Ireland were so different that he should do something about this matter?
Actually, the case is quite the contrary. Our potato marketing organisations cater for the export of both seed and ware potatoes but, as the name of the North of Ireland organisation suggests, its only function is the regulation of the export of seed potatoes. The regulation of the domestic market for ware potatoes is a matter for another agency.
If what the Minister has said is so, how does the Northern Ireland Potato Marketing Board regulate surpluses of ware potatoes whereby they come and spray them, pay so much per ton and allow the farmers to dispose of them in any way possible? It is about time some such regulations were brought in in this country.
I am not aware of the existence of any such body that comes and sprays farmers' potatoes in the North of Ireland but I am aware that, as the name of the body suggests, the Seed Potato Marketing Board handles seed potatoes.
It is regrettable that the Minister should tell us here, in a year when prices are low and there is a surplus of ware potatoes, that he is not aware that the Potato Marketing Board in Northern Ireland comes and sprays potatoes in order to stop them from germinating and makes a payment per ton and that the farmer is at liberty in some cases to dump them into the sea afterwards.
It may strike the Deputy that having gone through that elaborate procedure he describes, of which I have never heard, of spraying potatoes to prevent germination it is an extraordinary thing to dump them into the sea when they have done it.
The Minister has never heard of people spraying potatoes to prevent germination?
I have never heard of people spraying potatoes in order to dump them into the sea.
You said a moment ago that you never heard of their being sprayed to prevent germination. Do not try to twist that.
To get a minimum guaranteed price, in other words.