asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries the terms of reference of the group set up to recommend measures to eliminate undue fluctuations in the pig/feed price relationship; its composition; the number and dates of its meetings, its cost, if any, to the Exchequer; and if, in view of the fact that the group made no recommendations, he considers that the group served any useful purpose.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pig Feed Price Fluctuations.
37.
The group was constituted to consider the lines on which it would be practicable to operate a system of centralised purchasing of pigs. It comprised two representatives each of the Pigs and Bacon Commission, and the Irish Bacon Curers' Society and my Department. After three meetings late in 1968, from which no cost to the Exchequer arose, it emerged that there were serious doubts about the system and, as indicated in my reply to the Deputy's question on 5th July, the matter was subsequently overtaken by developments in relation to membership of the EEC and rationalisation of the pig-meat processing industry.
In view of the fact that the meeting, which discovered there was no point in the exercise, took place in 1968 could the Minister explain why the proposal to establish this committee was included in the Government's Third Programme for Economic Expansion, which was published in 1969?
The Deputy will do well to recall that, even if this committee had recommended that such a system of centralised purchasing be introduced by the State and given effect to, that centralised purchasing agency would have to go under EEC regulations.
What I am asking the Minister is why something, which he had reason to believe was not feasible, was included in a programme published as Government policy subsequent to the meeting at which it was discovered that that something was not feasible?
No. The Third Programme recognised that there was this undesirable fluctuation in pig prices and recognised that this might possibly be one of the means by which the problem could be tackled, but when that approach to it was broached by the committee——
Prior to the publication of the programme. The Minister knew it was not going to work and still he put it into the programme.
In any event it was a non-starter.
Why did the Minister put it into the programme then?
In the circumstances that would have arisen if we had not gone into the EEC it might have been well worthwhile to pursue it further.