asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he is in a position to state, in respect of the primary agricultural products for which there is a common organisation of the market in the EEC what the present customs duty and adjustable levy would amount to as a gross percentage import tax.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agricultural Product Levies.
35.
The levies which will be imposed on imports of agricultural products into Ireland from third countries during the transitional period will be the Community levies adjusted by compensatory amounts calculated by reference to differences between Irish and Community prices. Until these compensatory amounts have been determined by the Commission of the European Communities later this year, it will not be possible to indicate the amount of the import levy here for a particular product. In any event as the rates of levies on many products change frequently, in some cases even daily, their conversion into percentage figures would have little significance in some cases and could, in fact, give a misleading picture. Moreover, as we do not normally allow imports of many of the products concerned import price data on which such conversion would be based is not available here.